Selfies

(which by definition means I’m in them . . . though you might have to look for me)

Destination Tulsa, Oklahoma, the temperature was in the single digits when we left St. Louis at 7:00AM heading out into a winter storm that made visibility challenging and progress slow. When we got to Joplin a few hours later it was still chilly, but sky and highway were clear. Two hours later we arrived in Tulsa to a sunny day near sixty degrees.

Outside the Best Western Route 66 Hotel in downtown Tulsa.

When you’re in Tulsa it’s hard to miss the fact that this is the birthplace of Route 66, the hometown of its architect, Cyrus Avery.

Other heritage reminders are also prominent in Tulsa, those of the Native American Indians.

Here are some hard working high school seniors who have earned opportunities and options, one of them being the University of Tulsa, which they visited for a closer look.

MEETING THE NEWS on the roadways of America, first-hand, real time, real world news—going out and discovering the news . . .

NEWS OF KANSAS PASSAGE: The historic Santa Fe and Oregon Trails issued west from Kansas. As if paying tribute to the trail era, Route 66 seemingly went out of its way to bring the rest of the nation through a fifteen mile section of Kansas, passing through Galena, Riverton, and Baxter Springs, before winding its way across Oklahoma.

NEWS OF MIGRATION: In his novel, The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck depicted Route 66 as the path of a gathering movement of people in flight, coming to it “from the tributary side roads, from the wagon tracks and the rutted country roads.” Oklahoma enjoyed statehood for less than two decades prior to the opening of Route 66; and the monument, East Meets West, at the symbolic Tulsa mid-point conveys sculptural agreement with Steinbeck.

NOSTALGIA NEWS: By the1950s the popularity of Route 66 coincided with a burgeoning American music scene. The bond of road and tunes would only grow. It was a bond lyrically celebrated by rock and roller Chuck Berry in his first big hit, “Maybellene” (1955), about a guy in a V8 Ford and a girl in a Cadillac.