Autobiography, Chapter 7

Bob Langston worked in Personnel when I was hired at Vickers.  He told me that they were really looking for a graduate engineer with three years of sales experience but, since they were only paying $590 per month, they would take me.  That really made me feel loved and wanted.

Pres Whitson was the Personnel Manager, Bob’s boss.  Pres interviewed me as well and kept asking me if I would transfer if the occasion arose.  I kept telling him that, of course, I would.  I found out later that he was against hiring me because he was convinced that I would not move.  A year later I proved him wrong.  On June 4, 1970, I went to work for Vickers.

Louise and I had moved into a very nice house at 43^rd St. North and Cincinnati Ave. in Tulsa when we first moved there.  It was much better than we had expected to be able to afford and, sure enough, we couldn't.  After about 90 days, I had to tell our landlord that we couldn't afford to make the $125 per month rent and that we were going to have to move.  We moved into an 8’ by 46’ trailer house  at 6619 East King Street.

Before we moved, however, we had one experience which was somewhat funny.  Kenneth Moser, the guy I had tried to join the Police Department with, had a beat which covered my home.  He called me one night and asked if he could come by and drink a cup of coffee.  I told him I would be delighted and he said that he would bring one of his cohorts by.  In a little while, Kenneth showed up in his black-and-white and his partner followed him in in another black-and-white.  We all went inside and sat there for about 30 minutes drinking coffee when Kenneth announced that they had to go back to work.  When we opened the front door, the yard was full of people!  All the neighbors saw the police cars and thought that these white people had done something terribly wrong!

My first job at Vickers Tulsa Division was inside sales.  This company had started out in 1929 as the Tulsa Winch Manufacturing Corporation by Mr. Harley Pray.  It had been on the east side of downtown Tulsa for many years and had moved into the former Hale-Halsell warehouse on East Pine Street in December, 1968.

Mr. Pray started Tulsa Winch by making winches out of the rear ends of Model T trucks.  The gears used on those rear ends are very similar to the gears made today by Tulsa Winch.  When he ran out of used gears he had to start making his own.  The company grew and prospered and, in fact, won the U.S. Navy’s coveted “E” award for excellence during World War II.

In 1946, Mr. Pray decided to retire and sold the company to Vickers Hydraulics, a division of Remington Rand Co.  Harry Vickers had pioneered automotive hydraulics in Detroit and had built Vickers into the World’s premier hydraulics company.  Later Remington and Sperry merged and formed Sperry Rand Corporation.  Sperry Rand was most noted for building the World’s first true computer, the Eniac.

Enough of company history.  My job was to answer phones, take orders, expedite customer shipments, and field complaints.  There were four inside guys at the time: Garry Strouse, Fred Lamar, Bill Lewis, and me.  We had a supervisor, Johnny Kirk, and two secretaries, Janice Bain and Sherry Richardson.  It took me about two weeks to get up enough nerve to start answering the phone but I caught on quickly after that.  I’m convinced that having a farm background really helps in learning mechanical things.

There were three outside guys who worked out of that office as well.  They were Bernie Jiles, Jack West, and Chuck Bookout.  Bookout probably knew more about the technical aspects of our product line than anyone else.  When I would get a tough call, I would ask him to take it and he would always refuse.  It infuriated me but it did cause me to have to go to engineering and find out the correct answers for myself.  I became a better salesman because of his attitude.

Our general manager at the time was Russ Dupuis, an old-school manager who came into our sales office every day and looked at the sales sheet on Garry Strouse’s desk.  Russ had been with Vickers for many years and at Tulsa for about 10.  He retired in 1971, just a year after I went to work there.  The Marketing Manager was Chet Lenik, a Polish guy from Detroit.  When I first went to work at Vickers, he called me into his office and told me that if I heard any good Polish jokes he wanted to hear them.

Louise and I really enjoyed this time in our lives.  We were newlyweds, out on our own, and having a good time.  Louise worked at the Braum’s Ice Cream Store just around the corner from our trailer and I was having a good time in my new job.  We also met our good friends, Jerry and Marlene McCain, while living in the mobile home park.

Like us, they were just good country people, he from Jackson, Tennessee, and she from Jacksonville, Florida.  Jerry had been in the Navy and had met Marlene while stationed in Jacksonville.  After they married, they moved to Tulsa so he could attend Spartan School of Aeronautics.  He wanted to get his A & P (airframe and powerplant) license so he could become an aircraft mechanic.

We had a wonderful time living next door to Jerry and Marlene.  One Sunday morning, Louise made some biscuits from scratch and they didn't come out quite right.  In fact, they were terrible.  Well, I called Jerry and told him to meet me out in the yard.  We played a game of catch with the biscuits and not one of them ever broke!

Eventually, an opening in outside sales came up, this time in Detroit.  This was a major promotion and most people would have killed for it.  Of the four of us, one, Garry Strouse, had made it clear in the past that he would not transfer.  For some reason, the company didn’t want to offer Bill Lewis the job, so that left Fred Lamar and me.  Fred had seniority on me so they kept offering the job to him.  I wanted it badly so I kept badgering Estill Sherrill, the Sales Manager, for the job.  Finally, they decided that Fred just was not going to move, so they told me I had the job.

Being transferred from Tulsa to Detroit meant a raise from $690 per month (I had gotten a couple of raises) to $850 per month.  All of our friends told us that we would hate living in Detroit but the job opportunity was too good to pass up.  In early June, 1971, while the company was on strike, Louise and I moved to Detroit.

We found a small apartment at the corner of 14 Mile Road and John R., in Troy.  If you are familiar with Detroit, you know that the northernmost boundary of the city is 8 Mile Road, so we were six miles north of there.  Troy was a fairly young, growing suburb, and we were happy to be living there.  There was a giant mall across the road from our house, Oakland Mall, and just about everything you could think of was within close proximity.

Louise quickly got a job at a card shop in the Mall, Memory Lane, and developed a bunch of new friends.  I am convinced that this was the reason we liked Detroit so much.  We both had new jobs and were meeting new people and everything was right.

The apartment complex we moved into was named Canterbury Square.  It consisted of several buildings, each with eight units in it.  The day we moved into our building, not a single neighbor knew any of their neighbors.  However, within two weeks, Louise and I knew everyone In the building and, within six weeks, everyone in the building knew everyone else.  I really don’t give us credit for anything except being stupid enough to want to meet everyone.  Some of the neighbors included Chuck Schiff (our accountant friend who lived upstairs), John and Mary Bone, and Chuck and Sue Mowat.  Mrs. Cooper, a lonely widow, lived next door to Chuck Schiff.

One problem we had was that Louise did not know how to drive.  I’ve kidded her forever saying that the next time I get married, the first question I’m going to ask the prospective bride is whether she has a drivers license.  Louise did not want to learn but I wanted her to.  We set a practice time for every evening at 5:30 p.m. when I was in town.  After about 90 days, she was ready and took her test.  She passed it with flying colors.

I was in outside sales and my territory was Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia.  I worked out of an office at the Vickers Warehouse in Ferndale, about five miles south of our apartment.  I was assigned to train under a fellow by the name of Dick Karr, who had been in outside sales for Tulsa Winch for several years.

In retrospect, I was a very poor salesman at this time.  I was definitely not assertive, which you need to be, and I didn’t know the product line as well as I should.  I was reluctant to travel much, because I didn’t want to spend the Company’s money so I didn’t see my customers as often as I should.  In spite of all this, my bosses thought I was doing a good job so they were happy with me.

After about a year and a half, we had a reorganization in Tulsa and Jack West became my new boss.  Jack called me up one day and said he needed to talk to me and would meet me at the airport that evening.  Well, if he was going to fly over 1000 miles just to have a meeting with me at the airport, it had to be important!  When I met with him that evening, he told me that I was going to be transferred and had my choice of Chicago or Tulsa.  Inside I was screaming “Tulsa” but I played it cool and told him I would have to talk to Louise.

Of course, Louise wanted to move back to Tulsa as well so we took the transfer home.  In October, 1972, we moved back to Tulsa, into an apartment building on Harvard just south of Pine Street.

Autobiography, Chapter 6

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 6^th 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 9^th 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 20^th.  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.