Oklahoma City has more in common with Seattle than taking the Sonics

 

It is ironic to me that Oklahoma City got the Sonics away from Seattle.  I left Hawaii for Oklahoma City only to eventually move to Seattle (and not a minute too soon in my opinion that year).  I left my only child in Oklahoma City, although she was born, raised and schooled in Hawaii.  It has worked out ok for her but it just was not a place I had wanted to be.  Seattle is a good second choice to my one true love, Hawaii.  I have grown to love Seattle, kind of like one loves a second home.  Many places I remembered from my time in Oklahoma City were very much the same, while others had changed just a little.  I had been to Leadership Square in downtown OKC, but I had never noticed the sculpture outside the building.  As we were driving around commenting on the changes, I saw a bright red sculture down one of the streets and had to go around the block just to take pictures of it.  When you look at the pictures below you will understand why. 

I currently live a few short blocks from Seattle Center and the sculpture there has been a favorite of mine to shoot.  I think I have shot it every which way but from on top of it (since I am afraid of heights, that is not likely to happen).  The resemblance is striking, don’t you agree?

Seattle Center red sculpture, Seattle, WA

Seattle Center sculpture

Red Sculpture, Leadership Square, OKC

Red Sculpture, Leadership Square, OKC

Reflection of the red sculpture, OKC

Leadership Square, OKC

Visiting The OKC Federal Building memorial

On April 19, 1995 the Federal Building was bombed using a Ryder truck, destroying the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, OK.  It marked the most significant act of terrorism on American soil until the September 11, 2001 attacks.  This bombing killed 168 people and injured more than 680 others.  The blast destroyed or damaged 324 buildings within a sixteen-block radius, destroyed or burned 86 cars and shattered glass in 258 nearby buildings (source-Wikipedia).

The memorial is a solemn place, one of memories and voices now silent.  I visited on September 17th in the midday gloom that had shrouded OKC for several days.  I did not live there in 1995.  I moved to Oklahoma City in late October 1996.  It was never my intention to live there, it just happened.  And in all the time I lived there, I never visited the memorial.  Many of the people I met while living there made a lifetime of talking about that morning – where they were, who they knew, or knew of who were in the area and in the bombing.  I heard about it until I was sick of hearing about it and vowed not to visit the memorial.

Going there eight years after I left Oklahoma City was a sobering experience.  It is both a beautiful place and a very sad place. I am glad I visited there as a tourist, not as a resident.  It was at the memorial that I realized my attitude towards Oklahoma City could have been very different if I had lived anywhere else but Hawaii prior to moving there. But that is water under the bridge.

The memorial was being worked on the day I was there.  The electrical system that lights the chairs had been experiencing issues and was being replaced under each of the 168 chairs.  Rather than try and tell the story with words, here are the pictures from that day.