It
was 4am before the flames were high enough to rouse the neighbors. Sirens rang as truck after truck sped through
the streets to reach the raging fire.
The neighbors stood in nightgowns and thrown together layers of clothes,
starring in awe as the 1929 Tudor structured clubhouse burned out of control
like an angry lady poking a stick at mad dogs.
With
water hoses surging full blast from all angles, photographers shot pictures of
the fire in the night, while word spread throughout Miami, Oklahoma that the
club was burning. Shortly after sunrise
it became clear that flames had reached the fifth floor and were screaming
through the roof. Windows had exploded
floor by floor, and the town had turned out to see the event, like a circus
train unloading lions and tigers.
It
wasn’t known how or when the fire started on if anyone was inside. The housekeepers from time gone by no longer
lived on the fourth floor. Cars had
sometimes been left overnight by members too drunk to drive. Had the men gone home or stayed behind to win
a hand of cards?
For
me, the club was like a home, my touchstone of who I was, who I could be, and
eventually who I would become. We moved
to Miami, Oklahoma in 1954 a few years after the flood of ’51. As a child of five my greatest regret was
that we missed the flood, but oh did I ever soak up the stories and seek out
proof of flood lines on homes at every outing.
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Ladies on the practice green on the north side of the country club.1960's
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My
dad was the golf pro at the Miami, Ok. Golf and Country club and the greatest teacher I would ever know. In turn, I played golf and loved the fresh
air, but it took hours of my life to prepare for tournaments. Practice was my life as a teen, whereas, my
sister was a natural and still has an easy flowing flawless swing. (I must confess we both worked hours on the practice tee. Golf is never easy, even for a person with natural swing.)
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1967 South-side main entrance with our blue station wagon that would take me to college in 1967 sits to the left of the entrance.
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I
went to work in the golf shop at thirteen.
Tuesday through Saturday I opened the shop by sun up in those summer
months. From 2:00 till dinner I played
or practiced my golf game. By the time I was a full-fledged teenager I had very little time to drag
main, shop with friends, watch “As the World Turns”, or
date. What I did have were the friends I made at golf tournaments in those years and the experiences of playing at the highest level of junior golf in 1960's before Title IX.
Part
of me always wanted to be like everyone else, but the other part was willing to
stand alone and just be me. I
didn’t know who me was or would become.
At nineteen, 1967, I left home for college at LSU to complete a teaching degree. Being immature, thinking I was smarter than my professors, I came home in the summer of 1968
married and left home for Ft. Hood, Texas. Five years later I was a mother
of a beautiful child, but divorced, uneducated, and alone. I left home again, and worked my way through
college and degrees. As a librarian,
teacher, and mother I began to entertain and teach through storytelling and
puppetry. And we laughed.
The
stories told, laid the next layer of asphalt for the road I would take. I found those universal truths of stories to
be healing for the human spirit.
Listening to the laughter of the crowd rejuvenated me. Listening to my daughter mimic me as she
retold those stories to her dolls and friends, also made me realize how our children
watch in detail our every move.
It
was the stories that led me home that weekend the club burned. On a Sunday July 16, 1984 I drove from
Norman, OK in a green Toyota loaded with kids, puppets and books and drove
straight to the club. I needed to feel the
soil of my soul and show my children a part of me. On the horizon I saw only two chimneys. One four story chimney stood in the center of
the broken brick shell, ashes smoldering, people still standing rows deep in
the drive way watching. The second chimney stood alone on the west side of the
building that connected the dance floor and porches to the main building. Fire trucks and traffic blocked my entrance.
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North-side from the putting green.
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I
parked on the street and walked quietly cautiously toward the smoldering
structure, my broken lady. My children ran ahead.
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July 23, 1984 Dad, Johnie Stapp, myself, daughter Katy Rains, and stepson Michael Watt.
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When my father saw me, the tears he had held
off since the wee hours of the morning fell down his cheeks in rivulets flowing
haphazardly. The hugs and tears came
from all directions. All any of us could
do was stand, stare, until at last we began to share.
On
Monday after teaching summer school at PSU, I returned to the club and parked near the
yellow tape on the south side. I followed the tape around
a giant circle to the north-side and the entrance to the pro shop. No lives had been lost,
but, oh, so many memories danced in the clouds. I stood outside
the yellow tape.
Then I heard a choking voice coming from the ashes that were heaped
where the golf shop once stood, supporting the lofty building. From an angry grumble I heard these words, “Where are you? I know you’re here. You’ve got to be here.”
Quickly,
I crossed the line and hollered, “Who are you?
What have you lost?”
A
deep angry voice returned, “It’s John.”
“Dad?" I rushed through the door frame,
"I thought you were at home.”
Stepping into the ashes of golf shop door, I saw a bent over white-haired man swinging a rake wildly at a pile of
ashes. I thought for a moment his khaki
jumpsuit was streaked in blood, but my imagination was vivid and dried red
paint had the same effect. Then I realized it was another man, named
John, not my father.
“Oh
my gosh, John, this is Letty Stapp, the pro’s daughter. What have you lost?” I asked fearfully. He stopped, turned at me, and hollered, “I’ve lost
my putter. She burned up, but I know I
can find the mallet head. Come here and help me, now. You know where my bag was stored.”
With
two of us digging, and my clothes already covered in ash, we found the mallet
head, no wooden shaft, no grip, nothing else to be retrieved. With rake and mallet in hand we walked to the
outside of the ropes and behind the yellow tape. No words were
spoken as we turned to look at shell.
At
last I said, “You know she was my home, my touchstone. I can see myself and your children, all of us
up there in the attic playing and spying on the world below.”
“It
was my home, too,” he replied. “My father and George Coleman had her built.
I grew up there. I know every
nook and corner like the back of my hand.”
One by one we shared our stories through tears and laughter that spanned six decades. Secrets had been shared.
Then
he placed his arm around my waist and said, “I’ve always said a man is just as
old as the woman he’s touching.” I
laughed, for he was known to be a fox around women, but I knew that for a few
moments in life we were both younger and shared a deep feeling for a burned out
building called home.
*A true story by Letty Stapp Watt, as told for three decades on storytelling stages throughout the Midwest.
**Later that week John Robinson drove to the farm where my parents lived and asked dad to remake his mallet head putter. It took a few weeks before my father found a wooden shaft that would work.
***Sadly, my mother had finished updating the Miami Ladies Golf Association scrapbooks and delivered them to the ladies locker room a few days before the fire. Without pictures in that scrapbook I thought I had lost a part of me, but the memories floated back easily. In retirement, I took up the mantle (or mallet head) and wrote the history of my club from 1916 to 1984.
****Luckily, the club rebuilt and there are more stories to share.
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