benandsteve.com

“Within an hour and a half everyone was a ten!”

By Benjamin Groff II GroffMedia© | benandsteve.com | ©2026

October 14, 2026

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This morning’s coffee takes us back to a time long ago. If you remember it, good for you. For most of us, there are a few parts missing.

It was a time when the rules were more of a suggestion, and the law was applied with a light touch. I know. I was the one applying it.

So pour yourself a cup, folks. We’re going back to the Habana—where the drinks were strong, the characters were unforgettable, and the details sometimes depended on who was doing the remembering.

It was the early 1980s, and another celebration was underway at the Habana Inn in Oklahoma City. Around that place, it sometimes seemed as though there was something to celebrate every day.

Then came a bomb threat.

Calls went to the hotel and the police and fire departments. The caller provided enough detail to raise serious concerns, and the decision was made to evacuate the property. Shows were taking place that afternoon, and drag queens were everywhere. Hotel employees began directing guests toward a parking lot across from the northeast corner of the hotel.

The manager was a short, feisty man whose name I can no longer recall. He was of retirement age, and he expected people to listen when he spoke. That afternoon, he made his way around the property telling everyone to leave.

Behind the hotel, near the back swimming pool, he encountered a drag queen who wasn’t inclined to follow his instructions.

He explained that there had been a bomb threat and that she needed to evacuate. She refused. They exchanged words. Then the manager pulled out a can of mace and sprayed her.

Her makeup began running down her face, and her reaction left little doubt about how badly it burned. But she wasn’t backing down. She pulled off a high-heeled shoe and took off after him.

Across the street, KOCO-TV had a camera crew filming the evacuation for the evening news. Suddenly, through the hotel’s front entrance came the manager, running for all he was worth. Behind him came the drag queen, makeup ruined, shoe raised overhead, screaming and cussing.

The folks gathered across the street had plenty to say about that unexpected addition to the afternoon’s entertainment. I don’t remember every remark, but the scene hardly needed commentary.

As I recall, a group of bartenders from the Pipeline—which later became the Finish Line—intercepted her and helped the manager reach safety.

For those who witnessed it, that chase became one of the Habana stories that never quite faded. Among those still around to tell it, I imagine it remains as vivid as ever.

But the laughter is only one part of what I remember.

The manager continued working and living at the Habana until he was found dead one morning in Penthouse B, near the back swimming pool.

Questions circulated afterward. Had someone been with him? Had he suffered a heart attack? Had anything else contributed to his death? People offered theories, but I never learned a confirmed explanation.

His would not be the only death I came to associate with that room.

One of the others was a man I knew well: Larry. I keep the last name to preserve the privacy for the family.

Larry was a bail bondsman, a reserve deputy with the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office, and the owner of a pawnshop in Del City. You would have been hard-pressed to meet a nicer man.

He also struggled with the distance between who he was and who he believed the world expected him to be. We talked about that. From what I saw, liquor and drugs had become ways for him to cope.

Our friendship did not erase my responsibilities as a police officer. More than once, I told him plainly, “If I ever catch you with drugs, it’s going to be the slammer. I can’t look the other way.”

Then I would get off duty, and we would go browsing through secondhand stores, looking through other people’s discarded treasures.

I sat with him at the Finish Line and had drinks. I also visited him in Penthouse 7, directly above the nightclubs. When the crowds filled the Copa or the Finish Line, you could feel the music through the room: thump, thump, thump. The party downstairs made its presence known upstairs.

Later, Larry moved into Penthouse B.

That room already had a reputation. People said it was haunted, and I didn’t even like going near it. Between Larry’s struggles and my own uneasiness about that room, I feared something would happen. Looking back, that was fear—not knowledge of what lay ahead.

I had been away from the property for a few days. When I returned, the news was everywhere.

They had found Larry.

I was told it appeared he had died in his sleep. I never learned a confirmed cause.

When I think of him now, I remember the man who browsed secondhand stores with me, the conversations we shared, and the kindness that existed alongside his troubles.

There was much more to the Habana than its bars, parties, and penthouses.

Jungle Red was a novelty shop where you could buy gay merchandise, magazines, and items for more private interests. For people exploring a part of themselves they weren’t ready to discuss openly, it offered a place to browse without involving the U.S. Postal Service.

Up a few steps next to the Copa, was a dress shop. Apparently, every respectable gay establishment needed one, and this one offered some impressive selections. If something in the window caught your eye, you asked the attendant at Jungle Red.

Not everyone wanted the pounding music of a nightclub. For those who preferred a quieter evening, there was a martini and piano bar just off the front lobby. It was named the Ledo.

Beside it was a restaurant. Gusher’s. All relating to the Oklahoma Oil Boom. Not the activity taking place at the hotel. I remember the eatery as one of the finest around. On weekends, the place stayed packed well beyond its posted closing time, and it remained busy throughout the week.

A large plate-glass window in the dining room looked south toward the main swimming pool and the surrounding rooms. Guests could sit over a meal and watch people making their way along the walkways above and below.

Naturally, those walks acquired a name: “the walk of shame.”

At the Habana, people sometimes accused others of doing exactly what they had done themselves—at least once, and usually more than twice.

Love stories began there. Others ended there. Sometimes, both happened to the same couple.

It could also be the last place you expected to recognize the handsome athlete from your hometown, especially in circumstances he probably wouldn’t have wanted discussed back in Smallville.

People came out at the Habana. Some did so willingly. Others were recognized before they were ready.

Looking back, I remember the laughter, the music, the friendships, and the freedom people found within those walls. I also remember the loneliness some carried with them, even in the middle of a crowd.

For some, the Habana was a place to spend an evening. For others, it became a home.

And for a few, it was where their lives ended.

For many more, it was where they finally began living as themselves.

The Habana was known as the largest gay resort in the southwestern United States. Just off the property stood a bar originally called Saddle Tramps. Over the years, the name was shortened to Tramps, but I always preferred Saddle Tramps. You needed a saddle to ride out whatever you rounded up in there.

The drinks were usually liquor mixed with a drop of chaser. Ask for a whiskey and Coke, and you’d get three-quarters whiskey, a squirt of Coke, and then a little more whiskey—just in case the Coke had weakened it.

Within an hour and a half, every person in the joint was a ten.

The night wasn’t over. There was a dance club up the street called Angles where you could get your head cleared. Before going back to Saddle Tramps for another drink. Then you’d end the evening at the Finish Line or the Copa. At closing time everyone would spill over to the Lobby where they would either go to the restaurant or end up in the yard square and watch the walks of shame, if they were not walking it themselves. In all of this it was a peaceful event. If trouble makers showed up, a group of bears would take care of them. Escorting them off the property. Of course as security, we’d watch to make sure nothing got out of hand.

It was a different time and life was experiencing change. Today, the hotel has changed ownership. There is a book being written on this period. Which I have given written information about the times to the person writing it. I hope those memories live on. Because it was one hell of good time.

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