Around OKC: The Memorial
I was 12 years old, in the 7th grade, and standing in line at the vending machine when I heard there was a bomb in Oklahoma City. I kid you not when I tell you that I visualized an air conditioning window unit exploding in a window. I thought "oh, that's not so bad." It wasn't until later that evening when I got home did I realize that this was in fact a really big deal. Something really bad had happened - but my 12-year old brain couldn't quite grasp the magnitude or significance of the situation.
Last night after dinner with a friend Jeremy and I were driving around and found ourselves at the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial. Jeremy was in California (with roots in Oklahoma) working at Carl's Jr. when he heard about the bombing and has never visited the memorial.
I drive by the memorial quite a bit and there is always somebody checking out the fence. This fence was originally used as a barrier from the devastation but when Oklahomans began to adorn it with teddy bears and t-shirts and keychains it became a temporary memorial - now a part of the permanent structure.
This is a shot from both sides of the huge reflecting pool. The large walls have the times of each blast - 9:01 and 9:03.
The field of chairs has a chair for each victim of the bombing. Including little chairs for the kids in the daycare.
The survivor tree. This tree should've died in the blast - I think most people thought it WAS dead until it started to sprout some green. It continues to grow and thrive and has become a symbol for the memorial.
To the north of the survivor tree is the south wall of the old Journal Record building. 
This wall was preserved as it was after the blast. The fire escape was left all rickety and scary. The windows were bricked in with dark bricks so you could still experience the feeling of the blasted out windows.
A message left from recovery Team 5 was spray painted on the wall. 
Every little bit of this memorial was so well thought-out and beautifully designed - my pictures don't even begin to do it justice.
If you haven't already gone into the museum, then you may want to some day. At the end of the tour is a whole display of origami cranes covering the ceiling to represent the people lost.
http://jamesrobertwatson.com/bombingmemorial.html
I agree with a lot of this article.
Kevin -
I had Watson for History of Viscomm - he's an incredibly intelligent guy. Regardless, I still think the memorial is really beautiful and thought-out even if it was executed a little too soon. In fact, my favorite parts of the memorial are the areas developed at the time - like the spray painted wall and the fence - the "non-designed" areas.
I was off work that day. I had just transfered from BOk downtown to another location so I was working odd hours.
I was standing in my kitchen (20th and Portland area) washing dishes when I watched this strange "ripple/wave" crossing the backyard. When it passed by my window it felt like my house had been picked up and dropped with a large baBOOOM. Car alarms were going off everywhere, I ran outside as did all of the neighbors, most of them in their boxers.
I thought it was a gas explosion and since I had first aid training for that I jumped in my car and drove towards where it sounded like the explosion happened. I didn't see anything so I drove towards downtown...as I got closer to my old exit I started seeing papers fall from the sky.
At that point I realized that I was in way over my head and was just going to be a hinderance as opposed to a help so I headed back to the house. The boyfriend was waiting for me he was freaked out that I might have been down there visiting friends which I did pretty regularly.
There are firefighters that would come to the bank in the weeks that followed and a few of them shared details with me of what they had seen that will haunt me forever.
I've never been able to go down to the memorial. I'm thinking I'll be able to face that sooner rather than later.
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