“As a late comer (August sometime) to the Tulsa summer, I don’t remember the first bottle of Ripple wine but I do recall the last. We actually bought out the local liquor store supplies. When faced with no more Ripple, we tried switching to Thunderbird and then even MD 20/20 but it was never the same.

One footnote to the Tulsa Summer is that Joanne (this is the way I heard it from Joanne) chose Tulsa as that summer’s destination by throwing a dart at a map of the U.S. with her eyes closed. Where the dart hit is where she would migrate for the summer. I remember exceptional music (Broadway production of Hair, and the Blind Faith album that followed the break-up of Cream).

I did arrive in Tulsa in time for the road tri8p to see RP in Wichita Falls, TX. I don’t remember whose car we took (possibly my Chevrolet), but the windows were down and we rolled across the grass plains out of synch with the world and glad to be out of the city for a while. the brain-piercing look Joanne got from the military psychologist brought me back to reality and I believe that I returned to school in Fayetteville shortly after that. Student deferments were no longer allowed, but that fall (I think) I received my lottery number, somewhere near 300, that would keep me out of the Vietnam War.”

– Joe Browning, May 3, 1998

What came to be known as The Tulsa Summer (1969) started in St. Louis. At least, that’s where it started for me. My uncle was some sort of supervisor at the General Motors assembly plant and he pulled the necessary strings to get me a summer job on “the line.” He also gave me a place to live so it meant a half-hour drive in from Wentzville every day. I worked the second shift (3-11p?) and usually car-pooled with other GM workers. To this day, I’ve never had a worse job.

My brief (about two weeks) contribution to the assembly process involved hooking up a hose to the power breaks unit; spread out the trunk mat; arrange the spare tire and tire tools; and then race back to the front the car to screw in part of the head light assembly. Sixty times an hour, nine hours a day… as the cars moved past me an a conveyor-belt that completely fucked up my sense of time and space.

The guy working directly across from me squirted freon into the air conditioning unit. He spent a couple of days trying to convince me I should drop out of college and work at GM full-time. The few extra years of seniority would put me dollars ahead of others my age. To say that I hated this job is something of an understatement. The story of my escape is not a proud moment in my work history.

On this particular day I drove in alone and did something I’ve never done since. I went to a bar across from the plant for a “quick one” before starting my shift. “One” turned into several and the sister behind the bar finally got so weary of listening to me bitch about my life at GM, that she demanded, “Well if you hate it so much, why don’t you just quit?”

And I did. If you can count not showing up as quitting. I drove back to Wentzville… threw my clothes onto the back seat of my Ford Falcon… wrote my uncle a “please forgive me” note… and headed West on I-44. I ran out of beer and gas at the first Tulsa exit, shortly before midnight. I slept in my car at the first gas station I found.

I should explain that I picked Tulsa because Joanne was living there (Joe says that Joanne told him she chose Tulsa as that summer’s destination by closing her eyes and throwing a dart at a map of the U.S.). I had no idea where Joanne was living but knew she was working at a cafeteria downtown. I found her at the first one I tried. I slid my tray past her place at the steam table and I believe she was surprised to see me.

I got a room at the YMCA and –almost immediately– a job with a survey crew working on the Will Rogers Turnpike. After a week or so, Joanne and I decided to rent an apartment together. I was ready to get out of the “Y” and she was living with a nice lesbian couple but also ready for a move. I won’t try to describe the apartment. It was nothing noteworthy.

Working on the turnpike was grueling. The temperature reached or exceeded 100 degrees thirty days that summer. And I spent most of them driving wooden stakes into the roadbed with my little sledgehammer. It was wonderful. No more factories for this boy.

I can’t really remember how Joanne and I spent the evenings. I do remember this was the summer we discovered Ripple wine. And I drank a lot of it. From little green soda pop-size bottles. I remember the kitchen floor being covered by empties. Recycling was not what we were about that summer.

And I remember a wonderful little bar next door to the Laundromat where I did my wash. The waitresses all appeared to be fresh-faced, wholesome coeds that –once each hour– went up onto a little stage and took most of their clothes off while dancing. Not strippers, mind you. At least, not quite. After a couple of beers I’d go collect and fold my clothes and head back to the apartment. I don’t think Joanne ever accompanied me on these trips but I could be wrong.

At some point (early August?), John and Bobby came down for a weekend that turned into a week. And Joe showed up. I can’t remember from where. And we all stayed in that sweaty little apartment in Tulsa, drinking Ripple wine and having a wonderful time. Or so it seemed to me. I hate to think that mine will be the only interpretation of The Tulsa Summer you see here. I offer these recollections in hope that Joanne, John, Joe and Bobby will share their memories of this time.

I’ve thought some about why this rather uneventful summer (apologies to Neil Armstrong) holds a place of some importance for me. It was the summer before our last year of college. And, for me, the first time to live away from home. Maybe it was the reckless beginning… maybe it was just getting drunk and crazy with friends that last summer before entering the real world of jobs and responsibilities.

I drove up to Springfield to meet some college buddies from St. Louis and wound up staying with them at the Howard Johnson’s. I was the first to regain consciousness after a night of beer drinking and the television was still on. I awoke at the precise moment Neil Armstrong was coming down the ladder to the surface of the moon and I distinctly remember wondering who was that and what was he doing. Current events was not a priority during The Tulsa Summer.

There are no known photographs from the Tulsa Summer –sm