Oklahoma facts

Things Oklahoma is famous for (at least in the UK):

1. The Oklahoma Bombing.
2. The musical (though beware: ‘Oklahoma’ is actually the official state song).
3. The Grapes of Wrath (the central characters are ‘Okies’).
4. The Flaming Lips (so I am reliably informed).
5. Absolutely nothing else.

Things Oklahoma is not famous for, but should be:

1. The shopping trolley and the parking meter were invented here.
2. The headquarters of both the American Choral Directors' Association, and the World Organisation of China Painters.
3. The only State Capitol in the USA to have a working oil well in its grounds.
4. Route 66 goes right through the middle (‘Oklahoma City looks mighty pretty…’, as it says in the song).
5. Oklahoma was the only state in the 2008 presidential election where every single county voted for McCain.
6. It only became a State in 1907, 300 years after Virginia (before that, it was merely a ‘territory’).
7. Absolutely no-one famous has come from Oklahoma. The State’s most famous son is Will Rogers, who was an actor, comedian and ‘goodwill ambassador’, whatever that is. The airport here is named after him, but I’d never heard of him before.
8. Wikipedia says that the State Meal is 'fried okra, squash, cornbread, barbecue pork, biscuits, sausage and gravy, grits, corn, strawberries, chicken fried steak, pecan pie and black-eyed peas'. I sincerely hope that's not all at the same time.

Frozen fish

It's very cold here at the moment - the temperature's been below freezing for several days. Look at the state of our fishpond! It's only the pump which keeps it from completely freezing over. I am amazed that the fish appear to be OK - I can see them moving about below the ice. But they seem to have completely given up eating the fish food I occasionally throw at them. I'm fully expecting the entire pond to freeze solid before the end of the winter, in which case I suppose the fish will freeze with it...

Luby's

Eating out here is cheap, cheerful and enjoyable. There are fewer 'fine', arty or intimate restaurants, and I particularly miss Indian restaurants (there are some, but they're not as plentiful as in the UK, and not the same). But there are huge numbers of bright, colourful, straightforward establishments, serving bright, colourful, straightforward food - burgers, fried chicken, fish, hot dogs, corn dogs, pretzel dogs, curly fries, ice cream sundaes, hot fruit pies, donuts, soda, coffee. I particularly like Freddie's Frozen Custard - partly for the name, partly for the tiled red and white interior and the strong resemblance to a 1950s diner from a Jack Kerouac novel - the only disappointment is that frozen custard is nothing like proper custard, but quite like Mr Whippy. I also like Sonic, a hamburger joint whose logo appears to be a nuclear missile, which consists of a kitchen surrounded by parking bays, each equipped with a voice intercom system where you order your food and then have it brought to your car by a waitress who is not on roller skates, but should be. Quite stunning.

But the best of all is Luby's. Luby's Cafeteria. It's very hard to describe, but I'll try. The eating area is a vast room framed by big, round-cornered windows, furnished by simple wooden tables, on each of which is placed a salt and pepper set and a bottle of Heinz tomato ketchup. The cheesiest of cheesy music is playing on the sound system. On entry, you take a tray and a white dinner plate divided into three segments, and take it to the serving counter where you select a meat or fish portion, and two sides of your choice (vegetables, potatoes, corn, etc.) You then choose an enormous sweet cake or pudding (cheesecake, lemon meringue pie, chocolate sponge, etc.) and complement your meal with the ubiquitous soda (fizzy drink). You then take your meal to your table of choice, and enjoy, accompanied in the dining area, at least on weekday lunchtimes, by two old men, one distant family, and no-one else. It's like eating in a 1950s motorway service station, or possibly in the canteen of the Isle of Wight ferry, circa 1978 (at which time it would have been the height of sophistication).

Last time I went, I was served by a Mexican gentleman who spoke and understood little English (well, I don't blame him for that - I can't speak Spanish, after all), and a small, grumpy lady well into her 70s who was wearing her hair in a hairnet - something else I haven't seen since 1978. Visitors to Oklahoma City should not pass this experience by.

'Nothing in between'

I remember once, when I was at a music summer school just after finishing university, I told the tutor that I was interested in studying in America. 'The thing about America', he replied, 'is that you've got the East Coast, and the West Coast ... and there's absolutely nothing in between!'

I know what he meant, but it's a bit hard on Chicago, if nothing else...

Paytriotism (1)

Patriotism (pronounced ‘paytriotism’) is very important here. It seems to be important to virtually all Americans, but particularly here. Talking down your country, or even suggesting that America might possibly in some way be slightly less than perfect, is simply not done – it’s a social faux pas on roughly the same level as casting aspersions on the sexual promiscuity of someone’s mother. This is in sharp contrast to the UK, where people talk down the country on an almost daily basis.

For example, when I told people about my intention to move to the US (I prefer ‘move’ to ‘emigrate’ – ‘emigrate’ sounds so final), I was surprised by the frequency of a certain kind of reaction, normally delivered with some passion and direct eye contact, mostly from people like tradesmen, taxi drivers, and the bloke who came to pick up my tub of fence spray after buying it on eBay: ‘I don’t blame you mate – this country’s finished’. I had it again only last week, when a taxi driver in Brentwood asked me where I lived, and received the understandably surprising response of Oklahoma City. ‘I don’t blame you mate – this country’s finished.’ ‘But that’s not why I moved!’ I wanted to exclaim. ‘I’m British! I like Britain, with all its faults! It’s my home! America’s got faults too – as well as some great things, of course. It’s not necessarily better or worse – it’s just different!’ In fact, I just said ‘yeah, right’, in a meekly acquiescent tone. I’m not generally one for getting deeply into conversation with taxi drivers.

You would never, ever get that reaction in the US. A few weeks ago, I was in our local supermarket, standing by the cheese counter, when I heard a man nearby say to his colleague: ‘I don’t think I should buy this cheese. It says ‘made in France’. That’s not very paytriotic, is it?’

As with so many things about living here, at first I couldn’t work out why I had a vague sense of unease about all this paytriotism – the stars and stripes in the front yard, the ‘God bless the USA’ bumper stickers, the man in the supermarket with his doubts about French cheese. Maybe it was just my innate British sense of negativity and slight embarrassment about these matters. I mean, what’s so wrong with loving your country? And America is a great country, no doubt about it, notwithstanding the current, and thankfully soon to be ex-, president’s attempts to wreck it (or more accurately, to stand by open-mouthed while those around him did so). After all, it contains people like Noam Chomsky, Elliott Carter, Philip Roth, Chris Rock, and Suzanne Vega. And Barack Obama. It can’t be all bad.

And then I worked it out. And just after I worked it out, I heard Bill Maher – an American comedian whom I greatly admire (and who should be included in the roll call above) - put it more succinctly and pertinently than I could ever do. ‘All those people who say ‘America’s the greatest country in the world!’ How would they know?’ Absolutely! Have they carried out a comparative study? ‘Well, we checked out Finland, but that fell down on the number of moose per acre, so…’

It really is true that many Americans – often the paytriotic ones – have only the very haziest idea of what exists beyond their borders. Only about 25% of Americans have a passport, and many – including wealthy and educated ones – never travel abroad at any point in their lives. And to some extent, I don’t necessarily blame them. America is absolutely huge, and very varied, and has enough in it to keep most people happy for a lifetime – sun-kissed beaches, snowcapped mountains, beautiful lakes and forests, huge deserts, great cities, fine universities, great art, culture, science, business, sport (well, at least some sports). Americans have complete freedom of speech, movement, and religion; there is lots of space for everyone, the cost of living is low, and the standard of living is high. America is the richest country, and has the mightiest military, in the world. Why would you want to go anywhere else? Why do so many people try to get in?

Whereas British people have to travel outside their country to experience at least some of these things, Americans don’t. But the problem is that, by the same token, there’s no particular reason for them to find out about it either, which makes all the stuff about paytriotism sound rather uncontextualised and insular to me.