Tulsa, 1981

The Interurban Bar and Grill, Tulsa, 1981.

The news department would decamp to the good side of downtown after the 6, slide some tables together and drink and eat and bitch until 10 or so.

Hardly anyone at the table was from Tulsa originally. I was from OKC, Patrice from Ames, Anita from somewhere in Missouri and Forrest from Wichita. TV news is basically a profession for drifters and rootless people, and no place for anyone who wants a life. Reporters and photographers and producers move from station to station, town to town, two years here, eighteen months there. Working their way up, market to market, hoping for the network or the top ten.

Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street" was one of the songs on the Interurban's cassette deck.

Winding your way down on Baker Street
Lite in your head, and dead on your feet
Well another crazy day, you drink the night away
And forget about everything

It was easy to adopt that as an anthem. We weren't just listening to it – we were living every line of it.

This city desert makes you feel so cold
It's got so many people but it's got no soul
And it's taken you so long to find out you were wrong
When you thought it held everything

You used to think that it was so easy
You used to say that it was so easy
But you're tryin, you're tryin now
Another year and then you'd be happy
Just one more year and then you'd be happy
But you're cryin', you're cryin now

Forget about "Dirty Laundry." This is the song about the life of a TV reporter.

Way down the street there's a light in his place
You open the door, he's got that look on his face
And he asks you where you've been, you tell him who you've seen
And you talk about anything

He's got this dream about buying some land
He's gonna give up the booze and the one night stands
And then he'll settle down, to a quiet little town
And forget about everything

Forrest and I had this idea that someday we'd find someplace where we could just sit in the evening and talk. Just hold forth. We finally decided places like that just didn't exist anymore.

But you know he'll always keep moving
You know he's never gonna stop moving
Cause he's rolling, he's the rolling stone
And when you wake up it's a new morning
The sun is shining, it's a new morning
And you're going, you're going home

Twenty-five years later, Patrice is in Los Angeles, still doing TV news. Forrest is in Kansas, practicing law. I don't know what became of Anita, to whom I sent many emotionally overwrought letters, but I saw her name listed on a web site among a group of speakers at a 'Prayer Prophecy Conference' in the Missouri Ozarks. (Nothing will put out a long-carried torch faster than that, lemme tell ya.)

And tonight, I'm sitting at the Red Cup. Holly is playing "Misty." Rena is reading a book in the next room. John Long and Lesley are talking next to me. Mikey is downloading a Linux distro onto his laptop. Brian is stretching his legs and watching.

I'm home.