I am an Okie

May 21, 2013 — oil, Okie, Oklahoma

I was born in Tulsa in 1951, and although I moved to Pennsylvania when I was 4, I visited Oklahoma many times in my childhood.  When the musical Oklahoma came out in 1955 I was thrilled and learned the words and music to sing ad infinitum.  I was the soundtrack of some of my best years. I identified with my Oklahoma birthplace which was reinforced by frequent visits, and visiting Tulsans at our home in Pittsburgh.  My parents hung out and had musical hootenannies with other petroleum engineer friends from Tulsa who had come to PA like my dad, to specialize in fracking for Gulf Oil.  They brought much of their Okie lifestyle with them including Woody Guthrie, hickory chips and barbecue.

I went to Tulsa and drove all over the state a few years ago on my first  ancestry discovery trip.  I did feel very at home, although perhaps not in political alignment with the population. I particularly loved the grapes at the farmers market that reminded me of the grapes my grandpa grew when I was very young.  While driving with my uncle to Bartlesville I asked as a joke what we do in case of a twister.  He said we jump out of the car and hide in a drainage culvert.  I started noticing how infrequently these culverts were there on the side of the road, and started having thoughts of vulnerability.  I imagined hustling my fairly nimble but old uncle out of the car and into the ditch to save our lives and I just did not like that idea at all. I made it back and forth across Kansas and Oklahoma without incident, but did find graves and documents from my ancestors who lived through the dust bowl. I respect and admire those Boomer Sooners and pioneer petro peeps who formed the history of the Cherokee Strip and my family tree.  I am sad that my fellow Okies are suffering so much natural disaster and destruction in their lives.  Although I still feel the pride of being from Oklahoma, I know I could not handle living with the terror of tornadoes in my territory.  I have adjusted to wildfires and floods here in Arizona as my natural disasters of choice. I wish the state of my birth a full and speedy recovery.