Barbara contracted a wedding. The
reception was to be held in a blacks only joint in town. Fortunately, it was owned by Ike Brown, a black, a very good man. He was the
school janitor, and Barbara's good friend. Ike told Barbara there had
never been a white woman in that building before. Told her to stick
close to him. She did, and it went good.. Even though this was after
school integration, old habits die slowly. Ike told Barbara that a
few years ago, a big basketball game was coming up at the white
school. Ike was the janitor, and badly wanted to see the game. The
superintendent told him he could be there, if he stood on a little
balcony at the end of the court, and kept a broom in his hand.
As summer approached in 1981, I
had an idea. The natural gas boom in western Oklahoma was in full
swing, and my nephew, Bob Workman, had pulled down the big bucks last
summer, working up to 80 hours a week. I decided we could use a
strong shot of money, and decided to head that way. I headed out
pulling my pop-up camper. I found a park in the middle of the boom
area, and soon found a job on a big rig. They were just going "in"
when I got there, headed several miles deep. Some of my in-laws were
already there. I was in the "Worm's Corner," helping
change out the pipe sections as we went deeper and deeper. The first
night I was also helping near the actual hole, in the cellar. Right
off, I stepped too close to the hole and went into the mud, over my
head. When I struggled out, I jumped in a water tank to wash off.
That was not just any mud, but a mixture designed to hold the gas
down and prevent a blowout. Leaving it on very long could do damage.
I soon learned the term
“roughneck” was given for a reason. That was a rough bunch of
people. I rode out to the rig with the driller and the rest of the
crew. One morning, the rest of the crew were laughing and talking
about what happened the afternoon before, on the way home, after they
dropped me off. Seems the driller (the boss) was standing in the
cashier's line at a gas station. A woman was in front of him. She
suddenly got really mad, pulled a gun out of her purse, yelled, “I'll
give YOU something YOU can feel!” Threatened to shoot him, then
chased him out to his car. They trailed her when she left, harassed
her on the highway. A great group of guys to work with.
When the 4th of July
rolled around, everyone had a good supply of bottle rockets. A war
commenced, in the car, front seat against the back seat. Kinda scary,
seeing those things circle round and round in the car, knowing it was
about to explode somewhere. When I reached home, I had to run real
fast and find cover quick to dodge the rockets.
The job I had was only 40 hours a
week, normally, so I never hit the big bucks. And I decided pretty
quick I didn't want 80 hours of that! When things slowed a little, as
we got deeper, grease gun wars commenced among the crew, and if you
didn't watch out, someone might just throw some object off the tower
at you. Maybe one that could bash your head in.. Being called a
“crazy SOB” was a badge of honor among roughnecks, and everyone
tried to be as crazy as possible. My nephew Danny soon came out, and
he was hired immediately when the boss was told he was very big, very
strong. When astride his Harley, his street name was "Big
Daddy." We wound up living together. A small guy was showing off
one day by climbing hand over hand up a 30 foot leaning pipe. Danny,
weighing 270, crawled right up behind him. Kinda took the luster off
the little guy's accomplishment. Danny was a good guy to hang out
with, In that roughneck town. Nobody messed with Big Daddy. When Dan
was just a teenager, he wanted to arm-wrestle me. Well, he had
Harold's strength genes, something I had just missed out on. I saw
nothing to be gained by doing that, so I declined.
When I headed home, at the end of
my adventure, I found out I had missed out on a lot. Kinley had
learned to swim, and Corey pitched a no-hitter. But Barbara, from
what I understood, had out-shown them all, by putting on quite a show
on the swimming beach with sister Phyllis, Delton, and the kids. She
had bought a Walmart special swimsuit. Coming in from underwater, she
walked ashore busily clearing the water from her hair and eyes.
Barbara had always hated going underwater for that reason. She failed
to notice that one of her two perfectly matching body parts had
fallen out, Phillis was too busy laughing, and Delton was too red to
speak. She became the focus of the entire beach before she figured
out what was going on. When she saw some of those beach people later,
she was horrified. But Kinley piped up, “Don't worry. No one will
recognize your face!” I missed out on quite a summer.
Kinley went to the Passion Play at
Eureka Springs with the church youth group. In the middle of the
play, loud thunder and roaring came up, but most people thought it
was just sound effects at a critical point in the play, right when
Jesus was ascending into the clouds. Golf ball sized hail started
falling, and everyone tried to find cover. A leader gave Kinley a
chair to put over her, It quickly blew away, and she came home with
knots on her head and big bruises on her back. 14 people were
hospitalized. Kinley's unnatural fear of storms may have started at
that point, but that fear may have saved her life when an F4 tornado
put her in its cross hairs a few years later.
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