I've noticed....

I arrived in Oklahoma City on Autumnal Equinox, 2009.

In a couple of weeks, Vernal Equinox 2010 will mark half a year since I moved away from everything and everyone I'd ever known, and came here....to redefine "home."

In those 6 months, I have noticed a LOT of things that are different about Oklahoma. Different from Illinois. Different from the "suburbia" I knew. Different from the north.

Most obvious are the things like it takes numerous trips to multiple agencies to get licensed to do everything from drive a car, to run a business ( I think I've ranted sufficiently about those issues in other blog posts!), and that people here talk funny.

They say stuff like "Do what?" instead of "pardon me?" Yeah. Do what. What IS THAT?

They swallow the "laho" in OKLAHOMA, and, instead, pronounce the name of their state (or city) "Okloma."

They call bags "sacks," and grocery store baggers "sackers," and pop "coke," and they listen to a LOT of country music, and sound all southern-like in their general speech patterns. They hang out at boot scootin' clubs, and ride bulls at bars, and party hard at places that are actually called "saloons."

There are drunk men falling down on street corners in the middle of the afternoon....I NEVER saw that, even in the big city of Chicago!

They say stuff like "It's fixin' ta rain," or "I got outta there right quick!"

You can actually see COW BOYS...actual cow boys....walking down the street. Wearing cowboy hats, boots, dusters, and spurs.

Sometimes, coming home from the nursing home, I'd see them riding along the side of the road, too.

No lie! I guess that's why the cowboy hall of fame is located here.

Those cowboys also eat at local restaurants, and shop at the same stores as me....wearing their cowboy hats everywhere...and for real!

Driving along, you can be going along a stretch of businesses, and there, right in the middle, is a big patch of land with cattle or horses on it, and a pump jack or two.

Pump jacks are all OVER the place.

Pump jacks are those things that I remember seeing in Looney Tune cartoons as a kid, representing "oil country..." Those giant things that look like the "drinking bird" novelty toys we had when we were kids.

Let's see...what else?

They don't wash their cars or trucks, here either.

Dave says that's because we really ARE "in the middle" of nowhere here, and thus, the cars and trucks that I see that are COVERED in red dirt must be vehicles belonging to people who live on farms, or along dirt roads. "You don't have to go very far to find that's how most folks live around here...."

Okay...say what you will, Dave...but it still strikes me as strange that someone who parks his or her filthy white sports car in the same urban apartment complex parking lot every day "MUST live out in the country" where the red dirt cakes up on the car so heavily that it falls off in chunks......
just sayin.'

Given that, I think it's a fact that they literally worship the red dirt here. Not that that's a bad thing...but I DO like to get my car washed from time to time....

Every other vehicle on the road here is a pick up truck. They make trailers out of the back ends of old pick up trucks, and pull those behind newer pick up trucks.

There are lots of classic cars, too....which are in great shape, because they don't use salt on the roads here in winter like they do back home.

Every block has it's pawn shop. At least, outside of the more affluent areas. Pawn shops RULE....there is one on the way to my chiropractor's office whose sign boasts "We buy broke gold!"

YEE HAW!

Businesses have "no firearms" symbols on their doors, right next to the "no smoking" symbols.

This is a "conceal/carry" state. People go to the grocery store armed. They're not allowed to carry their weapons into certain types of businesses, though, so those emblems are on the doors of such establishments, like the one where I work.

Yep.

Not only are there swarms of great tailed grackles (that I have previously mentioned are from outer space), but there are also robins in winter, and huge flocks of cedar wax wings!

I used to get excited back home when I would see a robin in March, or 2 or 3 cedar wax wings at a time....yesterday, there were about 40 wax wings in a flock that landed in the tree just down from where my car was parked.

Let's see...what else.... There are "neighborhoods" that appear in the middle of relatively nice areas that are so completely trashed out as to be worse than ANYTHING I ever saw in the slums around Chicagoland.

People LIVE like that! In tiny shacks, and I DO mean TINY, one bedroom homes, with broken windows, that have not been painted since the 50's, with mattresses, cinder blocks, gutted lawn mowers, rusted autos, broken swing sets, faded big wheels, old couches, tractors, and dogs on their front lawns.
They sit, toothless, on broken chairs on front stoops, chewing tobacco, and spitting on themselves.

It's BIZARRE how people live in some of these areas.

There are also parts of town that are simply not safe for a white woman alone to travel through. Period. I am not prejudiced, but it's a true, sad fact.

There are parts of town where broken down businesses, with over grown parking lots, and faded signs, go about business as usual.....though, driving by on a Sunday, you'd assume they had been out of business for decades.

On the other side of the coin, there are the uber affluent areas, where old money lives. Mansions, oil barons' estates, and huge, gated properties are featured in these parts of town.

Surrounding these neighborhoods, there are trendy restaurants and bistros, upscale florist shops, and other expected types of businesses....none of them appearing to be "out of business" when no one's there, like in the other parts of town.

Downtown OKC is something else entirely. You can easily approach downtown on the weekend, and face NO traffic, because it's a grave yard! There are NO restaurants, or shops, or boutiques, or theaters.....downtown is strictly business. It rolls up it's sidewalks at 5 pm, Monday through Friday, and has nothing going on at all on weekends.

Beautiful old buildings, and NOTHING GOING ON! IT's WEIRD!!

Bricktown, and Cowtown, however are a different story. These are areas of OKC that have been redeveloped to attract tourists, and locals, alike, to their restaurants, shops, and sights.

Thank GOODNESS for these areas of town, which give us options for "date night," and for the longed for visits from far away loved ones.

The disparity of one area to the next within the same city limit is probably, in part, brought about by the fact that Oklahoma City is HUGE in area. It's a gigantic metro area that could PROBABLY be broken up into several suburbs.

The stray animal population here is out of control, but the people seem to be used to it. There was a wild dog that attacked someone who worked at the nursing home while I was there. I'd seen him in the parking lot outside my office window. He was a pit bull.

Then, a week or so later, he was dead by the side of the main road near the nursing home. His body laid there for WEEKS before it was either picked up by the city, or carried off by coyotes.

Wild dogs roam everywhere.

Our apartment complex is overrun with wild cats. They piss all around my porch, because they've discovered my indoor cat, and they shit on the grass. Several of the residents here put out food and shelter for them, and the management does nothing to curtail it.

There seems to be a different attitude here about feral dogs and cats.

That's about all I can think of at the moment...I warned you that this was going to be a long post!

Maybe some of you will come down here and visit some time...and form your own impressions of this new home of mine, in the wild wild west, that's sort of the south.....


p.s. I forgot to mention the strip clubs.....strip clubs ABOUND....literally....there are tons of them. Where do they find enough financially desperate women who are willing to demean themselves?