This past Saturday I drove to Tulsa’s Arts District, just north of downtown, to help work an Earth Day booth for the Tulsa Urban Wilderness Coalition. It had been a long time since I had been to such an event. They used to have them on the main mall during the work week when I was still working.

Just as I got there a fashion show featuring recycled materials was underway. That was interesting.

It was pretty windy. Kind of a full skirt alert thing going on.

They had some musical performances. Some guys drumming and then later on some sort of hippie, country, poppy group who were not bad at all.

Wandering around the other booths I came up on the table for the Carrie Dickerson Foundation. Carrie Dickerson was a determined lady who led a coalition of people that forced the Public Service Company of Oklahoma to abandon the Black Fox Nuclear Power Plant project in 1982 after a nine year battle. Construction on the plant had already started and when it was cancelled, it was the only nuclear power plant to be cancelled as a result of legal and citizen action. As much as I am proud to be a member of an organization that forced an outlet mall to abandon their plans for a mall on Turkey Mountain, I’m in awe of the people who forced Black Fox to be shut down. People don’t remember it much any longer but Oklahoma has populists roots that are still there beneath the surface. RIP Carrie Barefoot Dickerson.

I’ll climb off my soap box long enough to show you a monarch butterfly who I saw flitting around the earth day events.

And then later on a bunch of young women in their prom dresses with their beaus, parents, and photographers came for the photo ops available at Guthrie Green. I thought it was kind of cool. I have great hopes for our young people. They are going to inherit the world. Personally, I think they are up to the task.