Largest Cross in Western Hemisphere

Sept. 2, 2004

Dear Leslie,

Late one dark January night years ago on a transcontinental drive west along America's alimentary interstates, I was relieved to see the lights of Tulsa appear offering roadside salvation. Weary, broke and sad about a romance that was breaking up, I passed by one, two then three exits searching for a cheap motel. Finally at the last exit leaving Tulsa, a sign for one appeared advertising $13.95 rooms.

Usually when you pull into a cheap motel late at night, part of the price you pay is waking up a cranky desk clerk. This one looked permanently disheveled. The hand that pushed the registration form at me was amateurishly tattooed with letters I was afraid to stare at. Somehow I knew if one hand read "L-O-V-E" the other said "H-A-T-E."

Walking to my room on the second floor, I noticed a car parked in the lot because four cigarettes glowed inside. Wondering why four people would be sitting in a car at a motel in the middle of the night on the outskirts of Tulsa tightened my stomach. Almost everything I owned was in the back of my truck.

My stomach did something else when the door to my room opened. A stench I could not and did not want to identify enveloped me. One wall was smeared with a mysterious stain. When I sat on the bed, the middle caved in. The bathroom was only worse.

I almost ran out the door. The smokers were still in their car. In the motel office I apologetically told the desk clerk I was sorry but I could not spend the night after all.

"Cain't you read, mister?" he asked with practiced incredulity. Read what? I wondered.

He stepped aside and pointed to a hand-written sign behind him on the wall. "No refunds" it said.

With the despair of someone who couldn't afford to forfeit $13.95 but didn't feel welcome in Tulsa that night, I returned to the road, found a rest stop and slept on the front seat of my truck until dawn.

The lesson was simple and one I have never violated again. Never rent a room from a motel clerk with tattoos on his knuckles.

Oklahoma hasn't been OK with me ever since. I don't even like the musical.

On our way to Santa Fe a few weeks ago, DC and I drove hard to get Oklahoma over with. When we entered the featureless Texas Panhandle, billboard after billboard began touting the Largest Cross in the Western Hemisphere. I wondered if that was the cross's actual name and where the Largest Cross in the Eastern Hemisphere might be located.

Eventually the cross loomed in the distance many miles away. As we neared, it grew in size to a couple of hundred feet. This was an offer of roadside salvation of another kind but seemed less like a beacon offering weary travelers comfort and respite and just another roadside attraction. Only a few miles further down the road in Amarillo was the Big Texan Restaurant's 32-ounce steaks. Big cross, big steak.

Promises of salvation, whether physical or spiritual, make me wary. I pay for good motels now and don't count on billboards to find God.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.