First and foremost, out there (and, through my experience, the rest of the country) people do feel like anyone from California is a "them".

Nobody will admit it, but if you tell someone you're from California they will look at you slightly different, kind of like you told them you just ate your shoe. Not impossible to fathom, but the declaration of it would make anyone give you another once - or twice I guess - over.

People take their jobs seriously. I've never seen more serious grocery store managers, theater box office cashiers or waitresses in my entire life. I had a pretty surly cab dispatcher answer the phone one night, but that was about it as far as bad experiences go. This is not to say that I run into nothing but bad service where I come from, it's just that I have never seen anyone bring so much honor and seriousness to jobs like these.

Gas is about 50 cents cheaper per gallon - 50 freakin' cents!

The Chinese/Sushi/Mexican cuisine is on-par with pretty much anything you can get out in LA. Speaking of which, no matter what meal I am eating I will ALWAYS be given salsa without asking for it anywhere I go to eat in the South or Mid-West.

Churches are everywhere, of every shape and size. Churchin' is big out there; it's serious business. I went to two of them. One was a former mall. Yep, you read right. A church the size of a mall. Believe it or not, I think the other one I went to was bigger. It was so big it housed a "theme street" that could pass for anything at Disneyland and an indoor carousel for the kiddies. Amazing.

You can get a 4 bedroom 2 bath brick foundation on 1/4 acre for $60K or less if you shop around. This particular fact makes my eyes moisten up a bit... I'm sorry, but I really do see myself being a renter out here until I'm at least 55.

People will greet you whether or not you make eye contact with them as you pass them on the sidewalk. That said, people out there tend to get a bit shy once you try to get them to open up a bit. Kind of the opposite of strangers in LA (excluding the mentally ill and Korean trannies of course).

Iced tea here, Sweet tea there.

Sonic. Lasted about 5 minutes in SoCal. Don't know why - it rules.

Speaking of rulin', I used to think AM/PM was the ish, but out there they got a thing called Quick Trip (QT) that puts AM/PM to shame. I repeat - to shame. All conveniece store gas stations bow at the feet of the QT.

Lotsa dudes out there go by the name Travis.

A $2 tip gets you mad respect - I mean, real respect, not that sarcastic respect you might get out here. Give someone out here $2 and they'll give you 1 right back and I'm not talking about a bill if you know what I mean.

Before I left I was feeling a bit of LA burnout. Not anymore. I like Tulsa, love the south, but nothing beats home.

That'll probably change the next time I have to be somewhere across town in an hour or someone leaves me another dent in my car, but for now I'm glad I'm back.

copyright,  © 2007 Paul Silva 

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