This vast grey white slab was once an outlet mall before the May 3rd, 1999 tornado outbreak sucked it into its vortex of change and dismay.
It was your birthday and we were dining at On the Border, watching the monitors as electric lines and transformers flashed abeyance to the tornado’s raucous sojourn.
Now, the slab is there, a perfect congregating point for 10 or so flashy cars seeking new owners; an impromptu car lot replete with hopes and dreams and the ghost’s footsteps over the vestigial trace of walls now long gone more than 20 years.
My mind's eye reconstructs that once-proud outlet mall, an important employer for a small town halfway between Tulsa and Oklahoma City.
It purveyed its quirky treasures and extraordinary values for Turnpike travelers on an Oklahoma New Silk Road.
It was my lovely prairie caravanserai; I loved to sip on a cappuccino and watch the ebb and flow of human interaction shaped around the buying and selling and selecting of those consumables we now consider our life.
March 7, 2020
Norman, Oklahoma
