Well it began this way, my mom and dad with my brother and older sister left southern red dirt Oklahoma in 1941.  They left a dusty and parched non-producing small farm in order to take a chance on moving out to California.  Migrating out to the west coast for jobs and greater living opportunities.  Certainly a decision two million or more Okies, Kansans, and Texans did back in the 1930s and the 1940s.  Although it’s the twenty-first century now, a few are still moving out to the west coast.  And, I might add like myself, some have moved back to the Okie Motherland.

Anyway back in 1944, I was born in East Los Angeles, a manufacturing and blue-collar part of town.  There I grew up Okie amongst, as they say, a melting pot of cultures.  Our Okie heritage just added to the social mix and cultural stew.  Yes, there were Russians, Chinese, Japanese, Italians, Latinos, Irish, Germans, and the ethnic stew pot was bottomless.  Then there were we.  Okies in it's rawist form.  Farmers at heart.  A random bunch of Okie folks trying to fit in with the cultural goulash.  However, part of what made this merging of cultures successful was for us, we finally bought a house with indoor plumbing.  No outhouse.  Yes, first class inside flushing toilet along with electric light bulbs.  So we just fit right in with the rest of the Southern California society.  Pretty cool huh?

But anyway, I grew up Okie in L. A.  Lived there for thirty years and for some unknown and unexplainable reason I moved back to Oklahoma in 1974.  However, in that growing up Okie process while in L A, many west coast habits and ideas came back with me.  I guess I am neither Californian nor Oklahoman.  Some call me conservative.  Some call me liberal.  Nonetheless, I don’t like labels and consider myself a rational tolerant New World cave man.  I could easily live in a walk-in closet.  A guy who, out of guilt, keeps putting sunscreen on the back of his neck.  All in all, I do consider myself Okie by blood and heritage.  So, from this multipart upbringing and mixed cultural grab bag from whence I came is now what influences most of my writing.  So, welcome to my daily blog, The Red Dirt Post.

Chuck Ayers