The first block is the hardest.
Once I get going, after a few minutes it starts to feel okay. I’m doing my best to hear when my heart says the body has had enough, but I managed to cover a couple of miles today. East from our apartment and up the rise is Key Boulevard, a winding path that runs across a couple of sections of the original Midwest City residential area. It hearkens back to when Douglas Aircraft drew a massive workforce at what is now Tinker AFB. So this old railroad bridge still stands, and the underpass still floods in heavy rain as it always did. It’s part of a long stretch of decommissioned rail line not yet removed, but the city still talks about making it a recreational trail someday.
This was sort of a gateway to my turn-around point, the old Uptown Center at Key and SE 15th. It’s still alive, but not currently more than half occupied. The angle of the early morning sun was wrong for taking pictures of it, so maybe another day. It was once a bustling center of Midwest City commerce, but the anchoring businesses were bought out and closed down. Like the petty fights between bums, Goodwill Thrift Stores drove out a competing thrift store, while Hancock’s sewing goods shut down. The employees got together and bought out some of the remaining inventory and opened up in the same place but with much higher prices — another bright idea foolishly implemented.
The old grocery store was eventually taken over by Locke Plumbing and that’s as good as it gets in these times. Locke is a huge outfit with an excellent inventory of obscure stuff; they draw customers from all over several counties. Again, pictures on another day when the sun is at a better angle.
I headed back across the maze of curved streets toward Country Estates grade school, which sits directly next to one of the municipal water storage stations. There’s nothing to see; it’s a massive concrete tank mostly underground. This is all next to the Midwest City High School campus, separated by another section of that dead railroad track. In other words, unless I rough-ride down the track, I have to go the long way around this whole thing. So I wound my way back home, passing this remarkably ratty old satellite receiver dish. I wonder how many of these forgotten technology remnants still infest yards in the OKC Metro.
It felt better on my knee today. This is distinctly therapeutic; let’s see what tomorrow brings.
