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When I was 14, in 1974, I went to Philmont Scout Ranch, which was a superb experience. About 30 or so scouts went by chartered bus, basically driving straight through from Bloomington, Indiana to Philmont, near Cimarron, New Mexico.

Somewhere in the middle of the night/very early morning we stopped at a bus station in Oklahoma city. It was almost entirely deserted. We had some time to kill, I don't recall the reason, whether we were changing drivers or what. We sat around on the ground floor, most of us snoozing, until it was time to get back on the bus.

After awhile I needed to go to the bathroom, which was downstairs. The stairway leading down was very wide, at least 20', built to handle a lot of people. Turned out to be a good thing it was so wide. The stairway was some distance from my group of scouts. As I got to the top of the stairway I vaguely noticed there was some guy sitting all by himself off to the side. I went down the right side of the stairs, and about half-dozen steps down I realized that he had just gotten up and started to come down the stairway as well. This struck me as very odd and not good. I immediately executed a large U-turn to the other side of the stairway and walked rather purposefully back up. Decided I could "hold it" for now. I think he came back up the stairway very shortly there after but my memory is fuzzy on this point. I do remember very clearly thinking "This Is Not Right" and changing course immediately.