giant McDonald's thing the stainless steel Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, which stands 630 feet tall and commemorates the city's role as the gateway to the West during the nineteenth century.
Great Plain high plateau in central North America; the High Plains in northwestern Oklahoma and the panhandle are part of the Great Plain.
grip a suitcase.
Gumby doll a green rubber doll that can be bent in different directions.
head rights claim to Native American ancestry.
heathe(r)n an uncivilized or irreligious person.
Heimlich Maneuver an abdominal thrust to dislodge food or other material from a choking person's windpipe.
hex a jinx or an evil spell.
higgledy-piggledy confused; in disarray.
homeostasis a relatively stable state of equilibrium.
hunkered crouched down.
hypochondriac needlessly worrying.
ipecac a shrub whose roots are used as a medicine that induces vomiting.
it was no horseradish meaning no playing around.
Jackson Purchase approximately 2,000 square miles of land that extended beyond the Tennessee River and became an addition to the state of Kentucky in 1818, when General Andrew Jackson and Isaac Shelby of the United States negotiated with the Chickasaw Indian Nation. The Chickasaws received $300,000 over fifteen years. (In the same treaty, the Chickasaws relinquished 6,000 square miles of land, which was added to the state of Tennessee.)
jerry can a container that holds about five gallons of liquid.
Jesus bugs insects that skim across the top of water.
José Cuervo a brand of tequila.
Junebug a large beetle.
Keno a bingo-type lottery game.
"La Bamba" a Mexican song made popular in the U.S. by Ritchie Valens.
mange a skin disease, common to mammals, characterized by lesions, itching, and hair loss.
midi-skirt a skirt that reaches mid-calf.
moony romantically sentimental.
Mr. Ed a popular television show in the early 1960s whose title character was a talking horse. (The "horse" was actually a trained zebra.)
mustard plaster a soothing treatment containing mustard.
nineteen-ought-seven 1907; ought is a colloquial word meaning zero.
notarized certified as authentic by a public officer.
Old Grand-Dad a bourbon distilled in Kentucky.
Oral Roberts University named for evangelist Oral Roberts and located in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
ORV short for off-road vehicle; a camper known as a recreational vehicle (RV).
Parkinson's disease a progressive disease, marked by shaking, that affects the nervous system.
PCP phencyclidine; used by veterinarians as an anesthetic and used illegally as a psychedelic drug.
pegged identified.
phlebotomist a person trained to draw blood from people for diagnosis or study, or to determine how to treat a disease.
picayune unimportant.
plaits braids.
President Truman Harry S. Truman (1884?1972), the thirty-third president of the United States (1945?1953).
Psycho a 1960 Alfred Hitchcock movie about a murderous, mentally unbalanced man and one of his victims.
pungent having a sharp odor.
