Editorial: Woody Guthrie's childhood home to be restored
By World's Editorials Writers on Sep 17, 2013, at 2:27 AM Updated on 9/17/13 at 3:44 AM
Editorials
The 6,300 employees at the American Airlines Maintenance Facility in Tulsa could use some certainty, but they're going to have to wait.
The loss of 12 lives, 13 counting the suspect, in the Navy shipyard shootings Monday is tragic. With each killing spree the natural reaction is to search for the motive or the psychological reason for such a horrific event.
It's taken some time, but Oklahomans have forgiven Woody Guthrie for any real or imagined transgressions.
There now is an annual Woody Guthrie festival and the recently opened Woody Guthrie archival museum in Tulsa's Brady Arts District. Next up is the proposed rebirth of Guthrie's boyhood home in Okemah.
Guthrie, one of the most influential songwriters in American music history, was for decades shunned by Oklahomans. A child of the Great Depression, he found his voice in folk music, much of which was seen by many, especially conservative Oklahomans, as subversive, even communistic.
Nevertheless, his songs have remained some of the best and most recorded in music history.
His boyhood home in Okemah became simply another old house. It fell into disrepair and eventually was torn down in the late 1970s.
Now, however, there is a long overdue move to rebuild it.
The late Earl Walker, who was a prominent local businessman in the early 1960s, had the foresight to hold onto the house's original planks when the structure was torn down.
The cost of the rebuild is estimated at $500,000, which is a lot of money to rebuild a house first built in the 1860s but not so much if viewed as an investment in a growing tourist attraction for the town.
Guthrie left the country, the state and the town of Okemah, as well as the world, a legacy worth preserving.
Original Print Headline: Woody's place
Editorials
The 6,300 employees at the American Airlines Maintenance Facility in Tulsa could use some certainty, but they're going to have to wait.
The loss of 12 lives, 13 counting the suspect, in the Navy shipyard shootings Monday is tragic. With each killing spree the natural reaction is to search for the motive or the psychological reason for such a horrific event.
