When I decided to return to Oklahoma State in early 1968, I
looked around for the field which would be considered the easiest major in the
University. It appeared to be a tie
between Business Administration and Political Science. “Poly Sci” sounded more interesting to me so
that became my newest (and last) major.
I had negotiated a settlement with Maurice Roger McSpadden’s
insurance company (from the 1968 car accident - see my blog of March 21, 2013) which gave me about $10,000, a
huge sum in those days. Even though I
had had surgery twice on the broken right arm, once to put pins in and once to
take them out, I thought the settlement was fantastic.
I had enough money, in fact, that in the Spring of 1968, I
decided not to come home to Mannford and work but to stay in Stillwater and go
to school. I took two classes over the
summer including botany and remember that the ratio of female to male students
in that class was about 10:1. Yes, life
was good!
When I first returned to Stillwater, I bounced around,
living in two or three different places.
One was a boarding house on the second floor over the “General George”
on Washington Street. The General George
was a head shop and the other people who lived there were all Indian
students. The smell of stewed, curried chicken
legs became almost more than I could stand.
Since I didn’t have the crew from Mannford to run around
with (which probably helped my grade point average!), I started running around
with a group of “town” people, not students.
These included Junior Mullendore, who ran a service station, Jim
Wellington, a Coors route man, Fred Wellington, his father and a jailer for the
County, J.O. Dodgin, a motorcycle mechanic, David Turner, Ted Sebring, Tom
Crozier, and J.R. Graves, who ran a detailing shop.
Most of these guys were into CB radio and motorcycles and I
was into both of these as well. In fact,
it was about this time that I bought my first Harley, a 1963 Sportster. The guy that I bought it from had done a lot
of work to the engine and it was the fastest vehicle in Stillwater, bar
none. It actually got to the point that
every Saturday, someone wanted to race me to see if they could knock me off my
throne.
In the fall of 1968, I moved into the house that I would
live in for the next two years. It was a
tiny house converted from a garage and was located at the corner of Ninth
Street and Washington. Ray Bigler was
the landlord; I had met him while working for Joe Lewis at his Conoco Station
out north on Highway 177. By now, I had
the motorcycle, a power boat, a slick 1963 Chevy and was living in a house by
myself. Now this was the way to attend
school!
Even though I had quite a bit of money from the settlement,
I did continue to work. In 1969, I went
down to the feed mill, Stillwater Milling Company, and applied for a job. Since I had a chauffeur’s license, they put
me to work immediately driving a truck.
I told the guy when I interviewed that I was good at driving bobtails
but had no experience in semi’s. He said
that they had plenty of semi drivers so that wouldn’t be a problem.
The second week that I worked for them, I got a call one
morning asking if I could take a load of feed to their store in Perry. It was snowing that morning but I told them I
could and went down to the mill. As you
may have guessed, the load that morning was on a semi. Well, I “white knuckled” it all the way to
Perry and from then on, I was in semi’s all the time.
By this time, I had figured out how to study and work and
have a good time all at the same time.
In fact, there were a couple of semesters that I would work 60 hours a
week, carry 15 hours in school, have a good time and still made the Dean’s
Honor Roll.
On weekends and when I wasn’t working, I would hang out at
Jim Smith’s Café at the corner of 6th and Main and drink coffee with
the guys. The waitresses in there were
attractive and we liked to harass them.
I was attracted to one in particular, a redhead by the name of Louise,
but I didn’t get around to asking her out.
Besides, I was going with a girl, Carolyn Ventris, and didn’t need to
confuse myself.
Carolyn had a little boy, Bobby, who was cute as a bug and
Carolyn was looking for a Dad for him. I
wasn’t ready for it to be me, although I did have a close call one night. Carolyn, Jim Wellington, Junior Mullendore
and I all went out drinking and we had way too much to drink. The next morning I woke up with a terrible
hangover and finally made my way to the café.
Jim and Junior were in there and they both allowed as how it was too bad
that we had not been able to find a minister the night before. They both wanted to know if I was still going
to marry Carolyn, like I had said last night.
Wow, I didn’t remember any of that!
In the summer of 1969, I had been going to school for four
semesters straight so I decided to take the summer off and go back to Mannford
and work. I came home, lived with Mom
and Dad and worked for Ted Norwood in his service station. It was a pretty uneventful summer except the
visitor I had at the station one day.
I was in the back working on a car when Ted came back and
told me that Orville Barton was on the driveway and wanted to talk to me. I went out to Orville’s car where he and his
wife Bessie were in the front seat and another couple that I didn’t know was in
the back. Now, I knew Orville but he and
I weren’t old buddies. He made small
talk for a couple of minute and then he and the others left.
I thought this was a really strange encounter until I
explained it to Mom. She knew that
Orville and Bessie were friends with my Aunt Ninah, Roy Pierce’s sister. The couple in the back of Orville’s car had
been my aunt and her husband whom I had never met. It would be another 30 years before I would
meet her.
I did go over to Stillwater a few times during the
summer. One of those times I was on the
Sportster and happened to see the red headed waitress from Jim’s. She waved at me but I decided to be a big
shot and ignored her. Boy, would I pay
for that later.
The other big event of the summer in Mannford was getting
beat in a drag race. The old motorcycle
was still pretty fast but one day I raced Gary Walker in his 1967 Nova. It had a 365 hp 327 ci motor and he waxed me. I still hadn’t been beaten by a motorcycle
but that day was coming too.
When I returned to Stillwater in the fall, it was just like
I had left it. I still had the little
house on 9th Street and I was still going with Carolyn, although I
was beginning to feel uncomfortable about it.
One night in September, Carolyn and I were sitting in Jim
Smith’s Café when the phone rang. One of
the waitresses came and got me and told me it was for me. When I got to the phone, the caller was
Bonnie McKnight, a girl I knew. She said
that Louise Nance (the red headed waitress) and she were both out at the
Lamplighter Bar and they wanted to know if I would join them. As I hung up the phone, I was trying to come
up with a lie to tell Carolyn. When I
got back to the booth, I told her that my Mother had become very ill and that I
was going to have to go to Mannford that evening. That was the last time I ever saw Carolyn.
When I got out to the Lamplighter that night on the
Sportster, I, for some reason gravitated toward Louise instead of Bonnie, and
danced with her all night. When the bar
closed, it was raining but Louise wanted me to give her a ride home on the
motorcycle in spite of the rain. I can
remember today as well as if it were yesterday standing outside her parents’
house, kissing her in the rain.
Well, it wasn’t love at first sight but it was just about
that quick. We went together until I
proposed to her in November. I had never
brought a woman home to introduce to my parents until I started going with
Louise so I’m sure they knew right away that this was going to turn into
something. We initially set the wedding
day to be in May or June, after school was out.
Then we moved it to March, during Spring Break. Then we moved it to January, between
semesters.
Because I had gotten to the point where I really wanted to
spend all my extra time with Louise, I had gotten to where I was turning down
more loads at the Feed Mill than I was taking.
Finally, one day, the foreman called me to come down there. He told me that I was going to have to make a
choice, either the job or the girl was going to have to go. Well, that was the end of my truck driving
career.
We did get married in January, on Louise’s birthday, the 20th. We were married by Reverend Don Combs at the
Methodist Church in Yale. Her Mom and
Dad, my Mom and Dad, her sister and brother-in-law, Esther and Vernon, and my
brother, Milt, were the attendees. I
gave the Minister $20, I bought a corsage for about $5, and a roll of film for
the camera. This was the total of our
wedding expenses.
We got married on Tuesday and were going to have to be back
in Stillwater on the following Monday to begin school. We planned to go to Arkansas but the day of
the wedding there was a blizzard east of Tulsa.
We decided to go west instead and spent our honeymoon night at the
Buffalo Motel in Canyon, Texas. At the
time we thought this was fantastic. In
2002, we had occasion to be in Canyon again and the Buffalo Inn is still there,
with a minor name change. Our tastes
have changed a little in 32 years, however, and we decided not to spend the
night there.
During my last semester at Oklahoma State, I didn’t’ work
much. Louise was still working for Jim
Smith at the Café and I worked some for Joe Lewis at the Conoco Station but not
nearly as much as I had in previous years.
I had one class that last semester that was really eating my lunch!
I had taken a couple of courses under this guy (I don’t
remember his name) and had done well in them, so I thought I would be wired in
this course, Latin American Governments.
I got in there, found out that this was his specialty, and that I was
the only student in there who was NOT a “Latin American Studies
Student”.
Toward the end of the semester, I knew I was in trouble so I
went to his office to beg for a grade. I
told him that I had to have that course to graduate. On the day that grades were to be posted, I
went running up to his office. Next to
the code number that was assigned to me was the grade “D” with two minus signs
after it. My begging had been
successful!
In spite of that course, I managed to graduate with 128 hours
and a 2.3 grade point average. If you do
the math and start with 60 hours of 1.4, it takes a pretty good effort to
finish up where I did. If that sounds
like bragging, maybe it is but after my poor start, I needed to brag about
something.
1970 was a horrible
year to graduate in. I had three or four
interviews while still in school but no job offers from them. After school was out, we decided to move to
Tulsa where I could spend full time looking for a job. The School Superintendent at Mannford then
was Fay Stout; his son Allen worked for the State Unemployment Agency. I went to see Allen and he got me interviews
with several companies. I had two
offers, one from Allstate to go to work as a claims adjuster, and the other
from Vickers, as an inside sales rep.
The Allstate job paid more, $650 per month, but I would not be able to
start it for six weeks. The Vickers job,
which paid $590, started immediately. We
didn’t have any choice; we couldn’t wait six weeks.
