IT'S ALL ABOUT ME

By way of introduction, my name is Marc Sherman. I was born in the first half of the last century. I’ve been a native Tulsan for 26 years.

I like Tulsa. It’s just so easy to live here. It’s easy to get around. I can get from anywhere to anywhere in no more than a half hour. There are no real traffic jams. You want traffic jams? Go to New Jersey. That’s where I grew up.

It’s also easy to get jobs here. I should know. I’ve had twelve of them. At least.

My wife is from New Jersey. We grew up fairly near each other. But we met in Tulsa. Go figure.

Another thing I like here is the language. Back east we may change a light bulb, or change the battery. But here you change out the light bulb and change out the battery. I like that. Also back east, we sometimes put things away. Here you put things up. You put up the rake, or put up the vacuum. I now try to put things up whenever I can.

One summer when I went east to visit my parents, my aunt came over for a barbecue. By the way, north easterners consider anything cooked over an open fire to be barbecue. Hamburgers, hot dogs, anything. I know, they’re ignorant. It’s not their fault.

Anyway, my aunt was helping out and asked where the trash barrel was. I told her “I drug it ‘round back.”

My well spoken aunt’s eyes got big and she looked at me as if I had passed gas in an elevator. She asked, in a rising voice, “You drug it ‘round back?”

What could I say? I’m a native Tulsan.

But sometimes I do feel the burden of being an outsider. Like the time my wife and I went to a Chinese restaurant. The hostess sized us up and asked, with a thick Asian accent, “You’re not from around here, are you?”

I figure if she could tell, everybody can. But they mostly don’t seem to mind.