------------------
Colin Wiseley
Lyric Theatre
Blacksburg, VA
www.thelyric.com

See "Grapes of Wrath" to get an idea of the dust bowl that had many tenant farmers trying to escape starvation by going to California and other areas. Tenant farmers and their families were never properly educated, and looked down upon by those with education and jobs. This is a pastime in the U.S.. See "Salt of the Earth" for the same treatment of Mexican Americans.

Beings that Leo is from England, he'll probably like that song, maybe.

Jerry: I've never actually seen 'Grapes of Wrath' all through, though I did project a nitrate print of it when I worked at the NFT and I have read the book. We were shown 'The Plow that Broke the Plain' in a history class at college and I understand it puts forward a similar message. If foot and mouth disease goes on much longer in Britain I suppose we could soon be in a similar situation.

There used to be an Airdome in downtown Hattiesburg! You might have fun seeing if there are any photos or people who knew about it.

There was once at least one Saenger owned &/or operated theater in Muskogee. The Saenger in Hattiesburg has been de-movie'd by persuasive consultants who were in fact idiots.

One major reason Muskogee & Oklahoma frequently pop up as representations of *extreme* rural-flavored conservatism is that, after having apparently vanished for decades, the Ku Klux Klan reorganized & centralized in Oklahoma in the 20's & re-grew from there.

Thanks for the info. I have seen the sanger in Hattiesburg, but have not been inside. I was not sure about the sanger in Muskogee. I wonder if the old Broadway theatre in Muskogee was once a Sanger???

You are correct about the KKK in Oklahoma. I can remember my Grandfather saying that when he was in his twenties, he was approached by the KKK and was asked to become a member and he told them that he had "better things to do thena run around in the middle of the night wearing a bedsheet".

I put this question (what is an Okie?) to a friend who is visiting - a native of Beatrice, Nebraska (but who has been living in the UK for the last 5 years). She came out with the following (but confessed to not knowing why it should be Oklahoma-specific)...

A schoolteacher from Oklahoma set her fifth grade class an assignment: get your parents to tell you a story with a moral at the end of it. The next day they all came back, and she asked Katie to go first. "Well, my parents are farmers - dairy farmers - and one day Dad put his eggs in a massive container to take to the market, which he then put on the front seat of his pickup. Less than half a mile out, the pickup went over a pothole and all the eggs smashed, creating an awful mess." "What's the moral of that?," asked the teacher. "You shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket," replied Katie.

Next up was Tommy. "Well ma'am, my parents are also farmers - chicken farmers. We had 12 eggs and thought that we would be able to sell 12 chickens, but only 10 of them actually hatched. The moral? Don't count your chickens before they've hatched."

"Very good," said the teacher. "Now Jenna, what's your story?" "Well," replied Jenna, "my aunt Karen was a flight engineer in Operation Desert Storm. Her plane got shot down, and before she bailed out all she had time to collect was a bottle of Bourbon, an AK-47 and a machete. Fearing that the bottle might break, she drunk the whisky on the way down. When she landed she was confronted by 100 homicidal Iraqis. She shot the first 70 with the AK-47 but then it ran out of bullets. She killed another 20 with the machete before its handle snapped. Finally, she finished off the remaining 10 with her bare hands."

Well, I do live in Oklahoma, and have been here for coming up on 8 years (which is a longer stay than any other place I have ever lived --New York City being the previous record holder at 5 years).

Most people in the central part of the country know their Okie jokes. What's the best thing to come out of Oklahoma: I-40. Or, if the toothbrush had been invented anywhere besides Oklahoma it would be called a "teethbrush". Some of these jokes can be transferred to residents of Arkansas, Texas, Kansas or even Louisiana. I was born in New Mexico, so the jokes don't apply there (unless you consider the N.M. state flower is the oil well pump jack, the mention of Roswell inspires giggles and there has to be some kind of joke about people having their brains and DNA stands fried from all those A-Bomb tests).

Anyway, cultural stereotypes are just that. My experience here has found that many people living in this state come from many other areas (such as a lot of relocated Californians lately --sort of the reverse on that whole US-66 Grapes of Wrath thing). And then a lot of people who grow up here usually leave for jobs elsewhere. America has turned into a very transient society. Overall, that's probably going to lessen the funny impact of regional jokes and make things quite a bit more boring.