One day in late 2013, I found a note on the door at home. It was from a woman asking me to call her – that she would like to talk to me about putting her horse in my pasture. I called her and she explained that she lived in the Lake Country subdivision, across the street from us, and that she had a horse that she was keeping in Sand Springs. She would have to drive back and forth twice daily to feed Roscoe. She asked if I would be interested in letting her keep Roscoe in our pasture. At the time, we had two Nubian wethers (neutered goats), Speed and Pull, and they couldn’t begin to keep up with the grass so I told her that yes, she could bring the horse up there.
A few weeks went by and I didn’t hear anything from her so I called her again. She explained that she and her husband were getting a divorce and she wasn’t sure who was going to get Roscoe. I told her that the offer to put Roscoe up here was still good. Some months passed and I got another call from her. She and her husband had reconciled and she wanted to bring the horse up. So, in June, 2014, Teresa Ellis and her husband, R.B., brought Roscoe to live with us.
It’s funny how fate brings you twists and turns in your life. We had never met R.B. and Teresa but quickly became good friends, all thanks to Roscoe. They were about fifteen years younger than us but we seemed to hit it off. Teresa would come over two or three times a day to care for Roscoe and eventually we got to where we would feed for her if she was not available.
R.B. was the Safety Fire Chief for the Tulsa Fire Department and reported directly to the main Fire Chief. He and Teresa had a business on the side selling rescue equipment and training fire personnel in the area on ropes and swift water rescue. In addition, R.B. was an avid outdoorsman.
In early 2017, R.B. started planning a boundry waters fishing trip to Minnesota and asked me if I wanted to go. Of course I did! We had two or three planning meetings to get everything in order. In addition to R.B. and me, his son Bobby was going, along with a couple of R.B.’s friends, James Nichols and Travis Sheeder. Of the five of us, I was by far the oldest, some fifteen years older than R.B. and probably thirty five years older than the others. In addition, at 5’9”, I was at least ten inches shorter than all these giants.
On Saturday, June 10, 2017, we all met at my house in the morning, loaded all our gear into my Tiffin motor home, and took off for Minnesota. We all spent the first night in the motor home in the parking lot of the Cabela’s store in Owatonna, Minnesota. After spending a considerable amount of money in the store, we took off the next day and got into Ely, Minnesota just after noon. We met with the outfitter with whom R.B. had made arrangements and got our gear including two canoes and several “Duluth” packs.
We parked the motor home at the Outfitter’s store and he drove us several miles northeast of Ely where we loaded our canoes and took off. The canoes were loaded to the gunwales with gear! In addition to the Duluth packs, we had rods and reels, tackle boxes and kitchen gear. I should explain that a Duluth pack is a giant backpack and can be loaded with as much gear as you can carry.
After about three hours of paddling the canoes, and two portages, we finally arrived at our campsite. We were there for five days and had a great time! We didn’t catch a lot of fish but the ones we did catch were nice. We had two severe thunderstorms on two different nights but were dry as could be in our covered hammocks.
On Friday, the sixteenth, we loaded our canoes and started the long paddle back. Only this time the wind was blowing a gale and I was scared to death that we might sink. Fortunately, we made it back to the takeout point where our outfitter met us. The motor home was loaded up with all our gear and pointed south toward Oklahoma. We left about 2:30 in the afternoon and pulled into my house about 8:30 the next morning.While we were gone, Louise, Teresa, and another of their friends, Janet Varnell, took a three-day trip to Oklahoma City. I’ll bet they didn’t drink as much as we did, though.
In early 2018, the next year, R.B. suggested that we do another Minnesota fishing trip, but this time to a lake where we could take our boats. I told him I was all in on this one, too.
The crew which had gone on the previous trip couldn’t go so we recruited another friend of R.B.’s, Ronnie Fewell, to go along. He had a nephew and nephew’s friend who wanted to go so the five of us made plans to go to Lake Winnibigoshish (called Lake Winnie by the locals) at the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Minnesota. Ronnie referred to the nephew, Denton, and his friend, Clint, as the “crack babies”.
On Thursday, June 7, we loaded our gear and boats and took off for Minnesota. Again, we got to Owatonna the first evening but, because we weren’t in my motor home, had to stay at a motel that night. Once again, we left a lot of money at Cabela’s! Also, on the way up there, R.B.’s odometer in his Ford pickup rolled over 300,000 miles.
We stayed at a place called the Northland Lodge. It’s most redeeming quality was the bar in the Lodge. We spent quite a bit of time there when we weren’t fishing. We caught hundreds of fish, mostly perch, but almost all of them were too small to keep. As usual, our spare time was spent playing cards and drinking whiskey. We had learned on the previous trip that Wild Turkey and Nutter Butters went well together. The convenience store in the small town of Deer River quickly ran out of it’s supply of Nutter Butters.On Thursday the 14th we started home and, as in the previous trip, drove straight through, getting home on Friday morning.
We weren’t through with 2018. As you’ve read earlier, I had made two trips down the Arkansas River in the past, once in 2003 and again in 2005. So, thirteen years after my last trip I talked R.B. into a river trip. This time we recruited my brother Milt and his friend, Bill Henshaw. I was to take my boat, a nineteen foot center console fishing boat, and Bill would take his. He had a big wide aluminum boat which was perfect for the trip. My son, Dan, was going to meet us in Arkansas and join the trip there.
On Wednesday, September 26, we loaded up our gear and drove to Bluff Landing Park east of Broken Arrow on 71st Street, where we launched. By launching at Bluff Landing you can say that you have locked through every lock on the Arkansas River. Louise and Teresa went with us to drive the trucks and boat trailers home.
Our plan was to meet the girls on the 28th in Little Rock and spend the evening there with them. They were pulling the trailers and were going to spend the next night in Greenville, Mississippi, then meet us and drive back.
The first night we stayed at Applegate Landing on Kerr Lake. The marina operator was nice enough to let us camp in his pavilion so all we had to do was unroll some sleeping bags. Since we had not met Dan yet, there were just four of us. Every one of the four had a CPAP machine to use at night! Fortunately, there were plenty of electrical outlets.
The next day was relatively uneventful. We got to Ozark, Arkansas, where we met Dan and stayed in a Corps of Engineers park, Aux Arc Park. The park was right on the river so all we had to do was pull the boats up to the bank and unload our gear.
There is a lock and dam just outside the park and we got through it the next morning, September 28. After that lock is a seventy eight mile run down the River and Dardanelle Lake to the next lock. This was the longest stretch on the trip and took several hours. At the end of Dardanelle Lake is the lock and dam by the same name. This is also the largest lock on the entire system with a forty eight foot elevation change. Those locks are amazing feats of engineering.
We met the girls in Little Rock as planned, at a marina where we had made reservations to spend the night on a couple of boats in the marina. Louise and I and R.B. and Teresa were to stay on a houseboat with two bedrooms and the three other guys were staying on a cabin cruiser. We went out to dinner that night and had a wonderful time.
We woke up the next morning to some of the most dense fog I’ve ever seen. None of us wanted to venture out into that stuff so we found a restaurant close by and had a leisurely breakfast. Finally, about eleven, the fog started to lift. We topped off all of our gas cans, said goodbye to our wives and took off down the river. Little Rock is the last place before Greenville to purchase gasoline.
There is a lock and dam just downstream from Little Rock, David Terry Lock and Dam. Fate was not kind to us this morning – we got to the lock just as a barge tow was coming up. It was a big one, too, so it was going to take a couple of hours to get it though the lock.
I should explain that pleasure craft are the lowest forms of transportation on the totem pole on the river. About the time they were finishing up the barge tow, another big one arrived from downstream to be locked up. So, we sat there another two hours! We had lost three or four hours in the morning with the fog and how we’ve lost another four hours at this lock.
After we finally got through David Terry, we had to run hard to make up some of the time we had lost. It was Saturday, the 29th and we were to meet the girls in Greenville the next morning. We finally decided to make camp just below Emmett Sanders Lock and Dam, some sixty six miles from the Mississippi River. We had only made fifty two miles that day.
We pulled the boats up on a sand bar, unpacked and had a delicious shore meal. I should point out that R.B. was quite a camp cook and took over that chore on every trip we made. The only downside is that he brought a lot of cooking gear with him!
We set our camp up, including tents because we knew that the mosquitoes would be horrible and, sure enough, they were. Because four of the five of us used CPAP’s, we had brought a portable generator to power them and we had extension cords running everywhere. The next morning, I was told that we had a group of four-wheelers come through the camp late in the night. I never did hear them.
The next morning, Sunday, we knew we had to run hard to get to Greenville at a reasonable hour. We were planning on driving all the way back to Mannford that evening. We had a quick breakfast and took off.
Now we came face to face with the gasoline problem. We had topped off the tanks in Little Rock but knew it was going to be close to get to Greenville. My boat had a forty eight gallon main tank and I had a twelve gallon portable tank as well. When we got to Greenville, the big tank was dry and the portable tank had about two gallons in it. Bill, in the other boat, was just about as dry.
Louise and Teresa met us at the boat ramp and we got the boats loaded onto the trailers. They had been waiting for us and had started to eat lunch at a Huddle House when we called telling them that we were at the boat ramp. We went with them back to the Huddle House and had one of the worst meals I’ve ever had. Milt continues to tease both Teresa and Louise about the Huddle House today.
Although we got a late start, the trip back home was uneventful and we got there very late Sunday night.
Years earlier, R.B. had had a cancer removed on his tongue. In early 2021, it manifested itself again and he had surgery to remove it. This time the surgery was more in depth and he was in the hospital several days. Because of the Covid pandemic, he was not allowed to have visitors. He got out of the hospital on Tuesday, February 23, and went home to be nursed back to health by Teresa.
The next morning about eight, I got a phone call. It was Teresa telling me that R.B. had just died. He had gotten up, was walking through their house, fell and just died. He was sixty years old. Three days later, on February 27, his funeral was held at the First Baptist Church in Tulsa. It was the largest funeral I had ever attended. Most of the Tulsa Fire Department was on hand, along with many firemen from outlying departments. The Mayor of Tulsa was in attendance as well as several other dignitaries.
R.B. was a good friend and a great person. I shall miss him.
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