It may have been the approaching anniversary date that prompted it, but a week or so ago, the Tulsa newspaper This Land published a first person account of a prison riot. If you’d told me it happened forty-years ago, I wouldn’t have believed you.
You: It happened forty years ago.
Me: What? I don’t believe you!
And there you have it. I told you I wouldn’t believe it if you told me. That’s because parts of it seem like yesterday.
The Tulsa World published a book of front pages some years ago, and a copy of it just came in this afternoon. I was thumbing through it and Bam! There is the front page from July 28, 1973.
STATE PRISON INMATES SEIZE GUARDS, reads the headline, SET BUILDINGS AFIRE.
Here’s what I knew then: Not much.
Here’s what I found out later: It could have been a scary deal. Sure, it was scary enough for a lot of people back then, but I was just out of high school, living in a little cracker-box rent house with my buddy Faron Kirk.
There was smoke pouring out of one of the buildings, and rumors pouring out of most mouths in McAlester. Remember, a lot of folks had jobs at the prison, or had family members or friends working there. It was big news. Really big.
We wanted a better look, so Faron Dean and I climbed up on the roof of the house for the bird’s eye view. It wouldn’t have mattered much if we’d had the dog’s eye view: there was nothing in between the Oklahoma State Penitentiary and our little frame abode.
While we were up-top sightseeing, a highway patrol car rolled up and the trooper put it into park and opened up his door. He rose up from his seat just enough to holler at us over the window frame.
“Could get dangerous out here,” he called out. “You boys need to get home.”
“We ARE home,” we called back, from the rooftop.
“Then you need to get to someone else’s home,” he answered, in an official tone.
We thanked him, and after he drove off, Faron and I took a vote amongst ourselves and decided we’d stay right there, mostly since we were young and foolish. Didn’t want to miss anything.
The Tulsa World page says the riot was started by “five white inmates ‘who were doped up on something.” They were quoting prison spokesman John Graham.
In truth, even from our front row seat, there wasn’t a lot of action visible to us. The morning paper rattled us, though. I recall reading this (also on the front page of the World):
At one point, some two dozen Highway Patrol troopers doubletimed toward the prison’s east gate, where an estimated 50 to 100 inmates were attempting to crash through to freedom.
Oops. That’s the gate that was nearest our rent-house. Probably one of those doubletiming troopers had been the one who warned us we ought to skedaddle.
When we finished reading the newspaper account of what had happened just across the way from us (the only way we could learn anything), the store owner put us to work in the meat market. We had an assembly line working back there, digging into loaves of Holsum Bread, lining up the slices to be slapped with mustard, a slice of bologna, a slice of cheese, closed up and stuffed into a sandwich bag.
We did that for hours. I don’t know how many people we were feeding, or which side of the wall they were on. I assumed all the sandwiches, potato chips, and such were going to law enforcement and prison workers. It wasn’t so important to me then. Those were about the most exciting bologna and cheese sandwiches I ever made, though.
It seemed calmer Saturday evening after work. We didn’t bother getting up on the roof. In front of the door was a little square of concrete that was too small to call a porch, but we were sitting on it like it was one. Dusk was drawing near. One of those hot July evenings that only get comfortable when the sun finally drops out of sight.
About then, when the sky to the east had already gone dark, and a quiet had settled over the prison and its activities, there came a lone voice. A man’s voice. Could have been a guard in a tower, could have been an inmate in the prison yard beyond the chain link.
Summertime, he sang out. Nice voice, really. Acappella. Right on tune.
“Summertime,” he sang, “and the living is easy.”
So many summers ago, but I still get the eerie-chills when I remember the way that song carried over the walls as the last of the sun slipped away. Back when the living was easy.
Come visit! (No singing required.)
McHuston
Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main Street, Broken Arrow, OK
