Lacey's Quonset Hut

When one is in eastern Oklahoma, the Cherokee Indian Nation is never far away. Initially the Cherokee had most of it. Yesterday, my Ford Escape led me to Sallisaw, Oklahoma, the seat of Sequoyah County. (Sarah, if you're reading this, Sequoyah was a brilliant Cherokee man who developed and alphabet for the Cherokee language -- his people were her before the founding fathers). Sequoyah's final home is nearby, and I hope to visit it tomorrow.

Today, the morning was spent at the Sequoyah County Court House looking through land records. Around mid-morning, a document was discovered where the Cherokee Nation chief deeded 147 acres to my great-grandfather, John W. Morris in 1909. The document stated that Great-Grandfather was entitled to the land as a "member of the tribe" which was a complete surprise to both myself and the principal Morris researcher, Nancy Morris Boyd, of Percival, Iowa. He would have had another 3 acres but it was a right-of-way owned by the Kansas City Southern Railroad. Tomorrow's agenda includes follow-up on this discovery which will likely take me to the Cherokee Nation headquarters and also to Tahlequah where older Cherokee Nation land records are stored.

The hot afternoon was spent on the Shadow Creek Golf Course in Sallisaw, a dry and dusty place with a menacing creek that snaked across virtually every fairway or hid behind many of the brown and splotched greens. Lucky I had plenty of Dunlop "Butter Soft" golf balls because there are a few of them headed down stream toward the Arkansas tonight. A couple of years ago, the Maxfli "Noodle" golf ball was all the rage and the "Butter Soft" was Dunlop's cheap copy. Well, WalMart virtually gave me the golf balls because I was the only one who would buy them. Real men don't hit golf balls called "ButterSoft!" Anyway, I still have about five dozen of those balls in the garage. Joy tried to sell them in her flea market booth and even female golfers wouldn't buy them. (You know, I really need to play a few more rounds here -- put enough golf balls in Shadow Creek, they would all eventually end up in the gulf and maybe plug that oil leak. Not funny, huh? Sorry).

Speaking of the oil spill, the public seems to have mixed emotions, I think, about whether the Federal Government should step in. In some ways, it's an opportunity to see what we do with less government. Is that why the Obama opponents don't seem to be clamoring for Federal involvement. About a week ago, I heard an NPR call-in show where an oil engineer called in and suggested the Navy take a submarine down there, blast the leak and cause the well to cave in on itself. That may eventually be the final answer.

Lacey's Quonset Hut -- Serial Chapter 1

Now, why is this post titled "Quonset Hut Barns and Theatres?" Well, family members know I like to hunt down the old theatre in each small town and take a picture of it. Here in Sallisaw, the Sequoyah Theatre is a converted World War II Quonset Hut. If you check the internet for Quonset Hut, you'll find that about 170,000 of these were built during the war and afterward were sold for $1,000 each. Check out "Quonset Hut Theatres" on-line and you'll find a partial listing of known Quonset Hut Theatres around the country.

I'd better cut to the chase or you're going to hit that backbutton. Well, seeing the Quonset Hut Theatre brought back vivid memories of an old girl-friend from the 1960s and also my last solo road trip in 1993. This girlfriend was Pentecostal which is what attracted her to me. Her name was...well we'll call her Lacey Pahl. Her father was an old German corn farmer from...we'll say Sublette Kansas, way out there on the plains. Lacey always told me about her father's barn and that it was a Quonset hut. Well, my 1993 Road Trip across U.S. Highway 160 got detoured way out in western Kansas, and that old 1980 Corolla of mine delivered me into Sublette to take a look at that Quonset hut.

Yes, that Quonset hut was there on the edge of town, but to my surprise the town theatre was a Quonset Hut Theatre! No Way! Way. Lacey never told me about the theatre I supposed because she was never allowed to attend it being Pentecostal and all. So this was a two-Quonset hut town! I was impressed.

Did I run into Lacey? Well, it took a little while to get anyone to talk to me about her. It was like I had wandered on the set of The Stepford Wives. Don't miss the next installment of my real-life serial later this week.