[Platypoke]

The very first image I get when I hear Oklahoma (where I have never set foot) is a flat, wide land -- I guess I think that it's where the "amber waves of grain" come from.

There's a serious, taciturn guy with a cowboy hat in the image.

If you ever saw the 1979 movie Hair, the film's beginning shows a guy saying goodbye to his dad, out in the heartland, at a greyhound stop in the middle of nowhere on a misty morning. That sequence and that character seem like oklahoma to me.

In fact, my dad was born in Stillwater, OK, but left when he was an infant.

I don't think Oklahoma feels like it is always at the center of actual events that epitomize red-state usa.  For instance, Oklahomans never seemed like Arizona's Sheriff Joe, or Texas's "secede from the union" chatter.  But I do sense that some of those stories about this or that school district or school administrator limiting this or that use of the concept of "Evolution" in schools, I think some of that is in OK.

I think I heard that there might be wind come rushing down the plain, but that is probably a stereotype.

I'll tell you one thing, if I could take a good long road trip in Oklahoma, I'd do it right now and chill out in a diner in a small town. Long overdue for a good American road trip.

This was extremely interesting to read.  :) 

The wind here is terrible. Especially now when it is cold.

[Platypoke]

The very first image I get when I hear Oklahoma (where I have never set foot) is a flat, wide land -- I guess I think that it's where the "amber waves of grain" come from.

There's a serious, taciturn guy with a cowboy hat in the image.

If you ever saw the 1979 movie Hair, the film's beginning shows a guy saying goodbye to his dad, out in the heartland, at a greyhound stop in the middle of nowhere on a misty morning. That sequence and that character seem like oklahoma to me.

In fact, my dad was born in Stillwater, OK, but left when he was an infant.

I don't think Oklahoma feels like it is always at the center of actual events that epitomize red-state usa.  For instance, Oklahomans never seemed like Arizona's Sheriff Joe, or Texas's "secede from the union" chatter.  But I do sense that some of those stories about this or that school district or school administrator limiting this or that use of the concept of "Evolution" in schools, I think some of that is in OK.

I think I heard that there might be wind come rushing down the plain, but that is probably a stereotype.

I'll tell you one thing, if I could take a good long road trip in Oklahoma, I'd do it right now and chill out in a diner in a small town. Long overdue for a good American road trip.

This was extremely interesting to read.  :) 

The wind here is terrible. Especially now when it is cold.