Oklahoma.....I promised NOT to do this, but can't help myself
My wife and I frequent a Denny's on Speedway here in Tucson, a waitress we never met pulled up and greeted us with a cheery, fluffed up smile, and honeyed up our evening.
After a half hour of butter and wonderfulness, she mentioned her "Daddy" was from Oklahoma and that in a talk with him, she didn't know what a "sooner" was. Daddy chidded me, cause I didn't know that a Sooner was a football team. Daddy said I was dumb.
Hmm...I asked her if daddy knew where Sooner came from. Again, she said it was a football term. I filled her in 1898 land rush, Okies snuck in "afore" hand and cheated. Oh, she said, he don't know that. (no shit, I thought)
You go home and ask him about the derivation of the term, I suggested, only don't tell him you know. Just test him. Five will get you ten, she wins. We talked about travel while she rested at my table.
"Oh, I'd lloovvveeeee to travel, " she swooned. I've been to Oklahoma where my daddy was born. Oklahoma is sooo beeuuutifull.
Oklahoma looks like 300 miles of badland, straight, flat, dank green, no vegetation, humid, dirt roads and all their small towns look like old movie sets. And, they all look the same. Rebel flags fly everywhere, and the state as a whole has never had an economy up to the national level in wages. One year, Tulsa, taken by county had their economy equal to the US in wages, but that was only one year, the rest of the state, including Oklahoma City, languished far behind. America's worst race riot occured there, so bad, the NAACP was founded there.
Tourism? Indians...funny as that is in that the 5 Civilized tribes had running water, a school system, county governmen, sheriffs in all their districts, governing boards, jails, town councils everywhere a mail system and that was in 1866, just one year after the Civil War. Oklahoma was 2 votes shy of becoming the first black state in the union, which, according to my estimation, would have become an improvement over it's current condition.
About five years after my late wife and I arrived there, we were able to leave, freed from that jail and left to flee back to Denver. I will never go back, not even for the promise of gold coins stacked to my waist.
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After a half hour of butter and wonderfulness, she mentioned her "Daddy" was from Oklahoma and that in a talk with him, she didn't know what a "sooner" was. Daddy chidded me, cause I didn't know that a Sooner was a football team. Daddy said I was dumb.
Hmm...I asked her if daddy knew where Sooner came from. Again, she said it was a football term. I filled her in 1898 land rush, Okies snuck in "afore" hand and cheated. Oh, she said, he don't know that. (no shit, I thought)
You go home and ask him about the derivation of the term, I suggested, only don't tell him you know. Just test him. Five will get you ten, she wins. We talked about travel while she rested at my table.
"Oh, I'd lloovvveeeee to travel, " she swooned. I've been to Oklahoma where my daddy was born. Oklahoma is sooo beeuuutifull.
Oklahoma looks like 300 miles of badland, straight, flat, dank green, no vegetation, humid, dirt roads and all their small towns look like old movie sets. And, they all look the same. Rebel flags fly everywhere, and the state as a whole has never had an economy up to the national level in wages. One year, Tulsa, taken by county had their economy equal to the US in wages, but that was only one year, the rest of the state, including Oklahoma City, languished far behind. America's worst race riot occured there, so bad, the NAACP was founded there.
Tourism? Indians...funny as that is in that the 5 Civilized tribes had running water, a school system, county governmen, sheriffs in all their districts, governing boards, jails, town councils everywhere a mail system and that was in 1866, just one year after the Civil War. Oklahoma was 2 votes shy of becoming the first black state in the union, which, according to my estimation, would have become an improvement over it's current condition.
About five years after my late wife and I arrived there, we were able to leave, freed from that jail and left to flee back to Denver. I will never go back, not even for the promise of gold coins stacked to my waist.
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