The Fun Surprises of Oklahoma City

Missing Restaurants and Old Friends

Oklahoma City started in a terrible place, and ended in a fantastic one. I got off the bus station in Oklahoma City staying for twenty four hours in the city. I was hear to meet a friend of mine named Britton, who I’ve had the pleasure of having him show up on the podcast in the past and we’ve had some great discussions. I was looking forward to meeting him and as it turned out, I met his dad too.

But it started nasty. I had time to kill before I was going to meet Britton and I had to work on freelancing stuff. But as I was looking on my phone where a coffee shop was, the bus attendent asked me what I was doing standing there.

“Are you waiting for the bus?” She asked nicely. I write it like that because it was the only nice thing she said.

“No ma’am, I’m just looking for a Dunkin Donuts or something.” Which was true. I knew Oklahoma from Adam and needed to get my bearings. The attendent would have none of that. She asked me to leave. I told her I was, in a minute. I just needed a second. One thing led to another and she threatened to have me call the cops. One heck of a way to begin my time here.

Greyhound stations are random in terms of customer service. That said, this one was the most mistrustful out of all of them. It was an incredible thing to be treated that way. Oklahoma’s initial impression was that mistrust. It’s the only city in the entirety of my journey that I felt unwelcome.

Part of that was the decor. Oklahoma by the bus station? Rough shape. There were no sidewalks outside the bus station for about a quarter mile and I had to lug my broken luggage through the streets. I had decided to go to a Macdonald’s to work, and I got to the spot in about an hour. When I got there, there was no Macdonald’s. Going to the Dollar General about a block or two back from where the Macdonald’s was supposed to be, I found out that there was no Macdonald’s at all anymore. There was, once upon a time. When I went back there to explore it, I saw the remnants of a building the size of an average fast food restaurant once was there, but that’s all.

The GPS is not reliable in Oklahoma. There are a few echoes there of what was. This was my experience there.

I ended up walking for another hour or two and ending up on settling on the Dunkin Donuts in the hospital. I was sore when I got there, but fortunately the hospital facilities were quite nice. They had a whole wing for people, and they were cool with me working there.

Things turned around once I sat down. I got a phonecall from Britton and we set up a time, and then I heard from someone I hadn’t heard from for a long time. Madilynn Dale is someone I’ve had the pleasure of having the show a few times, found out I was there as I was posting pictures and contacted me to hang out. We talked and made an arrangement to meet after my dinner with Britton.

Britton, his dad and I hit it off. We went to a place to eat and talked about the writing business. It was great to see Britton’s dad take a keen interest in his son’s career and letting him go forward. As someone who has edited Britton’s books, he wanted to know what I did, and what Britton needs to do to succeed. I did the best I could to help him with what I knew.

Wow. People are coming to me for writing advice. When did that happen?

Britton has a heck of a future on his hands, when and if, he decides to go for it. And Britton, if you read this, I want you to know that I’m waiting for you to do your thing. I know you got this, and I believe in you.

When it was over, they drove me to Madi’s house. I got to meet Madi and her husband, Chris, and their kid, my nemesis, Harrison. Harrison in our first interview took it over for forty five minutes. Now he was a kid, and pretty cool. Maybe, just maybe, we can’t be nemesis’ anymore.

After the introductions and Harrison was off to bed, Chris and I hit it off, and I got to catch up with Madi, and how things have gone. There has been a transition there, and it’s her business, but I do know that we will see more books again from her, and that she’s in a good place.

I enjoyed meeting Chris. I’ve mentioned the political chat I had back between Regina and Winnipeg in several places. In truth, I’ve had a ton of political conversations throughout both countries. A lot of people think Americans are not very self aware of the events going on around them. Based on my experiences, that is not the case. If anything, there’s a refreshing honesty.

Now I’m a little unusual as I don’t subscribe to party lines, but I do take a contrary approach when I talk issues with people to see where they stand. Chris and I talked about how we see the world. The nuances were not the same, but our concerns were. We all see the world in slightly different ways, but at the end of the day, we all want the same thing.

Afterwards, we talked about important things, like which final fantasy is the best one. I chose six, and he chose seven. Much respect to him. Both games do rock, and each fanbase respects the other.

The next day I hung out with Madi for a bit, and then went back to the bus stop. Fortunately, the same attendent wasn’t there, and I was off. Madi is as awesome a human being as I met online. I had a ticket to Amarillo, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to get to Snowflake from there. I was off.

Oklahoma City started rough, but it turned out to be an amazing place.

Note: The podcast should be back next week. Things have settled in and I’m about to engage with people to come back on the show. There may be a few bumps in the road but the episodes will start happening again here and on twitch. I’ll let you know.