Criminal Sideburns, or My Trip to Norman

I went to Norman, OK (three hours away) for a conference this weekend. Norman is home to the University of Oklahoma. I'd heard mixed reviews of the town, but I loved it -- what's not to like about a real college town with museums, cool cultural events, a roller rink, a Hillel House, and ethnic restaurants? OU has a beautiful campus, a world-class faculty, and bright students. Maybe when I grow up I can get a job at a university like this?

There are even jizz trees (jizzus stinkus) in Norman! And the shower curtains have team spirit!

I took four students with me, so it was kind of like being at work all weekend, but OU really went all out for the event. It was well organized and we got to do cool things like attend a banquet in the natural history museum. The conference featured the fabulous contemporary U.S. writer Sherman Alexie, whom I have seen speak twice before. He has a background in stand-up comedy and rocked the mic three times, telling some hilarious stories. Here is a sample:


While attending a meeting with some film people at Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's house, Alexie noticed that all the furniture was sized for the baskeball star. Sitting on the sofa with his feet dangling like a little kid's, he decided he had to check out the toilet to see if it was similarly proportioned. Sure enough, Alexie's feet dangled from the toilet too. He had to tell someone about it, so he called his dad on the rez from the bathroom.

Sherman Alexie, Jr.: Dad, I'm at Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's house!
Sherman Alexie, Sr.: Does he know you're there?

On Thursday night Alexie received an award prior to a screening of The Business of Fancydancing, and during the pre-festivities schmoozefest he observed that one of my students had "criminal sideburns." I think this came up when one of Alexie's kids wanted an ice cream sandwich from a locked freezer case, and he suggested that my student looked like the kind of person to break it open. Not sure how sideburns fit into this, but whatever. The next day there was a book signing, and dude made a reference to the criminal sideburns on my student's book:

What was crazy to me was that some of my students -- I took two undergrads and two grads -- did not seem to know what to make of OU. One of the kids grew up in Tulsa but seemed a little intimidated by a major university campus, which she characterized as being like a little city. And one of the grad students complained that there was so much at OU. He preferred rinky-dink NSU with its five or six buildings, because he knows where everything is there. It reminded me of a bit of local folks who enthusiastically try to sell me and Eric on the virtues of small-town life. Sorry, not buying it. We're city people.

Some of the conference small talk with my group was interesting. The undergrads were a little shy and it was a loooong car ride, but one of them had lots of questions for me. I tried to get them to call me by my first name and it didn't work (although the student with whom I shared a suite called me "Rooms" a few times). At the institution where I teach, faculty with Ph.D.s are all "Dr. So-and-So" and the other instructors are all "Mr." and "Mrs." with a few "Miss"-es thrown in for good measure. So I got "Dr. Strong" the whole time, even while playing Scrabble Slap. Oddly enough, almost all of my lower-division students call me "Mrs. Strong" even though the syllabus indicates that I have a Ph.D. I thought it wasn't worth trying to explain to them that Mrs. Strong doesn't exist -- she is my mother, actually, because I'm not married to my father -- but I gave it a shot anyway. I told them that if they really want to call me Mrs. Something, it should be Mrs. McCauley. But isn't Strong easier to say?

Anyway, here were some of the questions I got during the drive to Norman:

1. Dr. Strong, why don't you eat at chain restaurants?
2. Dr. Strong, why don't you shop at Walmart?
3. Dr. Strong, if you were going to make a mix CD, what would you put on it?
   
4. Dr. Strong, if you were going to commit fraud with the department credit card, what would you buy?
5. Dr. Strong, do you watch the show "Sixteen and Pregnant"?
   

When our group had breakfast at a Norman greasy spoon called Diner before leaving town, my students confessed that after I'd gone to bed the night before they had debated whether or not I would fit inside an ottoman that opened up to reveal a storage space for pillows and blankets. Not sure what prompted this discussion, but it is likely I would have fit inside the ottoman. At least they had not tried to find out.
Diner has appeared on the Food Network program "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives." Here is a photo of host Guy Fieri's mug spray-painted on the wall, appropriately next to a Billy the Singing Bass. The biscuits and gravy seemed popular, but you could not pay me to eat that. I had something called a Mexi Scram, which was essentially a veggie omelet served over home fries. It was delicious.