Drag Racing

I'm one of those people who had been to a few drag races as a spectator but who had never been involved with the sport.  In 2000, however, at the urging of my neighbor, Jess, and my son, Dan, we finally decided to try it.  Some people would think 54 years old is a little old to start something like this but I didn't.  After all, Warren Johnson, a professional drag racer, was way older than me!

We had a little '63 Nova street car and we put a mildly warmed up small block engine in it, a powerglide tranny behind that, and a pair of 9" slicks and 4.56 gears in the rear.  We didn't have any idea what we had but we went out and tried it.  I was convinced that it would run in the high 11's; low 13's was more like it!  After a torque converter change, it did get down into the mid-12's on a consistent basis.  For you non-racer's, that number is the elapsed time in seconds to run a quarter mile distance.

My first real racing, after several weeks of test and tune, was at the Spring Nationals in Tulsa.  Believe it or not, I won my first two rounds in the No E (no electronics) class and began to believe that I could go all the way.  On the third round, I pulled up to stage and the flagman waved me off, saying I was leaking fluid.  As I got out of the car and headed up there to have a gentlemanly conversation with him, I glanced back at the car and noticed the stream of antifreeze pouring out.  End of conversation!  After tearing the engine down, we discovered porosity in a head which had to be welded and machined.

The Nova had been running hot so we used this as justification to put it on alcohol.  As my engine building buddy said later, "Wait a minute – the engine was running hot so we changed the fuel we are burning instead of addressing the cooling problems?"  Well, why not?

We found out that the learning curve on getting enough alcohol to the carburetor is much steeper than we had imagined.  We spent several weeks, and several hundred dollars, on fuel logs, regulators, pumps, AN fittings and other miscellaneous stuff getting the car to run right.  Meanwhile the season was dwindling away and all I could do was go to test and tune!

Finally, we had the old Nova back to about as quick as it had been on gas.  We then decided that we needed bigger jets.  If a little fuel is good, then more is better, right?  In went the new jets and back to test and tune we went.  In the meantime I should tell you that my son and I had been trading off the driving because we both wanted to drive the car.  Obviously, my reaction times were much better than his because age and wisdom outdoes youth and exuberance any time!  Anyway, the night we went back to test and tune with the bigger jets, my 25 year old daughter, Rachel, who is a mother herself also wanted to drive.

That night, I made two passes, my son made two, and my daughter made five.  Her first one was a 17-something at about 80 miles per hour.  Her last one was a 13.32 at 102 mph.  She was beginning to catch on!  In the meantime, none of the passes any of us made was within a half a second of our old times!  Apparently, the new bigger jets just killed the engine!

Although by now, I had invested considerably more money in drag racing than I had promised my wife I would, I decided to play my hole card.  Telling her that the '63 was unsafe because it didn't have a cage and only had lap belts, I began to shop for a better car.  A friend of mine, Kent the engine builder, gave me a lead on a '71 Nova "roller" which was for sale and I went to look at it.  I knew before I even got out of the truck that I was going to buy this car.  In keeping with the story that I had told Louise, I told the guy who had the car that I didn't really want to go faster; that I was just looking for a safer ride.  He looked me in the eye and said, "You can lie to your wife but don't lie to me!".

Anyway, I wrote him a check and carried the '71 home.  My son and I pulled the motor and tranny out of the '63 and began the task of putting it into the '71.  In the meantime, I had ordered new, smaller jets for the carb.  Remember, the big ones had killed the performance of the engine.  So we were hooking up the throttle linkage in the new car and I told Dan to watch the butterflies to make sure everything worked as I pushed the throttle.  He hollered, "Hey, Dad, the back two barrels aren't opening!"  To make a long story short, when I put the bigger jets in the carb, I had gotten the accelerator pump in a bind and the back two barrels were indeed locked up.  I don't know which feeling was stronger, the one of relief that the problem had been found or the one of stupidity that I had done such a boneheaded stunt! I told Dan that, if he had done something like that, I would have kicked his #@%*.

In spite of all of our trials and tribulations that year, we thoroughly enjoyed drag racing as a participant sport.  One of the neatest things is to meet new people and share experiences with them.  Sometimes I'm tempted..........

Total Hip Replacement

For the past year or two, I've noticed that my range of movement in my right leg was declining.  I began to think that I might have to wind up wearing the dreaded Velcro fastening shoes just to get them on!  Finally, in October of last year, I went to see the doctor.

After talking to me for a bit, he sent me down the hall for x-rays.  In a few minutes he came back in and told me that my right hip was completely shot and needed to be replaced.  I swear to you that that hip had never hurt until that moment - suddenly it started hurting!  He gave me a referral to a hip surgeon and I went to see that doctor on November 15.

The hip doctor confirmed that yes, my hip was completely worn out and needed to be replaced.  He did dwell at some length, however, on my weight and suggested that I should get some of it off before we did any surgery.  He made an appointment for me to see him again on January 2.

I guess I've taken these events as a kind of wake-up call.  I was able to lose twenty pounds between November and the January office visit.  I'm convinced that, had I not lost the weight, he would have not scheduled my surgery.  He did, however, and I'm supposed to get a new hip on March 26.

In the meantime, I'm now down 35 pounds and walking two miles every day.  Surprisingly, even the hip doesn't hurt as badly as it did at first.  I really feel that I'll be able to reach my goals this time!  I'll keep you posted.

August: Osage Moon

As Louise will tell you, I rarely go to a movie.  I couldn't tell you why, I just don't.  Its probably for the same reasons that I seldom watch television.  However, the other day we decided to go to the movies.

We were trapped in the motor home and the weather was horrible for south Texas (still a lot better than at home).  We had heard some PR about August: Osage County and since it was filmed in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, about seventy miles from our house, we decided to go see it.

It has been about a week now since we went and I still can't tell you what I think about it!  The profanity was terrible but I guess thats pretty much normal for Hollywood today.  The movie did not need it to develop the characters and plot however.

Without giving the movie away, I'll try to tell you a bit about it.  Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts, two amazing actresses, developed their roles perfectly.  I don't know a thing about movie making but I suppose that the director, John Wells, had a great deal to do with this as well.  Several other actors and actresses played outstanding roles as well.  One of my favorites was Misty Upham, who played the role of Johnna, the Indian girl who was hired as a housekeeper.

The entire movie was a dark one; if you are looking for a "feel good" show which will make you happy, don't go to this one.

Of interest to Louise and me was the location shooting in Pawhuska.  Many of the buildings were recognizable, including the unique triangular shaped multi-story building in downtown.  Being a car guy, I kept an eye out for unusual vehicles - the two most memorable were a Ferrari and an old F250 Ford pickup.

I usually measure movies by how often I get up to go to the restroom (perhaps out of boredom).  In this case, I stayed in my seat.

The Pierce Family

As I have mentioned earlier, my biological father was Roy Moses Pierce, Jr. He left my mother when I was less than a year old and I never saw him again until 1999, some 53 years later. Roy was called “Junior” by his family. Junior was also the father of my brother, Gary but never saw him. Mom and Dad (Tommy) never kept this a secret from us but we didn't talk about it a lot either.

When Junior was a very young man, he had a severe accident which impaired him for the rest of his life. He was working on the railroad back east somewhere (I believe I was told in Massachusetts) and was critically injured. He was not expected to live but somehow did and his family brought him back to the Cromwell area, where he had been raised. Mom and he got married in late 1945, a couple of years after his accident. For the rest of his life, his family used the accident as the reason for his challenges.

Junior had several brothers and a sister, most of whom lived in the Bakersfield area where their parents had moved in the 1940's. As a child and young man, I never had any contact with any of them except for once when I was about 18. I was working at Ted Norwood's service station in Mannford when, one day, Ted came back to where I was working and told me that Pete and Bessie Barton were out on the drive and wanted to talk to me. Pete and Bessie were long time Mannford residents but I hardly knew them and found it strange that they would want to talk with me. When I went out to their car, Pete and Bessie were in the front seat and an unknown couple were in the back. We had an awkward two minute “how do you do?” conversation and I went back to work. That evening I was relating the meeting to my mother and she told me that the woman in the back seat was my aunt, Ninah Melton, Junior's sister. She had known that the Bartons knew Ninah and her husband somehow.

Many years later (35, in fact), I was talking to Mom one day and she told me that Ninah had contacted her and asked if Gary and I would have any interest in seeing any of the Pierce family. Since I had just retired and was somewhat curious anyway, I called Ninah and talked to her. Eventually, Louise and I decided to make a trip to California to see the Pierce's. I talked about this with Gary and he had absolutely no desire to meet any of them. In fact, I think he was somewhat upset with me that I would consider seeing them. I was concerned about hurting Dad's feelings; he was my true father even though he had adopted Gary and me.

Eventually, Louise and I did go to Bakersfield and meet the Pierces. Ninah, being the only girl in the family, was kind of the “hub” of the group. Junior had had a stroke and lived with another brother, Lloyd, in Bakersfield. Lloyd was a widower and enjoyed Junior's company, I think. The whole time we spent there was kind of surreal; they didn't quite know how to treat me and I was probably a bit of an ass to them, wanting to remain aloof.

While I was there, I did learn about one of my uncles, Larry Stanley Pierce. He had served in the Army in Viet Nam and had been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously. He had thrown himself on a grenade to save his platoon. He was one of the first Viet Nam era recipients of the Medal and his family was flown to Washington, DC, to have the Medal presented by President Johnson. Larry was married and left two small children behind. I have never met his wife or children. Today, both a street and a post office in Taft, California are named after him.

I was surprised to learn that Junior had never remarried and had no other children. I had really expected to find that I had some brothers and sisters. Because of the stroke he had suffered, he had a speech impairment and was extremely self conscious about it. After a couple of days, Louise and I returned back home. About a year later, Rachel, my daughter, indicated that she would like to meet the Pierce family as well so she and I flew out to Bakersfield. Again, it was a somewhat awkward meeting. Dan, my son, never had any interest in meeting them, not because he harbored any ill will; he just was not interested. I wonder today what Junior thought about us showing up. I don't know whether he was truly glad to see us or whether the whole deal was Ninah's idea and he wished we had just not shown up.

Ninah died in 2002 and Junior in 2003. We had not stayed in contact and I didn't know until sometime later that they had both passed.

In about 2000, I became interested in genealogy and did a lot of work on the Alexander and Mooneyham families. My mother's mother was a Mooneyham. I didn't spend a lot of time on the Pierce's (since I didn't know much about them) or on the Nash's, my mother's father's family.

In about 2010, however, I began to do some study on the Pierce family and quickly found a cousin, Sharon Pierce, who was also into genealogy. Sharon lives in Fayetteville, North Carolina, with her son Christian, and her father, Coy. I had talked to Coy on the phone back in 1999 but had not gotten any feel for what kind of person he was.

In October, 2013, Louise and I were going to meet Dan and Dorinda in Atlanta where they lived and spend a long weekend in the mountains of North Carolina. I decided that, since we were already in the state, we should go on over to Fayetteville and meet Sharon and Coy. I called her and made the arrangements. When we met them, we were immediately comfortable and at ease with them. I supposed I had gotten over my desire to distance myself from the Pierce's.

Coy had been a career Army guy and the reason they lived in Fayetteville was its proximity to Fort Benning where he had been stationed for a long time. He moved in with Sharon in about 2012 to help her with her house and provide some company. Sharon is a sales person in the food service industry and has done that kind of work for many years. Louise and I enjoyed ourselves and were glad that we had made the decision to go visit Coy and Sharon.

If I had a “do over”, what would I change? Probably nothing except that I would have been more responsive on those two trips to California. Roy Pierce, Jr. could never replace Tommy Alexander as my father but I still would like to have known a little bit more about him.

Sons of the American Revolution

If you've read any of my posts, you know that I have been interested in genealogy for a long time.  Its a wonderful hobby and its addictive; the more you learn the more you want to find out more.

One of the many aspects of genealogy is organizations which are based on a person's lineage.  The most widely known of these groups is the Daughters of the American Revolution, or DAR.  It shouldn't have surprised me that there is also a group called the Sons of the American Revolution, or SAR.  There are also organizations dedicated to lineage from the Mayflower, from the Civil War, and who knows how many others.

As I worked backward in my family tree, I found a couple of ancestors who had fought in the American Revolution.  If you think about it, this isn't really remarkable since the number of potential ancestors grows exponentially as you travel back in time.  My fourth great grandfather, Andrew Rish, was the person I used to prove my lineage for the SAR.  In a typical family tree, you would expect to have 32 fourth great grandparents, 64 fifth great grandparents, and 128 sixth great grandparents.  These three generations, having a total potential of 224 ancestors, are the pool that you might have to work from, since we are about six to eight generations removed from the Revolutionary War.

To put this into perspective, I realized that Andrew Rish was the great-grandfather of my great-grandmother, Nancy Huffman.  Although I never met her (she died in 1940, six years before I was born), I do have many pictures of her and feel as though I knew her.  By looking at my family tree in this manner, it tended to personalize my ancestors.  This picture of her with a calf was taken in 1935.

A bit about Andrew Rish - He was born in South Carolina in 1756, twenty years before the Declaration of Independence was signed by our forefathers.  He fought in the war as a part of the South Carolina militia, somewhat akin to our National Guard today.  He died in 1818 at the age of 61, still living in South Carolina.  Many of his descendants wound up in Mississippi where they became members of the DAR and SAR through his participation in the Revolution.  I don't know the exact number of DAR and SAR members who used him as their patriot ancestor but it is substantial.

It is an old adage that you never get finished with genealogy.  I'm now working on additional SAR lineage through the Pierce family and I'm about ready to submit it.  We are also working on Louise's DAR membership through her mother's side, an ancestor named Darby Shawhan.  He is an interesting study and might be the subject of a future blog.  Many of his descendants became famous whiskey makers.  Louise's application has been submitted and is waiting approval.

I should point out that both the DAR and SAR have extensive genealogy libraries and are more than happy to help you complete a membership application even if you are not into genealogy.  Both are great organizations and I'm looking forward to more activities with them.

The Carnival is Coming to Town

Every year, just as surely as the swallows return to Capistrano, the carnival comes to the vacant field next to our RV park in La Feria.  This morning there was no sign of them; this afternoon the lot is filled with trucks and rides which need to be set up.

This carnival winters a few miles south of La Feria and their first outing of the year is right here in town.  I suppose its kind of a "shakedown" trip for them where they can see what works and what needs to be fixed.  Another thing we have observed about this carnival is that it is almost always accompanied by rain.  This year promises to be no exception since the forecast calls for rain off and on for the rest of the week.

From our standpoint, there are not too many problems with them being there.  We have lost our "dog walk" for the week but there is plenty of room in the park.  They generate quite a bit of noise but it always seems to wind down about the time we go to bed.  One concern we do have is the possibility of theft or vandalism with all the kids being over there.  There is a gate between the park and the lot where the carnival is but park management keeps the gate locked for the week.  So far, we've never had any problems.

We have never talked to any of the people who work there but it would be interesting to find out how far and where they travel to.  I wonder if kids still wander off and join the carnival or circus.  Probably not!

The Great Mannford Gunfight

In October, 2012, I mentioned a gunfight that I had witnessed as a teen.  In 2003, the Keystone Crossroads Historical Society published a book of Mannford history called "Mannford Through The Years" and they asked me to write a short story about it.  Here is a copy of that story.

"One day in 1963, I believe it was on a Saturday afternoon, Mom asked Gary and me to take her car to Ted Norwood's service station for an oil change.

"Since we both worked for him, part time anyway, this was a good reason to go to town. We took the car in and put it on the rack. There were a few people hanging around as they often did, including Roy Russell, the Superintendent of Schools and a good friend of Ted's, the Pepsi route man whose first name was Bill and Willard Oller. Oller was a big man and very overbearing but we weren't particularly scared of him.

"In a little while, a tall, lanky man whom I did not know walked through the door of the station. Almost at once, he and Willard began fighting. I was amazed at this sight - two grown men fighting like school children. Ted told my brother, Gary, to go get Lee White, the local constable, and Gary left in Ted's pickup truck.

"As Willard and the other man fought (I found out later that he was Ted Hix, Willard's brother-in-law) the fight moved from the office out into the shop bay. Although Ted weighed about half of what Willard weighed, he soon began to get the better of Willard. Willard finally got a chance to escape and took off through the door of the station to his Cadillac, which was parked in the drive. I remember standing there in disbelief watching Willard lean over into his car and come out with a .32 automatic pistol. I thought to myself, "He will never use that thing!" The next thing I knew, Willard came back through the door of the station and, without saying a word, started shooting at Ted. I was standing behind Ted, and Bill, the Pepsi route man, pushed me down underneath Mom's car. Ted was hit four times, twice in the chest and twice in the leg. In spite of being shot, he chased Willard out the door of the station, took the gun away from him and tried to shoot him. Fortunately for Willard, the gun had jammed. Willard ran up the hill west from the station.

"About that time, Gary returned with Lee White, who very calmly walked up the hill and told Willard he was going to have to arrest him. Lee took Willard to Sapulpa and the ambulance took Ted to the hospital. I remember that while Ted waited for the ambulance, he sat down on the curb of the station, unlaced the work boot on the leg, which had been shot, and the boot filled up with blood.

"About two hours later, after Gary and I had gone home to relate the story to Mom and Dad, a pickup truck pulled into our driveway. Dad looked out and recognized the two men in it as being employees of Willard Oller. He said, "Well, it looks like we've got trouble!" then he got the 12-gauge shotgun off its rack, loaded it and the three of us, Dad, Gary and I went out into the yard. One of the men got out of their truck and said, "We understand that your boys saw what happened at the station today. We just want to talk to them about it." Dad told them that there was no way we were going to talk to them and with a shotgun pointed at them, they decided not to argue the point. They got into their pickup and drove off.

"Later that evening, I was back at Ted's station and Willard Oller came back in!  He had made bail and bragged that he beat Lee White back to Mannford from Sapulpa. In his usual blustery manner, he was chiding me for ducking under a car when the gunfight was going on. I don't know what he thought I should have been doing!

"During the next six months, I was called out of class four times by County deputies to be served subpoenas, twice for the criminal trial and twice for a civil suit filed by Ted Hix against Willard.

"Willard pled temporary insanity during his trial and was acquitted. He bragged to us later that he had "bought off' the jury". Since it was in Creek County, we all believed him.

"Ted did win a $38,000 judgment although it is not known if any of it was ever paid."