Oh! "Oklahoma!"

O - kla - hom - a!

I have never been to Oklahoma, but I have always felt I knew all about that great state.  This is because: I saw the movie, I could sing all the songs in the musical,  and I loved the characters and their stories. How American were they!

Loved that show. My sisters and brother and I would sing along to the record, which we played non stop. Though you might think I would want to take Laurie the ingenue's part, for some reason I was always casting myself as Ado Annie. She was much more fun! Sassy, silly, outspoken. She could not say no! Sounded just like me.  Then as well as now.

The main characters in the show are Laurie and Curly, Ado Annie and that peddler she settled down with, and poor Jed.  I always felt sorry for Jed. He was very handsome, in a dark way. But I could not understand why he sang that awfully sad song, "Poor Jed Is Dead."  It never made any sense. And, why was everyone so mean to the guy? Just because he was melancholic, and would get angry because Laurie did not love him...that did not seem fair. I could identify with him - I also had vivid thoughts of my own dying and how everyone would then feel sorry that they had not been nicer to me! But I never got into fights over boys.

That was my vision of Oklahoma. Land of cowboys and long skirted ladies, with buggies and horses and peddlers on the road. I figured it had stayed in the last century, and had not made it into modernity.

Nowadays, as an adult, I have friends who either live or have lived in Oklahoma. Like Megan Hicks, the storyteller. She and they have disappointed me. They tell me Oklahoma is not as it was in the movie. First of all, people do not break into sing at a moment's notice. Secondly, they do not drive buggies with firing on top.  Thirdly, they do not wear duded up cowboy/cowgirl get ups. Fourthly, they do not get into fights over a girl named Laurie. Nope. They are all quite nice and live in the 21st century. Just like me.

O - kla - hom - a!