Another Thanksgiving at Jincy's

Jincy's.

Sheila and I made our annual pilgrimage to Jincy's for Thanksgiving dinner this afternoon.


Turning off the turnpike and heading into the ancient hills of the Cherokee Nation has deep significance for me.  Despite the lifetime I have spent away from them, Eastern Oklahoma is my home, the Okies are my people and the Cookson Hills are often just a little shy of heaven in my thoughts.

I don't see the place with the dewy eyed sentimentality that some people ascribe to their homeland.  Like the lover of a complicated and  compromised woman, I know Eastern Oklahoma for all that she is, from the beautiful misty hills and valleys cut through by cold, beautiful lakes and streams to the pockets of generational poverty, crime and violence. But, despite its' often dark and bloody history, Eastern Oklahoma is nevertheless the ancestral home of one of America's proudest, most resilient, creative and when necessary violent ethnic groups, the Okies.  Part Cherokee, part hillbilly, part cowboy and part outlaw, a true Okie is a force of nature. 

Jincy's is located in Quall's, Oklahoma.  The  Cherokee name for the place was Quall's Burnt Cabin.  The settlement kept the former cabin's owner's name and the Corps of Engineers who mapped nearby Tenkiller Ferry Lake kept the "Burnt Cabin" part for the nearby inlet and recreation area. It is south of historic Park Hill deep in the Cookson Hills of the Cherokee Nation.  I won't go on about the history of Jincy's.  I've done it before.

The food is always fabulous and this year was no exception, country food cooked properly and seasoned not only with skill and care but with love for the heritage being preserved. A restaurant at Thanksgiving can be one of the loneliest and most depressing places on earth.  That is not the case at Jincy's.  The crowd is friendly and Debbie the owner goes out of her way to make everyone welcome.

Debbie Rucker, the owner.

As we ate our meal, I thought over the years past when we had eaten there and just how much we had to be thankful for.  There were the years that Sheila was recovering from breast cancer.  There was the year that I was in so much pain that I couldn't walk up to get my own plate even though I was trussed from my upper thighs to my ankles in high tech carbon fiber braces and was taking powerful pain killers.  And, there was the year that we were there with Sheila's sister who had just been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Sheila resting over an empty plate.

This year, Sheila and I were both healthy and feeling good.  I was walking on my own power and not even using a cane.  My latest book has been very well received, is selling well and I have a couple of more projects on the burner.

It has been a good year and this Thanksgiving was a good time to sit quietly before a plate of good food and give thanks to God for his many blessings.

Bangkok Thai Buffet With Pam and Wayne

Sheila and I had an early dinner last night with Sheila's niece (more like her little sister), Pamela Edwards, and her long time companion Wayne Elliot.  Pam is a CPA and Wayne is a local business owner. We ate at Bangkok Thai Buffet located at 32nd and Harvard.  The meal gave us a chance to catch up and even share a few family stories.

Bangkok is one of Sheila and I's favorite places.  We eat there frequently.  They serve very good, very fresh authentic Thai food which has the added benefit of being low in sodium and using almost exclusively "good fats" in preparation.  They cook in small batches so that the food on

the steam tables is always at its peak.   And, I have it on good authority (my former barber, a perky, diminutive, absolutely fascinating little Thai lady) that they close the place on Sundays so that they can steam clean it from stem to stern.

It would be a disservice to try to pick out any one dish as being particularly better than the others. They are all good.  Very good. Fresh ingredients prepared properly and seasoned well.

There are four steam tables.  The one farthest west has rice, spring rolls and mildly flavored basic dishes.  The second table has mostly mild to moderately spicy Thai dishes.  The third table has spicier Thai dishes.  Any diner of any taste should be able to find a combination of tastes, textures and temperatures to please them.

The fourth table is dessert. Sweet rice in coconut milk, tapioca pearls in coconut milk and fried bananas are among my favorites. My wife likes an exotic gelatin they serve.  They also serve fresh fruit.

There are a lot of places in Tulsa that serve a good meal.  Bangkok is consistently rated among the best restaurants in Tulsa and is frequently rated the best Thai restaurant.  But, it takes more than good food to keep people coming back year after year.  Bangkok has that something extra.  People keep coming back not only because of the good food but also because the owners, Pat and Lek, are just really nice people.  After you have been there a time or two, the place is almost like home.

Another Night On the Homefront ......

Around 11:45 last night, Sheila shook me awake. She excitedly said that someone was ringing the doorbell.  We don't normally have visitors at 11.45 at night.  I didn't bother to dress.  I grabbed my weapon and headed for the door.  As I approached the door, I racked a round into the chamber.

I heard a voice from the outside yell urgently, "He's got a gun."  I cautiously looked out the tiny viewing window in the door and could seen nothing but flashlights in my eyes.  They were yelling "Police."  I yelled back that we were calling the police now.  I then yelled at Sheila to call 911.  Then one of the voices behind the flashlights yelled back, "We are the police," and lowered his flashlight enough for me to see his uniform.  Their guns were drawn.

When I saw enough of the uniform and badge to verify that it actually was the police, I yelled "I am putting my weapon down now.  I am going to put some clothes on and you can come in."  A few seconds later as the officer entered, I told him that my weapon was lying on the table near the door. He very politely asked my permission to clear the weapon while they were in the house.

I asked the polite young officer to come into my office while I got the information he needed. The two new construction houses just south of us had been burgled again.  They needed the name of the property owner so that he could secure the property.

There had been two suspects. One got away into the neighborhood.  The other, a druggy looking white guy in this twenties, was banging his head against the prisoner shield in one of the half dozen or so police cruisers lined up down our street.   Before he left, the young officer reminded me to reload my weapon since you never know when you might need it again.

This situation played out exactly as it needed to for both sides.  The fact that someone yells "police" at your front door should not cause you to stand down.  Ghetto thugs regularly yell "POHLICE" to keep you from shooting through the door while they kick through it.  On the other hand, the police had no idea whether or not one of the suspects they were looking for had invaded our home or if we were drug dealers, terrorists or just crazies.  There are two lessons here:  (1) don't over react but also don't stand down until you have positive identification and (2) always call 911.

Burgled Again!!!!!!

We got back from the farm about two hours ago.  The farm house had been burgled again.

The last time we were there, Sheila was stung several times by red wasps who had made a nest inside the wall by the back door.  They were extremely aggressive and actually chased her out into the yard as she was stepping out the door.  I am allergic to wasp stings.  So, when I saw that she was safe in the car with the windows rolled up, the blasted things still buzzing around trying to get to her, I closed that door from the inside and left by the other door.  But, in that process I could not lock all of the deadbolts as I normally do.  The burglar apparently gained entry by slipping the doorknob lock on the front door since there were no visible signs of forced entry.


This visit started with me advancing on the door with a can of wasp spray.  I quickly filled the hole where the wasps had taken over the wall but then noticed that there was another nest at the top of the door between the storm door and the inner door.  It was nearly a third as the wide as the door,  I dispatched them as well.

When we finally got into the house, we noticed a dining chair sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor.  We never leave furniture sitting out of place since we never know when we may have to come in in the dark. Rural electric service is not as reliable as we would like for it to be. Then I noticed that the globe of the ceiling fan light was sitting on the kitchen table and that half of the paddles from the fan were missing.

Insult turned to injury when Sheila discovered that one whole electrical circuit in the house had apparently burned out.  We still had power to the receptacles but all of the overhead lighting and fans were dead.  The "person" who had apparently been staying there had obviously damaged the ceiling fan and then left it running unbalanced until it shook itself to pieces and burned out the wiring in the ceiling in the process.  Lord knows what it will cost to have it repaired and it's a miracle the place didn't burn down.

After sorting that out for a moment, we began the regular routine of sweeping and dusting.  It's amazing how much dust an empty, sealed up house can accumulate.  But, it's always been like that when you live on a dirt road. It gets into everything even through closed windows and doors. We always clean house as soon as we get there.  But this time, we also found that our rodent friends had been back and apparently had a party.  There was a huge pile of dried rat dung in the corner near one of the easy chairs.  By that time, I was so angry that I just locked the place up and we came back to Tulsa.

As I was leaving, the challenges of keep the old house semi open came back to me in spades.  A few summers back, Rural Electric cut our power off over a fifteen buck billing dispute without telling us, ruining hundreds of dollars worth of frozen food.  We arrived ready to spend the 4th of July in the country only to find that not only did we have no power and it would cost a lot of money to get it turned back on but we also had a refrigerator and freezer full of rotten meat that had to be cleaned up.

Then I remembered that the water district recently doubled our rates so that they could fund service to new homes in a nearby township.

It then came to mind that a little over a year ago, the house was burgled and several irreplaceable firearms that had belonged to my parents were stolen.

And now this.

Sheila and I decided against retiring to Sequoyah County for several reasons.  I intend to keep on working part time in retirement but the only time people down there call their lawyers is to get a divorce or when they get arrested, two areas of the law I avoid like the plague. The health care, even in nearby Ft. Smith, is a generation behind Tulsa and Oklahoma City and is no better than many third world countries in the small towns.  One of my cousins died of heart attack in the waiting room of one of their major hospitals while they argued about his insurance coverage.  Another family member was mis-prescribed a drug which destroyed his immune system nearly killing him immediately and almost certainly contributing to his premature death.

Local government down there can be simply  astonishing at times.  For a while, the village justice of the peace was working through his own DUI charges.  A nearby township made national news when it was learned that most of the city's income came from traffic tickets and that they were stopping passerby's on the portion of I-40 that passed through their city limits.  And, can you imagine a public utility in an urban area getting away with doubling their rates on their existing users to fund new construction for new homes in new neighborhoods that weren't even built at the time of the tax increase? In the real world, real estate developers have to pony up for the infrastructure costs for their developments not the rate payers.

And the crime.  This is not Tulsa style crime.  Too often, it is petty, bone assed poor, not a pot to pee in, meth everywhere, stealing from your neighbors or destroying things just for the hell of it crime.

My uncle gave up preserving his old house down the road a generation ago because of this petty BS. I guess nothing much has changed since.

A Country Funeral

Early yesterday morning, we once again made the sad journey back to Sequoyah County to attend a funeral.  A close family member and dear friend's husband had passed suddenly while on vacation.

It was a simple graveside service marked by great dignity and compassion. Around two hundred people gathered and stood under the trees in the gentle Oklahoma morning to mark the passing of a good man. Family members, friends and local business people all gathered to pay their final respects.

He was laid to rest in the perfectly manicured family plot of one of that small village's most prominent families.  The plot is surrounded by giant, native oak trees and sits in the shadow of venerable old Pine Mountain.

The sermon, while handled with great tact, was powerful. At the request of the family, the Gospel was presented and an invitation offered.  As the invitation was offered, the quiet of the otherwise still morning was suddenly broken by a gentle, steady wind in the treetops. a sign of the movement of the Holy Spirit to the faithful.  After the sermon, two people quietly announced to the pastor that they had made spiritual decisions.

After the service, we were invited to lunch at a nearby church.  When we arrived, a banquet room had been been set up for us with real china, silver, stemware and cloth napkins.  The meal was as good as any caterer could have provided.  After we ate, an incredibly talented eleven year old family member sang for us.   I was so impressed with her performance that I gave her the ukulele that I carry around in the car to play at odd moments. She was extremely grateful and several sweet, little girl hugs were offered.  Her smile alone was worth the trip.

As I looked around the room, I couldn't help but marvel at the group.  The majority of the crowd consisted of four generations of the same family.  There were successful business people, respected athletes, long time educators and three generations of girls who sang like angels from the cradle  ... a host of good, solid, small town folks, all the progeny of one man and one woman.

I remember that man and woman fondly.  In quiet moments, I can still see them in my mind, him sitting in his chair reading his Bible and smoking his pipe after work, her in the kitchen turning out meal after fabulous meal for her hungry brood and whoever else was around at mealtime.  It was a humble home but a solid one.  It was a pious home but a fair one.  He was not afraid to apply the principles of the Bible to the backside of his sometimes rambunctious offspring and she was not afraid to the apply the same biblical principles to soothe ruffled spirits and mend broken hearts.

As I drove up the turnpike on the way back to Tulsa, a deep, deep anger built within me. How dare the United States Supreme Court equate the filthy things that two homosexuals do to each other with the blessed, holy, marital union that those two godly people shared.  Adam and Steve will never produce four generations of the most solid people in a community. Ellen and Elaine will never bless multiple generations by being Godly people.  Nature itself will not allow it. That is why that until just a few years ago, the things that homosexuals do to each other were truthfully called "crimes against nature."

Make no mistake.  If America does not rise up and crush the cultural jihad against marriage being waged by the homosexual rights movement, our nation, our culture and even our families are doomed and gatherings like we attended yesterday will die with our generation.

Bill and Sheila Face the "New Normal"

Yesterday was "Tulsa Pride Day."  I have never understood why parading your sexual preference around the streets is a cause for pride especially when the behavior is shameful.  I had no reason to know that it was Tulsa's "Pride" day until I left the house. But then it hit us like a ton of bricks.

We stopped in a neighborhood eatery to split a sandwich for lunch.  In the corner was a slightly built, sixty-ish black man wearing perfectly ironed jeans and a rainbow hued tee shirt.  He was eating alone. The polished delicacy of his hand movements as he oh so diffidently pushed away the remainder of his meal spoke volumes about his opinion of the establishment, their food and the people around him.  He was quiet and dignified and the exquisite disdain he showed for the food and his humble surroundings harked back to a different era of more genteel, less in your face "gayness."

The next table up from him was another matter. A very well dressed and dignified little blue haired lady was apparently having lunch with her son.  The meeting was obviously strained.  The man was in his forties.  His shorts were a little too short and his manner was nervous.  He had brought a touch screen laptop with him to use as a crutch in the long silences over their food.

At a table near the front door there was a tallish young man with beautifully groomed auburn hair arranged in a perfect chignon on the upper rear of his head.  He completed the look with two large, different colored, ring shaped, plastic ear inserts that distended his ear lobes and multiple nose, lip and face piercings.

The grocery store was a circus.  In the dairy section, a twentyish young man lounged on the shoulder of his taller and heavier built twentyish "partner."  The smaller man was dressed in perfectly rolled up cut offs and a pair of high top basketball shoes.  The tilt of his hips was worthy of a  high school cheerleader.

Several "butched up"couples roamed the aisles but those have become so common in midtown Tulsa that they are part of the landscape.  But, the queen of aisles had to be the gal (or at least it looked like a gal) in the sarong.  She was a big gal but the weight was well distributed and the ample curves were all in the right places.  She wore a bright, red, orange, yellow and green colored, tropical print sarong crossed in the front and tied behind her neck halter fashion and a pair of matching sandals.  From what I could tell, that was all she wore.

Even QuikTrip proved interesting.  As Sheila went in to get our afternoon coke, a fascinating couple entered behind her.  Though they were both good sized people, he was shorter than her.  He wore jeans, a sun hat and comfortable shoes, the usual uniform of a middle aged festival goer.  He had a subdued manner about him.  He followed a step or so behind her.  She stood a head taller than him and wore a pair of overalls and flat, lace up sneakers. Her face would have been perfectly at home on a Marine Corps DI and her carefully gelled silver crew cut would have passed a military inspection anywhere. I stopped myself before letting my mind wonder about the sexual dynamics of that duo.

As we drove home, I thought about how much society is trying to tell us that this is the "new normal." As I pondered it all, I came to a conclusion.  The "new normal" isn't and there is nothing there to be proud of.

Bill and Sheila Eat Out ... A Lot

  

Thursday afternoon, Sheila e-mailed me and said, "I need to go to the airport and I want you to take me."  Not knowing whether she was running away to Rio or meeting an incoming VIP, I shot back, "Sure."  Turns out she just needed to get a ticket for her boss and American Airlines, ever being American Airlines, would not let him redeem his frequent flyer vouchers on an e-ticket purchase and demanded instead that somebody come out in person and buy the ticket from the ticket counter.  So, I dropped her off at departures and waited in the cell phone lot while she satisfied American's demands for bureaucracy and a trip to the airport so their paper could be seen by one of their denizens.  

As we left the airport, I suggested we eat out, thinking we might stop at the Freeway Diner or maybe grab some carryout Chinese.  Sheila responded quickly, "I want to eat at the White River Fish Market."  The White River Fish Market is a Tulsa legend.  It is located on North Sheridan Road near the airport and is famous for serving nothing but the freshest seafood possible, literally either fresh caught locally or fresh off the airplane from the coasts.  Nothing is ever frozen. But, it is expensive.

Sheila ordered frog legs and I had the catfish, two of the lower priced entrees.  Our check was still in the mid thirties.  I can't speak for the frog legs since I don't/won't eat them. But, my catfish was very good.  Very fresh, lightly battered and cooked in a very clean oil that left no taste to detract from the delicate flavor of the catfish.  The sides were just OK but the hush puppies are the best in town.  So, was the meal good?  Yes, very good.  Was it worth thirty five bucks?  Probably not.  There are a dozen places in town that do very good catfish for less money.

One gentleman about my age was entertaining a party of about ten, obviously family members  As he walked by our table, he looked at his credit card, then looked at me and said, "I might as well throw this one away.  That maxed it out."  Given that he was wearing a windbreaker from a very nice country club and designer jeans, I doubt that the cost of the evening was going to cause him to lose any meals.  But, given that his folks looked like they would probably order from the upper end of the menu, I can understand his frustration.

Friday afternoon, our friends Pam Edwards and Wayne Elliot called and asked if we wanted to go out to dinner later.  Since it was (1) our turn to pick up the check, (2) Pam likes sushi and (3) I had no intention of paying twenty bucks a saucer for raw fish rolled up in rice, I suggested that we drive up to Claremore to Asiana which has a very good sushi bar as part of its dinner buffet. Asiana is a very busy place and in some ways it is, as Wayne observed, the upscale Asian equivalent of a Golden Corral.  But, I also noticed that everyone at our table seemed to be enjoying the food given the quantities that were consumed.

We had a good visit on the way up and back.  Wayne usually drives Cadillacs and Lincolns and had never ridden in a Hyundai.  He seemed genuinely surprised that it was fast, quiet and comfortable.  On the way back we made tentative plans to do a murder mystery weekend together over in Guthrie in a few weeks.

Saturday, though we only needed a few groceries, Sheila wanted to go to a Wal Mart SuperCenter since the really big ones stock her favorite brand of undies at a very good price.  We headed out for the one at the eastern edge of  Broken Arrow near the Creek Expressway.  On the way, we stopped  for lunch at JK's Thai Buffet near Lynn Lane.  JK's is a small place with a tiny buffet line. But, every dish is freshly prepared and the food is very, very good.  They concentrate on the basics, rice, pad thai, satay chicken and pork with peanut butter sauce, steamed vegetables, cooked and uncooked spring rolls, creamy chicken and potato curry and that wonderful Thai beef.   It was a very good lunch and I didn't want much dinner.

As we were driving home Friday night, Wayne observed, "Bill, you certainly know where all of the good places to eat are in this town."  Well, I may not know them all, but I know a bunch and Sheila and I tend to frequent them I guess.