Homestead and Garden, Oklahoma culture, Relationships

Meanwhile, Back on the Ranch: An Oklahoma Girl From Head to Toe

1 Comment

by Julie Allgyer

Tammy and Julie
Tammy stopped by to visit on her way to Oklahoma

There is something special about girls from Oklahoma.  We are…different.

I realized this after browsing through a real estate magazine at a local restaurant and noticing a photo of a girl who went to my high school back in the late 70’s.  She was currently a local real estate agent living about thirty miles from me.  We had not been good friends in high school and didn’t have a junior high slumber party memory to share, but somehow I knew that when I called her, she would remember me.  She did.

Shortly after contacting her, my husband and I were invited to her home for a Sunday lunch.  We had a fabulous time and I have since seen her on several other occasions.  I even stayed overnight at her house (not exactly a slumber party, but it will do) when a two-day workshop took me to her city.  We had dinner and talked about growing up in Chickasha, Oklahoma.

There are many other Oklahoma women who continue to touch my world: an OSU sorority sister bumped into me in the middle of Reading Station in Philadelphia, a classmate stopped by to have a quick dinner while traveling I-40 to a new chapter in her life, a lady at the convenience store wearing an Eskimo Joe’s T-shirt held my place in line, and my former principal, who is hoping to find her way back to Oklahoma, molded me into the writing teacher I am today.  My former principal is also expecting her fifth grandchild, a girl named Preslee, who no doubt will reap the benefits of being raised as an “Okie.”

So here’s to Preslee, who has no idea how lucky she is about to get, and all the other women who qualify.  You know who you are.

An Oklahoma Girl From Head to Toe

Sun-bleached or shiny black locks like a horse’s mane

Lake-blue eyes, or as dark as night on a rural road

When it comes to character, Oklahoma girls reign

With inner and outer strength, they will always carry their load

Lips that whisper a song just when you think you’ve forgotten the tune

Shoulders that can bear the weight of her worries and yours

Beads of sweat on her back from the Oklahoma heat in June

A loving heart beating strong and fast like an eagle soars

Legs that can carry her to her destiny, however long

Feet barefoot or not, walking toward a horizon of blue

Are you looking in the mirror? Do you see someone beautiful and strong?

By birth or at heart, you may be an Oklahoma Girl too

Comments

comments

Oklahoma culture

All That’s Missing is the Tub of Green Plastic Army Men

Sleeping bag, suitcase and overalls: my "treasures" to bring home from Tuttle, America.

This morning I drove to Tuttle, Oklahoma.  My agenda: visit with my parents, say hello to my aunt and uncle, give my grandmother a hug and drive back home.

There is an ongoing ritual between my parents and I.  Most every time I go home, I bring something back that technically belonged to me when I was a child, and is definitely something my parents don’t have the heart to throw away.  I’m 46 years old and the process continues to this day.  Bits and pieces, here and there, trip by trip.  Books, school uniforms, the box with my trophies and medals…get the picture?

Today my treasure pile for the return trip consisted of a circa mid-70s mod flower print sleeping bag, a pair of overalls my mother found at a garage sale (just for the heck of it, these were not from my childhood) and a red, white and blue print pressed cardboard suitcase.  I assumed it was empty.

On the top of the suitcase written in my best childhood cursive penmanship was a blue ink message:  “I like Jeff H. and Mark W.”  Evidently, at that point in my life (which I’m pegging around the sixth grade), I had a hard time deciding which boy to like best so I just “liked” them both.  Apology shout-outs to Jeff Holsey or Mark Whittington if they ever read this post.  Also included in this message was a colored-in arrow and a star beside their names.  I suppose that was my way of emphasizing that I definitely meant THEM and they needed to be punctuated with a star.  (In my mind right now I’m hearing Mary Catherine Gallagher say, “Soopa-staaaahhh!”)

Later today I called my parent’s home by accident.  I spoke with my mother for a few minutes and before I hung up she said, “Kelly – if you decide to throw away those Barbie dolls, I want the hand-knitted doll clothes back, okay?”

I’m sorry…what?  Did she say “BARBIES!?”  Suddenly the suitcase became important.  No longer was it a cute little reminder of my childhood.  It was holding my BARBIES!

We were already on our way out the door to run errands.  I conducted an interview, took a shower, watched a Roller Derby bout, ate dinner with my eldest and her boyfriend and came home.  I walked in the door and immediately opened the suitcase.

As I lifted the lid it was like one of those movies where you open the treasure chest only to find another treasure chest inside made of better materials…wood on the outside, gold inside, right?  INSIDE the suitcase was my plastic coated Barbie doll carrier.  And inside THAT was Ken, Barbie, Skipper, and some little doll I never named.  She was in far better shape than the other three.

Ken, Skipper, Barbie and some little doll who I didn't name. I think her given name was "Dawn."

Here’s my chain of memories as they came to me next:  I had a groovy Barbie van they rode around in.  I made them a campsite with pebbles and teeny bits of twigs.  I changed their clothes a hundred times.  I warded off boys in the 4th through 6th grade who tried to undress my Barbie’s clothes because that’s just what boys do at that age.  I cleaned the smudges off their faces.  I combed Barbie and Skipper’s hair into ponytails, pigtails, doggie-ears and up-dos.  But some of the most fun times I enjoyed playing with them was when my brother and I set up all his little plastic green army men to protect my Barbies from our collection of plastic jungle animal “enemies.”

In our living room we had green shag carpet and an antique green chaise lounge my parents had re-upholstered with green velveteen-type fabric.  That combination was our pretend grass and mountain landscape.  Perfect, right?  The army men who crawled on their belly would be balanced precariously on the rounded arms of the chairs so that they could jump down on top of a tiger if it threatened the Barbie camp too much.

I loved those army men.  My mother sucked one up just about every time she ran the vacuum cleaner.  They were pretty well hidden in the shag carpet “grass” after we played with them for a while.

Back to reality and fading away from my memories, I looked at my watch.  “Late,” I thought.  I yawned and sifted through the rest of the Barbie outfits, hung the pastel green purse on Barbie’s hand and turned out the light.

I need to call my brother.  It’s just not going to be the same playing with these Barbies if he doesn’t bring over his bucket of army men.  I wonder if the missile launcher is still chewed off?

If he DOES find the tub and we DO play again, I’m denying, denying, denying that I chewed off the missile launcher.  After all, they can’t make me talk in pretend army camp.  And if they try, I’ll just drive my Barbie van home!

Comments

comments

Uncategorized

Los Arcos Wins the Unofficial Mexican Beer Contest of the Entire Universe

One Negro Modelo and one Corona Extra, please.It’s been over three months since I’ve had a Mexican Beer served up Los Arcos style.  The heat of the summer has droned on, my garden work has been accomplished, and I’ve traveled to England’s pub-land and back again. Not one beer.

Why?  Because once you’ve had a Mexican Beer from the Los Arcos cantina, there’s just no going back.

It’s worth a three month wait.

Oh sure…if someone has not experienced this end-of-a-long-week beverage before, they might protest:  “It’s like any other Mexican Beer!  Same salt…same lime pulp…same cold mugs…heck, I make ’em that way at home!”

Nope.  If your coldest mug is ice cold…theirs is stick-to-your-frost-bitten fingers colder.  If your beer is chilled down nicely before being poured into a mug, they win by at least two to five degrees lower every time.

Their salt is perfect and their lime pulp is more liberal than any other place I’ve found.   And, may I be stuck with a massive prickly pear cactus if this isn’t true…there’s a little tiny bit of magic at Los Arcos they mix into the mugs before you are served these treats.

What do you think? Is the chin strap a magic Mexican Beer ingredient?

Maybe the bar tender adds something under the counter out of the customer’s line of sight.  Maybe it’s the special way the waiter shaves his beard.  He sports a precision-shaved chin strap and really likes his new whisker style.  The waiter theory is plausible simply because I think he elevates his customer’s moods by his personality.  He shakes your hand, asks how you’ve been, and when he brings in the trays of food and drinks, he sets them HARD down on the table and says merrily, “LOOK at THAT!”

My husband disagrees with the “waiter theory” because we’ve been there before and the chin-strap dude was no where to be found.

A month back when I was in an Oxford pub with students and faculty, I got strange looks when I ordered club soda with lime.  “Don’t you want a beer?” they asked, holding their room temperature, dark European brew.

“No thank you,” I replied.

It’s not the same.  I don’t care if beer connoisseurs try to teach me about bitters, German brews, blah-ditty-blah-blah whatevers.  These details don’t matter to me.   Los Arcos wins my unofficial Mexican Beer contest of the entire universe.

See you there in another month or two.  Viva Los Lime & Salt!

Los Arcos Mexican on Urbanspoon

Comments

comments

Oklahoma culture

Plenty of Smiles to Go Around In Stillwater, OK

2 Comments

Barely visible through the privacy fence, the football team groups in a huddle for instructions.

by Red Dirt Kelly

As I approached the “No Loitering” a-frame sign I knew the message was a nice way of saying, “Stay out – we’re working.”  My curiosity got the best of me, however, and I walked closer to the corner gate of the practice field.  I could hear the OSU football team yelling drills and the sounds of helmets and pads crashing together as tackles took place over and over. The burning sun overhead made the practice atmosphere feel genuinely intimidating.  A physically fit man with sunglasses and white hair decked out in new orange and black coach clothes looked my way as I got closer.

“Hey – can I take a quick photo of the team practicing?” I smiled.

“It’s closed.  So…no.” He responded.

“How about of you?  You look interesting!” I retorted.

“I can assure you that I am NOT interesting,” he chuckled.  I waved and walked on….straight to the athletic ticket office.  For the first time in about eight years I picked up a packet of student tickets for my husband and I.  We were willing to trade our chair-backed seats in the alumni section for the reduced cost of these babies.  With three of our family members in college, you bet your patooty we were.  Besides, sitting in the student section always helps you remember mankind is a primal being – there is raw energy like no other around those crazy, crazy fans.

OSU student holding his girlfriend's bike while she picks up her football tickets. He was in a good mood too!

I checked the envelope to make sure his “student dependent/spouse” card was in the packet, talked to a few others picking up their tickets and walked back to the car.

On my returning stroll, I noticed that practice was continuing without a guarded gate and a photo would have been easy pickings…but I decided not to push things today.  After all, the atmosphere across campus was just way too happy.  I didn’t need to spoil the mood with being chased off the premises.

The volunteers manning information and water booths for the students were happy.  The students trying to find their way around campus were also happy.  The faculty walking up and down the halls in the College of Human Environmental Sciences were happy.  There were new posters on the walls of student athletes in our college, students who had earned honors or done research…a smile on all their faces.

Volunteer staff manning the information and water booths. This is one of many stationed across campus.As I walked up the stairs to my office and sat down, I noticed I was in an incredibly good mood.  My season football and basketball tickets were now in my purse, my syllabi were written and I had just seen my first advisee of the semester.

I have a sneaking suspicion I know why professors wait so long to retire…something about the university setting is like a fountain of youth.  A new school year, a new promise of learning, a new hope of beating the living daylights out of our competition in the sports arenas.

It’s going to be a good year.

Physical plant staff driving a Gator across campus, carrying supplies for last minute touch-ups before Monday.

Comments

comments

Showcasing Red Dirt culture ~ authored and managed by contributors with connections to the great state of Oklahoma.