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Origin of the species.
We were a family of post dust bowl Okies living in Los Angeles. My parents, older sister, and brother all were born in southern rural Oklahoma. My younger sister and I were born in blue collar East L. A. In spite of all of this we looked like Okies, talked like Okies, and ate like Okies. Fried chicken with gravy often sat atop our family’s California dining table. However it took decades for us Okies to acclimate to the cosmopolitan hoity toity ways of post WWII Los Angeles. So, many years it took for us red dirt Plaines common folk to realize farting and belching were not acceptable behavior while with local polite company. None the less, eventually we caught on to the local expectations then refined our ways. The local fundamentalist church was our finishing school with its many ‘Potlucks.’ Plus attending several weddings brought this important social point home. “Excuse me and sorry about that” eventually made it into our spoken lexicon. Now we are L. A. Okies. Woo haa!
