The final postcard from a 1940 Oklahoma souvenir pack has the words to “Down in Oklahoma” surrounded by 14 tiny images of oil field equipment, mostly derricks. The internet might confuse that with a “Down in Oklahoma” song from the 1949 film The Prince of Peace, but that is not a match.
I found the postcard’s text in the February 1921 issue of Capt. Billy’s Whiz Bang, a humor magazine published from 1919 to 1936. It appears to have just been some doggerel, and the state is not nearly so lawless these days, and most girls no longer wear their dresses to their knees. However, we can still identify with “Where you get up in the morning in a world of snow and sleet, and you come home in the evening suffocating in the heat.”
We’re down here in Okla.,
Where you never have the blues;
Where the bandits steal the jitneys
And the marshals steal the booze;
Where buildings horn the skyline;
Where the populace is boost;
Where they shoot men just for pastime;
Where the chickens never roost;
Where the stickup men are wary
And the bullets fall like hail;
Where each pocket has a pistol
And each pistol’s good for jail;
Where they always hang the jury;
Where they never hang a man;
If you call a man a liar, you
Get home the best you can;
Where you get up in the morning
In a world of snow and sleet,
And you come home in the evening
Suffocating in the heat;
Where the jitneys whizz about you
And the street cars barely creep;
Where the burglars pick your pockets
While you “lay me down to sleep”;
Where the bulldogs all have rabies
And the rabbits they have fleas;
Where the big girls, like the wee ones,
Wear their dresses to their knees;
Where you whist out in the morning,
Just to give your health a chance,
Say “Howdy” to some fellow who
Shoots big holes in your pants;
Where wise owls are afraid to hoot
And birds don’t dare to sing—
For it’s hell down here in Okla.,
Where they all shoot on the wing.
A local connection to that mess was the incredibly rowdy boomtown in Osage County that was named Whizbang after the magazine. The timing is right for it being called that because of this bit of verse.
Whizbang, which was also known as Denoya, was a few miles southwest of Shidler. One of my uncles was once the superintendent of schools at Shidler. One clear indication of how rough Whizbang once was is that over a century ago it had a Waffle House. IYKYK!
I’ll close out this series with a map showing the locations highlighted in the 18 traditional postcards in the souvenir pack.
Boy howdy, northwest and southeast Oklahoma were non-existent in that pack, and southwest Oklahoma only had one out of almost 20 cards. If I were to revise it, I’d drop the horseshoe curve near Turner Falls, the Will Rogers birthplace, the Picher mill, and this bit of doggerel. I’d then swap in Quartz Mountain near Altus, Roman Nose State Park near Watonga, Alabaster Caverns near Freedom, and Robbers Cave near Wilburton. Those four were all operating by 1940, and they would provide a bit more balance, geographically.
I hope you enjoyed this 20-day series. Once I got my driver’s license back in 1982, I took advantage of living in central Oklahoma by making excursions all over the state for several years, taking in the sights. It interested me how the highlights in 1940 changed over the subsequent 85 years.
Happy trails!
Meador Manor 
