Off to Oklahoma

I'll be leaving tomorrow morning for Oklahoma City and will return on Monday. Sweet Melissa will be in charge while I'm gone.

And, no, one doesn't just go to Oklahoma City for the fun of it. It ain't fun. But, my paternal uncle turned 90 recently and, well, I do think it's better to let them know they're thought of, prayed for, remembered while they're still with us rather than once they're gone.

My little sister, Michelle, and her two precious babies Jack and Kate will fly in from New Jersey and my favorite aunt, Blanche, will be coming in from San Francisco. Blanche is 87 or 88 herself, but maintains the energy level of a forty year old who has never tired of the fascination of this world. Indeed, Blanche is one of the co-founders of the International Federation of Women's Travel Organizations.

Suffice it to say, it will be great to see the family, but Oklahoma... Well, let me just provide a portion of a short story I wrote some time ago that deals with my stint in the U.S. Army.

After Basic Combat Training at Polk, I headed for a short stay at a base out in the hell-hot Northeastern Texas scrub. The base was so close to Oklahoma that it might as well have been in Oklahoma.

It was on this base in Texas that one of my fellow soldiers -- who happened to be a Texan... born and bred-- was so distressed at being that close to Oklahoma that everything that bothered him about the Army was not the Army fault, but the fault of that, "Goddamned, tes-tic-u-lar, red-dirted, pile-of-shit-- I can fuckin smell it man!-- OK state with its hardon hangin over Amarillo." I wasn't really sure what he was talking about until I took a look at a map of the United States. "Yessir," he would continue, "when an evil Texan dies he don't go to hell. No sir, the Good Lord sends that bad boy straight to Oklahoma!"

And, that pretty much sums up my feelings about Oklahoma.

(But, I'm taking a travelling bottle of Wild Turkey 101 with me to ease the pain!)

See you, Monday.