Your honest opinions/jokes/stereotypes of the State of OK or OSU

[CowboyIndian]

As a native New Yorker, I don't have any opinions/stereotypes.

But where is Oklahoma, and what's there other than T. Boone Pickens, cowboys, deserts, and oil?

We have a stereotype of New Yorkers. Thanks for reinforcing it. Desert in Oklahoma? You really need to get out more.

[NYC Poke]

[quote author=metsjetsfan link=topic=5116.msg36897#msg36897 date=1323137729]
As a native New Yorker, I don't have any opinions/stereotypes.

But where is Oklahoma, and what's there other than T. Boone Pickens, cowboys, deserts, and oil?

We have a stereotype of New Yorkers. Thanks for reinforcing it. Desert in Oklahoma? You really need to get out more.
[/quote]

Hey, now, watch with the stereotypes!  ;)

And for the benefit of fans here, despite my moniker I'm currently living in East Texas due to illness in the family.  I keep the name for convenience and my move is temporary.

As for desert in Oklahoma, it's certainly not that way in Tulsa, where I'm from.  But some of the western part of the state is pretty darned arid.  I recently went with my mom on  business trip to Pampa, TX, in the panhandle.  We drove (!!! -- this is a really long drive) back through SW OK and it looked nothing like the Oklahoma I grew up in.

I'd say the characterizations I've seen so far on this board are pretty fair.  Whenever I'd have occasion in NYC to introduce my NY friends to my OSU friends, the reaction was inevitably, "they're so nice!"  With recent success, some of our newer fans seem a little entitled to me, but that's to be expected.

I love Palo Alto.  An ex-gf's brother works in placement for one of the graduate schools there and I enjoyed the time we spent with him there.  It would be my second choice of places to live.

[stonewallpoke]

No Grapes of Wrath jokes? I am disappoint.

[Pokes]

As a native New Yorker, I don't have any opinions/stereotypes.

But where is Oklahoma, and what's there other than T. Boone Pickens, cowboys, deserts, and oil?

Deserts? Dunno about those.

[yvonne]

No Grapes of Wrath jokes? I am disappoint.

Oh no! Stanford, OSU, not the Steinbeck Bowl!

[Spiny_Norman]

I grew up in Bartlesville.  My family has been in Oklahoma since 1908, right after statehood.  My Oklahoma roots run deep, but when I looked at college I wanted to go away.  Stanford ended up being a great fit. 

I still have great fondness for my home state, but I will not be shaking T. Boone Pickens' hand if I ever meet him.  He and his cronies greenmailed Phillips Petroleum in the mid 1980s.  Phillips took on so much debt to fight off takeover attempts by Pickens and then Carl Ichan that they had to shed assets and employees for many years until they merged with Conoco.  It had a lasting, negative impact on my home town and my family's business.  Wish I still had my Boone Busters t-shirt.  Would have been a nice conversation starter for pre-game Fiesta Bowl festivities.

I am interested in the views/stereotypes that the Pokes have about Stanford.  What do you think of when you hear about Stanford? 

And for anyone who is interested, I'll be happy in Phoenix/Scottsdale to explain the proper pronunciation of places like Gotebo, Tishomingo, Nowata and Miami (not the same as your town, Garvin).

[GulfCoastPoke]

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7319...uinky-dies

I still have great fondness for my home state, but I will not be shaking T. Boone Pickens' hand if I ever meet him.  He and his cronies greenmailed Phillips Petroleum in the mid 1980s.  Phillips took on so much debt to fight off takeover attempts by Pickens and then Carl Ichan that they had to shed assets and employees for many years until they merged with Conoco.  It had a lasting, negative impact on my home town and my family's business.  Wish I still had my Boone Busters t-shirt.  Would have been a nice conversation starter for pre-game Fiesta Bowl festivities.

I am interested in the views/stereotypes that the Pokes have about Stanford.  What do you think of when you hear about Stanford? 

And for anyone who is interested, I'll be happy in Phoenix/Scottsdale to explain the proper pronunciation of places like Gotebo, Tishomingo, Nowata and Miami (not the same as your town, Garvin).

I dated a girl from Bartlesville while at OSU, went there a couple times to visit her folks and was very impressed by the town.  Very (Conoco) Phillips centered, of course, and the Frank Lloyd Wright skyscraper was pretty cool.   

Your comments on Boone are funny, and I don't think many of the students today know that a small percentage of their families growing up were affected negatively by Boone's corporate raids.  I think he's paid his dues now, but I understand your animosity towards him.

Stanford.  Hmmm, I have a stereotype of people in California in general, but I don't know if I have anything for Stanford in particular.  I know that it is a great school, and your fans are likely much more educated than ours, but I don't believe that actually would bother any OSU fan.  Chelsea Clinton, basketball, a tree spinning and dancing on a bball court, something about your band being very eclectic and creative, Tiger Woods????
 

[NYC Poke]

That OSU mascot is scary as hell though....

Not as scary as the real thing.  Marshal Frank "Pistol Pete" Eaton was a force to be reckoned with.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Eaton

The story of how he became our mascot here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistol_Pete_(mascot)

During my time at OSU, a member of my fraternity (John Elway's fraternity as well) was always a Pistol Pete. It was a common sight to walk into someone's room and see that big head sitting there.  I've tried it on -- it's pretty heavy.

Never shot the guns, though . . .

[fullmetal]

Steinbeck Bowl, that's brilliant :)

[Kathy]

I live in Big 12 country (or at least I do until July 1 when the state becomes the northwest annex to SEC Nation) and I can say without hesitation that Sooner fans are among the most obnoxious out there (it's a tossup between OU and t-sips -- those two deserve each other). Okie State folks, on the other hand, are pretty cool. Back in 2008, I watched in horror on a muggy October evening as then-No. 17 OSU knocked Mizzou off its lofty No. 3 perch in the rankings. Two guys from St. Louis sat to my left -- wearing bright orange. Turns out they were OSU grads who buy tickets through MU and make the two-hour drive from StL every time the Cowboys come to Columbia. They were as shocked as the Tiger fans that surrounded them, and had plenty of nice things to say about QB Chase Daniel's talent in the spread offense.

An OSU grad who went through my husband's Ph.D. program at Mizzou is still the best grad student he ever trained. And I don't know how I would have solved several computer snafus without her husband's IT expertise (just never could figure out why she was an Atlanta Braves fan in a family that loved the birds on the bat).

The only time Cowboy pride reaches insufferable levels is when they turn out for a wrestling meet, or heaven forbid, when they arrive en masse at the NCAAs. It's hard to stomach that much orange all at once -- and the noise level is deafening!

OK, now I have a question:
Just who -- or what -- is Squinky?

[GulfCoastPoke]

OK, now I have a question:
Just who -- or what -- is Squinky?

Squinky is the demon-squid that has long tortured OSU sports fans, as explained here. 
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7006...te-cowboys

[garvin]

Count me out of the OU-fan bashers. Everybody I had contact with at the Sun Bowl a couple of years ago was perfectly nice, including a family of OU fans somehow marooned in the middle of my section of Stanford fans at the game.

Mass media impressions of Oklahoma: When Chandler got transferred to Tulsa on Friends, he hated it and quit his job to return to New York. On the other hand, any state that could inspire You're The Reason God Made Oklahoma must have something going for it.

[NYC Poke]

As to obnoxious OU fans, the feelings of nausea have abated considerably for me since I haven't lived in OK in many years.  When I was living there, though, they crawled out from under rocks to give you grief.  They typically weren't people who had actually attended OU, or any college for that matter.  You could be getting your car washed and some guy who worked there would notice an OSU bumper sticker and say, "WE (always "we") really kicked yer ass reeeeeal good this year!  Yup, and we're gonna kick it again real good next year, too.  Y'all just can't ever beat us!"

The ones that actually attended the university tend to be okay.

[Robbie]

I know very few things about Oklahoma:

1. Starts and ends with - what Agnes de Mille shows I want to see.

2. I went to a Stanford game in 1983 in Norman. People seemed very nice. Of course, Stanford lost, so it was easy to be nice to us.

3. It sure was flat. If there is a substantive difference between Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska I don't know what it is.

[terry]

Stanford.  Hmmm, I have a stereotype of people in California in general, but I don't know if I have anything for Stanford in particular.  I know that it is a great school, and your fans are likely much more educated than ours, but I don't believe that actually would bother any OSU fan.  Chelsea Clinton, basketball, a tree spinning and dancing on a bball court, something about your band being very eclectic and creative, Tiger Woods????

Chelsea Clinton and Tiger Woods? That's what Stanford means in Oklahoma? How about these folks --

John Steinbeck
Ken Kesey
Jack Palance
Sigourney Weaver
Reese Witherspoon
Jennifer Connelly
Ted Danson
Ted Koppel
William Hewlett and David Packard
Ray Dolby
Phil Knight
Robert Mondavi
Charles Schwab
the Yahoo guys (David Filo and Jerry Yang)
the Google guys (Sergey Brin and Larry Page)
Pres. Herbert Hoover
Sec. of State Warren Christopher
Sec. of State Condoleeza Rice (faculty)
6 current U.S. Senators (Feinstein, Baucus, Bingaman, Wyden, Merkley, Conrad)
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor
Justice William Rehnquist
Justice Anthony Kennedy
Justice Stephen Breyer
Sally Ride
Jim Plunkett
John Elway
James Lofton
Ernie Nevers
Mike Mussina
Tom Watson
John McEnroe
Summer Sanders
Bob Mathias
Kerri Walsh

[GulfCoastPoke]

3. If there is a substantive difference between Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska I don't know what it is.

If there is a substantive difference between from Palo Alto, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego I don't know what it is.  :)

[GulfCoastPoke]

Chelsea Clinton and Tiger Woods? That's what Stanford means in Oklahoma? How about these folks --

Impressive list....you know more about famous Stanford people than I do???!?!?!!

[terry]

Just because of curiosity, I did a little digging to identify Oklahoma State's most notable alumni. Here are the names I came up with:

T. Boone Pickens
Garth Brooks
Gary Busey
Sen. Tom Coburn
former Sen. Don Nickles
Barry Sanders
Thurman Thomas
Don Haskins

Any other major notables who should be on that list?

[Leftcoast]

If there is a substantive difference between from Palo Alto, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego I don't know what it is.  - GulfCoastPoke

Actually Norcal folks and SoCal folks don't like each other much.  SoCal = Los Angeles, Hollywood, Beaches, Disneyland, LA Dodgers, LA Lakers and Orange County Republicans.    NorCal = Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Redwoods, Napa Valley, Lake Tahoe, Pebble Beach, SF 49ers and Berkeley Anarchists.

At Stanford we're strong NorCal folks and even the wacky anarchists would barely rate more than a roll of the eyes if they just didn't come from Berkeley.

[estephan500]

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.