by Matt Weiland
In elementary school, when we studied Ohio, we learned that many Presidents had been born here—not good Presidents or memorable ones, but lots of them. This became for me a metaphor for the state—a place with a lot of people, a fair amount of power, considerable wealth, great accomplishment, but an aching lack of charisma, which is something that mattered a lot to me when I was young. Ohio wasn’t old-old, like places in the East, and it wasn’t swingy new, like the Northwest, and it wasn’t gothic and fabulous like Louisiana, and it wasn’t really rural, like Missouri, and it wasn’t really urban, like New York, and it didn’t offset its squareness with a single jazzy event like Indiana does with the Indy 500 and Kentucky with the Derby … these things count for a lot when you’re young, because you still find your sense of your self by context rather than through any true self-knowledge. So my context—and by extension, my personality—was Ohio, and that made me feel like I was expected to be mild, productive, and utterly normal—so I grasped for anything that would make being an Ohioan seem more dazzling. At summer camp, where the other girls were mostly from Connecticut and New York, I boasted that Sam Sheppard, the osteopath who murdered his wife in the sixties and became the inspiration for The Fugitive, was from Ohio. To be honest, I also claimed, quite insanely, that my mother had dated him, and therefore she was almost, sort of, a murder victim herself—an effort to make myself a little more spectacular, I guess. The point is, I thought that having interesting, well-known criminals gave Ohio some panache, which I wanted very badly for it to have. It simply wasn’t enough to me to have grown up in a progressive, lovely, friendly place, which was the case; I wanted so much to be from somewhere that had drama. As I got older, I stopped boasting about Dr. Sheppard but still found myself defensively, reflexively boasting about Ohio however I could, making a preemptive strike whenever I was asked where I was from. I would cite things I was indeed very proud of about Ohio, and also plenty of things that I didn’t care about, really, or didn’t think were socially significant, but if they were memorable or distinctive in any way, they served my purpose. “I’m from Ohio—did you know that the Shah of Iran came to the Cleveland Clinic to have his heart bypass? that Debra Winger, the actress, is from Ohio? that most people think the Cleveland Orchestra is one of the greatest in the world? that Cleveland was the first major American city to have an African-American mayor? that Jacobs Field is one of the most beautiful stadiums in the Major Leagues? that Mike Tyson bought a house on Lake Erie? that John D. Rockefeller was from Ohio? that the last Presidential election really depended on Ohio?” And on and on and on. This is after thirty years of living elsewhere. I am still an Ohioan, though, and always will be, and will always have that need to protest my own regularness. To be honest, I haven’t completely given up Dr. Sheppard, either, and still get excited when there is some legitimate excuse to talk about it (“Media circus? Nothing could compare to the Sam Sheppard trial. That took place in Cleveland!”). I no longer claim that my mother dated him, so progress has been made.
The main drag through the Cleveland suburbs, where I grew up, is called Chagrin Boulevard. It is a four-lane thoroughfare, heavily traveled, lined with office buildings, shopping centers, golf courses, gas stations, hair salons, restaurants, car dealerships, and a few stray houses making a valiant stand against the tide of commerce washing down Chagrin. The road is named for the nearby Chagrin River. For a long time, it didn’t occur to anyone I knew that these two major features of the area shared a very odd name—it was one of those things that is just a name, not a word, if you grow up hearing it that way, and you don’t notice it until an outsider says, as they always did, What a weird name for a road/river! It’s like having a main road called Disappointment! Or Frustration!
It was a bit of a sting to realize that a name that was so familiar to us was actually a peculiar name with a negative connotation. The realization compounded my persistent need to explain away my connection to a place that seemed to have no character, even though I knew it had a great and, more importantly, good nature, and that as a place it transcended anything that could have made it superficially more “interesting,” because it was so deeply and permanently in my soul as home. My comeback was always the same: Chagrin Boulevard is named for the river, and the river was named Chagrin because an explorer looking for a different, more exciting place ended up in Ohio, to his chagrin. He stayed here, and he prospered, and he ate well, and he made a good living, and he knew it was an excellent place to live, but he never got over his disappointment that it wasn’t somewhere else. I thought that was what someone had told me, or maybe it was something I’d learned in school.
Years and years and years later, I found out that was not true at all. The river had been named by the Erie Indians, who called it Sha-ga-rin, which means Clear Water. Maybe so. But I can still see that explorer at the bank of the river, scanning the rolling Ohio landscape, the thick trees, the soft valleys, the middling Presidents, the hardy settlers, the medium-sized cities, the fine sturdy houses, and then swallowing his little nub of disappointment and settling in.
OKLAHOMA
CAPITAL Oklahoma City
ENTERED UNION 1907 (46th)
ORIGIN OF NAME From two Choctaw Indian words meaning “red people”
NICKNAME Sooner State
MOTTO Labor omnia vincit (“Labor conquers all things”)
RESIDENTS Oklahoman
U.S. REPRESENTATIVES 5
STATE BIRD scissor-tailed flycatcher
STATE FLOWER mistletoe
STATE TREE redbud
STATE SONG “Oklahoma”
LAND AREA 68,667 sq. mi.
GEOGRAPHIC CENTER In Oklahoma Co., 8 mi. N of Oklahoma City
POPULATION 3,547,884
WHITE 76.2%
BLACK 7.6%
AMERICAN INDIAN 7.9%
ASIAN 1.4%
HISPANIC/LATINO 5.2%
UNDER 18 25.9%
65 AND OVER 13.2%
MEDIAN AGE 35.5
OKLAHOMA
S. E. Hinton
People often seem a little surprised to hear I’m from Oklahoma, but they are always downright shocked when I say I live here still. After all, nobody can control the circumstances of her birth, but you can write from anywhere.
It’s not like I’ve never been anywhere else. I’ve traveled quite a bit, both in the states and other countries, and lived in one of the nicest places in the United States—northern California—for three years. I can’t forget the scenery there, or the horse trainer who gave me invaluable help with my green-broke horse. But I never doubted I’d come back to Tulsa.
It’s not because Will Rogers said the Oklahomans who moved to California during the Dust Bowl raised the IQs of both states, though I suspect he was right. He ought to know: He was born in Oklahoma and spent nearly half his life in California.
It’s hard to explain other than love of home. I drive by the hospital where I was born several times a week, though it has grown from a small brick building into a several-block complex. Will Rogers High School, where I was inspired to write The Outsiders—in fact where I wrote a lot of it when I should have been doing other things—remains an art deco beauty, though now, in its seventies, it is getting a little worn around the edges. Well, so am I. The University of Tulsa is booming, expanding, increasing the value of my degree every year. I still hang out with friends I went to high school and college with. None of them is a writer; they’re school teachers, truck drivers, bartenders. Which is good, because I never felt it was too healthy for writers to hang out with each other.
I take a class at the university every once in a while, fun now that I don’t worry about papers or grades. I took a screenwriting course and was motivated to finish an original screenplay that has been optioned. And I took a course in Jane Austen that remains one of the highlights of my life—and my life has had plenty of highlights.
In the nearly sixty years I’ve lived here, I’ve watched my city grow, stagnate, grow, boom, slow down, expand.
It’s a pretty city; a proper city, not just a large town. We have a symphony, a great ballet, several local theater groups and we get plenty of touring productions. Tulsa sits on the Arkansas River, a beauty of a river now that it’s under control. The beauty of the river makes the citizens itchy, makes them want to do something with it besides the miles and miles of biking and walking trails, the bronzes of wildlife, the playgrounds that have already improved it. I can remember when the river banks were weedy marshes and now it is the most used park system in town. I think it exists on its own merit.
Will Rogers also said everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it. Well, we still can’t do anything about it but in Oklahoma predicting it has become an art, and we treat the weathermen—uh, meteorologists—like demi-gods. We forgive them when we’re shoveling five inches of “possible light flurries” off our cars because they can also tell us to the minute where the tornado will come through our neighborhood, and it’s time to gather the pets and kids and photo albums and get in the cedar closet.
For this is a place where we have weather, not climate, and extremes of everything—heat, cold, floods, droughts, and of course twisters. Yes, the sky really does turn green and yes it does sound like a train. I’ve never been directly involved in tornado damage, and it should be easy to get blasé, but viewing the damage first-hand makes a strong impression.
In fact, contrary to popular belief the Dust Bowl was not caused by an unusual drought. It was a regular drought that occurred every dozen years or so, the difference being the tall prairie grass roots that always held the soil down like an immense web net had been sliced and diced by wheat farming. It remains the biggest manmade ecological disaster in American history. So far.
Oklahoma has all kinds of terrain, mountain ranges, flatlands, tall grass prairies where the buffalo still roam, the Great Salt Plains where you can dig up salt crystals. I live in the northeast corner called Green Country, near the Oklahoma Ozarks. It is a pretty country, with scrub oak forests, cottonwoods, a fall that can be breathtaking, and spring heralded by the wild red-buds, dogwood, and plum trees.
Right now I am sitting in a pile of kindling that used to be a yard full of old oaks and magnolias, reflecting on a record-breaking ice storm—the eighth time this year our state has been declared a disaster area, which is a record in itself.
Living with the weather here always keeps you a little on edge, a little lively, knowing the temperature can drop fifty degrees in an hour and a sunny spring day can be followed by a blizzard. In one way, it can play havoc with your nerves, but you learn to expect the unexpected, and you discover that the world is an unkind place but there are ways to deal with it without resorting to unkindness.
I live in midtown Tulsa, which is not downtown, but it’s miles and miles away from the suburbs. It’s an older neighborhood, full of tall oak trees and decades-old azaleas, red maples, and magnolias. Wildlife adapts here. I’ve seen (and heard) barred owls, red shouldered hawks, foxes, raccoons, coyotes, possums, an abundance of rabbits and squirrels, and once a flock of wild turkeys in my own yard. Before this latest ice storm I used to look out my office window to see blue jays quarreling with the squirrels in one of my magnolia trees, cardinals in the azaleas right outside my window, the flowers in the spring so white and heavy it is like I am looking out on snowdrifts.
I probably will again when spring planting gets here. Meanwhile the people who do have power are sheltering those who don’t, people with trucks and chainsaws are clearing the neighbors’ driveways. But there’s no point claiming that virtue just for Oklahomans. Americans everywhere are resilient. That’s what most people will do—plant again once the power comes back on and the mess gets cleaned up. Oklahomans are just very representative of Americans.
Tulsa is a surprisingly (to non-Tulsans) tolerant city. Sure, there are churches on practically every street corner, from Greek Orthodox to one of the largest Unitarian congregations in the United States, every kind of Baptist and fundamentalist sect imaginable—but there are also mosques and temples and places for Buddhists to meditate and you can go to one, all, or none and nobody will think any differently of you.
If you move into a new neighborhood the chances are you will be invited to join a prayer group or a poker game, but no one is offended if you say no.
There is a freedom of thought here that results in diverse opinions. I asked my son, who went to college on the East Coast and is now settled on the West, what he appreciated most about growing up in Oklahoma. After a moment, he said, “the cultural ignorance.”
I was puzzled. We have access to the same Internet, the same publications, the same cable television, several of our movie theaters play the offbeat, art-house, and foreign movies that the big coastal cities get. He went on to explain, “When I was living in Hartford, everyone seemed to think whatever was emanating from New York City. In San Francisco, what San Francisco thinks is what everyone thinks. But in Tulsa, I could use my own brain to form my own opinions.”
He’s right. But that’s not cultural ignorance, it’s cultural independence. In other places, you can count on a uniformity of thought and opinions. Here nobody thinks alike. Sometimes that makes it hard to get things done, but it also makes it easy to hear all sides of an issue. You’ve got rough trees to scratch your thinking antlers on. You are free to use your imagination, intellect, and rationalization. No one expects anyone to think alike—in fact we take great pleasure in thinking differently.
Oklahoma is famous for its Indians, outlaws, and politicians, and a lot of the time they can be all three at once. No state is prouder of its Native American heritage, no state had a wilder frontier when there was no law west of Fort Smith, Arkansas. There was a judge there named Isaac Parker, who was fond of hanging people who needed it; naturally those who needed it preferred to get away from his jurisdiction. We have a funny way of electing officials here. Whoever can stand up and say the most goofball thing with the straightest face gets elected. Then we roll on the floor howling with laughter when the rest of the country looks at us aghast.
All of this makes Oklahoma a great place for a writer. A free place for a writer.
In 1995 a whack-job named Timothy McVeigh with a chip on his shoulder and, according to him, one planted in his butt by the Army, came to Oklahoma to strike a blow at the federal government. He murdered 168 innocent men, women, and children instead; the federal government remained unscathed.
In the aftermath of that tragedy, Oklahoma was on the news 24/7. The whole world saw people of every race, age, and economic status helping each other without hesitation. Caring for their fellow humans, setting an example for conduct during a disaster with simple, noble grace.
I was in Europe that spring, and as I watched the rest of the world watching my home state, I thought “Well, at least this will keep those fools from asking me why I still live in Oklahoma.”
But it hasn’t.
OREGON
CAPITAL Salem
ENTERED UNION 1859 (33rd)
ORIGIN OF NAME Unknown
NICKNAME BeaverState
MOTTO Alis volat Propriis (“She flies with her own wings”)
RESIDENTS Oregonian
U.S. REPRESENTATIVES 5
STATE BIRD western meadowlark
STATE FLOWER Oregon grape
STATE TREE douglasfir
STATE SONG “Oregon, My Oregon”
LAND AREA 95,997 sq mi.
GEOGRAPHIC CENTER In Crook Co., 25 mi. SSE of Prineville
POPULATION 3,641,056
WHITE 86.6%
BLACK 1.6%
AMERICAN INDIAN 1.3%
ASIAN 3.0%
HISPANIC/LATINO 8.0%
UNDER 18 24.7%
65 AND OVER 12.8%
MEDIAN AGE 36.3
PENNSYLVANIA
CAPITAL Harrisburg
ENTERED UNION 1787 (2nd)
ORIGIN OF NAME “Penn’s Woodland” in honor of Adm. Sir William Penn, father of William
Penn
NICKNAME Keystone State
MOTTO “Virtue, liberty, and independence”
RESIDENTS Pennsylvanian
U.S. REPRESENTATIVES 19
STATE BIRD ruffed grouse
STATE FLOWER mountain laurel
STATE TREE hemlock
STATE SONG “Pennsylvania”
LAND AREA 44,817 sq. mi.
GEOGRAPHIC CENTER In Centre Co., 2 1/2 mi. SW of Bellefonte
POPULATION 12,429,616
WHITE 85.4%
BLACK 10.0%
AMERICAN INDIAN 0.1%
ASIAN 1.8%
HISPANIC/LATINO 3.2%
UNDER 18 23.8%
65 AND OVER 15.6%
MEDIAN AGE 38.0
PENNSYLVANIA
Andrea Lee
GREEN
I suddenly get Pennsylvania back in my life, when I hear the children hollering between hillsides. Hey you guys! Hey! Late one May afternoon, my son stands in the garden of our house outside Turin and yells over to the American kids who have moved in across the valley. Three anarchic tow-heads, whose family comes—it seems significant to me—from my home state. Their voices, ringing across woods and vineyards where Roman legions and Napoleonic troops once passed, widen the tight, civilized European landscape. The sound brings back my own childhood spring evenings in a Philadelphia suburb where our shouts have an edge of arcadian freedom, and as we scramble through the bushes, and the earth leaks shadow into the sky, we always have a sense of territory behind us, all that leaf-colored outback.