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Old 07-05-2010, 07:33 PM
 
2,673 posts, read 3,250,331 times
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They're doing this on the NM thread and it's fun. What are some of the misconceptions about Oklahoma, goofy or otherwise, that you've come across?

People envision the entire state as flat and dusty. "I didn't know Oklahoma had this many trees!"

LOL, and I had some tourists at our tribal complex in Okmulgee ask me, "Where is all the poverty?" referring to us Native Americans.
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Old 07-05-2010, 10:27 PM
 
Location: NE Oklahoma
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They are shocked when they see how fancy the Tribal Complex is aren't they? I always think it is funny to see the expressions of people from out of town. When I first married my first husband his Grandmother who lives in Belgium ask him if we had running water and if the Indians still lived in Teepee's. Ummmm no and no. Then I went and took some postcards of Tulsa and the surrounding area (one being the tribal complex in Okmulgee) and sent to her. She was shocked. I guess she didn't think we had electric either. Geez. Are you from Okmulgee? I live in Beggs now, moved here just over a year ago from Checotah.
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Old 07-05-2010, 10:30 PM
 
Location: Tulsa, OK
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I work out of state all the time. Most people on the east cost think Oklahoma is a desert, I guess the dust bowl with haunt us for years to come. And they all seem to think that Oklahoma is full of Indian reservations. When I was working in upstate New York, my coworkers kept asking me how I liked all the trees and hills. They figured that being from Oklahoma this would all be foreign to me. I showed them on the internet some pics of Oklahoma and how it was not flat and dusty. I showed they pics of Eastern Oklahoma and how it looked somewhat like Upstate NY. I think they were somewhat disappointed, they were hoping Oklahoma would be like the Outback.
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Old 07-05-2010, 10:49 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by okpondlady View Post
They are shocked when they see how fancy the Tribal Complex is aren't they? I always think it is funny to see the expressions of people from out of town. When I first married my first husband his Grandmother who lives in Belgium ask him if we had running water and if the Indians still lived in Teepee's. Ummmm no and no. Then I went and took some postcards of Tulsa and the surrounding area (one being the tribal complex in Okmulgee) and sent to her. She was shocked. I guess she didn't think we had electric either. Geez. Are you from Okmulgee? I live in Beggs now, moved here just over a year ago from Checotah.
My brother lives in Beggs!
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Old 07-05-2010, 11:11 PM
 
Location: NE Oklahoma
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Originally Posted by Jess5 View Post
My brother lives in Beggs!

Small world!!
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Old 07-06-2010, 07:43 AM
 
Location: Edmond, OK
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Everyone has this "Grapes of Wrath" impression of OK. It's all flat, hot, and dry, and we are all dirt poor and live in either tee-pees or shacks on farms. The other one I've heard many times is that they think OKC is a small town. They are always shocked when I tell them that I live in a suburb of OKC. It's like "what? Oklahoma has suburbs?" Uh yeah, we have large cities, that have smaller suburbs!

From people that don't follow sports, I've had people be shocked when I mentioned that we had an NBA team. Even from my own family in Texas, I've gotten some of this. My dad, who doesn't follow basketball, kept saying to me, that OKC didn't have a real NBA team. It had to be a minor league team. I finally had to go over a list of the other teams the Thunder played to prove it to him.

My sister, who lives in a small town south of Dallas, was shocked the first time she came to visit me. She and her husband drove in late at night, and when she got to my house she was asking me how I liked living in a small town and how my kids liked going to a small country high school. I told her that it was about 2,400 hundred kids in their school, and she looked shocked. Then I told her I thought it was the smallest of the 3 high schools in Edmond. She was like "how big is Edmond?" She just could not believe that OKC could have a suburb that big. Then I told her how much bigger Norman was (I know technically not a suburb, but still part of the metro). I guess she must of been asleep as they drove through the city.
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Old 07-06-2010, 07:50 AM
 
2,673 posts, read 3,250,331 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by okpondlady View Post
They are shocked when they see how fancy the Tribal Complex is aren't they? I always think it is funny to see the expressions of people from out of town. When I first married my first husband his Grandmother who lives in Belgium ask him if we had running water and if the Indians still lived in Teepee's. Ummmm no and no. Then I went and took some postcards of Tulsa and the surrounding area (one being the tribal complex in Okmulgee) and sent to her. She was shocked. I guess she didn't think we had electric either. Geez. Are you from Okmulgee? I live in Beggs now, moved here just over a year ago from Checotah.
LOL, I work in Okmulgee but live in Tulsa.
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Old 07-06-2010, 07:53 AM
 
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When my daughter was visiting France she said the French love cowboys and Indians. They'd gather around her to ask her questions and just marvel at her since we're Indian. That's kind of cool.

People think we all ride horses. LOL, a lot of do, have or can, even if we live in the city.
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Old 07-06-2010, 05:52 PM
 
Location: OKC, OK
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My misconceptions were that it was all flat & nothing but wheat fields for miles, I was very happy to be wrong when we drove in!! I also thought there would be nothing but white folks - another pleasant surprise, my fiance is hispanic and we really thought we might run into problems, silly us!!

It surprises me that people say everyone talks to them about church & the bible here, not so at all. I've lived in three towns here, Glencoe, Stillwater & OKC and friends have talked about religion, but strangers have never approached me, nor do I hear anything while I'm out & about, not that there's anything wrong with talking about God, it just doesn't happen like everyone thinks it does. There are also tons of different personalities, not everyone here is a gun toting country music lovin cowboy again, nothing wrong with that I love a good wrangler butt, haha, but there is a lot of diversity here.
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Old 07-06-2010, 06:29 PM
 
Location: Fort Worth, Texas
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My Grandparents are from the panhandle of Oklahoma, but I haven't been to that part of the country since I was a kid. I occasionally travel to Tulsa on business, and to SE Oklahoma for leisure. The pic below is of Eastern Oklahoma near the Ozarks.

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