Journey to Dayton

In just over three weeks, Dave Ward and I will set off to Dayton, Ohio to attend the 2013 Hamvention.  This is the largest amateur radio convention in the United States and is "Mecca" for those of us who like to talk radio.  We will drive 800 miles there and back and, because we started planning so late, we are having to stay in a hotel which is 32 miles away.

I've been twice, in 2010 and 2011.  Dave hasn't been and figures this may by his only venture to see the show.  The attendance at Dayton will be about 18-20,000 people and every manufacturer who makes anything remotely connected to ham radio will be there.  New  equipment manufacturers and distributors will have about 300 booths and the flea market area will have over a thousand tables.

Like all shows, there will be seminars and demonstrations, along with dinners sponsored by various companies and groups.  The group I am most active in, OMISS, or Old Man International Sideband Society, will have a booth and they are also planning a dinner for Saturday night, May 18.  The dinners are really fascinating because you get to meet and see the people you talk to on the radio every day.  We have several people in the group who are musically inclined and there will be some "pickin' and singin" after the dinner.

I've kinda been eyeing a new radio and I might just take a look at them while I'm there.  Yaesu has introduced their new FTDX-3000 which is really neat looking and one of them may follow me home.  Besides that, I have a few odds and ends that I need to find but nothing else.

Dave says he is not in the market for anything but we'll see when we get there.  Regardless of any purchases made, it promises to be a lot of fun.

The Battle of Dove Creek

The Battle of Dove Creek took place on January 8, 1865, near the present city of San Angelo.  Remember that the Civil War was almost over by this time.  On April 9, General Lee would surrender to General Grant at Appomattox, essentially marking the end of the war.

The Kickapoo Indians had been assaulted and abused by both sides during the war and the triibal elders decided they would be better off in Mexico during the war.  The Mexican government had promised them a place of sanctuary in the state of Coahuila and they had also been promised safe passage across Texas by the Governor.

About a month before the Battle, Capt. N.M Gillintine and a Texas militia scouting party had discovered the remains of an Indian camp near the Brazos River.  A force was quickly put together of about 325 men consisting of Texas State militiamen and Confederate troops under the command of Capt. Henry Fossett.  They assumed, incorrectly, that the Indian party they sought was a war party and not a group of peaceful Indians traveling across the countryside.

On December 27, the militia force, under the command of Capt. S.S. Totton, began to follow the trail of this group of Indians.  For several days, through heavy rains and cold weather, they followed the trail.  Their provisions ran low and Totton dispatched fourteen men to Fort Chadbourne thirty miles away to replenish their food supplies.

At last, on January 7, the militiamen and Confederate soldiers caught up with the traveling Kickapoos.  The Confederate forced totaled about 220 men.  The Kickapoo Indians had a force of about 400 to 600 men, along with the women and children that such a movement would have.  Although significantly outnumbered, the leaders of the military force were sure that they would have no problem defeating the Indians.

Before dawn on January 8, the battle began.  It didn't take long to see that the Kickapoos were able to defend themselves.  They had recently been armed with new repeating rifles and knew how to use them.  Almost immediately, the militia and Confederate's were routed!  One of the participants who later became a judge, I.D. Ferguson, wrote an account of the battle in 1911.  An excerpt follows:


"Order could not be restored; officers seemed to lose control over their companies; they yelled themselves hoarse trying to get the men to halt and make a fight and drive the Indians back; men on wounded horses begun to drop in the rear, soon to be overtaken and killed. Among the number was Jim Gibson of our company, and myself.  Both of our horses had been wounded.  It was but a very short time until Mr. Gibson was killed, and it appeared that I was to be the next in order as it did not seem possible that I could escape death. I was getting far behind the retreating column and the Indians were getting close to me. A stream of singing bullets clipping my clothing, the air seemed alive with flying lead. My hopes had fled, and I became resigned to my fate. All fear and excitement passed away with my hope of safety and left a train of
thoughts passing through my mind faster than the speed of time; I wondered how I would feel when the deadly missle came crashing through my brain. I thought of home, and what the people would say about me when I was gone; I imagined that after death, the wolves would sneak up and gnaw my bones, and
the wild buffalo would click their hoofs against my dry skull and scare the crickets out of my eye sockets where they had hid away to sing their evening songs. I thought it would be better for me to be killed, as I was only a boy, and had no cares of my own nor none to care for me. That it would better be me than those who had no families to care for.

"Just as these thoughts were trooping through my brain, I saw the panic stricken column checking up and a little man wheel his horse and with a loud voice say, "Here boys, here, follow me, let us save that boy's life!"  It was J. O. Alexander of our company, God bless his noble name; to him I owe my life. He came charging back, followed by our own company and also Foycett's company, with the old gray headed commander leading them; and in a minute the whole command had rallied and were coming flying back, screaming and shooting as they came.  They drove the Indians back and we planted ourselves oa a ridge of prairie to stand and fight till every man was dead. We held up our hands and all took an oath that we would stay there as long as a man was alive, and that there would be no more running away."

J.O. Alexander was, of course, my great grandfather.  At any rate, the Confederates and Militia suffered a resounding defeat in a battle which should have not been fought!

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.

Everyone Has a Story

Someone (I forget who) used to tell me this all the time and it really is true.  Everyone has a story.  They said, "Encourage people to tell you their story.  Most of the time it will be fascinating!".  Most of the time, however, people don't need encouragement; they are more than willing to share their stories (experiences) with you.

As expected, I find that as I get older, the number of stories I have available becomes larger and larger.  I now have a story for almost any occasion.  This blog is a perfect example of that.

It's interesting to watch the group dynamics with a bunch of people discussing nothing in particular (being retired, most of my conversations fit into this category; I seldom have a discussion about anything important).  Everyone wants to relate their experience and the subject becomes like a chain.  It gradually moves from one topic to another as the conversation continues.

To exchange information or ideas requires two things: someone who is has information or ideas and is willing to share them, and someone who is willing to listen to receive these ideas.  It seems that we have a lot more of the former than of the latter.  I know I fit into this category.

I used to work for a division of a large corporation.  This company decided that they needed a new tag line so they came up with the phrase, "We know how important it is to listen".  To support this philosophy, they sent every one of their 43,000 employees to a seminar on listening.  They truly spent a lot of money on the idea of listening.

Did it help?  I don't think so; that company doesn't exist today.  Oh, bits and pieces of it are still around but the company is not.  Someone on Madison Avenue made a lot of money promoting the tagline but we didn't listen.

The next time you see me, be sure to tell me your story (unless, of course, I have a more important one to tell you)!  Did you say something?

Genealogy Failures

I was going to write a post on my successes in genealogy but it dawned on me that I should first mention my failures.  I have two of them which are particularly outstanding and they both deal with great grandfathers.

The first is my mother's grandfather on her father's side.  Granddad always told us that he was raised in an orphanage in Utah.  He knew his mother and father's names but had never met them.  I have been able to track down the mother and her family all the way back to the Revolutionary War but have gotten ZERO on his father.

Granddad always said that his father's name was Harry Nash and that he was from Detroit, Michigan.  On the other hand, Granddad's sister, Sedelia, always said that their father was from Ohio.  At any rate, Harry Nash continues to elude me.

My other prominent failure relates to James Oliver Alexander, my great grandfather on Dad's side.  Coincidentally,  one of my greatest "Aha!" moments also relates to him.  Let me describe it first.

J.O.'s wife was an mystery, like a ghost in the wind.  Finally one day, I was examining a photo of Granddad, their child, and noticed that the photographer was located in Bentonville, Arkansas, a place I had never associated with J.O.  I began to dig into Bentonville and discovered my great grandmother, Malinda, was buried there, about a block from Wal Mar's World Headquarters!

My failure which relates to J.O. is where he was for the twenty years between Malinda's death in 1871 and when he resurfaced in Childress, Texas in the late 1880's.  Oh well, I'll keep plugging away and someday I will find out where he was.

This picture is of J.O. and his brother, John Walker Alexander.  It is interesting to note that these two brothers fought on opposite sides during the Civil War.  J.O. fought for the Confederacy in Texas and John Walker fought for the Union in Missouri.

One more thing which is interesting from a genealogy point of view is the loss of the 1890 census records.  Census records are a vital part of genealogy and are the "backbone" of most family trees.  However, the 1890 census records don't exist.

These records were stored in a warehouse in St. Louis.  In 1921, a fire swept through that warehouse and destroyed all but a few thousand of the census records.  I can't tell you how many times I have looked at someone's history and wished I knew where they were in 1890.  Oh, well!

Autobiography - Chapter Five

Another boring installment of my autobiography!  At least my children might enjoy it!

5-Working, Part One

Although I had worked at many jobs by this time in my life, I had not been in a situation where I just went to work and came home with no thought of school.  Things were about to change.

The war in Viet Nam was beginning to heat up and David and I decided to beat the draft by going down and enlisting in the Army.  We were going to go into the Army Security Agency on the “buddy plan” and the Army would guarantee that we would stay together, at least through Advanced Individual Training (AIT).  At any rate, we packed our duffel bags and went to Oklahoma City to take the induction physical.

I remember that there were long lines of guys carrying reams of paper from their doctors explaining why they should not be in the Army.  It didn't help; they were all going!  Here I was, trying to get in and I didn't make it!  On one of the forms I had to fill out it asked if I had any paralyses.  I checked it “yes” and wrote that my left thumb was paralyzed.

Sure enough, a doctor came up, asked me about the thumb and looked at it.  When he was done, he said, “Son, we can’t take you with that thumb!”  Well, I was heartbroken for about 30 minutes until it began to soak in that I was never going to have to go to the Army.  I found out later that David spent two tours of duty in Viet Nam lying in a ditch pounding code on a key.  I’m still glad I didn't have to go although I have the greatest respect for those who did.

Since I wasn't going to have to go to the Army, I decided to spend the summer of 1966 on the wheat harvest.  David had an uncle, Carl Rice, who lived in Cherryvale, Kansas and ran a custom combining crew.  Since David was going to the Army, his spot was open.  The pay was $300 per month and room and board.  I had a little S90 Honda motorcycle which I had bought during my last semester in school and I took it with me, at least as far as Dodge City.

Wheat harvest wasn’t bad, at least until late August, but I didn’t manage to save much money.  I did send some home but not a lot.  In late August, we had gotten to Opheim, Montana, about 10 miles from the Canadian border.  A serious rain spell set in and Carl and the older guys took off for Canada.  After about a week in the trailer house, I was out of money and out of food and there was no sign of Carl.  I called Mom and got her to wire me $50 to buy a train ticket home.

I had never been on a train before so this was quite an experience.  The train from Opheim to Williston, North Dakota was literally a milk run.  We stopped at every small town and loaded cream cans onto the train.  When I got to Williston, I caught the Great Northern Empire Builder to Minneapolis, then the Rock Island Rocket to Kansas City, and the Santa Fe Super Chief to Dodge City.

When I got to Dodge City, I had $5 left to get from there to Mannford.  I told the guy who had been storing my motorcycle that I didn’t have any money to pay him but that I would send him some.  He agreed to that and I took off for Mannford.  Fortunately, the S90 didn’t burn much gas and I had enough money left over for a couple of candy bars.  When I pulled in at home, however, I didn’t have anything but change in my pockets.

When I got back home, Mom had a hot lead on a job for me at a pipeline x-ray inspection company, Conam Inspection.  I got on with them and they sent me to Emporia, Kansas to help a technician on a 42” pipeline being laid from Emporia to Kansas City.  As I recall, I only worked on that job about 60 to 90 days before it was finished.  When we were done, the manager offered me a “camp” job but I turned it down.  In a “camp” job, you literally live in a camp in a remote area for weeks on end.  This did not sound at all attractive to me.

About this time, I decided I wanted to become a policeman.  A friend from Mannford, Kenneth Moser, and I went down to join the Tulsa Police Department together.  Does this sound familiar?  Well, to cut to the chase, he got in and I didn’t.  We both passed the written test easily but I flunked the physical because I was ¼” too short.  At the time, you had to be 5’9” tall and I was only 5’8 ¾”.  Kenneth wound up becoming a Major in the Police Department and had an excellent career with them.

In November, 1966, I decided to try to get a job at National Tank, since a bunch of the Mannford people worked there.  I went down to apply and talked to the Personnel Manager.  He told me that they couldn’t use me, probably because I had received a Workman’s Compensation claim from my injury at Creamer and Dunlap.  As I was leaving his office, I heard him say something to the secretary about him being gone the next day.

I went back the next day, filled out a new application, and sure enough, he wasn't there.  I talked to a guy by the name of Bob White, who offered me a job in the drafting department.  I told him that I would rather work as a welder’s helper, since they made more money than draftsmen.  I started work there the next day.

I was assigned to help a welder who was totally illiterate, F.W. Dobbins.  I think the reason they put me with him was because I had had two years of drafting in college and could do all his layout work for him.  The foreman in Bay 3A, our bay, was Gabby Etheridge and the assistant foreman was Marvin Code.  3A was a piping bay, where all the vessels were brought, mounted on skids and plumbed.

After about six months, I got to where I thought I was better than F.W., since he couldn’t read or write.  I’ve learned since that I’m no better than anyone else, but I didn’t know that at the time.  Anyway, my idea of punishing him for being “stupid” was to not talk to him at all, except where it was required for work.  After a couple of weeks of this, Marvin Code came up to me one day and asked if I liked my job.

Being a smart-alecky kid, I replied that I didn’t particularly like it.  He then told me that, if I didn’t start treating F.W. better, I was going to have a lot of time on my hands to look for a new job.  Even though I didn’t really like working at National Tank, I was too lazy to want to go find a new one, so I starting talking to F.W. again.

The whole time I worked at National Tank, just over a year, we worked nine hours a day, six days a week.  I started out at $1.85 per hour and worked up to about $2.15, so this was pretty good money for then.  National Tank had over 1100 employees at the time and was non-union.  It darn sure wasn’t a “sweat ship”; in the whole time I worked there I never overworked myself once.  On many a day, I would get Dobbins lined out for the day and I would spend the whole day working on some personal project.

Although the work wasn’t hard, it was extremely dirty.  I remember one day in particular I was laying on my back under a skid burning a hole overhead.  The fire was falling all around and on me.  When I got ready to get out from under the skid, I had to crawl through a big chew of tobacco that someone had spit out on the floor.  I thought then that I would be a lot better off being back in school.

In December, 1967, Bill Murr and I were trading rides back and forth from Mannford to work.  Because I liked to take a shower after work before I came home, Bill decided to quit riding with me.  This was probably the best move he ever made, since about a week later I had a head-on collision in Fisher Bottom on the way home.  The right side of the car was really caved in and Bill would undoubtedly have been killed if he had been in the car.

I was “tail gating” another car when, all of a sudden, it went into the ditch on the right side of the road.  When it did, I saw the Mustang coming right at me!  I guess I thought I had a better chance going left so I jerked it that way as I hit the brakes.  I left 39 feet of skid marks before the Mustang hit me, went airborne, and landed in the bar ditch behind me.

I wound up with a broken right arm and cuts and scratches and the car was “totaled”.  In fact, the front bumper on the passenger’s side was pushed back even with the windshield post.

The guy who hit me was Maurice Roger McSpadden, nephew of Clem McSpadden and a great nephew of Will Rogers.  McSpadden was a “disk jockey” at KVOO Radio and his air name was “Boomer” McSpadden.  He had worked all night the night before and then driven to Stillwater to see his girl friend.  He was on his way back to Tulsa and just picked that time to fall asleep and hit me.  He had several broken bones and cuts but survived it.

I never did talk to McSpadden about the accident, although I wanted to.  It had changed my life in a profound way and I always wondered what impact it had on him.  Once, a good twenty years later, I went up to him at the State Fair where he was working the KVOO booth.  I introduced myself to him and his jaw dropped.  I stood there for what seemed an eternity and he never said a word.  I finally just turned and walked off.  Apparently he was not able to deal with the memory which I wanted to discuss.

This accident provided me with the motive and financial means to go back to school.  I had had about enough of National Tank and was ready to do something else.  With my arm still in a sling, I went back over to Stillwater and enrolled for the Spring, 1968 semester.

South Texas Revisited

Every once in a while, my friend, Larry, reminds me that I need to post something on my blog.  He just did that again so I suppose I should write something.

Louise and I came to South Texas again this year.  We arrived here on January 6 and will be here till March 6.  The weather was absolutely atrocious the first week we were here, making us wonder whether we had made a good choice.  It has since corrected itself, however, and has been beautiful for weeks.

There are too many things to do here to get them all done - many of the activities center around eating.  No wonder I can't lose any weight!  For example, we had the Oklahoma luncheon the other day.  Everyone in the Valley who is from Oklahoma is welcome to attend.  There were about 300 attendees at the luncheon and it was a lot of fun to meet and talk to some of them.

The woman seated next to me won the prize for being the oldest attendee.  She will turn 101 in June and lives in Bearden, Oklahoma, near where my mother grew up.  In the course of the conversation, I found out that she knew my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and my mother quite well.  As the old saying goes, it's a small World!

Another man seated at our table heard us say that we were from Mannford and asked if we had, by chance, known a fellow by the name of Bill Heller.  Of course, I had known Bill and Mary Heller from when I was a kid.  It turns out that he was their ex-  son-in-law.

Speaking of eating, today is half price day on oysters out on South Padre Island.  Guess where we are going this afternoon!  Last week, I ate 2 1/2 dozen of them, I think I can repeat that this week

After we leave here, we are going to go to Louisiana for a few days before returning home.  We have some serious eating to do (crawfish!) over there.  I'll keep you posted on our food adventures.