Flat Stanley came to visti us last weekend. Flat Stanley is a classic children’s book (Mardel carries it) that Berck’s cousin Brian was reading in his third grade class, which sent Flat Stanley to visit 50 States. Here’s the report we sent back with Stanley. (Pictures are in Photographs.)
FLAT STANLEY
State visited: Oklahoma
Date of visit: May 21, 2005
Person visited: Berck and Joanna
Stanley’s Adventure:
Stanley visited us here in Norman, Oklahoma. Norman was named after Abner E. Norman, who had been hired by the U.S. government to survey the Indian Territory (which later became Oklahoma). Norman is the third largest city in Oklahoma, and it is just south of Oklahoma City, the state capital. Norman is home of Oklahoma University.
The permanent population of Norman is about 96,000 people, but it grows during the school year by the 30,000 enrollment of OU.
OU has one of the most successful college football teams (they lost last year’s Rose Bowl after being only one of three undefeated teams in the country). College football is like a religion here. Under the American flag, businesses fly the OU flag instead of the state flag. People all over town have red and white rock gardens in their front yards spelling out “OU;” at Christmas time, there are lots of roofs with “OU” laid out in strings of red lights on rooftops. The team is called “The Sooners,” but no one knows what a Sooner is, so instead of putting pictures of OU’s mascot (a covered wagon) on their cars, people put on upside-down Texas Longhorn insignia (they are OU’s biggest rival team). (By the way, a Sooner is someone who settled in the Indian Territory before the U.S. government officially opened it to settlement.)
We are living here in Norman because it is also the home of the cheapest and fastest flight school in the world. Berck is studying to become a pilot. Oklahoma is one of the best places to learn to fly because this state is so flat with few trees or mountains to crash into. The weather is usually very clear (though it is usually also very windy). When the weather isn’t nice, we tend to have very severe thunderstorms with lots of tornadoes and hail.
Because it’s so windy here, one of our favorite things to do is fly our stunt kite in a park near our home. We took Stanley kite flying during his visit. He wanted to ride on the kite to get a better view, and since he’s so flat, he flew with the kite quite well.