JoplinH
e paid five bucks at a toll booth on the northeast side of Tulsa which gave him access to the Will Rogers Turnpike and less traffic to fight over the 88 miles to the Missouri state line. He checked a few of the mileage markers and saw Joplin was the first familiar place he’d encounter after leaving Oklahoma. Meanwhile, there was little to do except keep it between the ditches and muse about how the plains looked like big bird feeders with pumpjacks bobbing up and down like famished storks all across the Okie plains. Where would Oklahoma be without its sprawling subterranean oil pools—and Sooner football, of course. Big oil and big football, the blood that flowed through so many and fueled so much around here. If you just don’t get it, if you’re some sort of Yankee wimp, drop by an
