Member-only story
Random Thoughts After Driving Two Hours to Lose Money to the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma
A Mayberry Chronicles-adjacent story
For two decades after they retired, my parents went to a casino either in Louisiana or Oklahoma at least once every couple weeks. Sometimes they would make a mini-vacation of it, hitting several of the casinos in southern Oklahoma over a four-day period. My mom rarely won, my stepdad almost always did, and I never could convince her that since Texas is a community property state, half of what he won was legally hers anyway.
When she got sick in January of 2023, the trips to the casino abruptly stopped; she never went to another before she passed in January of this year. About a week after we received her ashes, in an effort to distract him for even a little while, I suggested a quick trip to the casino (he had talked about it all last year but refused to go without her). He loved the idea, and over the past few months we have made the run just across the Red River three or four times.
On previous trips I have been too focused on the road to pay much attention to the scenery along the way, but for some reason today’s brief jaunt was different. I noticed things both during the journey and at the casino I had not before, and these observations will make up this sidebar to my ongoing…
