Travel southward downs the southern Plaines from central Oklahoma to north Texas and you will witness a billion acres of red dirt.  The same red dirt that blew across the sky of the southern Plaines during the Great Depression.  Creating an ominous high noon scarlet sun.  The same parched red dirt that sent many a farmer and his family off to California.  It was the blowing red dirt.  Red.  Dry.  Sandy.  Unforgiving. 

However, it was what made many an Okie man a real man. And made many an Okie woman hate it’s relentless presents.  Red dirt in your house, in yur hair, and creating a forever grit in your mouth.  It is what was expected everyday.  Every week.  For an eternity.

So, what so romantic about this red dirt mystique anyway?  Well.  It was there, in a biblical sense, from the beginning.  It was everywhere you looked.  You breathed it.  You felt it.  You taste it.  It’s where all Okies and Texicans came from.  It’s the DNA of the southern Plaines society and culture.  You are it.  It is you.  Body, mind, and soul. 

Okies and Texicans are Red Dirt Americans.  Hard working.  Fiercely independent.  Resisting to change.  Not accepting of outside influences.  Suspicious of education.  And, bound to a rigid historical culture.

However, for those Okies who drove away across the Red River and headed west, our DNA stayed with us.  The red dirt would not wash away.  Our independence and pragmatism were passed on to several generations.  And, I suspect, for generations to come.  Forever Okie.  Always southern plainsmen and women in our souls.  Our DNA is tagged with red dirt.  We are certainly “Okie Without Borders.”