When I was a school kid over at Stonewall my old high school principal, A. E. Harrell, once asked our class where we thought the center of the universe was. Mr. Harrell was speaking of where “we” thought the center of the “world” was. Answers were widespread as one boy thought it had to be Kansas but as Mr. Harrell pointed out to him that he wasn’t speaking of the center if the United States, he repeated: “The center of your Universe.” Mr. Harrell said Lawtonians think it was at the intersection of 2nd and Gore down at Lawton while Ada boosters have maintained that it is in the middle of Main and Townsend Street. But he wanted us to think of where “our” center might be.

I wasn’t too sure about his question that morning but sometime later, after graduating from Stonewall back in 1952, I found my “center.” It happened one morning about 3AM Japanese time. It turned out to be Stonewall, Oklahoma. I had never been away from home for extended periods of time but after being in the Navy for over a year, I found myself gazing at the dim shore lights of a place called Yokosuka, Japan. Sudden homesickness can help you rediscover your own center of the universe real quick.

That particular illness (my homesickness) lasted over a year — until I received a leave to go home. I had found my “center” now. It was Stonewall. Over a year later I crawled out of the back end of an old International pickup on Mainstreet, Stonewall. It had been a long trip. A forced landing on Midway Island made me miss another plane in Dallas and I had to hitchhike from Dallas the rest of the way. Beggers can’t be choosers.

Nothing like a little homesickness to make one re-discover his or her center of the universe. It was this type of remembrance that caused me last week to write of and compare Oklahoma City’s problems with trash and dilapidated buildings to our problems here in Allen. Home is where the heart is (so I’m told) and some of our city cousins fret and worry over the same things we worry with here in our own “center of the universe.”

Just what causes us our greatest worries here in my present center of the universe, Allen,or Coalgate or anywhere else around here? The same things as people worry about in Oklahoma City or Tulsa. Crime, traffic, guns, schools and let’s not forget — trash. Lots of it. Strung up and down our streets and ditches and even in our yards we see trash. People just chunk their cans, bottles, McDonald bags and other trash right out the window.

This is a nationwide phenome. I was driving across Dallas not so long ago and a nice-looking lady in a nice-looking car just stopped. We had to just sit there and wait. Oh, some guys or gals behind me sat down on their horns as she opened her door and set her leftover lunch tray on the pavement and drove away. Mesmerized. Pat said, “In Allen she would have just rolled her window down and flopped it in the ditch.” I said, “yeah, but it’s about the same thing.”

I recently read on Allen’s Facebook about how rough our Broadway Boulevard is and another note about how awful the road between Gerty and Allen is. I didn’t read anything about the Francis Road. I think it’s too bad for words. It’s been bad for so long we just don’t talk about it anymore. But it too runs through someone’s universe.

I guess I can use this moment to urge all of you to put your trash in a trash can, not out the window. And be sure to attend the church serving your part of the universe next Sunday.

Wayne Bullard, DPh cwaynebullard@gmail.com