“Happiness is a Texan headed south with an Okie under each arm”

Many Texans and Oklahomans arrived in Alaska from 1974-1977 to work on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. A popular bumper sticker in Alaska (cited from at least 1976) was: ““Happiness is a Texan headed south with an Okie under each arm.” In the 1980s, “Happiness is a Texan headed south” was used by Coloradans who resented all the Texans using the ski slopes.
 
The phrase is most historical (especially in Alaska), but is still remembered and used today on occasion.
 
   
Wikipedia: Trans-Alaska Pipeline System
The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS), includes the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, 11 pump stations, several hundred miles of feeder pipelines, and the Valdez Marine Terminal. It is commonly called the Alaska Pipeline, Trans-Alaska Pipeline, Alyeska Pipeline or The Pipeline (in Alaska), but those terms technically apply only to the 800.302 miles (1,287.961 km) of 48-inch (122 cm) pipe that convey oil from Prudhoe Bay, to Valdez, Alaska, privately owned by the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company.

The pipeline was built between 1974 and 1977 after the 1973 Oil Crisis caused a sharp rise in oil prices in the United States. This rise made exploration of the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field economically feasible. Environmental, legal, and political debates followed the discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay in 1968, and the pipeline was built only after the oil crisis provoked the passage of legislation designed to remove legal challenges to the project.
 
The task of building the pipeline had to address a wide range of difficulties, stemming mainly from the extreme cold and the difficult, isolated terrain. This was one of the first large-scale projects to deal with problems caused by permafrost, and special construction techniques had to be developed to cope with the frozen ground. The project attracted tens of thousands of workers to Alaska, causing a boomtown atmosphere in Valdez, Fairbanks, and Anchorage.
   
Google News Archive
14 October 1984, Lakeland (FL) Ledger, “Coloradans love Texas money, but not the Texans” by Keith Anderson (Dallas Morning News), pg. 9A, col. 1:
And there are Coloradans who tell Texan jokes the way Texans tell Aggie jokes. A sample: “Happiness is a Texan going south with a Republican under each arm.”
   
Google News Archive
24 February 1986, Anchorage (AK) Daily News, “Unemployed keep eye on local hire” by Paul Jenkins (Associated Press), pg. B1, col. 3:
On outhouse walls, in letters to news papers and on bumper stickers declaring “Happiness is a Texan Headed South with an Okie Under Each Arm,” Alaskans are venting their anger.
 
Google News Archive
3 July 1986, Pittsburgh (PA) Post-Gazette, “Alaska is for leavers: Jobs are few, so residents warn away ‘econonomic vampires’” by Chet Wade, pg. 12, col. 2:
Bumper stickers declare, “Happiness is a Texan headed south with an Okie under each arm.”
   
Google Books
Confessions of a Barbarian:
Selections from the journals of Edward Abbey
By Edward Abbey
Edited by David Petersen
Boulder, CO: Johnson Books
2003
Pg. 262 (April 19, 1976):
Alaskan bumper sticker: “Happiness is a Texan headed south with an Okie under each arm.”
     
Nissan Titan Forum
Polk Titan
08-19-2007, 11:33 PM
Born in Orangeburg, SC. Raised in Lakeland, FL. Our joke is: “Happiness is a Texan going home with a Coonass under each arm”. This still cracks me up, even though I have many friends from the fine state of LA, and the Republic of Texas.