Living on Tulsa time

May 21—Gotta be honest, when I've pondered my list of dream destinations, Tulsa, Oklahoma, never really came to mind.

In the way back days I had passed through or close to the town a few times absent much thought and without ever stopping to enjoy its charms.

My loss. But, now I know.

"It's like Fort Worth 40 years ago," my friend Mark Nobles said when I told him of my upcoming trip.

He's right you know.

The mix of buildings historic and modern as I approached Tulsa's downtown skyline evoked strongly the Panther City feel of my misspent youth and, as it turns out, Tulsa may be even funkier than Funkytown itself.

It was good old Bob Dylan that brought me there.

Somewhere a couple years back I heard word of a Bob Dylan museum in the works. News that, being a lifelong fan, piqued my interest but which I also promptly forgot.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, a post on the museum, which is called The Bob Dylan Center, inexplicably popped up in my Facebook feed as such posts are wont to do.

Looking the Dylan Center up on the internet, I learned that it shares a building with the Woody Guthrie Center, which celebrated its 10th year earlier this month. The Dylan Center celebrated its first year open on May 10.

The Guthrie Center makes sense, Woody hailed from Okemah, Oklahoma, after all.

Bob, on the other hand, was Minnesota born and raised.

"Why here?" is the oft heard question from residents and visitors, Dylan Center Director Steven Jenkins admits.

"Folks in Hibbing, Minnesota, no doubt wish Dylan had chosen there," Jenkins said. "It could have gone to New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Tokyo. A lot of places were really making a play for it."

Dylan's always been inscrutable if nothing else so the reasons behind his Tulsa selection remain obscure at best.

"We think the fact that we already have the Guthrie Center and Woody's importance in being so formative to Dylan played into it," Jenkins said. "He also mentioned Native American land, so that probably resonated with him."

Tulsa's Gilcrease Museum, musical heritage and overall vibe may likely factored in as well.

"What Dylan calls the hum of the heartland that he responds positively to," Jenkins said.

It's a cool old building sporting a large mural of Dylan's visage taking note of visitors as they enter.

"It's a 100-year-old paper factory that takes this whole block," Jenkins said. "It ended up working perfectly because of the Guthrie Center on the other end."

Formerly, the Philbrook Art Museum employed the space as a downtown satellite locale but were moving elsewhere just as Dylan Center plans got underway.

"The architects thought, rather than build from scratch, make this space work since it's on the same block as our sister organization and it just worked perfectly," Jenkins said. "We retained many of the original architectural elements and the center holds about 29,000 square feet and two floors of exhibition space."

Dylan's decision to gift, well, his stuff, set the project in motion back in 2016.

"The archive consists of materials Dylan had been collecting and saving since the 1960s," Jenkins said. "He had the instinct for whatever reason, whether he knew it would have cultural import of whatever, to keep this stuff. And, well, when you get a holiday card from John and Yoko Lennon, you keep it. Fortunately, he also kept all his handwritten lyrics, journals, notebooks, home movies as well as thousands of photographs, rare recordings, all sorts of stuff."

Others have since donated items to the center as well.

Audio devices distributed to ticket holders provide musical and interview enhancements throughout both floors, which house an immersive cinema experience, chronological room of Dylan's life and career, original handwritten lyrics and notebooks, letters from Johnny Cash, U.S. presidents and others, Dylan's original artwork, interactive features aplenty including a recording studio experience and more.

Dylan in one film clip talks of playing New York coffeehouses in his pre-fame days for $1 and a cheeseburger.

Thousands have flocked to the center since it opened excepting one glaring exception.

"He has not," Jenkins answered when asked whether Dylan has paid a visit. "He gave his blessing. Was very pleased for his archive to be acquired and to be here in Tulsa but said he wasn't going to be involved and wasn't coming to the opening. But, who knows? Maybe he'll saunter in one of these days. He's played Tulsa many times including six weeks before the center opened, but still didn't stop by."

Dylan's management has been supportive, Jenkins said, and Dylan provided an unexpected gift.

"So this is a lesser known aspect of his artistry," Jenkins said while nodding toward a large metal sculpture in the center's entrance lobby. "He's a very accomplished metal worker so he asked us to give him dimensions and said he'd make us a sculpture.

"He spends quite a bit of time doing these in his studio near his house. Has had large pieces commissioned and has a piece south of France at a sculpture park."

Although Dylan has yet to darken the center's door, countless celebrities have including Roseanne Cash, Elvis Costello, Mavis Staples, Henry Rollins, Penn Jillette, George Saunders and other notables.

"Chris Hillman, co-founder of the Byrds, was here and was very touched to see some of the materials that involve his own history," Jenkins said. "We have the tambourine that inspired Dylan to write 'Mr. Tambourine Man,' which the Byrds covered and popularized. Elvis Costello programmed the jukebox here with Dylan songs and songs that influenced Dylan."

Tulsa native Taylor Hanson, of Hanson fame, provided the welcome greeting while Tulsa native and Poet Laureate Joy Harjo remains actively involved in the museum.

Visitors from all 50 states, as well as numerous countries, have flocked to the center as well.

A multi-generational Lithuanian family paid a recent visit, Jenkins said, as did a group of Polish gentlemen in town on business.

"They were a serious, sort of stoic, bunch who didn't say much," Jenkins said. "Until they got to the recording studio experience and 'Knocking on Heaven's Door' came on and, before you knew it, they all burst into song. We see that everyday, how Dylan and his music so strongly connects with visitors."

Kids, too, apparently, many of whom visit the Dylan and Guthrie centers on school field trips.

News that made me wonder whether younger people know or care who Dylan, or Guthrie, is.

"A lot don't," Jenkins said. "Some will say, 'Oh, this is the guy my grandpa listens to.'

"Mainly they're just happy to be out of school on a field trip. But, as they go through the center, you can see they get it on some level. They realize this is a guy who didn't play by the rules and did all this stuff and relate to that in some way."

Certainly the rotating exhibits, live events and activities galore ensure an experience satisfying for all involved from neophytes to hardcore Dylanologists.

"There's a Dylan for every mood," Jenkins said. "Both these centers are helping to put Tulsa on the map in a different way."

Equally impressive is the Guthrie Center, which features original Guthrie lyrics, journals, photographs, artwork and more including one of his guitars. Though not, unfortunately, the iconic "This machine kills fascists" guitar.

"There were actually about five of those guitars," Guthrie Center Front-of-House Manager Sam Flowers said. "Where they are now is anybody's guess. Woody likely pawned a bunch of them off or gave them away to another hobo brother."

Around the corner, however, hangs two recent finds, Guthrie paintings, one of Jesus, the other George Washington.

"Family members in California discovered these not long ago," Flowers said. "Their parents passed away some time ago but, during the pandemic, they figured it was finally a good time to go through their house and possessions and found these in the attic."

Flowers calls Guthrie one of the state's most important residents.

"There was a time when you said Woody Guthrie in the state of Oklahoma and would hear, 'Oh, he's a communist, socialist.'" Flowers said. "That's because Woody divided that color line that was there. That, 'We hang with our own sensibility. Woody was a rebel, an agitator at a time when other folks let that stuff slide. He was playing with Lead Belly, splitting money equally with Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee at a time when that was something white folks just didn't do."

Flowers cited Ken Burns' documentary on country music in which musician Marty Stuart posited that one of country music's greatest losses was the denial of Woody Guthrie.

"He was just too friendly with those black musicians," Flowers said. "Talking about the poor and rallying while others were looking the other way. But it was from a point of, 'I think we can do better. Think we can treat people equal.'"

Just as thrilled I was to discover Tulsa's other delights.

Just a few hundred yards from the Guthrie Center sits the Center of the Universe, for example. Heck, I always figured that was Phoebe Cates, but instead it's a brick circle in downtown Tulsa, and it's free at that.

Strange acoustical phenomena most fun. Stand in the circle and talk and your voice amplifies as if projected through a microphone. To anyone outside the circle, however, it just sounds like your normal voice. I spent several minutes in the circle happily alternating between sotto voce and yelling like a fool.

Several blocks away sits ONEOK Field, home of the Tulsa Drillers baseball team smack in the downtown mix.

Three family members, in town for the 10th anniversary of the center, threw out the first pitch at a Drillers home game and lead the crow in a sing-along of "This Land is Your Land."

I also, while looking up places to eat before my trip, ran across reference to The Outsiders House Museum, which is in a neighborhood about a mile out of downtown.

It's the house that served as home to the Curtis brothers — otherwise known as Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe and C. Thomas Howell — in the 1983 film "The Outsiders," which was shot in and around Tulsa.

I read the book back in middle school and saw and loved the movie at Seminary South Theatre when it came out so definitely wanted to check this out.

Hip Hop artist Danny Boy O'Connor, himself a huge fan of the movie, purchased the house in 2016 at which time it was scheduled for demolition. In addition to tours of the now renovated home, an adjacent gift shop showcases photos, movie posters from around the world and other memorabilia from the film and crew's 1982 Tulsa stay. Lowe, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio and other stars have paid visits, and walked away impressed an employee in the gift shop said.

Mindful of priorities as I said, I checked out the Tulsa dining scene before my trip and settled on Wanda J.'s Next Generation, a soul food restaurant that claims to serve the best fried chicken in Tulsa.

They're wrong.

At least I'm thinking so because I'm fairly sure they serve the best fried chicken in Oklahoma. Texas too maybe. My buddy John Jordan — grew up next door to me and came along for the ride — raved about the chicken fried steak too. Definitely worth the trip Wanda J.'s.

The restaurant sits in the Greenwood District, also known as Black Wall Street, site of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre that left at least 36 dead and hundreds injured. Among the historic buildings still standing, murals, museums and plaques relay that unfortunate chapter of Tulsa's history.

Time running short, we had to head back unfortunately and much too soon.

Still, expecting little more than perusal of Dylan displays, I found instead a very walkable, friendly, clean, arty and vibrant city in a place least expected.

Having looked up other attractions from art museums, music clubs, parks, zoos, etc. since I can't wait to go back. At about four and a half hours drive time with plentiful beautiful scenery in between, Tulsa's a destination worth checking out.