Oklahoma Joke Book

by Stan Paregien, Sr.

Ada, the county seat of Pontotoc County, is the hometown of two big time politicians, U.S. Representative Wes Watkins and the late U.S. Senator Robert S. Kerr. And it was there at a noon meeting of the Lions Club that a surgeon, an engineer and a politician were guest speakers.

At a reception after the program, the three men began arguing about whose profession was the oldest. "Mine is," said the surgeon, "because in the beginning Eve was carved out of Adam's rib."

"True," replied the engineer, "but even earlier than that the earth was created out of chaos in six days. That obviously was an engineering job."

"Yes," said the politician, "but don't forget who created the chaos!"

A transplanted Oklahoman was chatting with an old-timer in Paris, Texas. The newly arrived Oklahoman glanced up at the swirling, dark clouds and said, "I sure don't like the looks of the sky. It looks just like it always did back home in Allen, Oklahoma, just before a tornado would strike."

"Were the tornadoes might big ones?" asked the Texan.

"Big? Why, mister, you don't think I came into Texas of my own free will, do ya?"

Before statehood in 1907, the Indian Territory was no place for a tenderfoot. There's a story that illustrates this, about a man who fled the Indian Territory in 1903 and didn't stop until he got to St. Louis. The man made quite a stir there, because he was driving a buckboard which was hitched to four mountain lions. The grizzly pioneer carried a Sharps buffalo rifle, wore two Navy colts strapped around his middle, and had a razor-sharp Bowie knife stuck under his belt. And sitting with him on the buckboard was his partner, a man who was even bigger, uglier and meaner than he was.

As they got down from the buckboard and started toward the saloon, someone asked where they were from. "Indian Territory," growled the larger man. "Things are gettin' so bad down there that all of us sissies are having to get out."

The town of Apache is a farming community in Caddo County. Now, farmers down there may not know much about Rembrandt, Milton or Mozart, but they have always known a lot about life. Practical, down-to-earth information. And when a 45-year-old bachelor at Apache was trying to get a wife, he made friends with the young son of an attractive widow. he bought candy for the boy. Took him fishing. Fixed his toys. Read comic books to him.

Someone finally asked him why he went out of his way to be so nice to the boy and why he didn't spend more time courting the boy's mother, if that was his intention. The farmer smiled and said, "My pa always said that when you teach the calf to lead, the cow will follow."

Ardmore, down on the sunny side of the Arbuckle Mountains, has been named several times to the "All American City" list because of its beauty and cultural affairs. That may or may not be why a certain young couple chose to spend their wedding night there at the Holiday Inn on Interstate 35.

The next morning the bride went down to the lobby to buy some toothpaste and on the way back got confused on her directions and went to the wrong room. The door was locked so she purred as sweetly as she knew how, "Honey. Oh, honey."

There was no response. So she gently knocked and said a little more loudly, "Honey! Oh, honey!"

This time a strange male voice boomed out, "Look, lady, this is not a beehive. It's my motel room."

Arnett, seat of Ellis County, is located just a few miles east of the Texas panhandle border. And resident Jess Speer once had this story published in the "Humor in Uniform" section of the Reader's Digest:

"A young radioman in our Navy crew knew he would have trouble getting past the spit-and-polish deck officer to make the last liberty boat. Sure enough, the ensign sent the sailor back for a haircut. He beat it for the ship's barbershop, only to find it closed. He thought for a moment, then brightened. Ten minutes later, hat squared, he again saluted the deck officer.

"'Request permission to leave the ship, sir!' he barked, then added, 'How do my shoes look now?'

"The busy officer glanced at the mirror-like finish on the young man's regulation blacks, and smiled. 'Much better,' he snapped. 'Permission granted.'"

A Texan was driving alone Highway 69, just north of Atoka, when he veered to miss a dog in the road. His car went off the road and into the Muddy Boggy River, knocking him unconscious.

Fortunately, a truck driver stopped, pulled the Texan from his mangled car, and took him to a service station just a short distance away and stretched him out on the pavement. Then he called for an ambulance. The Texan opened his eyes as he was lying in the driveway of the gas station and began screaming and fighting to get away.

Later, from his hospital bed there in Atoka, he explained why he had been so disturbed. It seems that the first thing he had seen when awoke was the "Shell" service station sign, but the attendant was standing in front of the "S".

Way out in the panhandle is the town of Beaver, acclaimed for its annual Cow Chip Throwing Contest and for once being the capitol of the Territory of Cimmaron. Today the economy is based on ranching, farming and oil. And they like to tell about how one of the leading citizens made a trip out to the bright lights of Las Vegas. Soon the stories started flying that the man had really hit the jackpot in the gambling dens.

Someone finally asked the man's secretary whether her had really made a killing gambling. "Oh, I suppose some people would call it that," she said, since she knew the truth. "He left Beaver in a $30,000 Lincoln Town Car and he called this morning to say that he's coming home on a $200,000 Greyhound bus."

The generation gap is perhaps nowhere more evident than in regard to attitudes toward fashions. Take the case of an 80-year-old woman who lives in the ultra conservative far Western town of Boise City. Now, bless her heart, the old lady has lived there all of her life. And, because the town is so isolated (it is actually closer to the state capitols of Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico than it is to Oklahoma City), the latest New York and Los Angeles fashions take a while to get there.

Anyhow, one Christmas she made a trip out to Los Angeles to visit her oldest daughter. She was horrified at the scanty clothing which the young women were wearing in public. Her daughter teased, "Oh, come on, mother. I imagine you girls in Boise City were just as flirtatious in your day."

"Dear," the old woman proudly said, "in my day we flirted with our fans, not with our fannies."

Doctors, and especially dentists, were rare in the early days of Oklahoma statehood. But they large oil deposits were discovered near Bristow in 1916, the town began to grow. They even got two doctors and a dentist.

They tell how one cantankerous old rancher finally was forced by a painful toothache to make a trip to Bristow to see the dentist. He told him about the excruciating pain and, also, about his awful fear of doctors. Especially of dentists.

Well, the dentist was a sympathetic fellow. So he gave the rancher a big shot of Jack Daniels Whiskey to relax him. "Feel any better?" the dentist asked.

"No, doc. I don't."

"Okay, you just sit here and take a few more drinks. I'll be back in about twenty minutes," the dentist said.

Twenty minutes later, the dentist returned and asked, "Are you feeling any braver, now?"

"Feeling any braver?" the patient slurred, obvious drunk. "Listen, you little squirt, I just dare you to try to mess with my teeth now!"

My friend Carolyn Leonard served as the editor of the Harper County Journal in Buffalo for several years. She called her editorial column, "The Buffalo Gal." Those buffalo themes are due to the fact that the shaggy buffalo made that area his home long before any "Sooners" came around. And when the white man came, he began exterminating the prairie giants.

One of those rough and tumble hunters in the 1860's was sitting around a campfire at nearby Doby Springs and bragging about a buffalo gun he once owned.

"That Sharps rifle was so danged big it didn't even have a caliber. Why, when I was hunting one day I shot a big bull buffalo. It dropped just like it was dead as a daffodil in December. But when I commenced skinning it, that buffalo jumped up and charged right at me. Yes, sir, it did.

"Well, I'll tell you, boys, I knew I couldn't outrun him on foot. And there was no place to hide, not even a tree for miles around. So I figured I was a goner. But just then I thought of something. I threw down that gun, ran up the big barrel, and let that buffalo charge on past."

Founded in 1889 as Cale, Calera was the early home of a young fellow named Gene Autry. He sometimes ran the projector there at the old movie theater.

Because Calera is so close to the Red River, they like to tell Texas stories. Seems that they even admit that some Texans have high ambitions. Like the two sophomore students at Rice University who went over to the Houston Spaceflight Center and volunteered to be future astronauts. And they told the authorities that they didn't want to fly to Mars or Saturn or even the moon; they wanted to fly to the sun. The space officials tactfully explained to the young Texans how hot the temperature is on the surface of the sun and how they would be instantly cremated if they tried to land there.

"Shucks," one of them said, rather indignantly, "do you think we're stupid or something. We thought about that and came up with a plan. We're gonna land there at night."

Chickasha, down in Grady County, is the hometown of famed golfer Orville Moody. And it is the site of the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. Of course, when that school was founded back in 1908 it was called the Oklahoma College for Women.

When they finally changed the university to a full-fledged co-educational institution, they encountered a few problems. Having only one dormitory on campus, they assigned one wing to the male students and one wing to the female students. Then the Dean personally painted a white line on the floor to divide the wings. No one was to stray across the white line.

It seems, however, that the very first night a young fellow as caught tiptoeing across the line. He was brought before the Dean. The Dean told him that the first offense would cost him $15, the second $20, and the third, $25, and so forth. The Dean said, "Do you understand or do you have any questions?"

The student said, "Oh, I understand, sir. But I was just wondering how much a season ticket would cost."

During the many years that George Nigh served as Lieutenant Governor of Oklahoma, he spent a good share of his time encouraging the Hollywood movie industry to make their films in Oklahoma. And some did.

But George sure met some egocentric people on such recruiting trips. Take the young movie star that he met at a dinner at a swanky hotel in Beverly Hills. That guy could talk about nothing but himself and his great talents. After more than an hour of patting himself on the back, he turned to Lt. Gov. Nigh and said, "Oh, the conversation has been too much about me. Let's talk about you, George. How did you like my latest movie?"

Clinton--the town, not the President--has produced some fine football teams over the years. And it was the home of an Air Force Base until it was phased out in 1969. The folks there still like to talk about the time in the late 1950's when a certain second lieutenant, fresh out of Navigation School, was assigned to serve as the navigator for a pilot at Clinton Air Force Base.

On his first flight, the young man was visibly shaken. Fog and low clouds covered the entire area. Trying to appear confident, he periodically gave the pilot information as to where their position was during their planned flight to Dallas.

He was completely chagrined, though, when a break in the clouds brought into view the Gulf of Mexico directly below them. Then, to make matters worse, the pilot radioed back to him, "Lieutenant, when you die you'll probably be so far off course that you'll go to heaven."

Back in the 1930's, my father and his three brothers looked forward to Saturday nights. That's when they left their farm chores behind, there at Wapanucka, and headed for the "big" town of Coalgate. Coalgate got it's name because of the giant coal mines that once operated in the area. And in those days, Coalgate really sprang to life every Saturday when the farmers came in to shop at Hudson's Big County Store. It was also a time for the farm kids to come in and kick up their heels.

Seems there was one handsome farm boy who had been courting a girl there in Coalgate for over two years without popping the question. The girl's father, however, decided that he was going to try to speed up the wheels of romance.

"Marvin," he said to the bashful young man, "you been settin' up with Ophelia, taking her to church picnics and going buggy riding with her for a long spell. I'm asking you, Marvin, as man to man, what are your intentions?"

"Well, sir," the young man said, "Ain't no cause for you to get ruffled. My intentions is honorable, but remote."

Have you ever been through Iowa City, Oklahoma? Well, that was the original name given to present-day Coyle in 1899. A native of Coyle, Millie Considine, later moved to New York City and wrote a book called, Just a Minute, Mrs. Gulliver. In that book, she tells about somebody bringing a certain Dr. Boysell to a party she was hosting in New York City.

When she heard the word "Doctor," she decided to use her medical ailments as conversation pieces and perhaps get some free medical advice. She managed to get Dr. Boysell over in a corner by himself and began a detailed account of her intimate female medical problems.

Dr. Boysell, to her pleasant surprise, seemed fascinated by the revelations. So she continued her monologue, tracing back through all of her childhood diseases until she finally arrived at the account of her birth in Coyle.

Suddenly Dr. Boysell interrupted her by saying, "Coyle, Oklahoma? Why, that's the most amazing coincidence! That's where I preached my first sermon after I received my doctorate in religion."

Davis, down in Murray County, has several things going for it. South of town is the beautiful Turner Falls recreation area. West of town is the site of old Fort Arbuckle, once an important center of military action. Davis is also where two of my favorite couples got married: Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, and my own parents, Harold Paregien and Evelyn Cauthen.

And speaking of parents, it doesn't take long for children to adopt the likes and dislikes of their parents. Take little Douglas, a freckle-faced five-year-old there at Davis. He was overjoyed when his father proudly announced, "Son, I took your mother to the hospital early this morning and your new baby brother has just arrived."

"That's great, daddy," the boy said. "But tell me something. Where did my new baby brother come from?"

"Ah...er..., well, son," the father groped, at a loss as to how to explain the sexual process. "He came from a far-away country."

"That's just what I was afraid of," the boy said bitterly. "Another darn Texan."

At Central State University in Edmond, a psychology class was discussing human sexuality and, in particular, the frequency of intercourse among college students. The professor asked, "How many of you engage more than once a week?" Seven people raised their hands.

"And how many engage only once a week?" Eleven hands went up.

"How many just have sex once a month?" Six hands raised.

"And how many of you only have sex once a year?" The only hand raised was that of a young male student who had a big smile on his face and waved his hand wildly.

The professor noticed the young man's enthusiasm and said, "I don't understand what you're so happy about, if you only have sex once a year."

The student smiled even wider and said, "Professor, it's true that I only have intercourse once a year. But tonight's the night!"

Colonel William A. Phillips was the Federal commander at Fort Gibson on the eve of the Battle of Honey Springs. That was way back on July 17, 1863. The battle turned out to be the most important action of the Civil War in the Indian Territory.

It is said that one of Col. Phillips' captains had gotten the short end of a horse trade and later caught up with the rugged backwoodsman who had rooked him. The captained complained, "That horse you traded to me back in the spring was about half-blind."

The tough trader spat tobacco on the ground and said, "I done told ya the truth about that horse. If you'll recollect, I told you plainly that he was a fine horse but that he didn't look good."

Garber is probably best known as a wheat and oil producing town. And, though the town has just over a thousand residents, they are hyperactive in politics.

That's how a couple of Democratic candidates for state-wide offices happened to be speaking in Garber one night. And after their meeting, they went out to get into their rental car they were sharing. But they found they had locked themselves out of the car.

"Let's borrow a coat hanger to pull up the lock," suggested the younger politician.

"No, someone might see us and think we were trying to burglarize the car," said the older politician.

"Well, then," the young politician said, "how about using my pocketknife to cut through the rubber around the window, just enough to stick our fingers through to unlock the door."

The older man said, "Are you crazy? The folks here in Garber would think we're so dumb we don't even know how to use a coat hanger to open a door lock."

"Look, we better do something quick," said the nervous younger man. "The tops's down and it's starting to rain."

There are two or three things that stand out about the town of Henryetta. First of all, the name itself came from combining the name of Hugh Henry, a Creek Indian, and his wife's name, Etta. Second, Henryetta is the home of five-time World Champion Cowboy and all-round nice guy, Jim Shoulders. And, third, it is also where Dallas Cowboys superstar Troy Aikman played football as the quarterback of the Henryetta Hens.

Well, maybe there's a fourth thing, too. Old Uncle Jerry. When Uncle Jerry was nearing his 75th birthday, he became very concerned about his loss of sexual stamina and desire. He explained his problem to his doctor. The physician merely smiled and said, "Uncle Jerry, why should you be so concerned? Impotency is normal at your age."

"Maybe so," grunted Uncle Jerry. "But a friend of mine is nearly 90-years-old and he says he still makes love to his wife every single night."

"That's no problem," the doctor said with a smile. "You can say the same thing, too, can't you?"

My mother's older sister, the late Opal Snell, lived for many years at Jay, the Delaware County seat named after Jay Washburn, a nephew of the great Cherokee leader Stand Watie. My uncle Harry tells me that many parents up there have become convinced that smoking is dangerous for one's health. But the teens are hard to convince. It seems that one kid walked into his house after school and said, "Dad, guess what? I smoke."

The father looked at him real hard and said, "No, son. You don't smoke. The cigarette smokes. You're just the sucker."

Oh boy, talk about a town with a history, now Kingfisher has one. It was named after a rancher named King Fisher. And there you'll also find the mansion of the second governor of the Oklahoma Territory, Abraham J. Seay. There in Oklahoma Park you'll find the cabin in which the parents of the Dalton Boys lived. Downtown you'll see a plaque designating the Young Variety Store as being one of the original links in the chain that became TG&Y. And Kingfisher is also where the late Sam Walton, founder of the Wal-Mart empire, was born.

Of course, Kingfisher is not without a wart or two. For one thing, it can sure get hot there. During an especially bad heat wave one summer, a mailman was complaining to a friend about the sizzling weather. The friend laughed and said, "Yeah, I know. It was so hot yesterday that when my dog chased a cat down the street they both walked!"

A lot of folks are sorta shocked to a college campus in such a small town as Langston, but Langston University is going strong. Black educator E.P. McCabe named the town after another black educator, John M. Langston, a congressman in Virginia. And it was in 1897 that the state authorized the building of Langston University.

The students there at Langston like to tell about a starter on the Texas A & M University basketball team who decided that he would spend his spring vacation kicking up his heels in Juarez, Mexico. But the first night he was in Juarez, he stepped out of a bar and found six big, ugly desperados waiting to rob him.

Well, the Texas Aggie basketball player put up a terrific fight--kicking, gouging, biting and clawing at the bandidos. Finally, utterly exhausted and bruised and bleeding, he gave up and lay still as they searched his pockets. All they found was seventy-three cents.

"Seventy-three cents!" complained one of the bandidos. "Gringo, you mean you fought like a wildcat just to keep a lousy seventy-three cents?"

The Texas Aggie said, "Heck, no. Do you think I'm stupid? I thought you were after the $300 I have hidden in my left shoe."

Each year hundreds of teenagers from small towns in Oklahoma enroll in some of the prestigious Ivy League universities back East. Often they have trouble adapting to their new environment. Take two boys named Bob and Dennis, both from Laverne, out in Harper County.

Now, I know a little bit about Laverne, since I lived there for a couple of years. And my fellow cowboy poets, Barbara Bockelman and Lowell Long, keep me posted on what is going on. In fact, we still own a house there, a house in which the town's most famous native daughter, Jane Jayroe (1967 Miss America), once lived with her parents. And I heard this story about Bob and Dennis more than once.

It seems that Bob went to Columbia University in New York City and Dennis went to Harvard University, back during the days when shoulder-length hair for young men was the "in thing" on campus. Following their first year of college, they were both spending the summer months back at Laverne. They met at the Tiger Hut cafe one day and began comparing notes on their experiences. "You know," said Bob, "when I'm at Columbia, I'm liberal. When I'm back in Laverne, I'm conservative. And when I'm alone, I'm confused."

"Yeah, I know what you mean," replied Dennis. "I let my hair and beard grow long all year at Harvard, but the minute I got back home I rushed down to the barber shop and let T.D. Carlisle cut them both."

"Gosh, that must have been something to see," Bob said. "How much weight did you lose by doing that?"

"Oh, about 128 pounds," Dennis explained. "I finally got my mother off my back."

Some awfully power politicians have come out of McAlester. People like Carl Albert, George Nigh, and Gene Stipe.

Of course, some awfully powerful politicians have also gone to McAlester, too. To the Oklahoma State Prison in McAlester, that is. Down there they like to tell about one politician who was convicted of various crimes, including murder, and was sentenced to die in the electric chair.

Now, some of the inmates on Death Row are not exactly the brightest people in the world. And when poor Sam, the convicted politician, was being led down the long corridor to the electric chair, some of the other inmates called out to him.

"It was good to know you, Sam!"

"The Lord be with you."

"So long, buddy."

And then from the cell in the far end a convict shouted, "Goodbye, Sam. More power to you!"

The city of Norman sprang into being on April 22, 1889, during the big land rush. Three years later the University of Oklahoma was established, and in 1893 the mental health hospital known for years as Central State Hospital was opened. Old Josh Lee, first an OU speech professor and then a U.S. Senator, used to joke that the big difference between OU and Central State Hospital was that a person had to show at least some improvement in order to get out of the hospital.

However, as former OU President Dr. George Cross said years ago, one of these days the University will gain a scholastic reputation that the football team can be proud of. Until then, though, folks in Norman still rank OU football in the same league with God, Motherhood and Apple Pie.

Even ministers are caught up in the football fever. Like the Norman minister who closed the invocation preceding the 1968 OU-Nebraska football game by saying, "And dear lord, we invite You to take time out from Your busy schedule to watch our game this afternoon." Moments later, a telephone in the press box rang. A skeptical reporter answered it and, tongue-in-cheek, said to the minister sitting next to him, "Preacher, the Lord wants to know what channel the game is on."

Not every town can boast of having two big water towers, one marked "Hot" and one marked "Cold". But Okemah has just that. And those two cause a lot of travelers to think twice and then chuckle at the town's good sense of humor.

I guess the most famous native of Okemah is the later folk singer, Woody Guthrie. Woody was born there is 1912, and is considered by many musicologists to be America's greatest balladeer. A line from his song, "Oklahoma Hills," reads:

That song has always meant a lot to me, since many of my ancestors farmed and raised a cow or two in Oklahoma. Not that they were very successful at it. In fact, the sharecropper's house in Wapanucka where my grandparent's (John and Veda Cauthen) lived and where I was born never, ever had a single drop of paint on it. Heck, they were too poor to paint. And they were too proud to whitewash!