Okie Stories
January 12, 2012
I haven’t been blogging very much lately, but I have been writing and busy in other ways. Recently, This Land Press published a story I wrote about the time me and 2 of my friends killed, dressed, skinned, and butchered a goat. Check it out HERE! It’s a reworking of the story I related here on Progress on the Prairie a while back. Also, a very talented journalist named Abby interviewed my friends and me about the killing experience and our personal views on eating meat. She made a nice audio piece — like a mini This American Life episode — out of our interview, and you can listen to it here.
Here’s to Okie stories!
Spring
Take Your Girls Camping
September 11, 2011
Take your girls camping. All you need is a backyard. You can borrow mine if you don’t have one. Try teaching them to build a fire. Check for current burn bans. Let them gather wood of different sizes. Get your fingernails dirty, and let your hands get scratched by errant twigs. Let them wad up newspaper or strips of grocery sacks or all those pages of homework (busy work). Teach them useful, exciting skills like how to light a match. The world won’t burn up if you supervise their playing with matches. They might burn a finger. So? Good.
Ignore fear-mongers who tell you it’s dangerous. Their message is tempting. But you and your girls will be happier and stronger if you don’t buy the extra worry.
Roast marshmallows. Or pears. Or corn. Or hot dogs. Pitch a tent. Make a pallet. Watch the stars. Tell the moon she’s beautiful and good night.
Spring
Apple Dandelion Fritters!
April 10, 2011
Don’t kill your dandelions, fry them! If you have sprayed chemicals all over your dandelions because you were brainwashed into thinking they are bad, bad weeds then you will have to miss out on these delicious Springtime delicacies. Ha! However, if your yard is wild and pollutant-free and ugly like mine, then you are in luck!
♥
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Ingredients:
diced apples, 1 handful
dandelions, 1 handful freshly foraged
egg, 1
flour, 1 cup
milk, 1/2 cup
applesauce, 1/2 cup
cinnamon, 1 dash
oil for frying
syrup or honey for dipping
powdered sugar for sprinkling
Step 1: Send kid to pick the flower parts off the dandelions while you cut up apples and measure out ingredients. Pull the yellow petals out of the rest of the green part of the flower for this recipe. The green can be kinda bitter, which I think is great for more savory recipes, but not so much for this sweeter one.
Step 2: Mix everything together. Batter should be thicker than pancake batter, but not as thick as biscuit dough. Ya hear me? Then drop it by the spoonful into hot oil. I use a medium-low heat.
Step 3: Fry for 1 to 2 minutes on each side, until beautiful and golden.
Step 4: Sprinkle with powdered sugar, dip in syrup or drizzle with honey.
Step 5: Now EAT!
Num num,
Spring
Hi, I’m from Oklahoma. I’m Scared Shitless of Nukes.
March 16, 2011
Seriously, I don’t want to over-react or be all alarmist. I’m not about to say anything that other people haven’t already said. But I’m scared shitless about the problems of nuclear enery and the problems at several of Japan’s nuclear facilities right now. By the way, I prefer to go to the IAEA website for reliable news updates concerning events in Japan. They seem to turn up the scientific reporting, and turn down the alarm/ fear/ capitalist/ US-centric rhetoric.
And you see, back when I found out during the 2010 presidential campaign that Obama was cool with the nukes, it was the one thing that left a suspicion of him in my mind that never faded. And so it accordingly stressed me out when I heard him defending nuclear energy yesterday, but it stressed me out even more to hear about Obama and his administration’s pushing ahead to build NEW nuclear plants.
I couldn’t agree more with Robert Scheer in his piece, No Nukes Is Good Nukes. I feel relieved that really smart people are as disturbed by this energy source as I am. The thing is, I don’t just think that the waste produced by creating nuclear power is bad for people, I think it’s kinda the worst thing that has ever existed on the bad-for-the-planet scale. And it damages everything: land, water, animals, seeds, mature plants, rocks. Everything. In a FOREVER damaged kind of way. Go read Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko. Or listen to and watch Winona LaDuke talk.
Even in the middle of nowhere on the fertile plains of Oklahoma, I’m scared.
Spring
Women Who Kill Goats
November 9, 2010
I spent this weekend in the woods with about 200 women, and 4 friends: Miz H, A, L, and K. And now I want to live in the woods permanently.
Friday night, we set up our tents in the face of a freeze warning. Black night with stars clear and perfectly spaced, like tiny polka-dots on fabric. Built a fire, sat in folding chairs, and talked. About jobs, about personal philosophy, about food, eating meat, about parenting, about boys, about girls. We drank Corona and ate sunflower seeds.
Not one of us slept a whole hour that night, mostly because we were so, so cold. I tried curling up in a fetal ball to conserve heat. I wrapped things around my head and ducked into my sleeping bag. Then my toes got cold, so I covered them with my quilt and a small pile of clothes I couldn’t identify in the dark. Then my butt got cold, so I wrapped a scarf around my pelvic area like a bandage. Dozed off. Then wild dogs barking.
And in the morning, I drank shitty coffee and ate a bite and went to a workshop called Field Dressing. I imagined in my head when I signed up for this class 2 months prior that there would be a dead deer hung up in a warehouse of some sort, and the instructor would have a knife that s/he would pass around and give each of us a turn cutting something. But when I got to the designated meeting spot, there was a trailer full of 10 live, quite cute goats.
So we went to kill them. Me and Miz H and A.
We cut 10 jugular veins and 10 carotid arteries. Then we carried them by their feet to a pile of wood so they could bleed all of their blood out. Miz H and I had one goat. A had a goat all to herself. We cut them open delicately so as not to puncture their stomachs, and then we took their bowels out. We set the heart and liver aside. We cut the hyde off, then quartered it. Leg meat, neck, back, ribs. Sawed off feet and heads. Done.
And now I want to live in the woods in a cabin and raise and kill my own meat and cook it in delicious ways for my meat-eating friends. And for those of my friends who don’t eat meat, I will cook well-spiced and generously seasoned sweet potatoes and greens and corn and rice and beans from my garden behind my cabin. And we shall feast on ceramic plates with silver spoons. And I will be tired and happy.
Does that not sound lovely?
Spring
(The event was sponsored by Women in the Outdoors. To find out about WITO events in your area, go here.)
A Local Economy is a Wealthy (& Healthy) Economy
July 7, 2010
As many of you know, I have completely sold out to THE MAN as I currently work at a state government agency known as the Department of Human Services (DHS). Oh well, mama’s gotta go to the dentist and pay bills and stuff, and that’s not the point. Within DHS are several “departments” or “divisions” or whatever they are called. There is Child Welfare and Adult Protective Services and then there is the place I work: it’s basically the food stamp office. I think the technical name is Family Support Services. Every day I stamp in dozens and dozens of applications that floods of poor people just like you & me turn in to request help paying for the most basic of human needs, nutrition. (Go here to read more about the state food benefits program.)
When I first started working there, I had no idea that poverty existed in such abundance in Tulsa, Oklahoma, America. There are 3 food stamp offices in Tulsa alone, and each office serve 10,000s of people. Call me naive, call me blind, call me privileged; all are true. Still, I was shocked at how many people need help feeding their families. And depressed. In fact, I cried every day at lunch during my entire 2nd week of work.
My DHS office building is dank, and I have to go down to what is essentially the basement to get to the food stamp office. No windows, but our doors are open from 8-5, M-F. Every minute of every day, there is a crowded lobby and a line that I can’t see the end of. Babies are crying, women are cussing, old people are trying to hear over the noise, men are pissed off, no plants, no books, a few scattered pamphlets, a few missing children posters; a fucking vending machine that sells soda and another that sells chips hum behind it all.
In the first 2 weeks I worked there, I saw something that I couldn’t really name. At first, I thought that I was witnessing proof that capitalism just doesn’t work. That it has failed way too many people.
Then I started to think how scary it must be to be totally dependent on something else or someone else for your food, for your child’s food. I thought about how if I were in that situation I would do everything in my power, I would summon all of my creativity and intelligence and smart friends to wriggle my way out of dependence.
And I still think that, but that’s not all I think. I think that that food stamp line that I see every single day is just a microcosmic replica of what every single one of us do every day. We all wait and get pissed and cry and cuss in one way or another for someone else to get our food or to give us money to get our food.
If you have never read The Idea of a Local Economy by Wendell Berry, I humbly prod you to do so. In it, he talks about how we have moved from a local economy to a global economy or, as Berry calls it, a “total economy…where critical choices that once belonged to individuals or communities become the property of corporations.” And it’s true. People used to decide what to do with the environment around them. Then governments did. Now corporations do. Think BP.
Though one is shopping amid an astonishing variety of products, one is denied certain significant choices. In such a state of economic ignorance it is not possible to choose products that were produced locally or with reasonable kindness toward people and toward nature. Nor is it possible for such consumers to influence production for the better. Consumers who feel a prompting toward land stewardship find that in this economy they can have no stewardly practice.To be a consumer in the total economy, one must agree to be totally ignorant, totally passive, and totally dependent on distant supplies and self-interested suppliers.
WE have lost control of our economy. I don’t just mean WE as in WE who have jobs or WE who are talking about social issues or WE who are connected to the internet and drive cars newer than ’99 or WE who have been to college or WE who are underpaid and overworked. I mean every-single-person-in-this-world WE.
But what can we do to take more ownership and responsibility for ourselves, for our livelihood, for our health, for our community? To make this place better than we found it, to enrich the local economy? We can grow our own veggies and fruits, for starters. Do it. Grow something. Quit taking all the world’s groceries, and put some back. If you don’t have the space or gumption to grow your own food, you can shop at the local farmer’s markets. And FYI: the one on Cherry Street now accepts food stamps! 
What else?
Vegan What? by Sarah H.
March 22, 2010
Have you ever thought about becoming vegetarian? Or full-blown, hard-core vegan? Guest blog by my friend Sarah H. about her recent foray into VEGAN-hood!
OK, so I’m more than halfway through this 2 week vegan experiment. I’m feeling great, have dropped a few pounds, am down a pant size – all around feeling well. The first few days coincided with 7 days of an antibiotic (watch out for rusty nails) so I couldn’t tell if the bit of of the sick belly that I had was the diet or the pills, but it seemed that the timing of each dose correlated with the onset of sick belly. Which is weird, because… I was expecting to feel crummy. I was ready for it. I was also kind of welcoming it because I thought then I’d feel like “WOW, this is my body detoxing”, but the crumminess never came.
I’ll start out with WHY I’m doing this. I really thought I could just stick with “‘Cause I like experiments!” but people didn’t buy it. Actually, this is 50% true – I DO like experiments. Like inspecting a wound or doing a colon cleanse – the things bodies do are gross and fascinating to me. The other 50% is (and if you’ve hung out with me for 5 MINUTES, you know this is true) that I have a lot of guilt. In general. I’ve never murdered anyone or inflicted physical pain or destroyed anyone’s life, but I have treated people poorly in the past and have not always been a kind person. I carry this stupid guilt with me and try to alleviate by helping. People – strangers or friends or family, doesn’t matter. Animals. Anything, anyone, I want to make them happy to get rid of some of my guilt. This never works and a lot of the time, they don’t notice or care, and I continue to drag my guilt around. I think this makes up the majority of my anxiety. Just the worry worry worry that makes my skin crawl. So… what else can I do to remedy this?
The less energy it takes to create my food, the more energy left over for others. By eating lower on the food chain, it increases the amount of food available for other people. It takes anywhere from 3-16 lbs of grain to produce ONE lb of beef. Cows eat up to 100 lbs of mixed feed a day and drink 30-50 gallons of fresh water daily. It just seems like instead of using all that energy to fatten up an animal to eat or milk or whatever, those raw resources could just be given to humans instead. Seems easy.
So… it worked. I don’t know if it’s canceling out some of my guilt? Perhaps I have an unidentified food allergy and going vegan has finally rid my body of the offensive substance? Either way… I’m doing better. I’m feeling better. I don’t walk through my day with the tingle or the… vibration?… in my skull that I’ve come to identify as anxiety.
Also, again, if any of you have spent 5 minutes with me, you know I’m a picky eater. My parents raised me to eat veggies with dinner every single night. We always ate dinner together and veggies were always included. This went on for years. YEARS! So why do I hate veggies so much? I hate them. I’ll dissect my pizza or my sandwich or my omelette or whatever to get every nasty little green or red out of there. I like my burgers with cheese and bacon; I like my pizza with double cheese and maybe some Alfredo sauce on the side. For dipping. Yup.
Adam and I had decided together that before we have babies, I need to get my head right about veggies. My babies are going to eat their veggies and don’t need to look over and see me making disgusted/gagging faces while choking down a tidbit of broccoli. I’ve tried to just choke things down but the texture gets me. Well, and the flavor. Ugh. I’d finally gotten to the point where so long as the broccoli was super mushy, I could handle it in my cheddar soup.
So, in walks the experiment. The first few days I had fruit, whole grains, yummy protein shakes, oatmeal, etc. Then… we started going out to eat. Not every day, just here and there, and I LOVED it! I was eating beans and veggies and all sorts of stuff that crunches! There are still a few things I don’t like (black beans – gag) but far more things that I do like (chickpeas, avacado, charro beans, lime rice, peppers and onions so long as they’re cut up small). Needless to say, I’m PUMPED! I’m getting all these healthy things in my diet that have never been there before.
I think the most surprising part of this whole experiment (one more week to go, but I think this really will be how I continue to live) is how people have responded to this whole vegan thing. Frankly, people have NOT responded well. The important folks (Adam, Megs, my parents) are supportive and awesome no matter what I’m doing, so I definitely have what I need. And I’ve gotten lots of support on here too – thanks for that! But other folks are the opposite of interested. I mean, look, I do all sorts of “wacky” things like recycle and try to be responsible for how much gas and paper I use, but I don’t gripe out or look down on folks who don’t have these habits. I’m a big believer in the whole “you catch more flies with honey” deal. My ideal is just to live well and happily and try to show that you can easily just be more conscious of your actions. Simple, I’d thought. So why would this be any different? I’m trying to make my life match my beliefs, that’s all. Already, people have cut me off and blown over me whenever I say something about it. The other day I said something about this awesome Tex-Mex hummus (THE BOMB) that I had and immediately was responded to with “Look, do whatever you want, but don’t tell me why I shouldn’t eat meat.” Umm… but that’s not what I was saying. At all. I’m just excited that I’m eating new stuff. And I don’t even phrase it in a way to that I’m eating these new foods to replace meat, just that I’m eating new foods! I don’t mind at all if people don’t care, but why actively dislike what I’m doing?
…. And… I know meat is tasty. And cheese is even tastier. I know. That’s why I’ve been eating animals for about 3 decades now. I KNOW. But I’m trying something new. You can eat a steak in front of me and it doesn’t bother me, but don’t crap on what I’m doing, K?
And to clarify, I’m ok with eating animals. Really. What bothers me is that animals are being treated so horribly and violently up to and including their slaughter. If some cows are hanging out at a farm, enjoying the sun, eating some grass? Rad. Kill it in a decent way and eat that cow. But don’t make cows live their whole lives in the dark, unable to move or breathe fresh air, treated horribly by the workers, and then be killed in slow and painful ways. That’s just unnecessary and really barbaric. Until new regulations are in place (’cause look how good “policing” themselves is going) and companies are totally transparent in their practices and you know what’s going on behind the scenes of the places where I’m spending MY money … I think I’ll be sticking to this plan.
P.S. Don’t buy Tyson.
P.P.S. Let me know if you want to try a vegan lunch date!
Small Town Talk by Sterlin & Spring
February 14, 2010
My BFF Sterlin and I are both from the tiny, rural town of Holdenville, Oklahoma. And we both now live in the thriving metropolis of Tulsa. The difference is that lately he wants to move back to that small town lifestyle. He is happy in Holdenville; he is inspired there. He has almost 100% fond memories of his life there. But me? The thought of living back there makes me queezy and limp in the knees and hyperventilate a little. I mean I love, love, love some things about the country (see my last post). But, I just want to visit Hville, not live there. I never felt completely comfortable there; some of the discomfort was, to be sure, just the universal awkwardness of growing up. But some of it was an indescribable stifling that I blame on my particular small town experience. Anyway, Sterlin and I got to talking about our different experiences of growing up in small town, OK, and here is what was said:
Me: Okay. We both come from a small town, but you have a much rosier picture of the small town lifestyle than I do. Don’t you?
Sterlin: Yes. We have very different versions of the same place… I think.
Me: What do you mean?
Sterlin: I mean, we both grew up in the same place and knew some of the same people, yet you could let it get sucked into a hole in the ground whereas I would move there tomorrow.
Me: Well, I always felt suffocated by the lack of opportunities and by the lack of diversity. Take religion. I mean, there are absolutely no Jews or Buddhists. There are hardly any Catholics. Pentecostals but everyone makes fun of them. I read about different religions and cultures in magazines, but that was it.
Sterlin: I don’t know… I feel like I had a lot of diversity religiously speaking. My family always held native beliefs and held the traditional ways in high regard. I spent most of my youth at an Indian Baptist Church (more than one, actually), and I was also an altar boy at my Grandma’s Episcopal church when I stayed the night at her house. Lighting candles, carrying crosses, and drinking wine.
Me: Hmmm. I guess my time in a Southern Baptist Church really tarnished my view of the space for freedom of religion. Going to Falls Creek and hearing preachers talk about how abortion was murder and a moral sin then going home where my dad was a doctor and kinda a health nut telling me that, no, an abortion was a medical procedure and a very private ordeal. It was a very conflicted environment for me. Quite uncomfortable, as far as morality, religion, spirituality, and all that goes.
Sterlin: Yeah, but you were also REALLY into religion for a while. I feel like me and my friends always held it at a safe distance… just enough to keep us in check but far enough so that we could do what we want. Yeah, so that reminds me. All the Indian churches go to a different Falls Creek. We called it Indian Falls Creek. But we always wondered what “white Falls Creek” was like. I got my first kiss at Indian falls creek. It was a girl from Weleetka.
Me: You’re the devil. White people didn’t do anything at Falls Creek but worship the Lord. Gaw.
Sterlin: I also had friends that lost their virginity at Indian Falls Creek.
Me: Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh! How did you handle that guilt? The guilt that is like ‘Oh, God is watching me, and I might burn in hell or at least seriously disappoint Him for this action that is really just funny kid stuff’?
Sterlin: Didn’t worry about it too much. It was a badge of honor if you came in late at Falls Creek. Especially if you had a hickey. You were talked about for years. I do remember, though, that it was right when AIDS awareness was huge and I was scared you could get it from kissing.
Me: Do you think, then, that some of your positive small town experiences had something to do with you being Indian, or you being male?
Sterlin: Yes, for sure Indian. I don’t think being male made a big difference though I’m sure you would disagree. I, of course, don’t have the perspective of being a girl growing up there. I mean, on the whole, you have to find people that have your similar interests, which can be hard in a small town. I think I was lucky. I also remember you having a lot of fun there. The Indian thing helped for sure. It’s just a different way of growing up and relating to people. My family was my community. Everyone watched out for each other… entertained each other. It kind of breaks my heart that a lot of that doesn’t exist back home anymore. My cousins are gone all over and elders are dying. It gives me a huge urge to want to be home and to not be a part of that community’s demise… I want to be a part of it’s strength and continuation.
Me: Gotcha. I think you were lucky, too. I remember you always looked so comfortable socially. So free.
Sterlin: I love city living. New York City is one of my favorite places in the world but as I get older I feel like the guy standing on my rooftop looking towards the country. I want chickens. I don’t want to shop at Whole Foods anymore.
Me: Whatever, you love Whole Foods, and you wouldn’t know WTF to do with a chicken!
Sterlin: Yeah, but I’d learn. I would need an internet connection for that, though. And the thing is, my Grandma who raised chickens her whole life is still alive!!! But she lives in Holdenville, and I’d need to be there to learn from her.
Me: So what do you think about raising a 21st century daughter in a small town? Do you think that you would have to pre-emptively prepare or do some padding or work harder to create a positive environment for her? Or to create healthy, sustainable, and fulfilling opportunities for her?
Sterlin: Yes, I think that you would have to work hard to raise a 21st century daughter in a small town but it’s the same in the city.
Me: ‘Cause she’s gonna grow up and leave us someday and become the 1st Native female President of the US, ya know?
Sterlin: Yes.
Me: I’m sure you have a more positive vision of our daughter being in a small town. I tend to think of the problems that could arise like methamphetamines, lack of comprehensive sex-ed, etc.
Sterlin: The thing about having a kid in a small town… or specifically my hometown is that there are things that a parent can never teach a kid. I’ll never be able to teach her what my parents can teach her. I’ll never be able to teach her what her great grandma can teach her. It’s not like they are having lesson time or anything… it’s just that kids can get a lot from their grandparents by just observing them and being around them. I think that’s a very Indian way of community. Not just their grandparents but also their cousins and Aunts and Uncles. I feel like my Aunts and Uncles are second parents. I also think that there’s something educational about growing up in the country. When the shit hits the fan and our whole society breaks down I want to be surrounded by people that know how to manage in the woods. I don’t want to be stuck with lawyers or real estate agents.
Me: I’m with you on that one.
Sterlin: For instance, this past hunting season I butchered my first deer. Now, that’s knowledge that I need to survive. I also recently learned how to start my own blog… and I’m learning how to use my Wacom tablet and draw in layers on Photoshop. The last two don’t amount to a hill of beans compared to butchering a deer.
Me: A hill of beans?
Sterlin: Wouldn’t you agree?
Me: Yes, but I also think that you can learn those survival skills no matter where you are. That’s what’s so fascinating about urban gardening and farming or all these community gardens around Tulsa or building a garden in my very own backyard. Slowly learning these skills, putting in the manual labor and getting paid in food. THAT’S AWESOME! That’s a survival skill that all of us can do no matter where we live. And no matter if our parents and grandparents are still alive or not. Also, you can raise a few chickens in your own backyard in Tulsa. There’s no ban on backyard chickens here. And don’t knock beans.
Sterlin: True. I never trust the soil of the city though. It’s weird, but I worry what’s in it. Just paranoid. I love Tulsa but it does rank pretty low as far as environmental health goes. I guess we just have to plant more trees and make it more like the country… or… I don’t know. I’ll just move to the country. I’m also paranoid about tap water.
Me: Don’t you remember when the tap water in Holdenville was making people sick?
Sterlin: Yeah, but that’s ’cause the city folk came in and made the water filtration system because in their city, they were polluting the rivers with chemicals. It’s the joys of capitalism: cause a problem and then pay people to maintain it… not fix the problem.
Me: Oh. Thanks for the insight.
Sterlin: There are ups and downs of both the city and the country… I just think that the country suits me.
Me: Well, when you find a place in the country, will you report back and let me know how things are going?
Sterlin: Yes, I’ll bring you eggs fresh from my chicken and milk from my cow.
Me: Will you get our daughter a pony?
Sterlin: Of course.
For more musings from filmmaker, writer, dad, and countree-boyee Mr. Sterlin Harjo, you can check out his new blog (!) here.
Is My Country Showing?
February 12, 2010
Recently, a commenter on the blog said she could tell I wasn’t from Tulsa, and I immediately had flashbacks to my college years in NYC when EVERY…SINGLE…PERSON I met commented on my Oklahoma twang. The comments ranged from “How cute!” to “Ugh.”, and I became hyper-aware of my drawl and the effect it seemed to have on people. For a few days I worried that my country was showing, and I would try to pronounce “pen” with only one syllable and a distinctly short “e”. But, then I quit caring, and I started playing with the image that people have of Midwesterners/ Southerners/Okies (by literally becoming a simplistic, poor, unfortunate, teen-aged, unmarried mother/ goat-milker).
Lately, I have been missing the idealized, small town life of my youth in rural Oklahoma. I have always maintained that if the end of the world were to come, I’d run straight for the hills of Holdenville, OK. Where the women know how to hunt, garden, and cook. And the men know how to fix an engine and change a diaper. And the kids still climb trees. And there’s plenty of land to bury the dead and pitch tents and keep campfires burning and worship whatever you please.
Of course, I don’t believe the world is going to end anytime soon, and I don’t believe that life in a small town is ideal. I’ve lived in small town, rural Oklahoma. And let’s just say I don’t completely fit in. But nonetheless I’m having a bit of nostalgia for my hometown.
A postcard of Holdenville, OK shows a “Street Scene” (I’m not sure what year this was taken, but it looks like a year with no females. Just men and donkeys.):
Image from Department of Special Collections and University Archives McFarlin Library. University of Tulsa.
Photo by Paul B. Southerland taken 7/26/78.
The main industries in Hville are Tyson Pig Farms, Oil and Gas, Catfish Farms… oh, and a medium-security prison. There’s a lake there. And beautiful old buildings, and lots of beautiful, hilly, lush land as far as the eye can see.
~If you are interested, the Oklahoma Historical Society has been collecting, preserving, and sharing the history of Oklahoma and its people since before statehood.
~The entry on my hometown of Holdenville. Holdenville fun-fact: The 117th richest person in America is the billionaire T. Boone Pickens who is from Holdenville.
You can take the girl outta the country, but she’s still…
Spring
5 Ways to Do Good in a Snowstorm
January 29, 2010
portlyn. 1.29.10
Many of us in Oklahoma are iced-in this weekend and may be wondering, what is a girl (or boy) to do with all this indoor time? I mean after you’ve exhausted your inclination toward catching snowflakes on your tongue, cleaning (blugh!), snuggling, knitting, watching TV, painting your toenails, and doing 1000s of crunches; you may be longing for that feel-good, change-the-world type of task that can be accomplished while sitting in front of your computer. Well, here ya go:
1. Sign a petition! When fast-food giants like McDonald’s and KFC reject meat because it doesn’t meet their standards, do you know who buys it? The USDA. Then they use it for school lunch programs, and all that reject meat is fed to our school children. Grossed out? Think we can do better? Tell the USDA, “I find it unacceptable and shocking that USDA standards for school lunch meat purchases do not even match that of the fast food industry’s standards.” You can help by signing this petition to tell the USDA to adopt common-sense food safety standards, practices, and testing.
2. Support students who go to college! Whether you’re at the far left or the far right end of the political spectrum, surely we can all agree that education is a good thing. According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, reforming the student loan programs will save tax payers $87 billion over ten years. That money would go to students instead of to banks as subsidies. Tell your Representatives to choose Students Over Banks!
3. Get caught up on the Indian mascot debate! The latest fiasco is set in nearby Stillwell, Oklahoma.
4. Meditate! Do something good for yourself, dangit! Be kind and patient with yourself. Just try to sit and pay attention to nothing but your breath for 2 whole minutes. It’s really not that easy, especially for me because I’m a bouncy, bouncy, emotional, and fidgety type. But I promise it’s not that weird, and you won’t hallucinate divine beings, as my meditation teacher/ Episcopal nun friend Sister Ellie has assured me.
5. Try cooking and eating VEGETARIAN! Okay, this one requires you to get off your ass, but eating is pretty important. If you are like me and you just can’t commit to a life without a delicious beef burger every now-and-then, it’s okay! Still, eating vegetarian or vegan (if you are really hard-core) is good for our health, better for our beautiful Earth, and a good way to put meaningful thought into a sometimes mundane task. Also, it can be fun and exciting to try new vegetarian recipes like the ones at Meatless Monday.
It seems like this list should be longer, but I’m getting hungry Any other ideas?
Yours in attempting do-goodery,
Spring
