My Okie roots - McAlester, Oklahoma
I was looking at some images I took in '08 and this was one of my favorites. I shot this while I was visiting my family in McAlester, Oklahoma. I have always considered McAlester my home even though we moved to Overland Park when I was 14. Home is where your family is, right? I have good memories of Big Mac. I'm grateful now that Mom made the move to Kansas because my life would probably be so different if we had stayed. There are lots of bad influences in small towns, many of my friends ended up being young parents, some friends died way too young and I hear that there are one or two in the State Prison which just so happens to be on the other side of town. I would like to think that I would have ended up ok, but so much of my life now is happening because of choices I made while living in Kansas. After I graduated from high school in Overland Park, I was offered a scholarship to play flute in college. My tuition was completely paid for 4 years. If I had stayed in McAlester, I don't know that I would have had the same opportunities. I think about things like that and how forks in the road lead you down other paths that you would have never anticipated. I could probably name several points in my life that I feel were turning points. I think to myself, if I had done this instead of that, this would have never happened.... There are many people who feel like that you make your own destiny, there are others who think that fate or chance controls destiny. I think it's a mixture of both. There have been far to many odd coincidences in my life to feel that fate isn't a factor. I feel that everything happens for a reason. However, I have made several decisions that have altered the course of my life permanently and a few that I wish I could go back for a re-do. One day I will come to terms with some of these decisions and just chock them up to life lessons. Hopefully I won't have to make a trek out into the wilderness to obtain such clarity. :)So - back to the photo. This particular water tower stands on a hill next to the highschool basketball auditorium. I saw this gnarly old tree standing next to it and thought it looked cool but didn't think anything else of it at the time. After I got home and started editing from the weekend. I was drawn to this image because I see it as not only an image of a fixture from my youth, but the tree seemed to give it more meaning. An old, sturdy tree with deep roots and that is what my family and McAlester means to me. ~Ash
