Cadillac, Oklahoma by Louise Farmer Smith

Author:Louise Farmer Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Upper Hand Press

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Hillary O’Brian’s

Cadillac Voices

This writer takes on those who put on airs about their family’s Oklahoma past.

GENTLEMAN?

I’d just like to say a word or two about a certain kind of Cadillac “gentleman.” I won’t name any names, but they will know who they are. I call a person like I’m talking about, “Uncle Alphonse.” And you may know a few yourself.

I hear this type telling new people that they come from one of the “old families” of Oklahoma, descended from the founders. Shoot! Who wasn’t. Oklahoma didn’t become a state until 1907.

Sure, our folks were here—living in a sod house, keeping warm burning buffalo chips. Yet Alphonse will call his relatives cattlemen, just because they owned some cows. And any one of his ancestors who went to the normal schools that trained teenagers to become teachers, Alphonse will call Scholars.

What happened to those early settlers after that break-neck wagon race was a lot of spirit-crushing work and sickness that weeded out some of the folks like Alphonse who can’t call things by their right names.

We laugh and look down on Alphonse. We know he’s weak, trying to lift himself up backwards, painting in a made-up past instead of working toward a better future. In Oklahoma we want you to know just how dirt poor we started out, so you can appreciate how far we’ve come. Who wants to be seen as some namby-pamby fancy pants in a state full of cowboys!

Sam Slocum

Cadillac resident since 1965

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