Kick the Indians Out Day

Spring is upon us here in Oklahoma, which means it's time to celebrate that special holiday unknown to those who dwell outside the Sooner state (and many who live there, too, for that matter). Yes, I'm talking about 89er Day - the day we commemorate "kicking" the Indians off of their land (as our friend Mike so delicately describes it) and claiming it as our own.

April 22 this year marks 119 years since the Oklahoma land run. For the first time since elementary school, I went to the annual 89er Day parade on Main Street here in Norman with Maren and Travis and their kids. We had fun celebrating our inner Okie.

This creation was the mastermind of some Cub Scout troop. They had a float with a "tornado" spinning around. It was surrounded by people carrying cow balloons (you can only see one in the picture) and they had a fake tornado siren going that sounded like a slightly quieter version of the real thing. Genious. In fact, I wouldn't have taken any pictures if I hadn't seen this float - these are all from the camera on my phone. Not the greatest quality, but the best I had at the time.

And whoever said that My Little Ponies were make-believe? I saw a whole herd of them yesterday. Here's the last one that went trotting through. If the picture had been a little closer, you would have seen that it did, in fact, have some sort of design on its rump (just like the toy My Little Ponies). I bet if you had lifted up its hoof and looked on the bottom it would have said "Made in Hong Kong".

Here's little Calvin - sooner born and sooner bred. It never really occured to me that I really am an Okie until I had a conversation last week with a friend from Arizona about tornado season. I realized that I could rattle off tornado procedures and termonolgies as if I were telling her the names of my siblings - it's just become that ingrained in me, I suppose. That same friend asked me yesterday what "sooners" were. After explaining, I was reminded, once again, that our heritage stems from a bunch of dishonest frontiersmen that "kicked the Indians out" over a century ago. Yep. Oklahoma is "O.K."

Even as a child I was always confused why we were so proud of our mediocrity.