“Well I left Oklahoma…”
Dateline: I-40 Eastbound
“Many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased.”
~ John Steinbeck
I done now here in Tulsa.
Oklahoma is in my rearview mirror as I sit parked and laying low with my great friends, Kevin & Kerry Short in Arkansas.
I’m catching up on laundry, emails, and lying on a heating pad.
Week 3 now in the 5 week road gig, feeling miserable and grumpy, miss my wife, the kids, the dogs, even Jack across the street.
And, there’s a little part of me that even misses…my Tulsa time.
Pull up a stool, let’s talk.
“…livin’ on Tulsa time…”
Last time I was here in Tulsa, 2013, I was busted up. Cliff Pace won it and I fractured my knee, limped home and spent the next month in bed:
In 2013 I flew into town, pretty much carried back to the airport and flew home, all I saw was the hotel, the bowels of the BOK Center and some pain med foggy visions of whatever is between downtown and the airport.
This time, was different.
I drove in, and I drove out, and nuthin’s broken.
This, Tulsa time, I got to look around.
In no random order here’s some random thoughts with some pics:
Meet Joshua Manuel: Back in 2013 he was 13 and he handed me his Business Card and told me about his lawn care biz…
…ran into him in the Classic Expo this year, he’s now 16 and taller than I am, this time he handed me this…
…moved up to pens, told me before he got lost in a wave of EXPO visitors, “Mr. Barone, I’ve expanded…” and then he disappeared.
I expect if we come back by then Josh will own most of downtown.
PS: Thanks little dude for the pen.
“…livin’ on Tulsa time…”
Food.
Tulsa dudes, you rock.
Downtown is a smorgasbord of eats, everything from a fancy cupcake shop to an all natural Mexican restaurant who kept asking me, “What kind of protein would you like with that,” to which I found out that unfortunately chocolate isn’t a protein.
“Midget Wrestling,” it seems, was also on the menu, not on the night I was there, that’s all I’m going to say about that.
Hey, don’t know about you but when I’m missing home, I start looking for comfort food….LIKE THIS:
No joke, possibly the best Chicken Pot Pie I have ever had, almost perfect but didn’t have any peas in it, had it those peas I would have become a squatter in the restaurant. Bravo, Bravo pot pie maker.
Then there’s this…Boyd and desert, I’ve been around that combination before and normally because he always tells me “I’m working out,” or, “how do you think my diet is going,” I don’t put up many photos of his, er, working out diet, but I have to use this shot now because for me he said the best line of the Classic.
Here’s Boyd (before the sugar high), “db I was coming on, started catching them, if the tournament was 11 days long I would have won it.”
Tulsa, I’ve been to many great and near great cities in this country, many who boast about their “culinary” expertise, well, I’m not sure of the fancy word eatin’ in this town but I do know this, back down from none of them other towns, you’ve got some fine, stand in line grub that I’ll miss.
If in fact the Classic was 11 days longer, I’d need new pants.
“…well, you’ll know I been through it…”
Saturday night, to be honest, I was pretty depressed, been that night gone from home for 3 weeks, I had spent the day meeting and getting to know many of the folks who came to the EXPO, the majority of whom stood in front of me with their family.
You can read about that here: http://www.bassmaster.com/don-barone/db-classic-fans
I was homesick, not slobbering homesick but I was smiling at stray dogs.
Then with Kevin & Kerry I took a walk through downtown Tulsa, and found…BUFFALO, NY.
I don’t know how to quote me clapping for you Tulsa but I am, a stroll through your downtown brought me back to my home town.
I’m an architecture nut, wanted to be an Architect but found out in college I couldn’t do math or draw or design anything anyone would live in.
But I did the digs around me, and you guys have a great downtown.
Check out the Art Deco and Prairie School designs and fixtures I found while walking around:
And then you do something that isn’t needed but shows the class of the town and the people who live in it…you “art” it up with sculpture:
And paint:
Thank you Tulsa for Saturday night and giving me a little sense of home even though home was 1,500 miles away, I needed it, and appreciated it.
“…when I set my watch…”
I hope you accept this next randomness, as cross my heart, truth.
Everything I have written so far is true, but the next is the kind of truth you see when you wipe the fog off the bathroom mirror and stare into yer own eyes.
A part of my heart, a large part, is an “Okie.”
The reason…two of my best friends on earth are buried in the earth here or scattered on top of it.
I stood alone in a corner in the darkened BOK Center as the folks at BASS played a tribute video to Classic winner, and my friend, Ken Cook.
I stood alone in the dark corner tears streaming down my cheeks as I looked at the Classic banner, his Classic banner:
Down, or up, or over somewhere from where I stood in Tulsa lies in Duncan, Oklahoma Uncle Buff, known legally as, Mike Armor, someone I have never been on the road with the Elites without him being around.
To me Oklahoma, in my own weird way, to me, Oklahoma is sacred ground.
It cradles my two great friends.
Know this, a day never goes by now in my life without thoughts of this great state, and it will be that way to the day I die.
Truth.
“…back to it…”
I will be back, doesn’t matter whether B.A.S.S. comes back here or not…I will.
Life right now is pretty much drive-by sights, 75 mph glimpses of life outside the white lines.
Oklahoma, Tulsa is a place I want to come back and explore with my wife, Barb, and our dog, Riley.
Soon the stinky laundry won’t stink as much, the Tundra will be gassed and I will once again be heading down the line, next stop Florida and the Elite event there on the St. John River in Palatka.
Next time, Tulsa Time will be longer, I promise.
Leave the light on for me.
Bye:
“…livin’ on Tulsa Time.”
Tulsa Time
Don Williams
db
“I was born lost and take no pleasure in being found.”
~ John Steinbeck
Travels with Charley: In Search of America