December 17, 2003

CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX TO MY STORIES

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1937 Wahnee - Wahnne

1940 Charles Barnabas Curtsinger

1941 Women’s Home Missionary Society

1942 My First Bicycle

1943 Shannon Wahnee

1944 Eddie Earl Hammett

1944 Medicine Show

1944 Bubble Gum Rationing

1945 East Grade School Fire

1945 Picking Cotton

1946 Route 66 to California

1946 High Ambitions

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1946 Poochie

1947 Carlsbad Caverns

1947 Ethel Meadows

1948 Gypsies

1948 My First Television

1951 Spending Money from Dad

1951 My First Taco

1954 Raising Hogs

1954 DeMolay

1954 Doc Tate Nevaquaya

1954 Gandy Dancers

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1954 Plowing Wheat Land

1956 Craterville Park and Elvis Presley

1956 The University of Oklahoma

1956 Central State Hospital

1956 Studying Latin

1957 Emancipation

1957 Little Red

1957 “My Fair Lady”

1958 Marriage to Lanita

1958 OU vs Notre Dame

1959 Naming Terri and Steven

1960 State Representative

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1961 My First McDonalds

1963 November 22nd, J.F.K.

1964 Correspondence Study

1965 Masters of Business Administration

1965 Edward L. Clark

1965 Comanche Constitution

1968 $10,000 per Annum

1968 Martin Luther King, Jr. Funeral

1969 Apollo 10

1969 Aurora Borealis

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1969 Curt’s Oil Company

1971 Honest Injun

1975 Wednesday Night Poker

1976 GW Marching Band

1977 Myocardial Infarct

1978 Imelda Marcos

1982 Colonel Ronald Jack Ward, USAF

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1984 Dr. Parker Paul McKenzie

1987 NRECA Fire

1988 The Grand Celebration

1988 Carnegie Hall

1989 Ranch Style Beans and National Airport

1991 Great Peppers’ Meeting

1992 Armadillo Army Benefit

1993 Marriage to Jan

1994 Pisa, Rome and Amsterdam

1995 Quadruple By-Pass Surgery

1996 Curriculum Vitea

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1997 Monarch Butterflies

1997 Dad’s Arbor

1998 Stroke

1999 Ajijic, Mexico

2000 Marriage to Rosemarie

2002 Grand Master Chili Cook

The following stories or vignettes are my memories of events that are fairly well capsulated by a date certain.

They represent stories I have told and retold many times.

I have assigned a specific year to each story and, in some instances, may have missed a date by a year or two as the passage of time tends to wash away date marks first.

I am certain many of my family or my circle of friends have heard me repeat these stories ad nauseam. If you have heard some of these stories more than once, you can simply skip over them and go on to the next bit of recall.

I’ve made generous use of the internet and my own files and records to verify dates and to provide limited background information.

You will find Endnotes that provide some of the resources I have used, but I have not concentrated on identifying every possible resource. To some extent I have left out participants in the topic discussed.

I think you will recognize situations where I was obviously with family or in a group and I refer only to myself. I am doing so for the sake of brevity with that factor as a given or understood.

I thank Rosemarie for her able editing of these stories and I thank her for her forbearance during my writing.

I welcome any corrections or elaborations you may have to these stories.

Wahnne

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1937

WAHNEE – WAHNNE

I was born at 7:07 pm, Thursday, December 9, 1937, at what was then known as the Kiowa Indian Hospital, Lawton, Comanche County, Oklahoma.

My father was 31 years old and my mother was 28 years old at my birth.

My parents were then living in Anadarko, Oklahoma at the area known as “Old Town.” They lived in the house situated behind and south of the Anadarko Indian Agency Roads Department warehouses and lots.

I am carried on the rolls of the Comanche Nation as ½ degree of Comanche blood. The Comanche Constitution recognizes original allottees, my father, as full blood Comanche and that is how I am considered to be ½ degree. My enrollment number is CO1817.

My brothers and sister all have Anglo-American names, Albert, Jr., Alfred Alan, and Patsy Pauline.

Often I have been asked how I came to have a Comanche name. Mother told me that the attending nurse liked the name and suggested it to her. That is the story – plain and simple.

My Huutsi, I called her Kaku, Waumaconie told me the name meant Little Fox. I just don’t know. Today when asked I usually respond that it means, “handsome, omnipotent, sexy, and so on.” I have few takers on that meaning, however.

The name is the family name of a large number of Comanches who live in the Fletcher and Elgin area. They spell the name Wahnee and, in fact, my birth certificate spells the name that way. Why I took up spelling the name with two “n's” and one “e” I can’t say. I often wished that I had spelled it with two “e's” as I think the name is easier to pronounce with that spelling.

For years I have explained the pronunciation by saying that it sounds like the Suwannee River but with a “w”. Once, after I had introduced myself to a fellow he told me his name was Martin, pronounced like fart’in but with an “m”. Since then I have been reticent to use my example.

My middle name is Cooper, my mother’s maiden name. Not only do I have her maiden name but I received all her genes. I tend to look a lot like her brothers.

My Aunt Eloise would visit our home when I was a small boy, perhaps four or five years of age, and invariably would summon me by calling me by my full name, “Wahnne Cooper Clark.”

For some reason it irritated me and I angrily responded to her, “My name isn’t Wahnne Cooper Clark. My name is Bobby Gene Hodebeck.” I guess I just liked the sound of that name and the way it tended to roll off one’s tongue.

I have known this story for years, however, I didn’t know who this Mister Hodebeck was nor where I had gotten his name. In 2003 while visiting with my cousin, Barbara Hopper, I told her the story and she said she knew this person.

His parents went to the Church of God in Ada, Oklahoma, where Barbara’s father was the pastor. My Aunt Gladys Curtsinger was the pastor at that same church. Obviously my mother had taken me to that church as a small boy and I had met this young Mister Hodebeck.

Barbara says he and I are about the same age and must have played together then. Thus, Wahnne Cooper Clark, alias Bobby Gene Hodebeck.

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1940

Charles Barnabas Curtsinger (1940 – 2002)

Charles was born to Aunt Gladys and Uncle Ervin Curtsinger on June 17, 1940.

I believe it was a breech birth but I can’t be sure about this. He was born with a very pronounced deformity to his head and a club or turned left foot.

Aunt Gladys became sick and died on August 2nd, fifty-four days after his birth. Uncle Ervin was unable to properly care for Charles, so my parents took Charles home with them. I was just two and a half years old at this time.

His deformity and foot problems were treated at Children’s Hospital in Oklahoma City and this treatment required my mother to make many automobile trips back and forth.

The casts he was required to wear were heavy and uncomfortable and were the reason for many sleepless and fretful nights requiring much attention from my mother and father.

An inordinate amount of attention was given to Charles over the course of his stay with us. In public, naturally, more attention was directed towards this pitiful child. He stayed with us for over two years at which time Uncle Ervin remarried and then Charles was returned to him.

It was not until years later when I was in a psychology class at the University of Oklahoma that I learned the reason behind my long-held animosity, resentment, and outright disdain for Charles.

The deprivation of attention from my parents needed by me embedded those feelings deep into my psychic. The professionals call this a toxic interjection. That is, the diversion of my parents’ love and attention from me to Charles was like having to swallow a green apple that would sour on my stomach.

Honestly, I have a residual of those feelings even now and it is beyond my capacity to rid myself of them even though I can logically understand the root cause of those ugly feelings.

To my knowledge Charles never did one single thing to me to purposefully harm me or would otherwise warrant those long-held feelings.

I don’t recall ever being overtly vindictive to Charles because of these deep-seated feelings. My mother would never have permitted me to be vindictive even if I had wanted to allow myself to act out those feelings on Charles.

In 2003 Barbara Hopper, my first cousin, and I discussed this unique situation. Barbara confided in me that she had similar feelings toward Charles for much the same reasons.

Her exposure to him was when she was around Charles she saw how people doted over “that precious child.” In Barbara’s view, Charles always had an inordinate amount of money in his pocket.

It was common for money to be given to Charles by admiring relatives and friends. It was of some comfort to me to learn that I was not the only one affected by this experience. Charles died January 14, 2002, at the age of 62 years.

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1941

Women’s Home Missionary Society

My mother belonged to the Women’s Home Missionary Society of the Assembly of God Church.

The church ladies got together one day each week to quilt blankets which they would later put up for sale. The money for the sale of these beautiful blankets was given to the church missionaries.

I recall going along with mother to these meetings and playing, even sleeping, under the quilting frame. Each woman would bring a covered dish and at noon they would take a break, say a prayer and have a potluck meal. I am sure I had lots of home cooked fried chicken, meat loaf and other delicious food.

My memory of the quilting frame was four long boards coupled together at the corners with 4” C-clamps. This rectangle was then placed upon four chairs at each corner. The boards had a canvas or heavy cloth tacked to them and the quilt material was sewn to that cloth.

As the quilting progressed the finished work was rolled under and that particular board was refastened. Often they would work from opposite sides towards each other.

This was an ideal place for the women to exchange ideas and discuss the community happenings. I will not call this conversation “gossip” as that word carries with it an evil connotation. Of course, nothing evil was to be said in the church.

When the work was finished for the day the quilt frames with their partially finished quilts were leaned upright against a wall out of the way until the next meeting day. I will never know how many of these meeting I went to with my mother but it was a rather regular event in my early childhood.

1942

My First Bicycle

I don’t remember the circumstances by which I came to have a tricycle. Perhaps it was a birthday or a Christmas present.

I remember having loads of fun with it and even that I would take it into the bare ground of our huge chicken yard. I remember pulling a common rake or some such object behind the tricycle pretending to be plowing ground with a tractor.

Time goes on, however, and there came a time when I was getting too “grown up” to ride a tricycle. This is where the mechanical talents of my brother, Albert, Jr., began to surface.

Behind the Indian Clinic in Old Town where we lived was a seldom used blacksmith shop. It had a forge, an anvil and all the other equipment of a very good shop.

My brother took my ailing old tricycle to that shop for a make-over. First he took off the footplate and two back wheels of the tricycle. Then using the forge, he split the tricycle frame that extended down from the seat to the footplate and axel of the back wheels.

When he had the split opened sufficiently, he drilled holes in the base of the frame which allowed him to insert a shortened axel for the single wheel. Thus I had a bicycle with a large front wheel and a single small wheel in the rear.

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The made-over tricycle, now a bicycle, served me very well as a learning vehicle for a real bicycle to come later. Correction, I never did get a real bicycle of my own.

I first rode Pat’s women’s bike and then graduated to Albert, Jr., or Alfred’s hand-me-down bikes. I remember liking Alfred’s bike better as it was lighter and faster than Albert, Jr’s. But in truth, I did ride both from time to time.

Incidentally, there was an old locust tree in our back yard that grew from two sprouts and formed a “Y”. It was an ideal bicycle rack. We could place the front wheel between the two branches of this tree and it held the bike as if it were just made for that purpose.

1943

Shannon Wahnee

I met Shannon Wahnee when I was about five years old. Shannon was a grown man at that time. To my knowledge I never met him again.

I recall being with my mother in Chickasha in what I believe was the bus or train station. There was a gift shop there and I was introduced to Shannon Wahnee.

He is from a large family of Comanche Indians whose last name is Wahnee. The Wahnees lived mostly in the Fletcher and Elgin area. Shannon was fascinated by my name and he told me he considered me to be his “namesake” and, for that reason, he would get a gift for me sometime in the future. I never forgot meeting him and his promise to me.

For years I waited for a “gift” from Shannon Wahnee.

For some reason I always thought or hoped his gift to me would be a miniature Wichita grass house. Perhaps there was such a miniature on display at the gift shop where we met Shannon. Why I would want, even yearn for, a miniature Wichita grass house I don’t know. Even today when I see an historic picture of Wichita grass house that youthful longing comes back. Isn’t that strange?

Of course, Shannon Wahnee was not my namesake.

1944

Eddie Earl Hammett (1938 – 1962)

Eddie was the grandson of Mrs. Owen Ricketts, who was a loyal church member of the Assembly of God Church where my mother and father attended.

Eddie’s parents were Ruby and Earl Hammett.

I am sure Eddie and I had contacts through the church before beginning first grade together but I can’t remember any of that.

We began the first grade in 1944 in the East Grade school. I think the elementary grades split between the East Grade and West Grade. Eddie and I continued together in every grade subsequent until graduation from high school in 1956.

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Eddie was an excellent student and seemed to be able to succeed in every subject without the least bit of study.

On the other hand, I had to struggle for my grades throughout the years.

He had the distinction of having perfect attendance for twelve years of study. To my chagrin, the only recognition Eddie got for this perfect attendance was a mere mention of the fact and a brief round of applause on the night of our graduation. I always thought it was woefully unfair and unappreciative to him of the school system.

After graduation he and I attended the University of Oklahoma together and we were roommates our freshman year.

We both worked at Central State Mental Hospital on the east side of Norman. We lived in renovated rooms which had previously been offices on the upper floor of the hospital administration building.

He and I were together the first day of our employment at Central State. We both were frightened beyond belief when asked to work the least desirable ward of the hospital amid 100 or so patients.

I believe Eddie dropped out of the university after his sophomore year. Thereafter, Eddie graduated from the officers’ candidate school and went on to become a helicopter pilot. Lt. Hammett died November 2, 1962, from burns suffered in a crash of a helicopter he was piloting. I was a pallbearer at his funeral.

1944

Medicine Show

I may have been seven or eight years old when my brother, Albert, Jr., took me to see a traveling medicine show that came to Anadarko. This would have been about 1944 or 1945.

I would imagine this was one of the last of what had previously been a rather common attraction. I recall the show was performed on a horse-drawn wagon that opened up into a stage of sorts.

I believe it had painted canvas backdrops with the name of the elixir being sold and examples of the purported cures that it offered.

The show was in an open field alongside U.S. Highway 281 and next to the old football stadium on the north edge of Anadarko. We stood in front of this stage with the rest of the audience mesmerized and captivated by the patter and spiel of this super salesman.

Charlatans performed in these traveling medicine shows and drew a crowd using some unique come-on or pitch. The crowd would stand and listen to a pitch and then purchase medicines of dubious value offered by the “doctor.”

The shows featured music, comedy, juggling, magic, and overblown rhetoric mixed with testimonials and stunts to demonstrate dramatic cures for a variety of real or made-up illnesses.

The shows were known to have shills or confederates planted in the audience to enhance the credibility of the sales pitch. The performances were free and the performers made their living from the sale of the cure-alls.

Most of the medicines were at least harmless, many contained generous quantities of alcohol, opium, or cocaine. These concoctions ensured a quick feeling of well-being for the first-time customer followed by the possibility of habitual use.

The old-time traveling medicine show survives today in the form of television “infomercials.” The term “snake oil” is a popular expression for the type of product that was sold at these shows. A “snake oil” salesman is a pitchman selling something of questionable value. I consider myself lucky to have seen what must have been one of the last traveling medicine shows.

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1944

Bubble Gum Rationing and the “Pink Market”

I began the first grade at the age of seven years in September of 1944.

The cataclysmic events of WW II were ongoing. The American public was experiencing rationing of everything from gasoline and automobile tires to coffee and sugar.

The war demanded sacrifice from everyone. The sacrifice I remember most from that period was the rationing of bubble gum. Yes, when the two mom & pop grocery stores nearby our grade school received a shipment of bubble gum each school child was allowed to purchase only one piece of gum.

The word would spread during our morning recess that bubble gum was available and at noon all of us who had a penny would postpone eating lunches we carried to school and rush to the grocery stores.

I remember standing in line to purchase my pink prize. One piece of bubble gum for one penny – a real sacrifice for a seven year old!

American gum plants produced over 15 billion sticks of gum for the armed forces during WW II. {1}

On the wartime home front the civilian population (and seven year old boys) simply did without. Raw materials just weren’t available to make enough gum for everyone.

In pre-war years, American kids were spending close to $4.5 million a year on bubble gum, but during WW II the bubble burst when the essential ingredient Siamese jelutong became unavailable and forced the gum makers to halt production of this precious chewy commodity.

Flavorings like peppermint and spearmint, essential oils that flavored 90 percent of chewing gum, were strictly rationed by the War Food Administration. When production eventually resumed after the War there developed a “pink market” named for the color of the bubbly, pint-sized black market mainly operated by kids.

Manufacturers continued to supply what penny gum they had at regular prices and retailers sold it at five cents or so a piece, but the kids themselves made markups of as much as 500 percent the norm.

There were times when penny pieces of Dubble Bubble, then regarded as the bubble gum nonpareil, did go for one dollar each and those lucky enough to get it kept it “alive” in glasses of water while they slept and chewed on it for several days.

1945

East Grade School Fire

I can’t be sure just when the East Grade school burned but I do remember it vividly. We must have heard the commotion of the fire engines and perhaps even someone told us of the fire.

Some of the Old Town neighborhood gang, my sister, and I ran to the school to see this big event. I remember fire engines were called in from Apache, Verden, and Chickasha to assist the Anadarko Fire Department.

Water hoses were laid across the streets at every corner of the city block surrounding the school.

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While the fire was ongoing and the smoke continued to bellow out from the windows and roof, an attempt was made to save the school’s library.

A human chain formed on the fire escape stairs on the north side of the school and led from the second floor. Books were being passed from person to person. The chain snaked its way out away from the school roughly 100 to 150 feet. The books were being dumped on the school yard in no particular order.

To a young and impressionable boy this human chain seemed so very heroic and dramatic. It reminded me of pictures or drawings I had seen of early day fires being put out by a water bucket brigade. It is possible other valuable items were also being passed down the fire escape stair.

Whatever damage occurred that day seemed to have been mitigated by the combined efforts of the fire squads. The school stood and after some quick renovations it was readied for occupancy for the September opening. No school days were missed because of this fire.

1945

Picking Cotton

With WW II having just ended in August of 1945, money was a scarce commodity in our circle of friends.

The Jones had a farm north of Anadarko and they raised cotton among other crops. Cotton is harvested (that is, picked or pulled) during the fall months.

Everyone except Dad would go out to pick cotton not only for the purpose of earning some extra money but also to help the Jones. Laborers, cotton pickers, were hard to come by and it was of great help to them to have friends join in on the “fun.”

I am sure others from our church circle of friends went along as well. In addition to the Jones children there were the Dulworths, Wards, and others.

The dress of the day was long-sleeved shirts, a hat or headband, bib overalls and work shoes. Doubtless there was great camaraderie and loads of laughter among all of us.

Mom made our cotton picking bags from a heavy canvas material. It was a sack about six feet in diameter and about eight feet long. Those were the dimensions of the adult bags.

She made me one much smaller in diameter and about four feet long.

As the bags were drug up and down the rows of cotton, the farmers would park a wagon at the end of the cotton rows. At the end of the row each person would weigh the bag on a crude counter balance scale.

A record was made of the pounds each individual had picked and pay was determined by the pounds picked. My guess is that I may have picked three or four bags full and I was compensated in cash as was everyone else. If I made more than two dollars I would be surprised. Larry Joe Dulworth was my classmate and friend. He and I picked cotton together and then played most of the day.

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1946

Route 66 to California

The summer of 1946 Dad readied our black 1940 Dodge 4-door sedan for a trip from Anadarko to Compton, California.

He built a luggage rack for the top, prepared a green, oiled tarpaulin cover for the rack, placed an old steamer trunk on top, and loaded the family into the car for this 1,400 mile trip.

Mom, Dad, and I were in the front seat and Albert, Jr., Alfred, and Pat in the back.

We traveled no faster than 45 mph along the old two-lane U.S. Route 66 most of the way to Compton. The trip took about 4½ days.

This was before Holiday Inns and Motel “6” so we camped beside the road along the way behind the then-ubiquitous highway billboards.

Dad would string a larger tarpaulin from the back braces of the billboard to the car and we slept under this improvised tent. We each had canvas Army cots and lots of blankets.

Mom would cook our evening meal and breakfast on a Coleman stove. We strung the sisal rope handle of a canvas water bag over the front bumper as a spare water source for the car radiator.

To cool the car while crossing the Arizona desert we had an evaporative cooler that fit in the front passenger side window. To keep the cooling process going required that we periodically pull a drawstring to roll the excelsior through a tank of water. You would have to see it to believe it!

When we got to California we stayed with Uncle Joe and Aunt Effie at 1345 East Greenleaf Drive.

Please don’t ask me how I remember that address these 57 years later. I don’t know the answer.

In California, Dad repacked the steamer trunk and shipped it home by rail as we had taken too much “stuff.”

1946

High Ambitions

The trip to California with the family gave me the opportunity to set my sights on my future.

Crossing the Navajo country of Arizona we saw the Navajo boys and girls about my age on the hillsides tending to herds of sheep. They sat in the hot sun on a rocky hillside doing little more than standing by watching perhaps as many as 15 or 20 sheep.

I developed an affinity for that type work and told my family that my ambition was to be a sheep herder or, if that was not to be, I wanted to run the City Dump at Anadarko. I never got my chance to be either.

On trips from Anadarko to Oklahoma City we had to pass the small airport on the northern outskirts of Chickasha.

The U.S. Army Air Corps was training young pilots there for the War. They flew Fairchild PT-19 two-seater training planes.

The young pilots were practicing take-offs and landings so there was always some activity going on as we passed. Albert, Jr., told the family, “Every time I see one of these planes take-off it just thickens my ambition to be an aviator.”

Many years later he did take flying lessons but I don’t think he ever completed that training. He was, however, a master aircraft mechanic.

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Pat trained to be a court reporter at Hills Business College.

I was fascinated by the twenty-two key steno machine (Stenotype) they used in that line of work.

Stenographers type a coded language using that machine. The paper tapes that are generated are later de-coded and transcribed on a regular typewriter into common English.

I don’t think she ever used that training in a courtroom setting, however, in her own words Pat describes her childhood dream: “It’s a fulfillment of a childhood dream – to have my own buckskin dress to wear at Powwows and ceremonial events. I also knew this dress would satisfy the part of me that is Comanche.

Several years ago I became acquainted with a Kiowa woman, Venessa Jennings. An artist of the Plains Indians, she had made a beautiful dress of tanned buckskin.

Unfortunately, she had outgrown it and I was able to persuade her to sell it to me. In two parts, the skirt consists of soft hides, front and back. Both are laced together on the sides with narrow strips of buckskin.

Decorated with rows of beadwork, the strips of buckskin are tied with large wooden beads. Small silver beads attached around the skirt’s bottom make faint “jingling” noises when walking or dancing.

There’s a fringe which goes completely around the bottom. The top, or blouse, is one complete hide, cut poncho style. Long fringe on the under arm sways with the wind and moves in time with the dance steps.

It’s beaded with colors of red, white, and blue – Comanche colors chosen long before they knew of the U.S. flag.

Two medallions of a leaf design adorn the front.

A pair of perfume balls, made of red satin, are filled with sweet sage. Long strips of satin ribbon have been added on the front and back for color. Wide strips of beadwork with a feather design decorate the shoulder and upper arm.

Moccasin boots, beaded up the sides, tie around the lower leg. A fan of pheasant feathers has a wooden handle, beaded with a strip of fringe. The neck choker is made of bone and beads and the necklace is a beaded medallion with a feather design.

Weight of the complete dress is about 20 pounds and took six months to complete.” {2}

I don’t recall what Alfred’s ambitions were. If I ever heard him say it doesn’t come to mind now.

I always thought he had artistic talents and expected him to become an artist someday. He never pursued my expectations of him. Albert, Jr., thinks Alfred may have secretly wanted to be a professional boxer.

1946

Poochie

I remember being with my boyhood friend Eddie Hammett at his grandmother’s house in southwest Anadarko when I got a telephone call from home.

My mother wanted me to come home. She had a surprise for me. Eddie and I walked the ten blocks or so to my home and to my great delight my parents had given me a puppy.

He was a lovable ball of black fur about 6-weeks old. A Cocker Spaniel as cute as could be.

I showed my wonderful imagination by naming this little animal “Poochie.” I don’t recall having a dog of my own before this beautiful dog came into my life.

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Poochie grew older and was a very good pet. He went with me on my excursions to the Washita River and swam in the river with abandon.

He loved to fetch a stick thrown in the water and dig in the sandy banks of the river. Poochie had his own place under the house which was cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

Our house had a floor furnace and Poochie slept near that heating unit to give him added warmth in winter.

He followed me as I rode my bicycle through the neighborhood and was ever-present when ball games went on between the McKenzie and the Hayes houses.

Mother brought home the leftovers from the school cafeteria where she worked and I fed those to my hogs. Poochie got his share of leftover hot dogs, meatloaf and anything else the school children had for lunch. He lived to be 15 or 16 years old.

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1946

Shivaree

Helen J. Hawkins had beautiful, shoulder-length, red hair and light complexion. She had a unique smile and a special friendliness that drew her to people. I recall she had a beautiful voice. I remember her solos in church services and she often sang with my parents on special request songs. Helen was a daughter of a minister of the gospel.

Merle V. Lair was lean and tall, an All-American type with a head of black hair so full and wavy it was to be envied. He had a deep, resonate voice and a way about him that could charm the most cynical of persons. His laugh came out of the corner of his mouth and it always had the ring of his genuine enjoyment of a humorous moment. He was alternately serious and openly joyful.

Helen and Merle were married in the Assembly of God Church in Anadarko on July 4, 1946. Shortly after the ceremony they left on a short trip to Ft. Worth, Texas, and southern Oklahoma.

About two weeks later their friends arranged a wedding shower for them. The shower was a happy affair with laughter, the sharing of food and with giving much needed gifts to start Helen and Merle’s long journey of love.

After the wedding shower the newlywed couple returned with their gifts to their small, two-bedroom home just down the street from where they were married. Sometime after they arrived home they were startled to hear banging and clanging all around the house. It must have been around 9:00 or 9:30 pm and on a Saturday night. Merle said, “It sounded like a wrecking crew was outside.”

Among the revelers were my parents, Pauline and Albert Clark, Lois Ann Smith, Maureen Jones, Doris Davis, Roy and Ruby Jones, Dora and Otis Ward, Lucille and Harrison Dulworth, Merle’s own mother, Sophia Lair, Pat Clark, Mary Lair, and others.

This mischievous group began knocking on the doors and making an awful noise by banging pots and pans all around the house. They did everything they could to get the newlywed couple to come to the door.

Helen and Merle were cajoled into coming out in their pajamas. After some negotiation, they were hustled into a waiting car and the caravan of friends made its way to Main Street, just a few blocks away.

Dad had placed our wheelbarrow in the trunk of our car. The old wheelbarrow, with its iron wheel, was speckled with bits of concrete and rust. Dad was careful to place an olive-drab Army comforter in the bed of the wheelbarrow. Helen took her place in the wheelbarrow and Merle began pushing her down the one-block section of Main Street and around to the next business block, Broadway Street.

Some of their friends were walking alongside the much embarrassed couple and some were following behind in the caravan of 1930s and early 1940s automobiles with their tinny horns blaring.

Saturday night in Anadarko, even at 9:30 in the evening, was a lively place. It seemed everyone made their way to downtown on Saturday. Going to town on Saturday night was a family affair. The men were getting haircuts and the women were shopping. Even after the stores closed at 9:00 pm the people would sit on the front fenders of the cars and visit.

Small groups of women would visit and gossip under the street lights. The men would talk about the crops and the weather. Children in hand-made cotton dresses and Big Smith overalls would play on the sidewalks nearby their parents.

This hot July night the townspeople of Anadarko were witness to an old and honored tradition – a shivaree.

Merle said of this experience, “I had a bad headache and it was July, hot, hot! I was pushing Helen. Otis Ward took his hat off and was fanning me. I stopped, sat down in the street, Helen jumped out and ran. No one could catch her.” Merle went on to say, “I don’t remember what happened next, but sure, it was fun!”

Shivaree is the most common American regional form of charivari, a French word meaning “a noisy mock serenade for newlyweds” and probably deriving from a Late Latin word meaning “headache.” The form “shivaree” is used mainly along and west of the Mississippi River. I suppose Merle’s headache that night in 1946 bears out the Latin meaning of the word shivaree.

After the fun was over the group feted Helen and Merle to coffee and iced tea at someone’s home – probably Ethel and Sid Jones’ house, a common gathering place for this tightly-knit group of friends.

I was there, of course, with my parents. This noisy event was to be my first and only shivaree.

1947

Carlsbad Caverns

I don’t remember the full circumstances surrounding my trip to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico.

I know I went with Margaret and Cecil Stricker. I don’t recall anyone else being with us on the trip.

It is possible we visited with Marge and Jr., at their home in Dumas, Texas, and then drove the 350 miles further to see the caverns.

I recall being frightened of a cave-in and wondered what would happen to us in the utter darkness of the caverns in the event the lights went out.

My memory of specifics of the caverns is limited to learning about guano, being fascinated at the sight of the hundreds of thousands of bats entering the cavern opening, learning about stalactites and stalagmites, and a certain recollection of the gift I bought my mother from the gift shop.

I bought her a pink lace handkerchief that she kept in her cedar chest. She stored all her treasures in that chest so I suppose she really appreciated my gift to her.

One other memory I have is my thinking how inappropriate it was to have such a beautiful natural attraction, the caverns, in such an out-of-the-way place. I am sure I realized the caverns couldn’t be moved but the area around them should have been more populated and urbanized.

1947

Ethel Meadows

Ethel Meadows was somehow disabled and bedfast.

My mother would take me to visit Ethel and pray with and for the lady I came to call “Auntie Ethel.”

I do not know the affliction she had but I remember she was very pale looking and seemed to always have a white cloth tied about her head.

She had a room toward the back of their small house and a window that opened to the south. Her bed was beside the window giving her a clear view of a pleasant backyard with bird feeders and bird houses.

Aunt Ethel’s mission in life was limited to what she could do from her bed and so she mailed out religious tracts. The tracts consisted of short messages about the Bible or about how one could find Christ.

It seems she wrote these tracts and perhaps they were printed for her by some religious group. They were printed on colored paper and were often folded to an approximate size of a 3” X 5” card.

I recall she was usually in bed when we came to visit her. It was not unusual for her to get out of bed and move about her room to get something. I often wondered if she was very ill.

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Ethel’s husband was Edward Meadows. He worked at the Post Office. They had a daughter, Irene.

Members of the Assembly of God Church called them Sister Meadows and Brother Meadows.

Auntie Ethel Meadows had been the church pianist before her illness. Sister Beal was Ethel’s mother and she lived with them and took care of Ethel after her illness.

Lois Ann (Smith) Martinez says, “Her illness we did not know a lot about it, but some thought it was like the little lady in the Bible who had an issue of blood. Ethel had very bad headaches. I suppose it was a lot like the migraine headaches and she suffered from chills.”

In response to my question of whether Auntie Ethel had been a minister Lois Ann goes on, “No, Sister Meadows was not a preacher, but she definitely had a wonderful ministry [even though] she never left home. She was the first person in Anadarko to have a ministry of the printed word in her ‘Tracts’ and writings of poetry and Biblical messages.” {3}

I know she sent me many mailings of tracts and short notes. On at least one occasion when I went to her house with my mother I took envelopes for mailing her religious tracts. I think we may even have taken postage stamps as well.

I have kept three one-page, handwritten letters she wrote and a double acrostic. In the upper right-hand corner of the acrostic she had drawn a forest scene with a deer in the background.

In a block near this forest scene she had written, “The Name of Jesus. There is no other name under Heaven whereby we must be saved. Acts 4.12.”

The acrostic reads as follows:

W

stands for Wahnee, with sparkling eyes as bright,

C is for courteous - courteous and polite.

A

is for ALWAYS gentle, kind and good,

L is for LOVING GOD, as a body should.

H

is for Heaven, Happiness and Home,

A is for Angel to guide, lest you should roam.

N

is for Never forget, my child, to pray,

R means God is READY – may answer right away,

E

is for Eternity – so long it has no end,

K is for keeping the upward gaze and you are sure to win.

E

is for EVER there the blessed children play, who learn “here” to love the Lord, to trust Him and obey.

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As I grew older I don’t remember ever going back to her house. I am told that after Mother Beal passed away, Irene, their daughter, moved Edward and Ethel to Edmond, Oklahoma to live with her.

Irene was a nurse and she could better care for them in her home. I wish I knew more about Auntie Ethel Meadows.

1948

Gypsies

The term “gypsies” encompasses a very broad range of cultures, ethnic groups, histories, and emotions.

I will use the term here to describe my exposure to a group of nomadic people of which I encountered as a young child and the impression the group had on me then.

I do not pass judgment on the validity of current definitions of gypsies and their way of life.

Let me set the scene for the story I am telling: In 1948, it was still possible to see an occasional horse/mule drawn wagon on the local highways. I don’t mean to say we saw them every day, but they were seen with sufficient frequency still so as not to be anything of any particular curiosity.

“The gypsies are here! The gypsies are here!” was the clarion call I remember at the age of 10 or 11 years. It was a call to be careful and on the lookout for these traveling people.

They had arrived in horse drawn wagons. There were approximately six or eight wagons complete with their families, a contingent of mongrel dogs and spare horses tied behind and following the wagons.

I don’t remember much detail of these wagons or the people in them as I never was given the opportunity to do anything more than to see them in passing. Further, I don’t remember any particular discussion of these nomads by my parents or other adults.

If they had extended conversations about them those conversations were somehow shielded from my innocent ears. I don’t recall any stories of actual thievery or other criminal acts attributed to these people.

I believe there was some minimal conversation or admonitions that the gypsies were capable of all sorts of lawlessness and we were to be fair warned. The gypsies would stay beside the river bridge and camped out for two or three days then move on without incident. It seems this was a yearly happening in our little town and it ended sometime toward the end of the 1940’s.

Just about a mile from our home on the north side of Anadarko is the muddy, red Washita River.

U.S. Highway 281 going north from Anadarko crosses the river. There used to be a bridge of steel girders on concrete pilings at that crossing.

Fishermen, swimmers, and others just curious about the river had carved out a trail from the highway to the river’s edge. The short trail led to the under side of the bridge. Large, old elm trees made convenient shade for the river’s visitors. This, too, was a favorite stop for the nomadic gypsies who traveled north to south on U.S. 281 from and to wherever it was that they had to go. I would call it a perfect campsite for them.

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I asked my brother, Albert, Jr., for his recollection of this story and here is what he wrote: “I had forgotten about the gypsies until some time back when you and I talked about them.

Jimmy Hayes [an Old Town neighbor and boyhood friend of Albert’s] and I were down at the river one time walking the bank on the south side.

Over on the north side just downstream of where the City Dump was located, we could see a camp with quite a few wagons around it, maybe 8 or 10 and a lot of people. {4}

About 100 yards or so further downstream there were three girls about our age swimming in the nude. They started making gestures and calling for us to join them. I had about half my clothes off before Jimmy convinced me we had better not – thinking in terms of the camp nearby and not knowing what lurked behind the trees. I sure was disappointed!” {5}

The gypsies were then and remain shrouded in mystery. Their itinerant lifestyle and non-conventional behavior brought them under suspicion of governmental authorities in the late 1940’s as it does even today.

The moniker “gypsy” carried with it a wide range of stereotypes including thieves, practitioners of the magic arts, beggars and lawless vagabonds. These strange people were nothing more than a curiosity to me and about whom I would always remember had visited our town if every so briefly.

1948

My First Television

My parents and I went to Compton, California, to visit Aunt Effie and Uncle Joe. Their son, Bob, worked for Hoffman Television Company and they had purchased a television.

I remember it being about 9’’ square and the cathode ray tube or screen showed pictures in a faded yellow and black. I think programming was from early morning to 9:00 or 10:00 o’clock at night.

When the day’s programming ended, the ubiquitous bulls-eye test screen ran for an hour or two.

Other than news and weather the only other programs I remember were live wrestling and a continuous coverage of a long-distance swimmer trying to make it Los Angeles to Catalina Island, about 20 miles.

The coverage of the swimmer so fascinated me that I continued watching it even though the vertical hold was out of adjustment. It is a wonder I didn’t get sea sick. Charles Warren came in and adjusted the screen and made it oh so much better.

The wrestling featured a blond and pompous Gorgeous George who threw golden hairpins to the women fans. This androgynous pugilist and prissy pumpkin head would spray the ring, the crowd, and himself with an air-mist perfume spray much to the delight of his fans.

I was taken in hook, line and sinker. How could this not be real? I was watching real sweat and blood.

Later television came to Oklahoma and we first saw it sitting on the fenders of cars parked in front of West’s Hardware Store on Broadway Street.

Then the school purchased a set and some of us went at night to the high school auditorium and, again, watched wrestling.

We purchase a RCA upright set in the early 1950’s and I became a couch potato. My favorite show was the “Ed Sullivan Show.” We began to eat not in the kitchen or dining room but on TV trays in the living room.

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1951

Spending Money from Dad

My first girlfriend was Marilyn Elkouri and I am sure that I had to ask my dad for money for burgers, fries, and Coca-Colas or shakes.

I went to him for spending money until I began working first as a grocery store bagger and then as a helper in the meat market at the Humpty Dumpty.

This store opened up as the rival to the Safeway which had been the first supermarket in Anadarko. The Humpty Dumpty was at the corner of Central Avenue and First Street. It was built in an abandoned automobile dealership.

Every time I went to Dad, he was so good to give me just a little bit more than I would request from him. He was always good to me in this respect. I appreciated this from him and can honestly say I never took advantage of him doing this.

I recall times when I would request less than I needed so he would give me only that which I needed. I remember returning money to him on certain occasions when I did not use all he had given me. Dad never carried a credit card but always seemed to have a modest amount of cash on him.

1951

My First Taco

My cousins Bob Clark and Charles Warren Clark were returning to their home in Compton, California, in the summer of 1951.

I rode with them to Dumas, Texas, where Margie and Albert, Jr., lived. I had arranged to stay a few days with them and then return home to Anadarko as they made a scheduled visit home.

Margie prepared tacos for me while on my visit there. I had never eaten, much less even heard of, a taco before that time. Oh, how I remember that taste! Heated taco shells filled with flavor-rich taco meat, whole cumin seed and salt, iceberg lettuce and fresh chopped tomato made a wonderful meal and tantalized my taste buds.

Even today I use the taste of that first taco as the standard by which I judge any taco I eat. Sorry, Taco Bell and Chi Chi’s, you just can’t make tacos like Margie did for me in 1951.

1954

Raising Hogs

In my sophomore year of high school, I took a class called Future Farmers of America (FFA).

Each of us had to have an animal project. I chose to raise hogs.

We had three or four acres at our home in Old Town. There were small barns and pens that made it easy to accommodate my hogs. I raised several litters of piglets and purchased a pedigreed animal to be was raised for showing at the Caddo County Fair.

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I remember the first night the old sow gave birth. I suppose she had seven or eight little piglets.

I built a birth pen which consisted of a rail around the pen to allow the piglets to escape their mother from squashing them and a small opening for them to leave and enter without her getting out.

This was quite a learning experience for me. I believe I must have raised three or four litters. I learned each time how there is always a runt. This poor fellow just can’t make it often without intervention. I raised two or three of them on a baby bottle and kept them in the house for a time.

My “show hog” as I called him was my pride and joy.

When it came time for the fair some of us actually slept in the pig pen with our animals. We groomed them and bathed them and even put motor oil on their hides to make them look shiny. We tried to teach our hogs to behave in the show ring and we learned how to best make them show for the judge’s attention. I can’t remember what prize my hog won but I believe it did place in the top five.

After the judging, we all took our animals to the livestock auction and sold them to the local merchants who in turn sold them to the butchers. We then said, “So long and farewell,” to our prized possessions. Yes, it was a learning experience.

1954

DeMolay

When I was a sophomore in high school, I joined the young men’s fraternal organization called the Order of DeMolay.

I was inducted into the organization on February 10, 1954. There were twenty or so of us in that organization which is an offshoot of the men’s Masonic group. The corresponding organization for girls is called Rainbow Girls.

DeMolay taught seven precepts or basic life principles: Filial love (love of parents), reverence for sacred things, courtesy, comradeship, fidelity (faithfulness), cleanness and patriotism.

We had elaborate rituals and were required to dress well for the meetings. Officers of the group wore colorful robes denoting their various positions.

Eventually I was elected by secret ballot to lead the group and held the title of Master Councilor of the Anadarko Chapter. I remember in order to join the organization the other members were allowed to vote yes or no on whether a person should be allowed in the group.

We did that vote using a black ball system – a black or white marble was placed into a velvet bag in such a manner that no other person could tell how you voted. I believe one black ball would disqualify one for membership.

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We had a special night to recognize our mothers. We learned a dialogue that told our mothers of our love and appreciation for the pain of childbirth and the sacrifice they gave to raise us. Then, we presented them with a red rose and kissed our mothers vowing a lifetime of obedience and caring.

I remember the tears that came to my mother’s eyes during this impressive ceremony. She told me how special this event had been to her and how happy it made her feel.

I was awarded the title of Representative DeMolay on June 22, 1956. I attained that distinction through my service to the organization and for various accomplishments I made in my school activities.

I was the first one in our Chapter to have attained this title and honor at that time.

Recognition as a Representative DeMolay is one of the most important milestones a DeMolay member can achieve. It was the hope of DeMolay’s founder, Frank Land, that every DeMolay would complete this program of self-evaluation thereby helping the applicant become a better leader and a better man.

Throughout DeMolay’s more than 80-year history, though, few have achieved this goal. For those who have become Representative DeMolays, the insights gained and the lessons learned during the application and qualification process certainly do last a lifetime. I remember the award ceremony being very impressive and moving.

1954

Doc Tate Nevaquaya (1932-1996)

Comanche artist and flute player, Doc Tate Nevaquaya is credited with rejuvenation of traditional Native American flute playing.

When the original courting function of the Plains flute was no longer part of their everyday lives, this aspect of Native American oral tradition was in danger of dying out.

Doc Tate recognized the need to resurrect the old songs, formerly handed down by example and imitation, before the flute players who knew the songs passed away. He took it upon himself to approach these players, earn their confidence, and learn their songs.

He traveled to various museums, such as the Smithsonian Institution and the Library of Congress, to examine their flute collections and listen to tapes of flute melodies.

Doc Tate dedicated himself to preserving traditional Native American Plains flute music, giving lecture-recitals to both Native American and non-Native American audiences. He inspired a whole generation of Native American musicians including R. Carlos Nakai, Ed Wapp, Tom Ware and Kevin Locke.

Doc Tate was a self-taught artist in the tradition of the Kiowa Five and others. He became much sought after and his work was selling in the $1,500 to $4,500 per piece at the time of his death.

Examples of his work are in the finest galleries in America including the Philbrook Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institution.

In 1986, he became the first American Indian artist to be awarded the National Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts. He was an Oklahoma Living Treasure and a National Living Treasure.

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In March 1982, I went to see Doc perform at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

The event, “Night of the First Americans” was a celebration of the contributions of American Indian people. Doc shared the stage with numerous big-name performers of stage, screen, and television.

I met Doc long before he garnered such acclaim. He and I used to fix fences, corral cattle, and plow ground for my father. Dad had a lease on a quarter-section of land just west of Apache.

The farm was on Cache Creek and belonged to Wiley Yellowfish. Doc would have me stop by his home in Apache and have a sandwich with him and his wife. He was just starting painting at the time and on one occasion he gave me a painting. It was signed only “Doc Tate.”

This particular painting dates sometime in 1954 or 1955. I showed it to Doc and his wife in 1986 and he told me he did not have one of his own works that dates back that far. The painting, my treasure, hangs in my home today.

Once on a hillside behind his home just east of Norman, Doc played the flute for me for a solid hour or two. Doc treated me much like a brother which we are in the Comanche way.

Much later, I called on Doc to make a flute for me. He never got around to it before his death, but his son Edmond did make one for me.

Edmond played the flute and sang Comanche songs at my father’s funeral in 1997. At my request Edmond played the classic “Amazing Grace” as they took Dad’s casket from Deyo Mission to the awaiting hearse. After playing the flute at the Faxon graveside service Edmond presented the flute to me.

My cousin Louis Clark did the smoke ceremony at Dad’s house after the funeral and performed the smoke ritual on the flute. He then told me the Comanche way of paying respect to my Dad would be to put the flute away and not let anyone touch it for a year. I did as he suggested.

1954

Gandy Dancers

In the summer of 1954, I rode back to North Carolina with Pat and Bill after they visited Oklahoma.

I stayed a few days with them and then took a train to Savannah, Georgia, to stay a few days with Alfred, Ahnawake, and Alan. Alfred was in the Air Force stationed at a base nearby. I returned to Oklahoma directly from Savannah again on the train.

Somewhere along the return route I had a chance to catch a few minutes of Gandy Dancers in action. It is my guess this was in the rail yards of Birmingham, Alabama.

The train had made a longer than usual pause. Perhaps the pause occurred to let a passing train through or perhaps we were stopped to pick up additional passengers.

From the opened doorway I watched as several workmen labored to replace or reposition a cross-tie. In unison the men would raise short-handle shovels above their heads and then in one stroke each would send the shovels’ sharpened blade edge into the cross-tie. The shovels’ blades would lodge at an angle into the cross-tie and then the men would pull the cross-tie forward a few inches with the lodged shovel.

Then they would rock the shovels to dislodge them and again bring the shovels above their heads in preparation for a subsequent stroke.

Again and again they did this to eventually get the cross-tie into the desired position. This beautifully choreographed slamming of these highly sharpened shovels into the cross-tie was done to a tune that has long since escaped my memory. I will never forget, however, how beautiful I thought this work looked. I did not know at the time I was seeing a dying art form.

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The following describes the significance of what I saw for those brief moments as a teenager returning alone from Georgia to Oklahoma in the summer of 1954:

Gandy Dancers were railroad track maintenance workers who worked in the tradition of laying railroad tracks largely by hand prior to WW II and the advent of mechanization.

The name Gandy Dancer was inspired by the Gandy Manufacturing Company of Chicago – maker of work tools used by railroad men. One of the Gandy Dancers’ most important tools in the unending quest to keep the tracks supported and aligned, was a colorful repertoire of call-and-response work songs that are the very basis of the Blues. {6}

Pick an’ shovel…huh,

am so heavy…huh.

Heavy as lead…huh,

heavy as lead…huh.

Pickin’, shov’lin’…huh,

pickin’, shov’lin’…huh.

Til I’m dead…huh,

til I’m dead…huh.

Work songs have always eased the pain of hard labor, but in the case of railroad work, the rhythm of the song was vital to the execution of the task at hand.

One man with a lever can’t move a railroad track, but five men all levering at the same instant can. The easiest way to get all the power at the same time was with a song rhythm.

The Gandy Dancers replaced rotten cross-ties and tamped down gravel between ties. Their most coordinated task was rail alignment. Tracks would shift slightly after a certain amount of traffic. If not aligned, derailment and disaster could occur.

To coordinate this effort, a crew leader would instruct the crew, in verse, what was needed to be done, all the while inspiring the crew much as a preacher would do. The verses could also relay messages that the foreman couldn’t understand. The Gandy Dancer was pretty much obsolete by the 1960’s.

Frankie Lane recorded a song in 1952 about the Gandy Dancers that includes the following refrain, “They danced on the ceiling, they danced on the wall, at the Gandy Dancers’ Ball.”

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1954

Plowing Wheat Ground

I spent several weeks of the summers of 1954, 1955, and 1956 plowing wheat ground on Dad’s farm in Cotton County.

Harrison and Lucile Dulworth had leased Uncle Joe’s farm and so I stayed with them.

I plowed the wheat ground with Bill, Donald and Roy, their sons. Wheat was harvested in May which was the month that school ended. Farmers were eager to get the land plowed as soon as possible after harvest.

There were two reasons for this; first the soil was usually more moist and amenable to plowing and, second, the earlier the land was plowed the better they could control the growth of weeds, especially sunflowers.

Dad had a gray Ford tractor vintage circa 1948. That old gasoline tractor had about 25 – 27 horsepower. Compared to the horsepower of a modern diesel tractor the Ford would hardly be on the rating scale.

It usually took me 2 to 2½ weeks, with good luck, to get over the 120 or so acres of cultivation.

Usually I plowed with a disk-type plow. It cut a swath of approximately 4½ feet. If the soil was very moist, we liked to use a 2-point moldboard plow which turned the soil over much deeper. It had a slightly narrower swath than the disk.

Under dryer soil conditions it was not practical to use the moldboard plow. I am told the farm was plowed in the year 2003 with a 32’ plow and a huge diesel tractor. The plowing took not more than six hours. Well, there was only 100 acres in cultivation in 2003 – that must be the difference.

Often the rains or other conditions would prevent me from plowing immediately after harvest.

If we were plowing in late June or early July the temperatures could get rather unbearable. Then we would plow early in the morning and late at night to avoid the mid-day sun.

Actually, plowing through the heat of the day was the norm rather than the exception. We had to deal with the sun and the solution was the ingenious umbrella attached to the tractor. Riding the Ford tractor was a bit like riding a horse. The driver’s seat was affixed directly to the transmission and your feet rested on metal foot rests on either side of the transmission.

With a Grand Prize in Design Technology the Ford Motor Company placed the muffler pipe directly beneath the left foot rest. Guess what? My foot got hot! My foot got so hot I resorted to pouring my drinking water in my shoe. Water, leather, heat – the result was cracked shoe leather – surprised?

Can you imagine the boredom that could be generated by the countless, monotonous rounds and the constant roar of this little engine?

I know I must have fallen asleep at the wheel every time I got astride this little gray machine. I sang to myself, I poured my cool drinking water over my head, and I stood while driving to keep awake.

The dust and heat could be stifling. We were so dusty when we got off the tractor that we took cold showers in the yard with a garden hose.

Often our noon meal was brought out to the field so we could continue running the tractor.

Lucile would fix wonderful breakfasts for us and evening meals when possible. Mashed potatoes and gravy, steak, green beans, fried okra, tomatoes and lots of sweetened iced-tea were standard fare. And there was also the peach cobbler or the equivalent – if there is an equivalent for peach cobbler.

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I remember praying for rain because it meant a day or two off. When we had time off we could ride the Dulworth’s horses or go swimming au naturel in Goudy’s pond.

Once we rode horses into Burkburnett, Texas, to go to a rodeo. To get there we rode across the old steel-girdered, two-lane bridge crossing the Red River. We rode back that night in the dark. I was scared to death!

On another day off from plowing, we went to the Cotton County Electric Cooperative’s annual meeting in the Walters city park. I remember the demonstration of a new invention that we might have someday in the distant future called the microwave oven. It was a miracle!

At the time I had no idea what an electric cooperative was and no idea that I would eventually work a cumulative 28-years as an electric cooperative employee.

Dad paid me well for my time behind the wheel of that Ford tractor. The work was unpleasant, yes, but in retrospect those were “good times” and I know I did a good job for Dad. I have no regrets.

1956

Craterville Park and Elvis Presley

The summer of 1956, some of my high school buddies persuaded me to take them to Craterville Park just south of the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge.

I was fortunate to have a beautiful 1954 Ford coupe and the several of us loaded up to go to this “amusement park.”

Craterville Park was no Six Flags Over Texas but it was the best we had then. It had a skating rink, horseback riding, bumper cars, Tilt-a-Whirl, swimming pool, and an assortment of other fun activities.

My buddies told me that Craterville had booked, as an attraction to draw a weekend crowd, an up-and-coming singer for this particular weekend and his name was Elvis Presley.

I had no idea who Elvis Presley was but I agreed to take my friends to Craterville to see this hot, new name in the music industry. Much to our dismay, when we got to Craterville we were told there would be no Elvis.

Rather a substitute attraction was booked for the weekend. Craterville had booked Rin Tin Tin and his trainer. Indeed, we did see this wonder dog and movie star go through a series of tricks and we listened to the patter from his trainer of what it was like to work with this dog on the movie set. I suppose we had a fun day anyway but I was never to see Elvis in person.

I have always wondered if Elvis was actually scheduled to appear at Craterville Park or whether it was just a rumor that we had been caught up in because of our youthful naiveté.

I have speculated he had really been booked to appear there but in the interim between signing the contract and the date of his scheduled appearance he had hit the big-time. If so, I wonder if he just ignored the contract or bought it out. Or could it be he was never scheduled to appear there anyway?

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In the August 2002 issue of the Smithsonian Magazine there is an article titled Boy Wonder. According to the article, in March 1956 the yet unheralded Elvis was 21 and had just recorded “Heartbreak Hotel.”

It was at this time that RCA had purchased Elvis’ contract for $25,000. By September of that year “the transformation of unaffected country boy into a commodity had begun.” {7}

Just as I was unaware of Elvis at that time so also was the photographer mentioned in the article who spoke of his response to the name as, “Elvis who?”

1956

Entering the University of Oklahoma

I began to seriously think about where I would go to college in my junior year of high school – 1954 through 1955.

Not having much money, I thought of going to Midwestern University in Wichita Falls, Texas. I was slightly familiar with Wichita Falls because I had spent considerable time plowing wheat ground for my Dad just across the Red River in Cotton County, Oklahoma. I visited the campus on a self-guided tour and obtained some enrollment information by mail from them. I had no idea what I would study there.

Towards the end of my senior year in 1956, I was playing tennis at the municipal tennis courts in Randlett Park. The courts were directly across from the National Guard Armory.

Joe McBride, Jr., was an officer in the Guard and as he was exiting the armory he came by the courts and struck up a conversation with all of us. In his conversation with me, Joe was curious if I had chosen a college. I told him of my tentative plans to go to Midwestern.

Joe asked me why I hadn’t chosen to go to the University of Oklahoma. I told him I didn’t think I could afford to go there.

He then suggested I reconsider and asked me to visit with Von Dean Landis who was the office manager for State Senator Don Baldwin. Von Dean was on the State Mental Health Board and had contacts with the officials at Central State Hospital located on the eastern edge of Norman.

Joe’s father was on the Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma. I visited with Von Dean and she told me how to make application to work and live at the hospital which would help finance my way through the university.

It was a great place to work and live. The pay was great and the working conditions were such that we could study when we finished our work on the wards. We could also take advantage of the cafeteria and the discounted meal prices. Having the contact with Von Dean was tantamount to getting hired.

I have always been grateful to Joe McBride, Jr., for his encouragement. But for that chance meeting I doubt I would have ever had the opportunity to study at one of the better institutions of higher learning, the University of Oklahoma.

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1956

Central State Hospital

I went to work at Central State Hospital a week or two before classes started my freshman year at the University of Oklahoma. It must have been in late August that I had my very first experience on the job at the state’s largest mental institution.

We were required to wear white shirts and white pants reminiscent of the stereotypical “men in white coats” shown in period movies.

I shall never forget the first day. I was assigned to work at Ward 32-D. I later learned Ward 32-D was often called 32-Dog by the attendants assigned to work there. It was the very worst place to work on the whole campus of the institution.

The ward was approximately 65 or 75 feet wide and 150 feet long. There was a corridor down the middle of the ward and two rows of beds on either side of the corridor.

In total there were at least 100 to 125 beds/patients on this ward. Down the corridor the light fixtures were open hanging light sockets and very little, if any lighting along the rows of beds on either side.

Toward the rear of the ward were several stainless steel tables affixed to the floor. Food was brought to the ward by push carts with the plates already served up. Nearby were the bathrooms and showers.

Toward the front of the ward were the attendants’ office and a visiting area for the families that came to see their kin. A very low percent of the patients ever had visitors.

We went to work at 3:00 pm and worked until 11:00 pm. Our routine was to pass out the evening medications and to ensure the evening meal was completed. About 7:00 pm we began to put the patients to bed. We gave showers to those who could not care for themselves.

On this ward, as on every ward, certain patients who had the capacity to help with the feeding, showering, and cleanup were assigned to help us. Once the patients were in bed we could study our college homework until about 10:15 pm. Then we made another round with medications and prepared for the change of shifts.

The literature is replete with references to the ugly conditions of early mental institutions. Some were so bad they earned the name “snake pits.” I think this experience in the fall of 1965 was as close to the so-called “snake pit” as one could get.

A relatively new drug at the time, Thorizine, went a long way in controlling the combative and bizarre behavior of some mental patients. Often the patients who needed it more than others would pretend to take their medications and within a short while their behavior would become very dangerous and unruly.

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I’ll give just two examples of what I saw there that reminded me of the descriptions of mental institutions as “snake pits.” The room where electric shock treatments were given was a bleak and uninviting as one could imagine. There was nothing clinical about the room and I can just imagine what a patient must have felt upon entering that room.

The second example was the methodology condoned by the hospital for caring for patients who could not clean themselves properly. Either a patient helper or an attendant would use a common house broom and a garden hose to clean and shower one of these patients. Thankfully there was warm water available for these unconventional showers.

In a way I have sugar-coated what I saw there at Central State Hospital. I could tell more. Notwithstanding those ugly aspects of hospitalization of mental patients in the late 1950s, the experience was very helpful in my own maturation and understanding of the fine line between sane and insane.

I worked at the hospital more or less for the entire four years while enrolled at the University of Oklahoma.

1956

Studying Latin

Having come from the Anadarko High School system, I was not very well prepared for the prestigious University of Oklahoma.

I had no language classes, advanced mathematics or exposure to classical literature in high school. My first year counselor advised me to take Latin and later on I took Spanish as well. I remember my Latin classes as much for the professor as for the Latin I learned from him.

Dr. Phillip Jerome Nolan was the Professor of Classics at OU from 1953 to 1978. He was widely admired as a teacher, advisor, and friend of his students. Prior to and after classes students would always be in his office.

It was not uncommon for there to be a group of students clustered around the door to his tiny office. If he were walking across the campus there were students in his company. He knew all his students by their full names and always wanted to know something about each person.

Dr. Nolan came to know that I had Comanche blood in me. He wanted to know, of course, whether I knew the Comanche language. When I told him I did not know but that my father spoke Comanche he chided me to learn.

My every Monday morning assignment was to share with him at least one new Comanche word. Of course I got these words from my father. By the end of the semester Dr. Nolan knew more Comanche than I did.

I remember how his eyesight was nearly gone. His wife prepared his lesson plans on 3” X 5” cards in large print. Even with these cards he had to resort to a powerful magnifying glass that was his constant companion.

He never sat behind his desk, perhaps because of his poor eyesight, but rather walked among his students. Often he would stand in front the students’ desks and quiz us on the lesson of the day. He always offered encouragement and never caused anyone to feel embarrassment if one did not know the answer he was seeking.

We had few written tests because he could not easily grade them. I believe the university required him to give some written tests and so he would have us grade our fellow students’ papers. He often would stand before an opened window gazing out as if he wanted to be outside in the fresh air. He would tease us by asking if we wanted to go outside and study under the shade trees.

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1957

Emancipation

Emancipation is the legal process by which minors can attain legal adulthood before reaching the age at which they would normally be considered adults (that is called “age of majority). In Oklahoma minors are defined as individuals under the age of eighteen. {8}

In 1957, I was 19 years old and my dad had reason for me to sign some legal contracts and conduct business in his stead as if I were an adult.

He and I went to Walter Morris, Attorney at Law, who prepared the necessary papers to present to the District Court of Caddo County.

On July 5, 1957, I appeared before Judge L. A. Wood with Mr. Morris. I answered a number of questions regarding my views of responsible behavior. He asked me my understanding of the consequences of signing certain legal documents. Thereupon I was granted the rights of majority. Legally I had been emancipated.

I have often thought about this process and the meaning it had on my life. The fact that my father had the confidence in me to pursue that process has always been important to me.

Looking back on my teenage years there is little I recall doing that would be considered reckless or irresponsible. I was sober, thoughtful, and always aware that what I did reflected on my family. I appreciate now that vote of confidence and trust my father gave me as a teenager.

I had that same level of confidence and trust in both my children, Terri Lyn and Steven Wahnne, even though we never had the occasion to confer the “rights of majority” on either of them.

1957

Little Red

One of the very few extracurricular activities I ever did while at the University of Oklahoma was to attend a few meeting of the Sequoyah Indian Club.

The club was founded to promote Indian culture, traditions, and education among its members. The club sponsored a Homecoming Powwow as well as a Spring Powwow. At one of these meetings the subject came up about a search for a replacement for a graduating student who had served as a mascot for the Sooners football team.

The student would be dressed in Native American regalia and would accompany the cheerleaders along the sidelines. Usually when the team scored a touchdown there was a blunder-bust shotgun blast and the Indian student would dance a simulated war dance on the perimeter of the football field.

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I told the faculty advisor Boyce Timmons I knew of a perfect candidate for the job.

On my next trip home for the weekend I discussed this with my very close friend, Cole Phillip Waller. Phil’s parents were avid Sooner fans and attended every home game and most of the away games as well.

Phil was graduating from Anadarko High School in 1957 and was enrolling at the University in the fall. Both Phil and his parents were excited about the prospect of him becoming the next OU football Sooners’ mascot. Phil made the contact I provided him and he was accepted for the job.

Phil is about 5’5” or 5’6” and so he became known as Little Red.

I think until Phil came along the position did not have the stature that he gave it. He is something of a showman and an excellent dancer. For the four years of his studies at OU he held that position and made it something of an icon for the University of Oklahoma.

Phil enjoyed thousands of photo opportunities and was shown in the media countless times. The team could not have picked a more worthy candidate for the job. I was always proud I had made the initial contact for my good friend and he did not let me down.

1957

“My Fair Lady”

Wow! What a way to break into seeing legitimate theater to start with “My Fair Lady.” My experiences with stage performances up until that October evening in 1957 was limited to the best Anadarko High School’s drama class had to offer.

I had the good fortune to be invited by my sometimes-girlfriend Carol Kidd to join her and her family at the Texas State Fair Music Hall to see Lerner and Loewe’s production of this outstanding musical.

“My Fair Lady” was first produced only one year prior in the Mark Hellinger Theater in London. Now they had a touring company making this delightful musical available to audiences in cities all over the U.S.

All of us had gone to Dallas to see the perennial match of college football arch rivals – the Texas Longhorns and the Oklahoma Sooners. The Sooners won that day in the Cotton Bowl with a score of 45 to 0. This was the heyday of Bud Wilkinson’s unbeatable teams.

After the game and prior to the evening performance, I remember having a fine dinner in downtown Dallas with Mr. and Mrs. Wallace Kidd and Carol’s grandparents.

The wardrobe for a second year student at OU was mostly blue jeans and sport shirts. I did not have a coat and tie. I borrowed an ill-fitting gray wool sports jacket with a tear on the sleeve and spiffed up as best I could. I am not sure where I got a tie but I do believe that I wore one. Carol and I took a taxi to the Music Hall to meet her parents and grandparents there.

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The most memorable moment of the performance was the scene where Liza Doolittle’s father and his pals had been drinking and, after Liza gives him a bit of change for another drink, he gave voice to his general philosophy of life in the words of the rollicking song, “With a Little Bit of Luck.”

This musical had such great songs:

“Why Can’t the English?”

“I’m an Ordinary Man”

“The Rain in Spain”

“On the Street Where You Live”

“I Could Have Danced All Night” and

“I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face”

It was more than “a little bit of luck” that I was able to see this great musical. I was truly impressed and entertained. No theater yet has matched this experience of mine.

1958

Marriage to Lanita

Lanita had been married for a very brief period prior to our marriage. My mother was not happy that I had fallen in love with a divorcee.

For this reason, Lanita and I mutually agreed not to have a formal family wedding. Instead, we were married quietly with just two of our close friends in attendance. It did not take long for my mother to come to love Lanita as her own and she took her in with open arms.

Judy Burrows was Lanita’s very close friend throughout high school. John Hammert had been a close friend of mine as well. Judy and John had been engaged but were apart at that time. Judy was living in Oklahoma City.

We called on her to make arrangements for a church and a minister for our wedding. John was living in Anadarko and he met us there in Oklahoma City.

Lanita and I drove to Oklahoma City and we were at Judy’s place a few hours before we were to wed. On an errand to purchase some last-minute items my green and white four-door 1956 Chevrolet sedan began acting up. It turns out that the spark plugs were bad and had to be replaced.

We called the minister to postpone the wedding about four hours from the previously scheduled time. We were married by Pastor J. Clyde Wheeler at the Crown Heights Christian Church on September 5th.

Judy and John stood in with us at the wedding as brides-maid and best man. We spent our three-day honeymoon in exotic Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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Within a week or so we moved into campus housing at the University of Oklahoma. Our apartment was surplus military housing. The university moved these surplus buildings onto the campus to accommodate a rising need for married students housing.

The apartment was sixteen foot square and made of ¾-inch plywood. I remember nailing a fixture to the inside wall of the tiny bathroom and the force of my hammering knocked the plywood wall lose from the studs so that you could see outside.

My first job after we got established in our “hut” was with the Landscape Department of the university. I was paid 70¢ per hour and my job was picking up trash on the campus with a stick which had a nail in the end of it. I worked eight hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays, days I had no classes.

Lanita thought she had a job with the telephone company in Norman but it never came through. Instead, she found work as a retail clerk in a campus department store. By January 1959 she was pregnant with our first child. Within a few months better housing became available on the campus and we moved out of our “hut.”

1958

OU vs Notre Dame

When I started at the University of Oklahoma it was the heyday of legendary football coach Charles B. ‘Bud’ Wilkinson. In those days Sooner fans claimed to have both the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the nation; the starting team and the second string.

Shortly after the fourth quarter began at home games the public address announcer would routinely say, “And Oklahoma’s next week (weak?) opponent is ………..”

The day that never could come, came. The team that could never lose, lost.

Four quarters of play were completed, but the fans sat silent. Four quarters of play were completed, and 62,000 gridiron enthusiasts, most of them loyal Sooner fans, sat stunned as though waiting for the fifth quarter.

I was there that cold and overcast November day at Owen Field. The fifth quarter never came! Oklahoma had lost.

For the first time since Notre Dame had taken a 28-21 season opening win in 1953, Oklahoma had lost. The score was 7-0.

There was no excuse. No sickness, no bad breaks, no excuse, Oklahoma had just lost. Notre Dame’s halfback Dick Lynch went over the goal line from the three yard line in the last quarter, on a fourth down play, to end a 20-play, 80-yard drive.

The end after 47 straight wins. The end came to the greatest winning streak in college football history. The end came after 123 consecutive games in which the Sooners had scored. {9}

I saw it happen.

1959

Naming Terri and Steven

Terri was born on October 4, 1959, in the Norman Municipal Hospital. She was healthy, happy, and had no hair.

Lanita and I discussed naming her Sherri and I was under the impression that would be her name. By the time I came to the hospital to take her and her mother home her name had changed. Now it was Terri Lyn.

Lanita explained that she got cold feet on naming our first born Sherri since that had been the name of one of my high school girlfriends.

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Prior to Steven Wahnne’s birth on December 31, 1960, Lanita and I had more discussion and contemplation about names.

At first Lanita wanted to name him Wahnne Cooper Clark, Jr., but I took a hard stand against it. I had too much trouble with the pronunciation and spelling to wish that off on him. My compromise was to let it be his middle name.

As far as his first name is concerned, it was my choice. I had a classmate at the university whose name was Steve Jennings. He was on the football team and I sat beside him in class. I helped him through the class by taking notes when he was absent and working with him after class to prepare for tests.

Steve Jennings was an end on the starting team. He particularly impressed me during the OU-Texas game in Dallas by having a compound break of his forefinger. Steve left the field, had the broken finger taped up and came back on the field to play the remainder of the game.

My son, Steve, played football only one day. He gave it up when he learned that the players tackled each other.

1960

State Representative

My brief sojourn into the world of serious politics began and ended in 1960. I tried to be elected as a State Representative from Caddo County at the tender age of 22-years.

For several elections prior to 1960 candidates would run for office, especially the office of Governor, without a chance of a snowball of winning. Often they did it just for the publicity or to promote some product or cause.

One fellow, Jack Gillespie, ran for Governor many times and even had his name legally changed to Jack Kennedy Gillespie to evoke a sympathy vote. One of the consequences of these frivolous candidates was to make the ballot long and unwieldy.

To put a curb to this practice the State of Oklahoma began requiring a $100 deposit (considered a substantial amount at that time) as a requisite to being placed on the ballot for state office. The deposit would be returned only if the candidate got a certain percentage of the vote.

I bought a bicycle to ride to class. I was exhausted by the time I got to class and so I sold it for $100. I used the $100 to purchase an English bulldog puppy. The owner of the puppy’s mother traded the mother who was “heavy with pups” for the puppy we had recently purchased. The mother, Amy, had seven pups and we sold at least one of them for $100. I used that $100 to file my name as a candidate for the office of State Representative for Caddo County.

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Lanita and I had never talked about my candidacy until just one day before I actually went to Oklahoma City to file for the office. It just came to me as the thing to do and we had the necessary $100.

My filing was a shock to everyone; my family, my friends, all of Caddo County, and especially the incumbent Robert Goodfellow. The notice of my filing appeared in the “Daily Oklahoman” and my telephone began to ring. One of those calls was from the incumbent.

Representative Robert Goodfellow called to arrange to visit with me in my home. I surreptitiously had a tape recorder set up to record the conversation when he came. Robert Goodfellow complained that I had filed to run against him after he had been so nice as to make me a page in the Oklahoma House when I was in high school.

He asked me to withdraw my name and, instead, run for State Senator. I told him it was he who had the legislative experience and he should be the one to run for State Senator. Neither of us budged and so the race was on. The surreptitious tape “somehow” came to the attention of State Senator Don Baldwin and he invited me to visit with him about my candidacy in his Anadarko office.

I bought a new pair of shoes prior to the beginning of my campaign. For the next six weeks I walked the length and breadth of Caddo County campaigning door-to-door.

The night of the election, Tuesday, July 5th, we sat on the courthouse lawn to listen to the results being announced over a loud speaker. I looked at my shoes and discovered I had worn a hole in both shoes. I spent $446 dollars on newspaper advertising, bumper stickers and various other expenses. My gasoline to travel the county was paid for by State Senator Don Baldwin and his friends. In addition, I was given $352 in varying amounts by Dr. Perry Corbin and Messrs. Trotter, McVey, Glendale Howell, West, Simpson, and Nixon. I regret I can’t recall all their first names forty-two years later.

The election results were:

Incumbent Robert Goodfellow - 3,591 votes (57%)

Challenger Wahnne Clark - 2,733 votes (43%)

I won 15 of the 57 precincts including the absentee votes.

I have said, with tongue in cheek, it is probably just as well I did not win the election as many Oklahoma politicians in that era wound up in jail.

1961

My First McDonalds

In late 1960 or early 1961 we moved from Norman to Bethany, Oklahoma. I suppose sometime in 1961 we went for the first time to a brand new franchise restaurant called McDonalds Hamburgers.

It was a white building with red trim and the ubiquitous Golden Arches. The franchise started in Des Plaines, Illinois, in 1955 and by 1960 they had about 200 restaurants. At that time they had a flashing billboard on each of their restaurants proclaiming how many burgers had been sold to date.

In 1960 and 1961 that number was up to 400 or 500 million burgers sold. Just imagine what that number would be today. I remember the employees wore blue slacks, white shirts and white paper hats.

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A hamburger cost 15¢ and the menu was very limited; burgers and fries and drinks. Each day they had fresh potatoes peeled, sliced, blanched and fried. Milkshake mix and syrup were whipped up on the Multi-mixers, Coca-Cola and root beer was drawn from a barrel and orange drink was kept in a large plastic bowl.

There was no drive-thru and seating was limited. McDonalds emphasis on cleanliness was what impressed most people then. It seemed they had as many people cleaning the place as they had serving the customers. There was no such thing as a Big-Mac or an Egg-McMuffin. In fact, I don’t think they even served breakfast at McDonalds in 1961.

It goes without saying that young Steven and Terri fell in love with the place and “McDonalds” soon became a part of their vocabulary.

1963

November 22nd, The Day Kennedy Was Shot

So much has been said and written about that awful day in Dallas when President Kennedy was assassinated. I will only tell about where I was and what I was doing that fateful day.

I worked as a Business Methods Investigator for the Western Electric Company in Oklahoma City.

The morning of November 22nd was crisp and clear as I joined a carpool to make the ten minute trip from our Bethany home to work. At the time of the shooting Lanita was home babysitting with Sandy and Gary Kirkpatrick and our own Terri and Steven.

She had the television on and heard the news alert. She immediately called my office and tried to describe the sketchy information that was coming in to the television anchors.

My co-workers huddled around the telephone as she let us listen to the reports being given on television. Gathered around in disbelief were George, Boone, Ken, Darwin, and Bob and our supervisors Fred dePlanque and Eric Just.

Others tried to call in or call out but the telephone lines were jammed and overloaded. Everyone urged me to keep Lanita on the line so we could have a link to the unfolding events. I think we had the telephone line opened for nearly 45-minutes. As I recall the office shut down around 2:00 pm that day and everyone went home to watch the horrific television reports.

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My feelings were of utter disbelief and shock. I had voted for Richard Nixon early by absentee ballot for reasons I don’t recall. However, by the time of the actual election I had wished I had the opportunity to change my vote for Kennedy. He quickly became my hero and it was hard for me to believe he was gone. I shared the feelings of unease and anxiety with the rest of the country about what would happen next.

1964

Correspondence Study

When I left the University of Oklahoma in May of 1960 I did not yet have the required amount of college credit hours to obtain my Bachelor of Arts degree.

I needed nine credit hours. Shortly after the term ended I got involved in my unsuccessful bid to oust Robert Goodfellow from his seat as the State Representative from Caddo County.

Thereafter I went to work for Western Electric in Oklahoma City. We eventually moved to Bethany and the young Terri and Steven were taking a lot of my time. I was able to find all kinds of excuses not to apply myself to the correspondence studies I had taken out the summer of 1960.

With my New Years resolutions late in 1963 that I finally made the commitment to finish the nine credit hours of correspondence study.

Starting on January 2, 1964, and ending about February 15th I locked myself in my study room every night and weekends. I was fortunate the weather during this six-week period was very foul. It was easy to stay in and study all that while.

I finished the work and applied for graduation. I did graduate with the next class in an outdoor ceremony at Owen Field, the football stadium for the Oklahoma Sooners. My college ring reads 1964 but my studies basically ran from 1956 through 1960. Uncle Joe, Aunt Effie, Mom and Dad were with me for my graduation. ¦

1965

Masters of Business Administration

When I left the University of Oklahoma in 1960 I had completed only one year of Law School. In the waning days of 1963 when I set my goal to get my undergraduate degree, I also determined I would continue my education at night school.

With one year of Law School under my belt it was natural for me to think about completing that degree at night. I went to the admissions office of the Oklahoma City University and made inquiry about what would be necessary to move ahead to become a lawyer.

We were living in Bethany, Oklahoma, at the time and I was working for Western Electric Company nearby. I learned from a counselor at OCU that a new Masters Program was taking shape and the university had been working in concert with Western Electric Company and other big employers in the area to finalize this program.

The counselor noted Western Electric Company’s policy was not to pay for law or medical degrees unless they were directly related to the job. Of course, that was not the case and so I was persuaded to join the soon to begin Masters Program in Industrial Management.

That decision ended my quest to become a lawyer. Twenty-one of us from Western Electric Company entered the program. I believe all but one who started completed the program and were awarded degrees.

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We started the classes in July of 1963 and went continuously for twenty-two months to graduate on May 23, 1965. Except for scattered holidays we were in class from 6:00 pm until 10:00 pm twice a week for the full twenty-two months.

1965

Edward L. Clark (1845 – 1914)

In the fall of 1956, I entered the University of Oklahoma as a freshman. It was there I had my first meaningful exposure to the written history of the Comanche Indians.

I recall having located in the stacks of the William Bennett Bizzell Memorial Library a copy of Rupert N. Richardson’s The Comanche Barrier to South Plains Settlement. The book fascinated me then as I am even now.

Sometime later I obtained a copy of Ernest Wallace and E. Adamson Hoebel’s The Comanches: Lords of the South Plains. It, too, has been a source of fascination to me and I have used it regularly over the years as a reference.

In 1965 my sister, Pat Lundy, began to read from The Comanches and noticed the footnote references to E. L. Clark in Chapter 2. The references indicated records in the Oklahoma Historical Society (OHS), Archives and Manuscripts Division, might have some background information on our grandfather.

She penned a longhand letter to the OHS and, by letter of November 1, 1965, a reply came from Rella Looney, the OHS archivist. She told of numerous documents in their files that had been created by or were about Edward L. Clark. In fact, Ms. Looney copied several of those records and forwarded them to Pat.

Ms. Looney offered suggestions for further avenues of research. Pat and our father, Albert Clark, then made a trip to the OHS archives and discovered Ms. Looney had meticulous references to Clark and others on common 3” X 5” index cards. Pat and my father returned with the news of this treasure trove of information about our family. This information had been previously unknown to any of us.

Drawing heavily upon the OHS records, I began developing additional research sources that have enabled this story of Edward L. Clark to be told. The story has been my passion for over 39 years.

Why had the story of this good man been locked away from the family?

How had his contributions to the assimilation of the Comanches during the period from 1870 through 1910 been left untold?

The answer may lie in the taboos against mentioning the name of those who have passed on or against openly discussing the memories of the deceased. It was considered disrespectful to do this. {10}

Death often came early for the Comanches and often in ways that would shock our sensibilities. It is understandable that memories were to be held within the soul of the survivors. {11} This may account for the very scant information passed on to my father and other family members by our grandmother, Waumaconie, and her peers. My Huutsi (I knew her as Kaku) and my father would visit late into the night when she visited us. {12}

Throughout those conversations the memories of her late husband, Edward L. Clark, were mostly kept to herself.

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Another reason Clark’s story was not told is that he had left his immediate family behind in Missouri. Communication between family members was extremely limited and difficult, if not impossible, in his time. Even so we have a precious few of his letters to family and we know of the very few visits he made back to Miller County, Missouri, during his adult life.

Is it somehow a violation of Waumaconie’s act of conscience for us to explore and record what we can of Edward L. Clark’s colorful life? I think not.

The Comanche taboo served its purpose in shielding vulnerable people from the harsh realities of life and death on the Great Plains. We need to learn from the past and we can gain from a better appreciation of the sacrifices of those who have gone before us. We can learn from their mistakes and their successes. We can emulate their strengths and courage.

In 1881 P. B. Hunt, U. S. Indian Agent, wrote to his military superior in Chicago and forwarded a field report written by Edward L. Clark. Agent Hunt’s letter read, in part:

“I have read the report with much interest and think if his services could be utilized in this direction, to make thorough enquiry on these and kindred subjects, much valuable as well as interesting information could be gathered which if neglected, now or in the very near future, will be forever lost, by the new condition of things in which these people find themselves, and the passing away of the old men who are measurably the sole repository of many of their traditions and much of their former history.” {13}

Agent Hunt did not receive permission to employ Clark in the service he had envisioned. Nonetheless, Clark created a considerable and valuable record over the period of his life in Indian Territory.

A significant part of that record is collected in the book I am writing along with a meager attempt to place some of those records in their historical context. One can only speculate as to the further impact Clark would have made on the recording of the Comanche story as it evolved during the transformation of those people from nomadic Lords of the South Plains to reservation Indians.

My grandfather, Edward L. Clark, was a witness to and a participant in events of historical significance that have elsewhere been thoroughly chronicled. He experienced some of the westward migration of pioneer Americans, the tragic and divisive Civil War, the clash of the Anglo-Americans and the Indians for valuable Western lands, and the assimilation of these Indians into the white man’s culture.

Only vignettes of his life are available to us. I deeply regret that we do not know more of his experiences.

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The inspiration for my research has been my father, Albert Clark, Sr. He knew very little of the details of Edward L. Clark’s life that were revealed subsequent to November 1965.

I am happy that I was able to share most of the research findings with my father before his passing in 1997.

Numerous institutions and individuals have been helpful or in one way or another assisted me in this effort. {14}

I am particularly indebted to Albert Clark, Jr., Alfred Alan Clark, Patsy Clark Lundy, Clifford Clark, Edward Louis Clark, Charles Warren Clark, Aubra Birdsong, Elizabeth Cox, Walter (Charlie) Southard, Lera Southard, Thelma Scott Hickok, Mike Wieneman, Arthur Lawrence, Edward Hatch Clark, Weckeah Bradley, Thomas W. Kavanagh, William T. Hagan, Herman J. Viola, Sam DeVenney, Ethel Michecoby Howry, Stuart C. Nottingham, Rella Looney, William D. Welge, William R. Southard and my wife, Rosemarie Clark.

1965

Comanche Constitution

The Kiowas, Comanches, and Apaches had an alliance dating back to the 1932 which was reflected in a Constitution and governing body for the three tribes.

Their actual political alliance, some say, dated back to the late-1800s. On January 19, 1963, after many years of wrangling and disputes within the governing body, the three tribes acted.

That day in a General Council resolution the Business Committee was dissolved and the Constitution and By-Laws rescinded. Effectively, the three tribes were at once without a framework for conducting the business of the affiliated tribes.

I know it is a gross oversimplification but the nut of the problem was the Kiowas outnumbered the Comanches and Apaches. This majority consistently thwarted and out-voted the wishes of the two minority tribes.

I got involved in the tribal politics by a letter I wrote to the Area Director of the Anadarko Area Office, Bureau of Indian Affairs.

I asked a lot of questions in that letter and shortly I was in the middle of things. Primarily through the involvement of James W. Cox, I began to invite members of the Comanche Tribe to my house for meetings.

Officials of the Bureau were invited and came to these meetings and attempted to help determine the proper course of action we should take to establish a separate Constitution and By-Laws for the Comanche tribe. Among those that attended these meetings were:

Joe Attocknie

Paul Attocknie

Richard Bascus

Robert Coffey

James W. Cox

Marie Cox

Mrs. K. D. Edwards

Henry W. Lookingglass

Bertha Parker Monetatchi

Edgar Monetathchi

Raymond Nauni

Violet Yellowfish Nauni

Eva Mae (Partillo) Riddles

Ronald H. Russell

Ned Timbo

Lawrence Tomah, Jr.

The group that met with me was called the “yes Comanches.” The term referred to the groups desire to vote “yes” on the question of whether the Comanches should in fact end the affiliation with the other tribes.

I wrote several letters for the group to the Bureau, State Senator Fred R. Harris, and members of the “yes” coalition. I prepared several drafts of a proposed Comanche Constitution and By-Laws.

Thinking back on this effort I am amazed at my stamina because it was in the era long before good copying machines and personal computers.

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All this effort culminated in the Bureau of Indian Affairs allowing the Comanches to have a vote on the question: Shall the Comanches separate from the Kiowas and Apaches?

The vote was held on November 19, 1965. The “yes” vote was 492 and the “no” vote was 483 with four ballots in question.

On November 30th a recount was held to examine the four ballots. The Bureau of Indian Affairs asked Taylor Noyobad and Stephen Chibitty, tribal members who had opposed the proposed constitution and Lawrence Tomah and me, as supporters of the constitution, to witness a recount of the ballots in question. One additional “yes” vote came from the re-examination.

Prior to the vote I worked tirelessly on securing absentee ballots from supporters of the proposed constitution. I sent out 32 applications for absentee ballots principally to family members. I went to great lengths to make it easy for the applications to be completed and returned.

As a result of my efforts, 26 of the 32 absentee ballots I solicited were returned in favor of the proposed constitution. {15}

Since the margin of “yes” votes over the “no” votes was only ten, I have long felt I was single-handedly responsible for the adoption of the Constitution and By-Laws for which I had a significant part in framing.

One learned statement that deserves mention in this story was made by the late Roe Kahrahrah (Comanche). From the minutes of the Special Meeting of the Kiowa, Comanche and Apache Tribal Business Committee held on January 18, 1963, Kahrahrah is quoted as saying, “I don’t believe in rumors unless they are in black and white.”

An incident that deserves mention is when I attempted to go to a “no Comanche” meeting. When the group discovered who I was they ran me off. It was at night in an isolated countryside home near Mt. Scott and I was afraid for my life.

I dropped out of tribal politics after I moved to Georgia in January 1967. Each of the three tribes now have their own Constitution and By-Laws, their own tribal headquarters and are doing very well for their respective tribal members. I remain convinced the efforts of the “yes Comanches” was a good thing for all of the tribes involved.

1967

Ten Thousand Dollars per Annum

My first full-time job was in 1960 with the Western Electric Company in Oklahoma City. My gross salary was $368 per month or $4,416 per annum, plus benefits.

It wasn’t a bad way to start and I was lucky since my immediate supervisor, Fred dePlanque, had a daughter who had just entered college and so he arranged for us to work Saturday overtime at time and a half for just about as many weekends as we wanted throughout the year.

For a partial year in 1960 my gross income was $1,791. The first full 12-months working at Western in the year 1961 my gross income was $5,398 showing the impact of that overtime.

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Fred and others in a supervisory position at Western Electric Company were rumored to be making in excess of $10,000 a year. I thought how wonderful it would be to make that kind of money.

It is interesting to see the 1960 and 1961 tax Instructions for Form 1040A has as its title “For Employees Who Earned Less Than $10,000.” Ten grand seemed so far away but was so inviting. That was the magic number. If only…!

Subsequent to working for Western Electric I did a stint working for Western Farmers Electric Cooperative in Anadarko and still no $10,000. We moved to Monroe, Georgia, in February 1967 and I began work for the Walton Electric Membership Cooperative. In 1968 my gross income became $10,165.

I recall the day my boss, T. C. Long, Jr., informed me that my raise had boosted my annual income to over $10,000. I bought steaks on the way home from work and had Lanita cook a steak dinner to celebrate. I had arrived!

1968

Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Funeral Cortege

On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King’s life was ended by an assassin’s bullet as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. President Lyndon B. Johnson decreed Sunday, April 7, 1968, to be a national day of mourning in honor of Dr. King.

I took off work from the Walton Electric Membership Cooperative in Monroe, Georgia, on April 9th, the day of his funeral.

The funeral was eulogized at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Lanita and I found a place to sit underneath a bridge overpass of the Interstate highway about three blocks east of the Ebenezer Baptist Church to watch the funeral cortege.

It was a very hot, humid day and we were fortunate to have the shade of the overpass. Up and down the streets the buildings were draped with black cloth out of respect for the fallen civil rights leader.

More than 60,000 persons attended the funeral and listened outside over loudspeakers. Estimates were that 50,000 people joined in the funeral cortege through the streets to the South View Cemetery. His coffin was placed on a green farm wagon pulled by two red mules. The only preparation for the wagon was to place sheets of black tar roofing paper on the wagon floor to receive the wooden casket.

Red Georgia clay caked the spokes of the wheels of this wagon. Dr. King’s wife followed behind the wagon along with scores of prominent civil rights leaders, black entertainers and professional athletes and the four leading presidential contenders – Senator Eugene McCarthy, Senator Robert Kennedy, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, and Richard M. Nixon. It is said that over 300,000 people paid their respects to Dr. King that day in Atlanta.

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I remember the fear that prevailed at the time of what was to come of this great nation. I was personally fearful and apprehensive. It would be only two months later, June 5, 1968, that Robert Kennedy was to meet a similar fate in California.

1969

Apollo 10

I had just taken a job with my cousin’s company and we were moving from Monroe, Georgia, to Austin, Texas.

After our furniture was packed and loaded on a moving van, we chose to take a circuitous route from Georgia to Texas because the moving van would take several more days than our trip required.

We headed south from Monroe and, after a stop at the Okefenokee Swamp in South Georgia, we made our way to Titusville, Florida. We could see Cape Canaveral (then called Cape Kennedy) in the distance and the spacecraft standing upright.

In the night sky it was lit up so very brightly and we could see the vapor clouds coming from the vehicle as they were fueling it for the morning flight. We awoke early on the morning of May 18 and positioned ourselves on a lookout post some 12 miles from the launch site of Apollo 10.

About 7:00 am the spacecraft blasted off. We were sitting atop our Ford station wagon and the vibrations from the blast literally shook the car. It was such a beautiful and unforgettable sight. Our thoughts were with the three men who were inside that terribly powerful flying machine. I confess I was worried about the consequences of something going wrong and our being just 12 miles away. A couple of hours after the launch we were allowed to visit the space center and take a guided tour.

Apollo 10 was launched by a Saturn V rocket. The purpose of the flight was as a dress rehearsal in lunar orbit for the next launch, Apollo 11, which was scheduled to actually land on the moon.

In space talk they called the mission of Apollo 10 a circumlunar flight. Apollo 10 flew to within 14.3 kilometers of the moon’s surface. A Lunar Module separated from the rocket and descended to 10 kilometers from the surface of the moon but did not land. On July 16th Apollo 11 launched and touched down on the moon on July 20th. Neil Armstrong was the first person to set foot on the moon.

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1969

Aurora Borealis

I remember as a child being so fascinated listening to my mother tell stories of having seen the “Northern Lights.” She spoke of these lights often when in conversation with others about things mystical and unbelievable. I wondered then if I would ever have such an experience.

Lanita and I took an extended weekend trip from our Austin home to San Antonio and on to the Mexican border town of Nuevo Laredo.

Somewhere just north of Nuevo Laredo, perhaps between Artesia Wells and Encinal, on Interstate Highway 35 we were attracted to a very unusual phenomenon in the sky. I saw these strange lights in the sky through my rear view mirror and we ultimately pulled off the road to watch and admire.

I remember thinking that we might be seeing UFO’s. Several other cars pulled over to gaze in rapt amazement at the beautiful sight in the northern sky. In that area of Texas the sky is all pervasive and there being no trees or obstructions we were able to see clearly for miles in any direction.

The lights consisted of huge swirls of clouds of red, green, blue and violet that swiped the sky with great rapidity. The clouds were ephemeral and enchanting.

These lights were the Aurora Borealis and they appear in both the Northern and the Southern Hemisphere. The sun gives off high-energy charged particles (also called ions) that travel out into space at speeds of 300 to 1200 kilometers per second. A cloud of such particles is called plasma. The stream of plasma coming from the sun is known as the solar wind.

As the solar wind interacts with the edge of the earth’s magnetic field, some of the particles are trapped by it and they follow the lines of magnetic force down into the ionosphere, the section of the earth’s atmosphere that extends from about 60 to 600 kilometers above the earth’s surface.

When the particles collide with the gases in the ionosphere they start to glow, producing the spectacle of the Auroras, Northern and Southern. The colors are as I described above of red, green, blue and violet.

The Northern Lights are constantly in motion because of the changing interaction between the solar wind and the earth’s magnetic field. The solar wind commonly generates up to 1,000,000 megawatts of electricity in an auroral display and this can cause interference with power lines, radio and television broadcasts and satellite communications. {16}

It is no wonder that my mother spoke often of the Northern Lights. Her fascination was well-founded. Having once seen this spectacular display of Mother Nature’s work one cannot help but be impressed and long remember.

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1969

Curt’s Oil Company

Early in 1969 my mother had a stroke and was in very serious condition. I was working at the time in Monroe, Georgia, for the Walton Electric Membership Cooperative.

I went home to see mother and while there I visited with my cousin Thurman Curtsinger. We talked about my work and he expressed his opinion that the cooperatives were sort of a “pink outfit.” His meaning was that they were not representative of American free enterprise system but rather tended toward a communistic ideology. Of course nothing could be further from the truth.

Thurman invited me to visit with him in Lawton at a later date and at his expense to consider coming to work for him.

A short time later I did visit with him in Lawton. Thurman was a self-made man. He had only a seventh grade education, served in the U.S. Army in WW II as a tank operator, and worked hard to accumulate enough money to purchase some land which later he sold to a shopping center.

He started his own independent oil business (gasoline filling stations) and by 1969 had over 40 stations in several states. He told me he was worth about six million dollars which was lots of money then.

Thurman, Albert, Jr., and I flew to San Antonio in his airplane to look over the gasoline market there and discuss my coming to work for him. The idea was for me to learn his business from the ground up by buying property, building gas stations and operating them for a time. Thereafter I was to come into his home office and help him run the business.

I took the job with Thurman and we moved to Austin. I bought one property in Austin and two in San Antonio. I served as the prime contractor and coordinated the work of several trades to get the stations built and operational. We operated the stations 24-hours, 7-days a week.

On my birthday, December 9th, we were in Lawton on business and Thurman told Lanita in front of me how great a job I was doing and how proud he was of my work. We returned to Austin and just prior to Christmas I made the rounds of the three operating stations.

All was going well and I made arrangements for the staff to be on duty Christmas day. I remember purchasing hams for each of the operators and I paid for the hams out of my own pocket. We left Austin the day before Christmas and drove to Anadarko to be with my parents. We enjoyed Christmas and by evening had begun our return to Austin.

When I arrived in Austin I went to the three stations and all was well. The operators told me, however, that their paychecks had not come in the mail as usual and it being the Christmas season was quite a hardship on them.

I called the home office in Lawton on the morning of December 26 to inquire about the checks. Thurman told me not to worry about them. He told me he was sending his son, Bobby, to Texas with the checks and he was releasing me from my job with one month’s pay.

I was being fired for the first and only time in my life! I was fired by my own blood cousin on the day after Christmas. I harbored ill feelings toward Thurman from that day forward. Other family members later told me that his abrupt firing me was typical of his actions toward other family members. A few weeks later I went back to work with the Western Electric Company in Dallas.

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1971

Honest Injun

Most people do things in a natural progression, in a gradual manner, starting small and working up to something bigger. That’s not how I started with boating. The first and only boat I ever owned was a 28-foot, twin screw, cabin cruiser.

We had been the guests of our good friends Jean and Darwin Kirkpatrick on their boat at Lake Texhoma. We had a delightful time with them and never really seriously considered getting into boating.

We made the mistake – no, it wasn’t really a mistake – of visiting with a boat salesman at Loe’s Highport Marina there on Lake Texhoma. Either in a weak moment or in a moment of brilliance we agreed to purchase this Chris Craft cabin cruiser.

It was an old boat but in very good condition. It was docked in a covered boathouse very near the entrance to the marina. The boat had a small kitchen, a head, and sleeping arrangements for four. This boat became our “cabin on the lake” for the next three and a half years.

I remember our first outing on the boat. We gassed up and motored across the lake to a picnic of a host of friends we had known from our days working at Western Electric Company in Oklahoma City.

I had no experience with the boat and I remember the fear I had of beaching the boat in between a number of other boats already there. I learned from that day one cannot follow the orders of a half-dozen persons shouting “turn this way,” “turn that way,” “over here” and so on all at once.

We named our boat the “Honest Injun.” It was a very pretty boat and comfortable for our family. We liked the fact it was in a covered boathouse. If the weather was bad we could stay docked and enjoy the lake from the boathouse.

Typically, a windy day on the lake would end with the winds dying down and the lake becoming so peaceful and calm in the late afternoon and early evening. Our friends, Doty and John Tucker, sold their fiberglass run-about and purchased another cabin cruiser in the slip just next to us.

Our boathouse became the central meeting place for several of our friends. They would tie their boats up to the back of our boathouse and climb aboard Tucker’s and our boat.

A typical weekend outing at the lake was for us to gather on “the islands” of Lake Texhoma. The islands were our meeting place and soon we felt as if we had staked out a claim for certain spots which we frequented.

About sunset or even later we would anchor in about 20-feet of water and hang Coleman lanterns off the back of our boats. We would fish for sand bass until late at night. There was no catch limit on sand bass and it was not unusual for all of us to have caught as many as 50 or 75.

The next morning we would filet these fish and put them on ice. Throughout the day on Saturday we would find cedar stumps and other wood we could salvage for a big bonfire on Saturday night. Our wives would make a salad and we would wrap potatoes