How often do you spend thought on any common household implement ? A week in Oklahoma, everywhere you look, the image of the state bird, a scissor-tailed flycatcher stares back at you. A brief drive through the campus of Oral Roberts University reveals ghastly gold-plated tasteless buildings, as if the architect was Edward Scissorhands himself. I am confronted by The Praying Hands sculpture, an institutional landmark, probably wishing for a new pair of Wiss embroidery shears. Prayer was obviously not in play if you were on this design committee. A bunch of cut-ups, I imagine. This is, we’re told, the Bible Belt. Alert, alert, simply not true. This is the bib overall, britches, and bow-tie belt. Alliteration aside, I did meet one nice Jewish fellow on the campus, in this den of Christianity, but he, too, was a writer from Washington D.C. We laughed as we shared a bottle of Visine-AC drops in an attempt to reduce the irritating glare; surrounded by dreadful design.

The most common seafood in Oklahoma is not bluegill or perch, it is the Jesus Fish. Home to reputedly the oldest adult theater in the U.S., there are probably more sinners in T-Town than religious TV stations, but the gap is narrowing.

The native American influence is as common as the reminder on the Oklahoma license plate…..Native America. I learned five new Indian entries for the vocabulary while in Tulsa: Okmulgee, Savage, Chickasha, Catoosa, Keno, and Bingo. So I miscounted, but remember I’m from Indiana. We learned math too, but never beyond calculating 8.517 % sales tax. It’s as if Pythagoras was reincarnated to Ponca City to teach arithmetic. Where on earth did the Okies ever come up with a number like that ?

I leave Tulsa feeling enriched by the wonderful people we met. To you literary purists, yes, I did make up that stuff about Will Rogers, but it is something he might have said. It is never good to lie, but sometimes you just have to make up the truth. I will come back to Tulsa, much sooner if invited, to monitor your progress.

And have another dish of cold water at Arnie’s.

For the lovely silver hairs at the state welcome center, you really ought to reconsider on the milk-bone thing.

Do you ever think of the skills you wished had learned, but did not ? Like becoming a ballroom dancer, the equal to Fred Astaire, gliding effortlessly across a public television stage, doing the paso doble, the envy of the untuxedoed crowd.

Or casually taking your place on a piano bench to dazzle an audience with a Mozart concerto, molto allegro, accompanied by a dozen strings (no ukeleles please).

Or lifting your nose slightly skyward, speaking French on a sidewalk cafe in Paris, quietly honking like a goose in heat whose 12 hour Afrin nasal spray had worn off last week.

Never the francophile, I do, however, like the language, the wine, the bread, and a really good hot dog slathered in  French’s mustard.And who can resist those boys on the bicycles, shrink-wrapped like sausages, more colorful than a box of crayolas, pointy helmeted, and perhaps steroid influenced, on a swift traverse of charming countryside in the Tour de France?

Frankly, though, I’ve never been comfortable speaking many actual French words, even though I know the meanings through crossword puzzles. Examples:

etui– a sewing case

ennui-boredom

segue– bridge or transition

milieu-surrounding

and the list goes on…raison d’etre, cirque d’soleil, menage a trois, pinot noir, louvre.

Oh sure, there are many french words we may all use daily without hesitation or equivocation, e.g., crochet, physique, quiche, plateau, parfait, boudoir,or in the case of our esteemed editor and his virtual fan club, the entourage.

The point is, I can’t really go into a nice restaurant and order wine by telling the 22 y/o waitperson, Jason or Brianna, yes, we’ll have a bottle of the Pine Not, No Ear with our lasagna. Define embarassment.

So much easier to say, ‘we’ll have a glass of the house wine’, ‘in red please’. Or what do you have in a Murr Low ?

Perhaps in June 2008 we will go to France, visit the Airstream Park featured in the magazine, follow the Tour de France in a rented class C, and maybe even visit with the acclaimed Bruno.

But for now the editor has admonished me because one of my uncomfortable words is not really French at all, but Italian. Oh well, we’ll cross the Golden Gate segue when we come to it.