Carter Family

The Carter Family

Every American has the dream of paying their mortgage off! Imagine finally making that dream come true, only to find out that the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority will be running a turnpike through your home.
 
Meet the Carter Family….
In 1979 I bought a little piece of unimproved land way out in the country on East Lindsey and even though it’s in Norman City Limits it’s a little piece of country heaven. Now the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority is proposing to condemn, destroy and demolish my family’s way of life.
 
On this little corner we’ve built two homes. The first home, in which we raised five kids (who are all fine, upstanding citizens), we built ourselves. We dug every footing, poured all the concrete, drove every nail, wired every wire, and plumbed every pipe ourselves. And it’s still standing! Two of my kids were born right here on the property. We laughed, we cried, and we prospered on this little hunk of dirt and now the OTA wants to bulldoze our heritage.
 
The second home, which we occupy with our 6th child, is next door to the first and even though we didn’t do all the construction work ourselves we did serve as general contractors for its construction, doing much of the work ourselves. To say we are attached might be redundant. I now have regular recurring nightmares of a backhoe claw crashing through the roof as we sleep.
 
The truly sad thing is that if indeed the OTA destroys our homes, I’ll have to clean out all the crap I’ve collected over the years myself instead of my kids getting to do it after I’m gone. That just deprives them of many trips to the dump.
 
Seriously though this is an extremely sad predicament to be in and causes us much consternation and sadness… just so travelers can save 10 minutes while driving around the OKC metro all the while paying extra for the ride. It just doesn’t seem right.
 
To learn more join NO MORE TURNPIKES, Oklahoma! & VOLUNTEERS of Pike Off OTA & No More Turnpikes