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Oral History: Jon Horinek

Description:

Jon Horinek talks about growing up in Duncan, Oklahoma and traveling around the state.

 

Transcript:

Interviewee: Jon Horinek 
Interviewer: Amy Russell 
Interview Date: 11/4/2007 
Interview Location: Unknown, possibly Oklahoma City Community College 

 

Amy Russell: I’m Amy Russell and today I will be interviewing Jon Horinek.  Hello, Jon. 

Jon Horinek: Hi Amy.  Thanks for having me. 

AR: Sure.  Can you tell me a little bit about yourself? 

JH: Sure.  I was born in May of 1980 in Duncan, Oklahoma, which is – it’s not a small town.  It’s medium-sized, but it kind of felt like a small town.  I live here in Oklahoma City now.  I’ve lived in Lawton and Oklahoma City, but I’ve been in Oklahoma all my life, all 27-plus years. 

AR: Tell me a little bit about what your bloodline is, so to speak. What do you have in you? 

JH: Well, let’s see.  It’s kind of a mixed bag.  My grandparents on my – my relatives on my father’s side were Czechoslovakian and German.  Not my grandparents, not my great-grandparents, but my great-great grandparents immigrated from Eastern Europe in the mid-1800s, early to mid-1800s.  They came to the U.S. through Galveston, which was an immigration – there were three different places that an immigrant could come into the United States, New York, Galveston, and San Francisco.  My family came in through Galveston, and then they were farmers and they slowly migrated north as the family grew.  Eventually, they ended up in northern Oklahoma in a little town called Newkirk, which is where my grandparents on my father’s side live today.  My grandparents on my mother’s side were, I believe, English and Native American, but I’m not really sure.  I don’t have a lot of extended history on my mother’s side, to be honest.  I don’t have a lot on my father’s side, either.  The majority of the Horineks, and my mother’s maiden name is Wiernicke.  They lived either in southeastern Kansas, southern Kansas, or northern Oklahoma, all farmers. 

AR: Were they farmers in Duncan? 

JH: No.  My dad – well, my grandma, my mother’s mother, Mary Francis and [pause].  I just lost his name.  Anyway, my mother’s mother and my grandpa on that side were both college-educated and they were teachers at Chilocco Indian School, but I’ll talk about that in a minute.  My grandparents, the farmers, had six kids.  My dad was the second to the oldest.  He was the first to go to college from his family and went on to become a mechanical engineer.  My mom went to Oklahoma State.  They both went to Oklahoma State.  My mother went – she was a teacher and is still a teacher in Duncan.  That’s how we didn’t farm when we went to Duncan.  My dad left the farm and really has probably never looked back.  We still occasionally go there.  They’re wheat farmers, primarily, and they have some cattle.  Occasionally we go up there and visit.  When I was little, I would ride the combine.  You know what a combine is?  It’s a machine that basically cuts the wheat and takes it off the shaft and then you get the kernels.  It’s a really small cab so I fit in it really well when I was little, and we would go up and down the fields cutting the wheat.  I’d ride with my uncle on the tractor and fun stuff like that.  Those are some fond memories of my grandparents, but we didn’t spend as much time with them as I wanted to. 

AR: Are they still alive today? 

JH: Mm-hmm [means yes].  They’re still around, not on my mother’s side though.  Both of my mom’s parents are dead.   

AR: Do you get to go visit them now for certain holidays and such? 

JH: Once or twice a year we make it up there.  I’m older and my brother is older and both of my parents are working and busy, so it’s –  

AR: Do you have one brother? 

JH: Yeah, one brother.  He’s younger.  Duncan was an interesting place to grow up.   

AR: Tell me your fondest memory there. 

JH: My fondest memory of Duncan was probably at home.  When I was little – my brother is eight years younger than I am, so I spent the majority of my early years alone.  I was kind of an only child.  If it’s more than six years between siblings, then you pretty much are another only child.  I spent a lot of time pretending and playing in the woods behind our house and doing all kinds of fun stuff like that.  Playing in the rain.  I had a little raincoat and a hat and everything.  Those were fun times.  I spent a lot of time, especially during elementary – I didn’t have a lot of friends, but I had a lot of creative activities.  I was always pretending or imagining something, or building cities in the sandbox and stuff like that.  Those are fond memories.  I didn’t learn to appreciate Duncan until after I left.  On some degree, I think that that’s part of growing up.  When I went to high school, I really couldn’t wait to get out of Duncan.  [unidentifiable background noise] 

AR: About how big is Duncan? 

JH: It’s about 22,000 people or something like that, so it’s not a small town, but it’s decent-sized.  I couldn’t wait to get out of Duncan.  I went off to college.  I didn’t go very far.  I went to Lawton for Cameron University, which is literally about 24 miles away.  I lived on campus for the first two years and really enjoyed that and kind of grew in that sense.  Really, I probably don’t appreciate what Duncan gave to me and what I was able to take away from the town until now.  A lot of people are, “Would you ever live there again?”  No, probably not.  It will always be my hometown, and our family wasn’t well-connected in the social circles of Duncan.  What you’ve got to understand is in the early ‘80s and mid ‘90s, Duncan had a wealthy upper class, which we were not part of.  It was a lot of old oil money, a lot of rich doctors and lawyers and stuff like that.  There’s some really nice houses in Duncan and there was sort of a class structure in the city, and we were sort of in between.  It was always weird because peer pressure is hard, so when you’re in high school it’s real difficult to find your way.  Middle school and high school, until my junior and senior year, kind of sucked.  [both laugh] I think middle school sucks for everybody, but there are elements of Duncan that I miss.  I miss the downtown.  Duncan’s downtown is real cute and quaint and lots of neat shops and fun stuff like that. 

AR: So it’s fun to visit but not –  

JH: Yeah, I don’t know if I’d ever want to live there again.  It’ll always be home, even though it is sometimes a reluctant home, if you know what I mean.  I think one of the things that a place is so important in who we are.   

My dad got hired right out of college to go work for Halliburton, which has a pretty large home base there in Duncan.  Not anymore.  They’re in Houston now, but they still have a research center and some stuff there.  He was hired and my mother didn’t really want to move.  At first, she thought they were moving to Durant because I think she just got the names confused.  For a long time, she didn’t really – she resented having to move from northern Oklahoma.  Duncan is kind of right on the – southwestern Oklahoma is kind of rocky and mountainous as you get to Lawton and Duncan’s kind of right on what we call the cross timbers.  It’s woody and little bit hilly.  My mom always said that she missed the flat openness of northern Oklahoma.  They moved to Duncan in 1975 right after the Duncan tornado in 1975.  They literally moved right after that.  At the time, the town was really torn up from the tornado.  She wasn’t overly enthused about being there.  My parents built a house and our handprints are in the cement around the house.  My dad liked to lay some cement and he would do sidewalks and stuff.  It’s a two-acre property, so it’s kind of nice and big.  Now she’s like she could never leave because there’s too many memories there.  I think it will always be home, and I think as I grow older, I’ll become a little bit more nostalgic towards it. 

AR: A little bit fonder. 

JH: Yeah.  I mean, it’s not like – I don’t hate Duncan, but I’m not super in love with it either. 

AR: Not anxious to visit all the time. 

JH: No. It’s a unique town. 

AR: So now you call Oklahoma City home. 

JH: I do.  I lived in Lawton for a few years and then moved into Oklahoma City.  I’ve been here for three and a half years. 

AR: What is your degree in? 

JH: My first degree was in journalism, print journalism, and then my Master’s from OU is in Education. 

AR: And you do teach some classes here at O-triple C. 

JH: That’s a new thing for me, teaching.  I really find that I get really passionate about teaching.  I like that a lot. 

AR: Do you think you get that from your mother? 

JH: Well, it’s possible, I suppose.  My grandparents on my mother’s side were both teachers, in a sense.  My grandmother was very independent and strong-willed, and I think I get a lot of that from her and my mother.  I tend to take after my mother.  She, right out of college, my grandmother was in the Navy during World War II as part of the WAVs, which was the women.  At the time, women weren’t allowed on the ships, so there was a woman’s branch of the Navy that primarily did stuff here in the U.S. 

AR: I didn’t know that. 

JH: Mm-hmm [meaning yes].  She worked with the code talkers, which those were I believe Choctaw Indians who would code things during World War II.  They would code the transmissions between ship to ship, and the Japanese couldn’t break that code because it was in their own native language.  She worked with them and helped them learn English.  She did that in San Francisco.   

Then she got a real passion for working with Native Americans and then moved to Arizona and New Mexico and worked on the reservation as a teacher.  She did that for a long time, and then met my grandfather, and then they moved to Oklahoma to what is now north of Newkirk.  It’s called Chilocco Indian School.  It was an Indian boarding school, middle school and high school, I believe.  Native Americans from all over the United States would come to Chilocco to learn.  People have mixed opinions about the Indian boarding school but at the time, the idea was to kill the Indian and save the man, so it was stripping of the culture and all of that.  My grandmother always regretted being part of that.  At the time, she was Dean of Girls at the high school, and then my grandfather was the head chef, head cook, at their dining hall.  What you need to understand about Chilocco is it was its own little self-contained city.  It had a power plant and a sewer and it had a school farm.  They grew a lot of their own food.  They had a police department and school and little hospital and little houses where the teachers and administrators lived.  There were dorms for the people from various tribes.   

My mother always relayed stories to me about how she would meet the busses full of the Indian children from all over the country when they came to school.  She’d play with the children, and she said it was kind of like their own little utopia because everything was taken care of.  It was government property so it was really safe and you could be out all hours of the night.  Until she left Chilocco, she thought that everyone put their sheets and laundry on their front door, and then they magically appeared the next day, pressed and wrapped in brown paper.  [both laugh] My mother was born when my grandma was 42.  In the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, that was pretty much unheard of.  My mom is an only child.  Shortly after, my mom got into high school, my grandparents retired. 

AR: Did your mother go to the Indian school? 

JH: No.  The children of the – it was just for Native Americans so the children of the people who worked there had to go to Newkirk, which was the closest town.  They went to public school there.  My mother met my dad in high school, but that’s how that happened.  My dad went to Newkirk public schools and so did my mother, but she had to bus in. She didn’t actually go to school on the property.  That’s an interesting thing.  I think that my strong-willed nature and my stubbornness sometimes comes from my grandmother and mother.  Definitely from that side. 

AR: It sounds like it.  It sounds like she was very – what she believed in, she –  

JH: My grandmother was very independent, and that’s just kind of how it was and so is my mom. 

AR: Tell me about your brother.  I guess he was – with the age difference, do you have a lot of fond memories of him? 

JH: Yeah.  He swears up and down that I was mean, but I don’t remember a lot of that. 

AR: I can believe that.  [laughs] 

JH: We played together a lot and we had a good time, but again, he was in elementary school when I was in high school.  That distance between us was somewhat difficult.  It’s gotten better now that he’s twenty.  It’s gotten a lot better as we’ve gotten older. 

AR: Does he still live in Duncan? 

JH: No. He’s going to school.  He’s at Cameron.  He’s a sophomore.   

AR: That’s good.  What’s your favorite memory of your parents? 

JH: There are several.  I think my fondest memories was always our vacations, which speaks to the fact that when I was growing up, I wasn’t real fond of my hometown.  We would always do family vacations, go somewhere and do something.  Probably one of the things I’m most thankful for with my parents is when I was in sixth or seventh grade, during the summer, there were a couple of lean years there as a family far as money and flexibility were concerned.  Instead of a trip somewhere to California or something, we did Oklahoma things.  I’m most thankful for that experience because we did things like dig for salt crystals, saw the Heavener Runestone, did Talimena Drive and all those quintessential Oklahoma events.  My parents took me there, and that, I think, is unique because I don’t have the flexibility to do that anymore as much as I would like to.  That’s a fond memory.  My dad is responsible for my obsession with science fiction and Star Trek.  He always watched Star Trek, and as I got older, that’s when Star Trek: Next Generation came out and so we would watch that together.  I think time with the family, time with my dogs, of which we had several, playing with friends – what was the question about my parents? 

AR: A fond memory. 

JH: I can’t narrow down one specific memory.  To be honest, it’s only within the last year or so that I’ve really worked at trying to contextualize my experience because I think when you get older than twenty-five, suddenly there’s not this line that you cross to grow up.  As you get older, you realize that you have to work to keep those memories, and that’s something I’m working on. 

AR: How are you doing that?  Are you making a journal? 

JH: Not really a journal, but I’m trying to relay to other people like you or to friends more about my family and my experience. 

AR: More about you. 

JH: More about me.  I think that’s interesting and important to relay that information. 

AR: So how did you go from Lawton to Oklahoma City?  What made you decide to move here? 

JH: Right after college, I got hired by Cameron to work in the public relations office, which I really enjoyed, but at the time – 

AR: Cameron University? 

JH: Yes. 

AR: Where’s that? 

JH: It’s in Lawton.  At the time, I really wanted to work with students.  While I was working at the college, I really wasn’t working with students.  I was working with administrators, which is fine.  I designed brochures and worked on their website and stuff like that.  Promotions.  I was really – I had started a Master’s program at OU so I was looking for a job that was more in line with what I wanted to do, which was work with students.  That’s when I applied for this job here at Oklahoma City Community College.  One of the things that’s funny is the hiring process at state agencies and specifically O-triple-C, and this is not to say anything bad about the place where I work, but the hiring process is notoriously slow.  I think I interviewed maybe the first part of May, and didn’t get a call until the end of July. 

AR: Wow. 

JH: I had pretty much given  up.  I thought I didn’t get this position, so I was surprised when I was offered it.  Moving to Oklahoma City, I had a lot of friends in Lawton.  That’s what makes – I try to put into context what makes Oklahoma City home, and there are a lot of things I really like about living here, but probably the most important thing is I am close to my family, but also I have a great group of friends here from all walks of life.  We’ve just connected through various ways.  We have brunch every Sunday together, and it may not be the whole group, but it will at least be me and my best friend Michael and several folks who join one weekend and not the next.  I think that their contributions to my life is what makes Oklahoma City home.  Granted, there are a lot of places in the U.S. that I really love.  New Mexico is one of them and so is New York City.  I know that people in previous interviews have said something about feeling home.  Whenever I travel via car, it always feels good to leave our state, get out of dodge, so to speak.  I always remember that there’s something relieving about seeing that “Welcome to Oklahoma” sign when you’re driving back on I-40 from New Mexico or when you fly in or whatever.  It just feels better.  You feel –  

AR: Like you’re coming home. 

JH: Yeah, like you’re coming home.  Do I want to live here?  I don’t know if I’ll be here the rest of my life or if I’ll move.  I don’t know where I’ll go, but I think this will always have that same feeling.  Even if I’m only here twice a year or whatever, it won’t make a difference.  My parents, their love of this state and that love of the state is not unconditional.  My mother is a teacher and so therefore sometimes it’s difficult to live in Oklahoma.  My dad – we do okay.  The thing of the matter is it’s not a love-hate relationship.  It’s like sometimes you disagree with your parents, but you still love them.  I think that sometimes my parents disagree with Oklahoma but still love it.  I feel a lot of the same way.  There’s some things that politically frustrate the hell out of me, and I feel sometimes like we can’t get anywhere.  Then I’m reminded of the unique things, things that are so indigenous to our state, like the sunsets, the lay of the land, things like that, and the people.  I’m reminded of that value.  One thing – [pause].  The story was right on the tip of my tongue and now it’s gone.  Oh, okay.   

Back in the late ‘80s, there was a bill called House Bill 1017.  It was really the first piece of legislation that really tried to address the fact that Oklahoma underpaid teachers and there were other issues involved as well.  My mother, at the time, was teaching third grade.  I think I was in fourth or fifth.  This is probably one of my fondest memories of my mother.  It kind of leads to how I feel politically, at least at this point.  There was a point where in the late ‘80s – I think it was the late ‘80s but it could have been the early ‘90s.  Anyway, the teachers in Oklahoma striked.  The went on strike on a Friday and marched on the Capitol.  My mom took me along, and so I remember we met at the OEA office.  There were hundreds, if not a thousand – there were at least a thousand teachers and some kids.  I wasn’t very tall, so I had little legs.  They gave everybody picket signs and things like that, and I remember picking up the picket sign and marching around the Capitol and chanting.  I don’t remember the chant, but it was really interesting.  I think back on it, to take your child with you to a somewhat – I mean, nobody was really happy that the teachers decided to strike.  The majority of teachers in Duncan went and they cancelled the school.  We marched on the Capitol, and I think that’s such a political thing to experience as a young child, to hold a picket sign.  I’m thankful for that.  I don’t disagree with why we marched on the Capitol.  1017 was a good idea and blah, blah, blah.  I remember walking.  We walked around that thing like three or four times and then went and got a hamburger at Johnnie’s.  It was an interesting day.  That’s one of the most, or probably one of the fondest memories I have, and one of the first memories I have of Oklahoma City.  Granted, the Capitol didn’t have a dome at that time.  It was just flat across the top.  It’s an interesting experience, marching with those teachers. 

AR: You mentioned going on a lot of vacations in Oklahoma.  Tell me your favorite spot, your favorite thing to go do in Oklahoma.  

JH: I’ve always been fond of the Wichita Mountains.  It’s one of the prettiest places, and for awhile, when I was in elementary school, we camped a lot during the summer.  It’s what we call Horinek camping.  It’s not roughing it.  My parents have a little camper and it has air conditioning and heat and a refrigerator.  It’s not sleeping on the dirt, which I’m not particularly fond of.  That’s a unique place to visit because those animals roam free, so we often would wake up in the morning and there’d be a buffalo in the camp ground standing right there.  We had one buffalo who would – he did this twice.  I think it was the same buffalo, but he would rub and scratch himself on the side of the camper.  What sucks is you really have to go to the bathroom in the morning, and you really can’t leave until he decides to move on.  I remember waiting.  It must have been at least twenty or thirty minutes before we could go out.  I really like the Wichita Mountains.  I like Tulsa a lot, with the architecture.  Probably my favorite memory, and something that I think a lot of people don’t do, is we went to Black Mesa, which is not exactly on the way to anywhere.  I remember sticking my hand in the dinosaur track that had been fossilized and things like that.  Those are invaluable experiences that I don’t think a lot of people in this state get to have, and I’m really thankful to my parents for doing that. 

AR: That sounds very interesting.  Tell me.  How do you want people to remember you when you are gone?  What do you think people say about you? 

JH: That’s a good question.  I don’t know.  I mean, I have some core values, like honesty and caring.  We work together, and sometimes I don’t know if you see that or not.  [both laugh] Hopefully you do. 

AR: I do. 

JH: Often when I tease people, it comes off sounding crass, but the truth of the matter is I really do legitimately care about people.  I used to say that I wanted to make a difference, and I do.  I do want to make a difference, but I think on a somewhat smaller scale.  I think that I would want people to say that I had an impact, or that I touched somebody’s life.  I think that’s why I enjoy what I do.  I enjoy what I want to do.  It’s because when we’re able to bring acts to performers or special events to campus, it makes a difference in students’ lives, and I know what a difference it makes in mine.  That’s what I want people to remember me by.   

I don’t think about death a lot.  Thankfully, at this point it’s not an imminent concern, but I think as I get older, I think family becomes more important and friends that I really consider part of my family become more important.  I don’t necessarily want to be missed, but I want to be remembered, and remembered fondly, I hope.  I’m sure there are several people out there who would be glad to see me go. 

AR: Nah [meaning no]. 

[both laugh] 

AR: That just means that they have issues to deal with.  You’re still going to school.  What are you working towards now? 

JH: It’s on the progress to a Ph.D.   

AR: In education? 

JH: Well, no. It’s actually in psychology.  My dad has always said that a Ph.D. means it’s piled higher and deeper.  In other words, crap, or he uses a different word.  I think on some level he always knew I would do that because I only feel complete as a person when I’m learning in some capacity, so I’m always trying to stretch myself a little bit more.  Right now, this is a psychology thing.  They call it a terminal degree, a Ph.D., and I honestly don’t know.  I don’t want two Ph.D.s.  Good Lord.  That would be – I’d be in school forever.  When I finished my Master’s, I was out of school for at least a year and I got bored because I didn’t feel like I was learning or challenging myself or anything like that.  I think on some capacity, it may not be working towards a degree, but I’ll always be learning or trying to learn, trying to do something. 

AR: Expanding your knowledge. 

JH: Yeah, on some level. 

AR: Before we wrap it up, tell me how you personally feel about Oklahoma’s 100th birthday. 

JH: I think part of what makes this project so unique and part of why I’m here is because not only is it that we’re recording something that people can go back and listen to, but it also helps me put into context what my experiences are in this state.  I remember very distinctly when we would go away to another state for vacation, and they would have something unique or fun.  I always said I love it here.  I always say that about places.  There have been a couple of places where I haven’t said that, but most of the time, I really get fond of the place we’re visiting.  I would ask my mother, “Why don’t we have this in Oklahoma?  Why are we not doing this?”  Her answer was always, “We’re just a young state.”  The truth of the matter is we are a young state.  Virginia is having its 400th birthday this year, so there’s a bit of a difference.  As a state, we’re young, but our history goes back a lot further.  I think there is a spirit to being – you almost have to be born here to fully understand it.  It’s not the – and I know you’re from Texas so I’m not going to – it’s not – Texas has an arrogance about it, almost. 

AR: (unintelligible, exaggerated Southern accent).  I consider Oklahoma my home. 

JH: Okay.  That works too.  There’s sort of an ingrained arrogance, and then Oklahoma in general is a little bit different.  I think Oklahomans are no less proud of their state.  Sometimes we wish it could be better, but I think everybody does.  The centennial, I think, is a milestone.  I don’t know if it will be a watershed event for our state, meaning I don’t know if it will usher in a great era of change, but I do think it does show promise.  I can think of nowhere to go but forward.   

Like I said, there is – I often don’t realize how much I love Oklahoma until I leave.  A lot of people say that about New York as well, as far as coming and going.  It’s great to leave but it’s also good to come back, and I think that’s true about Oklahoma.  Do I want to live here the rest of my life?  I don’t know.  Do I want to raise a family here?  I don’t know.  We’ll see what happens.  I know it’s home and I know it’s where I am now.  In a very short 27 years, I have a lot of fond memories of being here, but most of them are attached to my family, and I think that’s in essence what’s important.  Our location, our place, shapes us, so I don’t think I would be the same person I am now if I didn’t live in Duncan or I didn’t grow up there, or if my parents decided to move out of state, or if they didn’t go to college.  All of that stuff contributes to how we live.  That kind of stuff is what’s important.  It’s what I believe in.   

I wish I had – my mother lived in the ‘60s and during integration and so did my dad.  I almost wish that I had another event like that that I could reflect on.  The only thing that is comparable is terrorism.  The Oklahoma City bombing was sort of a watershed event for Oklahoma, a horrible event, but a watershed one nonetheless.  I think up to that point, a lot of people around the country thought that we still lived in teepees and didn’t have running water.  I was in middle school when that happened, and I was in Oklahoma City.  I was in show choir, and we were on a little contest, going to Midwest City for a contest.  I remember listening to Magic 104.1 because I was a nerd.  I remember listening to that on the radio and hearing about a gas explosion in Downtown Oklahoma City, or that’s what they thought it was at first.  I thought, “Oh, that’s not good.”  I remember as we went to Midwest City, we took 240 or something.  We were headed out towards Tinker.  I remember looking Downtown, and you could see the smoke coming up.  I thought that was a pretty big explosion.  We went in and we did the contest and everything.  I don’t think we did very well that day, and then we got back on the bus to head home, and we realized that there was something a little bit deeper and a little bit bigger.  There were a lot of parents who were really concerned about their kids being in Oklahoma City.  My parents weren’t.  [both laugh] I chalk it up to the fact that they’re rational thinking people, and not that they didn’t care.  [both laugh] The truth of the matter is they weren’t really worried.  Those are interesting things to live through, and I think that they’ll probably mean more as I get older.   

The same is true for the May 3rd tornado.  I remember that, distinctly where I was.  I was editor of the high school newspaper.  That was my senior year, so it was just a few days away from graduation.  We were working on the last issue, the senior issue.  I typically had to work late, so I had the TV on and was working up at school and I remember watching that happen in ’99.  9/11, as well.   

I think that what’s difficult about growing up and growing older is that the things that are important in your life, you don’t realize that they’re important until ten, fifteen years later.  Those funny memories like walking around the Capitol for House Bill 1017 or going to work with my dad and exploring the research center, which I always thought was cool, or there were vacations where all we would do is ride trains.  That was mostly for me because I love trains and still do.  Those things are important, but they weren’t important to me until later in life.  I’m sure you can attest to that.   

What’s difficult about this process is the things that I think are important, I don’t think they’re going to interest anybody.  The truth of the matter is I guess it doesn’t really matter, but they’re part of the narrative that makes up me.  I think that that’s somewhat difficult.  My narrative, my story is deeply connected to Oklahoma, and again, I don’t think I’d be the same person if I wasn’t raised where I was raised and had the same experiences. 

AR: Before we wrap it up, is there anything else you want to touch on? 

JH: Not really.  I’m trying to think of some other Oklahoma memories of being here in this state.  I remember going to the Vinita McDonald’s, which is the one that spans the interstate.  It’s supposed to be the world’s largest McDonald’s.  I remember going to that and walking in and thinking that this really is not that impressive.  [both laugh] I thought it looks cool, but they served the same burgers.  I was really little, and I really wanted them to have a special Oklahoma McDonald’s burger, and they really didn’t.  It was just the same old McDonald’s burger.  Those kinds of things seem so silly and trivial now, but I think they make an impact on how you view where you’re from and how you view a place.  I think that’s why it’s important to share those memories. 

AR: Maybe we should send McDonald’s a letter. 

JH: Perhaps.  I don’t think it’s the largest McDonald’s anymore.  I think the one in Russia the one in Times Square or something is the world’s largest, but it’s still an interesting thing that we have a claim to fame for our state. 

-AR: Right.  [laughs] Well, Jon, thank you for taking this time to talk with me, and we’ll talk to you later. 

JH: Thank you. 

 

 

End of interview. 

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