Grapes of Wrath in Reverse

During the Dust Bowl great numbers of Oklahomans, driven out of their state by drought, came to "Californey". Now Californians, reacting to a drought of common sense in California goverment, are heading the other way:

Fleeing the Great Depression and a drought unprecedented in American history, a vast wave of Oklahomans and Texans dubbed “Okies” loaded everything they could onto crowded vehicles during the 1930s and headed west for California. Today, in huge numbers, their grandchildren are moving back…

…From 2004 through 2007, about 275,000 Californians left the Golden State for the old Dust Bowl states of Oklahoma and Texas, twice the number that left those two states for California, recent Internal Revenue Service figures show. In fact, the mid-South gained more residents from California during those four years than either Oregon, Nevada or Arizona. The trend continued into 2008.

As a result, it’s easy to find Californians – even former Sacramentans – living and working in Oklahoma City, a capital of the American heartland.

I have a lot of family in Oklahoma and have on more than one occassion considered relocating there myself. It's looking better all the time.

The last time I seriously considered it I even scheduled an interview with a bank president to see if a job might be available that would make it worth uprooting my family and moving. During the interview I found out he'd recently hired an MBA for half of what I was making in California. Had I been able to transfer my salary back there we could have lived like kings. However, moving back there for the salaries available at that time wouldn't have gained us anything, and in fact we might have actually seen our standard of living decline.

That's why we're still in California.

However, it might be time to give it another look.