Arts Watch: Tinkertown

By Bill McCann | The Winchester Sun

Tinkertown: A Wheat field, an Airbase, and Us: The Story of Midwest City and Tinker AFB by Winchester writer Jim Willis is the twin sto­ry of Tinker Air Force Base and of Midwest City. Part mem­oir, part his­to­ry, and part Chamber of Commerce pro­mo­tion­al piece, there is a tremen­dous amount of infor­ma­tion and good sto­ry­telling to be found in Willis’ 457-page book.

In thir­teen chap­ters and a fore­word by his high school class­mate USAF General Roger Brady (ret.), Willis gives his read­ers a his­to­ry of both an air­field and the com­mu­ni­ty where he grew up. The book tells the inter­twined sto­ries of Tinker Airfield and Midwest City, cre­at­ed to sup­port the air­field, now a part of the Oklahoma City met­ro­pol­i­tan area, start­ing in April 1941.

Literally ris­ing up out of Okla homa farm­land side by side, the air­base and the town have had a sym­bi­ot­ic rela­tion­ship from the begin­ning. Each need­ed the oth­er to sur­vive. The air­base need­ed homes and church­es, shop­ping cen­ters and schools for its mil­i­tary per­son­nel. The town need­ed mil­i­tary per­son­nel to make its com­mu­ni­ty flour­ish. Starting with lit­tle more than dirt roads in the town and on the base, both have expand­ed until approx­i­mate­ly 60,000 peo­ple now live in Midwest City; Tinker AFB employs more than 26,000 mil­i­tary and civil­ian personnel.

At times Willis can be a bit the col­lege pro­fes­sor that he was — remind­ing read­ers of what has been said or telling them what is ahead. This works well in the class­room. In this case, it is also effec­tive in help­ing read­ers keep the large cast of char­ac­ters and events in mind.

But where Willis real­ly suc­ceeds is in telling the sto­ries of him­self, his sis­ter, par­ents, friends, teach­ers, and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers. But what I enjoyed most were his sto­ries about fam­i­ly mem­bers and their influ­ence on him. In turn these sto­ries were often fol­lowed by his insights and reflections:

[A] lit­tle boy who had just bought his own dou­ble-dip cone, tripped. Both he and his cone hit the hot pave­ment at the same time, the ice cream start­ing to melt into the asphalt instant­ly. The boy began to cry over his lost treat. Dad saw and heard the whole thing and went over to help the child up. Then he took the boy back to the DQ win­dow and placed anoth­er order.

“One dou­ble-dip cone, please,” he told the atten­dant. He laid down the last of his change, got the cone and hand­ed it to the boy, who was dry­ing his tears by now. The boy’s expres­sion turned to a broad, cheek to cheek grin as he start­ed lick­ing his new cone. Dad came over to our table, sat down, and ate his melt­ing treat in silence. I don’t think I was ever more impressed with my father than on that day.

Jim Willis is a mem­ber of a writ­ing group I belong to. Meeting every two weeks, Jim has shared selec­tions from the book as he was writ­ing it over the past year or so. So I had read por­tions of the book as he worked on it. He also dis­cussed the pros and cons of self-pub­lish­ing ver­sus allow­ing a uni­ver­si­ty press to pub­lish it. Ultimately, he chose to self-pub­lish, in part because the process of get­ting a book approved by an aca­d­e­m­ic press is almost always a long one and he was feel­ing some pres­sure, I think, from friends and fam­i­ly to publish.

As you read his very read­able and enjoy­able book, do not be dis­tract­ed by its dis­trac­tions — unjus­ti­fied pages and so on. Instead, real­ize that Willis’ book is like the town and air force base it describes — anx­ious to make its mark (and in the case of the book, take its place on your bookshelf).