A couple of years ago I flew in the simulator at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City. I heard two bangs and the pilot  said we are going to simulate a landing with two blown tires. Later in the week I was on a flight from Dallas to Tokyo. As we took off I heard two bangs, bangs. The pilot announced we had blown two tires. We circled the airport, dumped fuel and landed safely. Bang, bang.

I will also remember my first trip from New York City to Oklahoma. I was picked up at Will Rogers Airport in Oklahoma City, which resembled a bus station with a runway. I was then driven to Norman, but my host got lost and we ended up on a gravel road. I wondered what I had gotten into. After 38 years at the University of Oklahoma I have traveled a long road but interesting one.

Violence has played a central part in my studies. The reality of violence and politics and chaos forcefully came home when I was in Bali after the attempted Indonesian coup of 1965. I was stopped on a road leading to a burning village by a groups of peasants armed with bamboo spears. I asked if the people of the village were communists. His answer was chilling. “No they are devils.”

My sister Siddanta was married to a leading political figure Rishekeh Shaha. A Rana Princess, when she was in New York when her husband was Ambassador to the United Nations she took a course on hair dressing. When she returned home she opened up her own salon behind her house. All the wives of the leading political figures went to it. Siddhanta simply said, “They talk about this and that.” In reality the gossip was often politically charged. Siddhanta therefore became a one woman C.I.A. She knew everything that was happening in the Kingdom.

I was conducting a simulation on the fair grounds of a medium sized town near a Strategic Air Command Base. The state and local tactical teams were out in force and continually engaged in rappelling off a wall. Their skills had nothing to do with the exercise. I guess they just enjoyed the challenge. I was observing events from a car that was parked across from the barricaded area when a rider less horse proceeded to race down the road between my vantage point and the building where the “terrorist” held the “hostages.” A local sheriff stopped his car and asked me had a seen a horse. In true Oklahoma fashion I said, “He went that away.” Totally oblivious to what was taken place he “peeled rubber” and went after the errant horse. The Wild West had come to my simulation.

My uncle who retired as a Rear Admiral had a treasure trove of War Two mementos including shrapnel from a bomb that nearly hit the ship he was commanding. I always enjoyed seeing “The Admiral’s” collection. I was the only one who called him uncle. He married late in life to a wonderful woman Edie. I remember going to his apartment after the marriage and there was a remarkable transformation. All the mementos were gone replaced by landscape scenes and pink walls. I was definitely a feminine transformation of a bachelor pad. I asked my uncle about it. He raised his eyebrows and said, “don’t ask’” and I didn’t.