Go walk the trails in Tulsa

If you have kids or grandkids ages up to twelve years old you must go to the Gathering Place just southwest of downtown Tulsa along the Arkansas River. It is a world class park in our view.

It is a new park for the people and it is free to the public. I heard it is about 70 acres containing trails, (nice concrete ones) a nice boathouse with lots of water for kayaking and paddle boating, a lodge with huge glass windows and two massive fireplaces. They were holding a meeting while we were there.

You will find tons of playground equipment with enormous slides, swings and much more. The areas are marked for the various ages that are allowed.

One of the walls in the lodge has a list of all of the people behind it. The purpose of the park is to make Tulsa a destination.

The Kaiser Foundation donated 200 million dollars to the project and others donated a total of 400 million dollars. The backers all wanted it to be a destination and draw young families to town and I believe they will succeed/

I heard there were more than 6,000 trees on site and the ones they removed were made into art or benches and other uses.

If you want to see it before you go, just google Gathering Place in Tulsa and you will find lots of videos about the place and how it was constructed with aerial shots— presumably with drone photography.

Can you tell that I was impressed with this park?

It was enjoyable when cool and cloudy—I can imagine how nice it would be in the sun were out and it was warm.

The phrase “A penny for your thoughts” was coined (no pun intended) nearly 400 years ago in 1622 in England when a penny (peny) was actually worth something. Nowa­days, with inflation, it is more like $50.00 for your thoughts.

Heck, you can buy 20 years of my thoughts for only $35.00—and the money goes to a good cause to boot.

We ate fresh seafood at Bodeans Seafood Restaurant while in Tulsa, where the band that Brother Mark plays in was doing a little jazz on Sunday night.

If you watch Hatteberg’s People reruns on KPTS Channel 8 in Wichita You would have seen the segment on the book, “Trial by Fire” that the Free Press published after the fire that consumed the Hillsboro MB Church in March of 2004. If you search Hatteberg’s People on YouTube for episode 502 you can see it if you missed it.

Featured in the segment are Don Ratzlaff, editor and church moderator and Diane Steiner, who did the layout on the book and yours truly, the publisher.

Why did the chickens hang out in the front yard one morning?

They heard some men were laying a sidewalk sometime that morning and they wanted to see how it was done.

If you wish to share your comments or ideas, my e-mail address is joel@
hillsborofreepress.com.

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