Bart - I recently had the pleasure of visiting your home town for a brief (36 hour) stay.
It was for a family wedding so our wanderings were mostly confined to the hotel (Ameri-Suites)
and the site of the wedding (Suburbia). I have no delusions that we experienced the "real" Tulsa.
Everything we saw looked like it does in every US city of that size: four lane highways with traffic
lights every 200 yards and the standard chain stores and strip malls. Despite all that depressing
uniformity, three things stick out in my mind:

1. I had never been in OK before and I kept expecting the wind to come
sweeping down the plain, but it never did.

2. Guess what EVERY local I met was talking about? JC Watts? Martha Stewart?
The sinking stock market? No. Something a lot more relevant to everyday life.

Krispy Kreme!

The big news on that Saturday was that the waiting line was down to 45 minutes!
A major event. Someone in the wedding party went there and brought back about
six boxes, but through some personal blunder, I didn't get any, so I still don't know
what all the commotion is about. Maybe next time.

3. Sunday morning when we were leaving, we turned on the car radio and heard one of those
screaming, bible-thumping, hellfire-and-damnation-threatening preachers scorching the airwaves.
This one's claim to fame was his ability to finish every sentence with an ear-popping "HA!"
just like James Brown. "You got to come to Jesus HA! I say you got to come to Jesus HA!"
To a laid back, East coast, lapsed Catholic like myself who's used to falling asleep during the
sermon, it was a rude awakening, but after a while it became extremely entertaining.

Can't wait for the next visit HA!

--
John Montgomery
http://johnmonty.com