Tulsa's Home, But It Ain't Mine No More

If you're reading this blog, then you can see the photo at the top of this post, so feel free to skip the next paragraph if you like. But if you're listening, I'm going to describe it for you. It's a picture of a cheeseburger, on a small white Styrofoam plate. There's not room for anything else other than the burger. You can see a little bit of lettuce beneath the crisp, partially cheese covered edge of the patty. The top bun is a little bit smashed. Next to the plate is a small paper container of french fries, and to the left of that is a blue Pepsi cup. You can also see salt and pepper shakers, a napkin dispenser, a squeeze bottle of ketchup and some steak sauce. All of it sits on a shallow, wooden lunch counter, which is in front of a window that looks out onto a sidewalk and street. I took this picture in June of this year. I had just made the drive from Kansas City, Missouri to Tulsa, Oklahoma, which is where I'm from and where my parents still live. My husband and kids and I lived there too, until about four years ago, when we moved to KC. On this particular weekend I was driving in to visit my mom and dad. But I was hungry and wanted to eat before I got to their place.

As I was getting close to Tulsa, I thought about going to Flo's, a really good little burger joint in Catoosa. I even exited the highway with plans of doing so. But a moment later, I had to admit to myself that Flo's wasn't really what I wanted. So I got back on I-44 and headed towards Brookside, our old neighborhood, and also home of Claud's. Burger heaven.

After I'd walked in to the small, seats-fourteen-but-just-barely building, and placed my order, the woman behind the counter looked at me thoughtfully and said, "You're Dom's wife, aren't you?" We hadn't lived there for four years but they still remembered us. (Dom was the one who usually picked up our order so I was mightily impressed that she knew me!) nearly started crying but my true joy at being remembered - at being back in a diner, on a street, in a town where it felt like we mattered - overrode the tears, fortunately. I mean, who cries at a burger joint? Well, she made a fuss over me, asked how the kids were doing, asked to see pictures. She cleared off a spot for me at the counter facing the window, and kept asking if I needed a refill on my drink. Since it was past prime lunchtime it wasn't as busy as if often was - but was still full. I sat, and ate, and listened to the voices around me. I remembered walking down this street - Peoria Avenue - with my husband when we were newlyweds, then with our first baby in a stroller, then two babies, and then three. Remembered how on so many Saturdays we ordered Claud's - we always got the same things so they knew our order (like they knew half of Tulsa's) - and Dom would go pick it up for us. (Eating in with the five of us was pretty much impossible.) How when you went in there you were more likely than not to see someone you knew - and maybe a local celebrity or two as well.

Busy chatter filled the place. I'm a voice actor, but I also love listening to other people talk - the accents, inflections, different timbres of voice. I love trying to figure out where someone is from based on how they speak. But the voices at Claud's? They sounded like home. The ultimate comfort soundtrack. I kept eating. It really was so good - the seasoning perfect, the doneness just right, the fries so incredibly delicious it was hard to believe. I sent the picture - and a couple of others I'd taken - to my husband. And we exchanged texts about how the next time we were in Tulsa together we'd make sure to get to Claud's. But it was not meant to be. Robert Hobson, owner (and usually man at the grill) of Claud's, died earlier this month. Shortly thereafter, his family announced that Claud's - staple of Tulsa since 1954, was closed for good. Learning this news was heartbreaking in a way I would not ever have expected. I didn't know it at the time, but that meal in June was my last Claud's burger, the last time anyone from our family would have one. Robert's family, of course, was mourning him - man, father, husband. Of course what I'm missing is pretty trivial in the big scheme of things.

But every time I go back to Tulsa, something is different. This is an old and common story, I know. A shop I like closed, or moved to a new location. Someone has died. The new owners of our old house paint it a different color. Most of these changes would happen even if we still lived there, obviously. But with each change, it feels a little bit less like home. I still can look at the park across the street from our old house and see shadows of my little kids that used to play there. But the kids themselves are teenagers now, sitting in the back seat of the car as I drive through our old neighborhood on our visits back, leading busy lives that aren't happening in Tulsa.

Had you told me, when I was a teenager, that one day I would be so sad at the thought of leaving Tulsa, I would have laughed at you. I went to college out of state, then moved to NYC. Fifteen years after I began college, I returned to my home town, with a lot of mixed feelings about it. 15 years after that, I would leave it for yet another new city.

"When I think of home, I think of a place where there's love overflowing," as we hear in "The Wiz." And indeed, that does describe anyplace where I live with my ffamily.

But it also describes my hometown, and many other places I've left behind. Including the worlds best burger stand.

Thanks Claud's. You really were the best.