The Language Barrier

Son Steve writes...
As I have mentioned in another post about Chicken Chow Mien I started Kindergarten only a week or two after we moved from Tomahawk to Eudora. One day the teacher sent home a note with me for mom and dad. The note informed them that the teacher had set up a meeting with a speech pathologist to help me with my speech impediment and they were invited to come speak to the speech expert.

Being good parents they were concerned and met with the school appointed speech expert. The young woman explained to my parents that there was definitely something wrong with my speech but they had not pinpointed exactly what it was yet. She explained that they needed my parents’ permission for a battery of tests to determine exactly what my problem was and how to treat it.

Mom and dad listened politely to the whole presentation and then said “we don’t really think there is anything wrong with the way he talks. We just don’t hear it.” To which the young woman flushed and said “uh you aren’t from around here are you?” Mom and dad explained that the family had just moved to Kansas from Wisconsin a few weeks earlier.
At that point the extremely embarrassed speech expert and the equally embarrassed teacher said, “oh, well in that case we don’t think anything is wrong.”

Another instance where language posed a barrier was on a trip to Tulsa, Oklahoma.
People involved with TV and movies often say that they try to sound like people from the Midwest because they don’t have an accent. Well those people never traveled to Oklahoma.
It was yet another of dad’s long weekend planned trips but this time it was more personal. Tulsa was the hometown of one of dad’s boyhood heroes, Will Rogers. When the home of a boyhood hero is within driving range you go.

We packed up the car and headed south out of town toward Tulsa. Dad had a vague idea that Oklahoma was south of Kansas and Tulsa was somewhere in Oklahoma, how hard could it be. This was one of the first short trip that we made after we arrived in Kansas, I mention this because everyone in the family still had the Wisconsin accent because it had not had time to fade yet.

After several hours of driving we entered Oklahoma, where the wind comes seeping down the plains, and the wavin’ wheat can sure smell sweet, when the wind comes right behind the rain……sorry got carried away there. Anyway we crossed the border into Oklahoma, now all we had to do was find Tulsa. Turns out that finding Tulsa wasn’t as easy as we had hoped. Little did we know that unlike Wisconsin which has only one north/south road Oklahoma actually has 2. So against his better judgment dad stopped to ask directions. At this point I am reminded of a particularly odd quirk that my father displays when he stops somewhere in the car, he walks wherever he is going and runs back. So dad walked over to the gas station and soon came running back. Mom asked “Well what did he say?” “I don’t know.” Was dad’s answer, “I couldn’t understand him.”

OK so we tried again, this time I went with dad, after all we now knew that I did not have a speech impediment. The conversation went something like this:
Dad – “Which road do we take to get to Tulsa?”
Dumb look from gas station guy.
Me – “He said which road do we take to get to Tulsa?”
Guy – “Oh, you take the Cimarron Turnpike, highway 44.”
Dum look from dad.
Me- “He said take highway 44 the something ur other turnpike.”
Dad – “ok thanks.”
Guy – “OK thanks.
On we went to Tulsa and sure enough it was on the Cimarron Turnpike. We found Will Rogers museum, it was closed. So we went to the Fredrick Remington museum instead, I guess he was from Tulsa too, who knew?

But the highlight of the trip was finding a little dumpy restaurant, dad always seemed to find them, that served this marvel of the gastronomic arts known as “Broasted Chicken”. Broasting is something like frying in a pressure cooker. The skin gets extra super crispy and the meat stays moist. It is actually unbelievably good. After the gas station incident dad made me do all the talking so I got to order for the first time ever. Pretty cool!