Where the Trail May Lead

Stevie Joe Payne

That is I sitting in front of Pawhuska High School except that I wasn't.  The photograph was made by Charlotte at Osage Hills and used in publicity for the my book "Pawhuska Kids' Stuff."  I later took the Osage Hills rock, trees, bushes, leaves and branches out of the photograph and secretly replaced them with the photograph of the wall from Pawhuska High School.  One more alteration to mention is that the letters on the real wall are not black and orange in color but simply aluminum.  I photographed the wall and colored my photograph to make the wall look as I wanted it, black and orange.  I tell people that I am a member of the class of 1962 and I am; but I did not graduate in 1962.  I graduated in 1967 as a member of the class of 1966 and from College-High School in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.  I attend my Pawhuska class reunions whenever I can and I attend the all school reunions which are the best type to me.  Pawhuska is home and holds a special place in my heart and it always will.  But I don't want to sail under false colors and claim graduation with my class.  In 1960 I began my junior year of school and I was very unhappy, running with kids that I liked but we were not the best for each other.  We were not bad kids but we certainly needed guidance and, perhaps, a strong hand, maybe even across the back side.  But we didn't get that.  By January of 1961 I was not doing well and I was more depressed and in a downward spiral that could lead only to trouble.  I was asked about and even considered military school and then I went a step further.  I enlisted in the United States Navy, that Great Canoe Club of the Southwest Pacific Ocean, as we called it.  All my life I had thought I would join the Marine Corps.  My friend Charley Edgar had enlisted in the navy on a kiddie cruiser enlistment and that put me in touch with the recruiter, Chief Petty Officer Hall (Radarman).  Over the next month, I had several visits with him and he was gradually pulling me along by the nose because I knew him but I did not know other recruiters so CPO Hall charmed me into the navy.  Since I was only seventeen February 12, 1961, I had to have my mother's permission, which she gave.  A kiddie cruise went like this; a sailor enlisted before his 18th birthday and would be released before his majority, i.e. one day before he turned twenty-one yet given credit for four years.  In Edgar's case, he enlisted the day before his 18th birthday, so he served three years and received credit for four.  In my case, I enlisted about 28 days after my 17th birthday and would be released one day before my 21st birthday so I would serve just under four years and be credited for four years.  If you do the math you'll realize I was not smart but it was fine because I needed the extra discipline and training.  I was training in two disciplines at once; to be a sailor and to become a better person.  I was sworn in March 9, 1961, traveled to San Diego for three months of basic training, "Boot Camp" as it was called, then six months in Radar "A" school at Treasure Island, San Francisco Bay, California.  In December 1961, after finishing school, I was assigned to the USS Point Defiance (LSD-31), my only ship, where I served until January 22, 1965.  I was a 3rd class radarman (E-4) at the time of my honorable discharge.  Connie and I married January 30 and we struggled for several months as I sold insurance to make a living.  I had a GED for high school via the navy and a one year college GED; none of these were accepted in the civilian world in 1965.  I returned to Pawhuska but settled in Bartlesville working what job I could find and then I returned to high school at College-High.  Everitt K. White provided me a job working in the outdoor advertising industry.  I went to school from 7:00 AM untill noon, then worked for Mr. White until day's end, whatever it turned out to be, and did my home work. I completed my last full credit with a correspondence course in 1966 and was awarded my diploma in June of 1967.  Between the navy, my wife, my mother, and some help from some really good people, Everitt K. White and Principal, John Haley, I turned my life around from the hurt and confused kid that I was in March, 1961, and became the young father who went to work for Phillips Petroleum Company in March, 1967.  I retired from Phillips thirty-three years later.  About the Point Defiance; I served in the Cuba Quarantine of the October 1962 Missile Crisis, went to Viet Nam in 1963 for the Nho Din Diem coup d'etat, and served with the bathyscaph Trieste in the recovery mission for the lost submarine USS Thresher (SSN-593) in 1963.  I served in two missions to WESTPAC and a mission to Christmas Island for nuclear waste recovery.  I owe a word of thanks to my friend Kenny Carman who was the first to tell me how to begin the process of returning to high school at age twenty-one.  I graduated from College-High but my heart belongs to Pawhuska High School, Class of 1962.

The USS Point Defiance (LSD-31)

The Gathering Steps

The Gathering Steps, Pawhuska High School

In its greatest days, these steps were the place where classes joined and crammed together for a class photograph that would appear the following spring in the Wah-Sha-She, the name given our school annual and the school newspaper.  We thought little about it when the photograph was being snapped but relished its appearance at the year's end when we saw ourselves and our friends together for the first time.  There were the class photographs such as our 1957 7-1, 7-2 and 7-3 groups, and then there were identifiable birds of a feather that flocked together, such as band, basketball, football, and all of the different opportunities that were open to us.  Seventh and Eighth grades had the numbered divisions of 1 for choir, 2 for band, and 3 for anything else that didn't fit the first two classifications.  I don't know if that continues today.Once we were freshmen, we had broader choices and if we were in band, it was the entire band, made up of all classes freshmen and above. 

Over the years, I have taken time to look at my collection of Wah-She-She books and those annoying moments of posing together then now take on new light and new life.  Those moments were silly and we acted silly, performing immaturely to prove how mature we were.  If we had behaved better, the photographs might be better.  But we were kids and behaved as kids and perhaps that is some of the greater charm today; that the photographs captured some of that giddy, laughing, teasing charm.  There would be time for maturity later.  It would come in the forms of the death of a president, a war that could not be won and would cost so many lives; maturity would mean marriages, births, divorces and even deaths. 

So those days, we were supposed to be just what we were.  I look at the photographs and I see gaps where a boy stands in the photograph.  The inimitable Henry Jones, a Pawhuska original, looks back at me and I laugh at him, just as I did at the flesh and blood Henry Jones.  I see him, yet I know he is gone, preserved only in photographs and in our memories.  The photograph is black and white, now taking on a bit of a yellow tone.  The picture in my memory is full color, with the blue tones of Levi jeans that most boys wore, the black and white plaid shirts, abundant then, the Lavender Blue of Doug Givens old chevrolet, once he finally finished his masterpiece.  I know that memory is not perfect and that in some way, those pictures I carry are just as faded as are those on the pages I see.  But what has faded seems to be the hard edges, the grudges we kept, the comparison to prove who was faster, tougher, better.  I remember only the laughter now, the smiles and a few stupid human tricks that we did, such as putting Bobby Lovelace's little blue car between two parking meters near the Dairy Queen. 

Left to our own devices, instead of being forced to pose together for school photographs, some of the kids would never have appeared in photographs.  Some were camera shy, some were poor and could not afford a camera and film.  Some were just too busy.  We did not have one person who carried a camera and constantly snapped photographs.  Some took photographs, which were dutifully left in the hands of their mother when they went off to college, military service, their own lives. Once in a while, some of these surface.  I found the simplest of all photographs of Jess Tomey and me.  We were in Long Beach, California and in an amusement park, we stepped into one of the old photo booths and for about $.50, we took four or five photographs. A quick glance at it and Jess comes to life again, as he is laughing in it.  Triggered by that photograph, taken in about 1963, I have a flood of memories, mostly in Pawhuska though some are of California.  We went to so many bad movies at the Friday night previews, mostly horror movies, and they were horrible indeed.  We didn't care.  We weren't movie critics; we were kids, and having the time of our lives in our way. 

I'm grateful for the gathering steps and now for the photographs we were forced to make, for they were often the only record of someone we knew, weren't best friends with, but knew, and now, the great gap of time since then makes them friends.  We have all lost so many friends and any connection to them keeps them alive, so now we clutch at stories to help us remember.  The boy that I barely knew who was standing five places away from me in the photograph has been moved closer to me by the gaps created.  He and I are now best friends as we tell stories about the boys we knew who stood between us in the photograph. 

One of my friends said, and I do not remember which friend, "There will be another gathering, later, in a better place, and we shall all get together then, to remember and tell stories as we once did.  Only this time, it will last an eternity."  Perhaps it too will be on The Gathering Steps.

I Used to Live Here...

Prudom Avenue and 6th Street

I used to live here, not in the church van or the parking lot, of course, but once upon a time, long, long ago....Hold on! It wasn't that long ago. I'm only sixty-five myself. But once, a great, white house stood where this parking lot is today. The lot appears so much smaller with the old house gone, yet I know it must be the same size. The house occupied only half though, for there was an empty lot just south, between the house and the alley.

The east facing front of the house sat back about twenty-five feet to the west from the curb. That front was what we called the front door, but there really was no back door. We called one door the back door but it was actually on the north side (i.e. a side door) of the house, opening onto 6th Street, the trail that led downtown if I went west, and I heard "Go west young man." I did not know which way west was but four years in the navy and thirty years in the oil industry eventually taught me to think in terms of directions. But I knew which way to turn when I exited the side door and I could find my way to the end of the block.

There was a porch in front and two wooden steps that led up to it and about five adult strides led you to the door. There were often lawn chairs on the porch for two or three people to sit, but sometimes it was empty of chairs. Sometimes, we might just sit on the porch by the steps. The porch was made of wooden planks, probably one by four inches, that ran north and south and the porch and the columns on each end were painted gray; there were two columns on each side of the steps. The front room, as we called it, was ample but not overly large. The air conditioner, once we got our first one, was suspended from a window on the south side and the television antenna lead came in there, forever condemning the television to a place in the southwest corner of the room. There was always a couch against the east wall and a large chair, which my grandmother claimed, against the northwest half wall. I say half wall because the wall extended only a few feet since there was a large doorway that led into the next room which was the dining room. There were only the living and dining rooms, the kitchen, and a small back porch downstairs. It was a two story house with bed rooms and bathroom upstairs. Many people assumed it was a large house from its outward appearance but the house was divided in two and the west half was a single story, second apartment with a living room, bath, kitchen and two bedrooms. It was always rented to another family. Had it been the original house without the division, it would have been large. We moved there in about 1950 and I lived there with my mother and grandmother until March 9, 1961 when I enlisted in the United States Navy. My grandmother, Louisa Victoria Lessert, was outgoing and generous and the house was often filled with Revard and Hardy family members; for dinners, card games, drop by visits and for a drink. People rarely called to say that they were coming and just stopped by. My friends were often there to share games and play with toys. We raided the icebox and cupboards for anything to snack on and ice cold pop was kept in quantity. When I stop for a few minutes and let my mind wonder, I don't see a parking lot. I see a house filled with people, sharing wild stories and laughter, kids I knew, often Bobby Hughes and Donna Poulton, and my mother and grandmother. I see my dogs, George, Mitzi and Patsy, all terriers that were my best friends. I see the old Cocker Spaniel, Skippy who chose to live with us but would only come inside for visits, and one dog, Patrick, who followed me home and stayed for years. There was a cat who blessed us with kittens and entertained the kids of my fourth grade class as we counted the days until their eyes would be open. Those who are new to Pawhuska, those who have forgotten; they will see a parking lot, but I will always see and remember the old white house where I grew up.

Tastee-Freez

The truth is that I did not remember exactly how the name was spelled, but modern miracle, I researched it quickly on the Internet via www.Google.com and confirmed the spelling I had chosen. When I began my career at Pawhuska High School we had essentially three choices for lunch. It was bring it yourself, eat in the cafeteria in the brand new elementary school, or eat at the Huskie Grill just across the street on Lynn Avenue and 15th Street. During my 7th or 8th grade year, the new Tastee-Freez was opened just down the road a piece (three blocks) on Lynn and 12th Street. The Huskie Grill was fine and I had eaten many a hamburger there, topped off with a soft drink and Fritos or some chips, or a Snickers candy bar. But at ages twelve, thirteen and so, our need for variety was great and also, the Huskie Grill was just difficult to get into some times. Standing room only and elbow to elbow. The Tastee-Freez took some pressure off of the other eateries and was still close enough that we could get there, stand in line, order, get our food, eat and get back to school on time. And there was an abundance of social life while you were there because you were with a mix of classes, older and younger. Some were there on bicycles, some in cars, so we saw older class members, some that we looked up to, some that we feared, and we were seen as well by younger kids who felt the same about us; we just didn't know they did. The Tastee-Freez faced to the west, had a window where we could bark our orders and where they would call us when it was ready. When there was time, we could go inside and sit at the five or six stools that adjoined the small counter that was on the south side of the building. Sometimes on a longer ride on the motor scooters we might stop in there and have something, especially on cold winter nights. The ghost of the Tasteee-Freez is white now, but in the beginning, it was a rough brown, which looked fine on it. The fare was similar to the Dairy Queen with hamburgers, hot dogs, chili pies, soft ice cream and sundaes. Once the Dairy Queen added the additional room, it became larger than the Tastee-Freez and parking was more abundant downtown around the Dairy Queen, so the DQ had more business, but the Tastee-Freez was so convenient from school and it was welcomed when it opened. The last time that I really spent much time there was in the middle 1970's when Carl Core operated it and David Meriable and I would make a run there to provide lunch for us when he lived just off of 12th Street. When I pause long enough and look at the ghost left behind, I still see kids I knew, now senior citizens, and the laughter, the songs and the noise echo through time, and as Ronnie Havens says, prove that they existed.

The Red Bud

It is a Subway Restaurant now but once it was the Redbud, and I do not remember if it was the Redbud Cafe or restaurant. It is one of those things I am photographing that I can not, because it no longer exists. In a sense, I am photographing the ghost of the Redbud, but it is as close as I can achieve now. Mrs. Irene Looney was a widow and had an adopted son, Joe, and Looney Trucking Company. Their trucks were for oilfield supply and they were often parked on a vacant lot across from the Chevrolet garage. Perhaps Mrs. Looney did not want to stay in the trucking business because she felt it better for a woman to be in, well, the restaurant business. She sold Looney and built an original restaurant just west of the Clear Creek bridge on highway 60 towards Ponca City. It was the first restuarant that I recall being built from the ground up as a restaurant and it was pretty popular for some time. It was far from the high school, which was on north Lynn Avenue, the opposite end of Pawhuska, but one day, Ernie, some other boys and I mounted our Cushman Eagle motor scooters and raced to the Redbud for lunch, probably not the smartest idea any of us ever had, but we went and had a nice, leisurely lunch. It turned out that one thing in the new restaurant that did not work was the wall clock and our leisurely lunch had gone over. We made a desperate dash to the motor scooters and a more desperate dash across Pawhuska, through downtown, up Lynn Avenue and arrived in class about thirty-five minutes late, for which we were ridiculed, but not punished. I think our teacher was Jim Minor and the year must have been 1959. All of us were still be riding scooters together and once we turned sixteen, mostly during 1960, that changed, so that suggests 1959.

The restaurant was painted a reddish hue outside, and the front door did not have the wind shielding entrance that the Subway does. As you walked inside, there were booths going around the walls and tables in the middle. The cashier and counter were deep inside, where Mrs. Looney and sometimes Joe cheerily took our money. Liquor was not served although beer might have been, but I was about six years away from being able to buy a beer legally, so it didn't matter. For Pawhuska at the time, it was a pretty good restaurant, certainly in competition with the Manhattan Cafe downtown. Joe Looney and I were close friends at one time but by the time the restuarant opened, we had become more acquaintances than friends. That happens to us as we grow, age and change, and it's usually not bitter, just a process. Mrs. Looney bought Joe a 1959 red and white Ford hard top convertible, the car we called a "flip-top" as it had a true hard top that was lowered into the body of the car as opposed to a folding canvas top, which was the norm for convertibles. Joe had an accident a few years later during a liquor run from Ponca City and the car did a flip-top as it turned over and was destroyed. They boys in the car were lucky and had only minor injuries, but the car was gone.

My favorite meal at the Redbud was friend chicken with a chicken fried steak smothered in gravy next in line. There were few diet drinks then, so we drank Cocoa Cola, Pepsi Cola, 7-Up, and Dr. Pepper with the sugar that was in them. There was a telephone in the restuarant but no one had mobile telephones so a meal was fairly enjoyable, with people seated at the table actually talking to each other. Dining at the Redbud was comparable to dining at the Manhattan, downtown allthough the Manhattan still seemed a little more special, perhaps for the catttleman's flavor that permeated the Manhattan.

For a time, the Redbud had become a Lot-a-burger, from the franchise in Bartlesville, and now it's a Subway, but in those first days, it was the Redbud and an unmistakable dining place in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. We lost Joe Looney in the latter 1980's. Like the Redbud we knew, he is missed.

Panhatchapie, The Life of a Princess

I love the phrase, "we celebrate the life of...." It is so much better a remembrance than, "we gather to mourn..." Panhatchapie was not really an Osage Princess, but she was my princess. She was born Emilly Belle but some man in her early life began to call her Panhatchapie which was shortened to Pan, the name I knew her by all of my life until last year when I asked her if her given name was truly Pan. From the first time I remember seeing her, I thought she was beautiful and then I would see movies with actress Ann Blyth (The Helen Morgan Story, The Great Caruso) and think how much alike she and Pan looked. She was a mystery woman in my young life for she would appear with a gift from some strange land and then dissappear again. Pan had little formal education but she was a voracious reader and quick learner. She understood which clothes augmented her natural beauty and educated, wealthy and powerful men were attracted to her. She was married to an air force colonel, a diplomat, and a doctor. She lived in New York and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where she learned to speak Portuguese. Pan was not above telling a lie, even on an official document for someone catching her beauty suggested she apply to work as an airline hostess. With no experience and her limited education, she basically fabricated a history complete with college education and several years experience as a flight attendant. My mother received a letter from Flying Tigers asking for verification of Pan's story and she didn't want to lie but ultimately, she confirmed Pan's lie as a truth and then worried that the FBI would come and get her. Pan went to work for Flying Tigers and traveled around the world, adding to my toy collection as she did. She kept in touch with me through my navy career and when my son Stephen was born, she visited us in Bartlesville and took us to our favorite restaurant, which we could not afford. She was with us through many visits to Pawhuska, her home town, and Bartlesville and I was able to meet her in California at different times. She never seemed to age to me and I was stunned when she told me that she had told her doctor that she was eighty-three and did not want heroic treatments to fight the cancer that had invaded her pancreas, liver and kidney. How could Pan, who never changed be eighty-three? But I had not seen her in years, although we talked on the telephone often. The last time I had seen her was when her brother, Bud Purvis, had called me at work and said that Pan would meet us in the great hall in the Adams Building and I dropped everything to rush over to meet them. There was Pan, radiant, laughing, beautiful as ever. She was my guardian angel, someone always there for me, when I was a good kid, and when I was confused, lost and in trouble. My brother Charles called me last night to let me know that she had left us yesterday, leaving a hole in our lives that will not be filled. I knew she was going to die for the machines, CAT, PET, and other had told us so, and had even told us she would be here six months. The selfish part of us wanted her to have that six months and more, for ourselves, but now she won't suffer longer and that's good. I have seen too many suffer, especially with cancer. As much as I miss her, and will miss her, I am grateful that she won't suffer longer. Pan was a princess, and an angel to me and mine, and now she rests with the angels. We celebrate the life of Pan Purvis Ray, 1926-2009.

Willams Park and The First Boy in Space

Old Wood Name Plate,
originally uploaded by redboots@sbcglobal.net.

The entry into Pawhuska's Williams Park is of classic beauty. Pillars of sandstone silently guard the entry way, standing like sentinels on each side of the road. They have been there for as long as I can remember, so at least sixty years for as small boys, my friends and I would climb them, easily done for there are step like structures that lead to the plateau at the top. It was especially rewarding if we had just come from a movie where we had seen a fort and a raging battle for our imaginations took hold and the movie became our real life as we fought, first to gain the high ground, and then to protect it from those dastardly pretenders trying to dislodge us. We had imaginary rifles, bows and arrows, grenades, and dynamite; whatever the movie had suggested. Inside of the park itself were lush green carpets of thick grass that allowed us to run free, play some kind of a ball game, and I suppose it offered some protection for those times we fell from a swing or off of one of the merry-go-rounds there. A graveled road ran around the perimeter of the park and just outside of the perimeter, especially on the north side, were slopes that let our adventures go further. The slope on the north side was steep, rocky and in the bottom was a small stream where we could watch tadpoles, frogs and small fish. We saw snakes there that challenged our manhood but I know now that they were harmless snakes, seeking only to feed themselves on small rodents and nuisances. Then, all snakes were poisonous and dangerous, to be feared, and we escaped, barely of course, with our lives.

We took Williams Park for granted but when I go there now, I simultaneously go to two places. I go the quiet place where nature is at its best and I can relax and breath in the freshness of the park. I also go back in time fifty to sixty years and see boys I knew, having fun, laughing, being the best of friends to each other and making silent vows to each other that they would always be there for each other.

I remember the big swing sets and how we boys tried to outdo each other as we went higher and higher and Bobby Hughes went so high that the tether of the swing set was almost parallel to the ground. Boys on the ground were shouting to him, "Jump! Jump! Jump" and laughing so hard that they almost fell down, and then Bobby moved forward, left the seat and the tether behind and went sailing out into space, the greatest leap to which I was ever witness. I can still see him suspended in air, for a moment, as he laughed and then the wide grin on his face slowly turned to fear. He seemed to sail forever as his arc went above the plane of the swing and then began to level out, and then to sink. He shrieked as the ground moved upward to meet his re-entry to earth and then there was the thud. No sounds came from him as we ran to him, for he had knocked all the air from his lungs. We thought he was dead at first, but he soon began to gather color, and then breath, and then he was on his feet, no harm done, and a smile began to spread on his lips, and for a moment he was our hero, the boy who had gone further, higher, and faster than any of the rest of us.

"Do it again!" said one of the boys.

Ormand Beach Stadium

Ormand Beach Stadium,
originally uploaded by redboots@sbcglobal.net.

Pawhuska, Oklahoma and the stadium where the Pawhuska Huskies played football at home. The stadium is named after Ormand Beach, who played football in Pawhuska and a friend told me that he was a hero in World War II. There is an award, also named The Ormand Beach award that was given to the best football player of the year. In 1960, the award went to Wimpsey Gilkey and the following year to Jay Lynn Hurt. I have not tracked it each year, but I know about those two years. Wimpsey was an outstanding running back and leader; Jay was an outstanding quarterback and leader.

The stadium is not large but adequate for our school size. The school colors are black and orange and for dyslexics, orange and black. The outside of the stadium is beautifully assembled native stone which offers more character than simple concrete. I have sat through many things there and I advise taking something comfortable to sit on for the seats are stone and take a toll on humans, especially older ones, in short order. The field lies from north to south and the home spectators sit on the west side. The visiting spectators sit in a smaller set of stands, on wood, which, ironically, is much more comfortable. Still, it's home.