Lucky the Squirrel

I’d never seen a baby squirrel. I had seen younger specimens (probably akin to human teenagers) playing in the springtime, doing a lot more playing than the serious work of finding food for then and later (again, probably akin to human teenagers). I just assumed they stayed in their nest, close to their mother, until they became those teenagers.

We lived in Norman at the time, on a tree lined street. Norman is run over with squirrels, a remark probably totally misunderstood and misapplied, and yet appreciated, by people from Stillwater and Austin, Texas. Not far after leaving our driveway, we came upon a small animal, looking something like a small mouse, in the middle of the street. She Who Must be Obeyed ordered me to come to a halt and I did as I was told. She ran out and gathered the thing, barely having any fur on his little body, into her hands and She became the proud owner of a squirrel. Following a visit to the veterinarian, who gave us a formula for making something to feed him, we bought a medicine dropper and accepted him as our new responsibility. The vet had told us that he may have climbed out of the nest and fallen to the ground or his mother may have kicked him out. He said that if she did, it was probably because he was sick. I have since learned that veterinarians sometimes speculate on things now and then.

We got a bird cage and kept it in our bedroom. We would take him out and feed him the formula the vet gave us and watched him grow. There is nothing cuter than a baby squirrel. Of course, a baby anything is cute, but this little animal had a special place in our hearts because of his uniqueness. We would take him out and hold him. He fought a little at first when we placed the dropper to his mouth, but then he tasted the formula and grabbed it with his front feet and drank like a man athirst in a desert. As he got older, he graduated in his diet to Cheerios. That was a learning experience as I did not know he had such ingrained intelligence. He would eat his fill and then take a Cheerio from our hand, jump down on the carpet and go through the motions of burying it. When he finished, the Cheerio was there on top of the carpet but he was satisfied that he had hidden it away for later.

As he continued to grow, we could take him from his cage and allow him to run through the house. He always returned to his cage in the bedroom. And then he started chewing some things which did not need chewing. I still have some books which have corners he damaged. He began to run around and around our hand while holding him, from the palm to the back to the palm. It seemed to be a fun thing for him to use your hand in this manner, much as one in the wild runs around and around a tree branch. After he was through, you would have scratches all over the back of your hand. Whatever he was doing, we enjoyed having him for a very unique pet. And then, puberty set in.

A horny little squirrel is a mean little squirrel. Puberty in a male animal, even a human animal, causes him to want to dominate anything and anyone around. We had named him Lucky when we found him and the name fit. He was lucky he was found by us rather than by Mookie the cat. He was lucky we were willing to feed and nurture him. And now that he was turning mean, he was lucky I didn’t put him in a cooking pot.

We continued to handle him, thinking familiarity with humans would make him a better and calmer animal. What we ended up making, though, was an animal that wasn’t afraid of humans. And the absence of fear makes an animal dangerous; it invites the animal to try to dominate humans. As we continued to handle him, he got a little more aggressive all the time. He added biting to his repertoire of favorite things to do. Not serious biting at first, just gentle nips. Sometimes he would place his mouth on your finger, letting you feel his teeth, and I would marvel at the restraint he would exercise as I gently slipped my finger out of his mouth. But, controlling him was getting more difficult all the time.

One Sunday morning we were getting dressed for church while he was trying to tear heck out of his cage. I was dressed and was waiting for She Who Must be Obeyed when I decided to take him from his cage and try to calm him down while petting him. When I did, he turned vicious and violent. He was going crazy, biting and scratching. Finally, he got my thumb in his mouth and bit down. I heard and felt his teeth crunching down on the bone in my thumb. As the bone in my thumb is not any stronger than a walnut, which he could chew open, I could see in my mind having to go into the hospital with a crushed thumb. I threw him off and he landed somewhere across the room. He turned to come back after me until he saw I was prepared to get hold of him and put him back into his cage. He didn’t exactly back off, he held his ground, baring his teeth and daring me to try to pick him up.

While I was fighting the wild beast, She was in the adjoining bathroom applying the finishing touches of her makeup. I told her what had happened and that I was going to get some leather gloves out of the car. Coming back into the house, She met me at the door with a look of terror on her face, and there was blood all over her white robe. “Lucky attacked me,” She said tearfully. Her hands looked like they had been cut up in a knife fight. She had tried to coax him to her, thinking she could get him back into his cage. But, he had turned on her with a fury normally reserved for wild boars or bears or mountain lions.

Returning to the bedroom, I cautiously opened the door and looked in. Lucky was not to be seen. I stepped inside, closing the door behind me. We had recently painted the woodwork in that room, including the door, a clean white. It had brightened the room. But, when I looked at the door I saw blood smeared all over it and the door facing. There was a heavy covering of bright red blood smeared around the doorknob where She was obviously trying to get the door open so She could escape the mean little devil. There had been an obvious fight and so far that morning it looked like the squirrel was winning.

Lucky appeared on the headboard and glared at me with evil intent. He jumped down on the bed and came toward me. I reached my gloved hand down and he attacked me. He was doing a number on my hand even through the leather gloves. I had hold of him and had no intention of letting him go. I eventually got him back into the cage where he stayed until something could be done with him.

We cleaned the human blood from off the woodwork and laundered the robe. We bandaged the hands of She Who Must be Obeyed and I wondered about Lucky. Perhaps his mother really did kick him out of his nest.

Barry and Me

My first active participation in a presidential campaign was in 1964 when I campaigned for Barry Goldwater. I invested a great deal of time and energy in that losing effort. I handed out flyers, put up posters and talked to just about everyone who would listen to me as I extolled the virtues of Goldwater and conservative politics. Most of my circle of friends and acquaintances were Democrats and were perfectly happy with the direction Franklin Roosevelt had taken the country, beginning just about three decades earlier. Most of them were older than me, and most were kind and considerate as they gently tried to explain why they were going to vote for Lyndon Johnson who promised to continue utilizing government programs as much or even more than did FDR. The irony was that by the time of the election, I would have just turned 20 years old, still, at that time, a year too young to be voting in a federal election.

When I look back on my youthful exuberance, I see a young man completely devoted to conservatism, and not just conservatism, but a radical form of those principals of government. I actually bought into the whole concept of libertarian philosophy. I was fond of the phrase, “Build my roads, fight my wars, and leave me the hell alone.” And, at the time, in my very limited life experiences, I was serious in those sentiments.

I come from a family that benefitted from the politics and domestic policies of Roosevelt. He was elected President of the United States during the Great Depression, the same time period as when my parents came of age. They were children of the depression and recalled vividly the suffering of the people in Western Oklahoma while the area was being ravaged by the Dust Bowl and the worst economic depression the country and the modern world had seen. Tom Brokaw later gave this entire group of people the title, “The Greatest Generation.” I sometimes question whether it is wise to call them a greater generation than any other because it appears every generation plays the hand they are dealt. It’s just that they had had a particularly difficult hand laid out for them and they didn’t have any choice except standing up to their responsibilities; in the game of life you aren’t given the luxury of folding and taking your losses. Perhaps in some instances you can, but not when the survival of your nation is at stake and, in fact, the survival of Western Civilization. But, I don’t believe anyone can say that the generations immediately before and after them would not have gallantly faced and survived the Great Depression and World War II, and flourish in their aftermath.

Our loyalty to the Democratic Party was seriously challenged in the campaign of 1960. Events had weakened the hold it had with the common people even before that. In 1948, the Party had adopted a platform that called for an end to segregation and the Jim Crow laws so prevalent throughout the South. It called for integration and even condemned lynching which was still a not uncommon occurrence against African-Americans. The American South was a dark place which had finally had some light shown on it during and after World War II. The nation saw what was going on in that mysterious region and what it saw was not good. The condemnation of segregation and the Jim Crow laws that enabled it, and even lynchings, caused rebellion in the Democratic Party which resulted in a walk-out of the party by members of the South, the Dixiecrats, who ran their own candidate, Strom Thurmond. These Dixiecrats would eventually find a new home in the Republican Party and in less than two decades would move from being its most stalwart members and supporters to a position whereby they could claim ownership of a second national political party. That mass political migration was racially motivated, inspired and sustained.

The elections of 1952 and 1956 weren’t a referendum on anything. There was a movement developing in the country in the 1950s which eventually resulted in the creation of the John Birch Society in 1958, the precursor of the Tea Party movement of today, and the influence of this movement was evident in the presidential elections of that decade. But, their hatred for Democrats was little more than their hatred for Republicans; they seemed to hate everyone.

The turning point in the elections of the 1950s was the popularity of Eisenhower. As a slogan, “I Like IKE” was an altruism which transcended party lines. Everyone liked IKE, Republicans and Democrats alike.

In 1960, the campaign was ugly; the ugliness raised the specter of religious bigotry. John Kennedy had to make a courtesy call to a group of Baptist ministers and pledge that as the President of the United States he would carry out his responsibilities independent of his own church and independent of the Pope. The very idea that a candidate would have to make such a pledge should be offensive to Americans, and those who currently are haranguing for an American Theocracy should be held to the same level of religious independence as they held the then candidate Kennedy.

My own family, steeped in fundamentalist Christianity, was furnished a strong diet of anti-Catholicism. Suddenly, preachers and others became aware of the Catholic Church. The Bible was read with new interest in prophesies of the New Testament which, in the interpretation of the reader, referenced the Catholic Church and the Papacy. Of course, the interpretation just happened to confirm the suspicions and biases already held by the reader. There was one preacher who had spent his life becoming an “expert” on Catholicism; he spoke on little else. During the campaign of 1960, his services were in great demand as a travelling evangelist. He confirmed our greatest fears and ratified our preconceived notions.

With the continual weakening of public support of the Democratic Party, it was alright for me to support Goldwater in 1964 and still claim to be a nominal Democrat. In Oklahoma, at that time, there were few Republicans. Among elected officials, there were hardly any Republicans whatsoever. In most districts, the results of the primary election determined the officeholder as there were no Republican candidates to field a contest in the general election.

It wasn’t just the decline of the Democratic Party that made it alright for me to campaign for Barry Goldwater. I was being heavily influenced by the Libertarian thoughts of the time, probably due to my youth and youthful ignorance. And, the influence of the John Birch Society, and lesser inflammatory propaganda machines, spreading information on the evil of communism, socialism and big government, had an effect on my own thoughts. But, the primary reason for my endorsement of Goldwater was, probably, that Johnson was the candidate of my father and his generation. I was looking for something different.

While racism did not come into significant play in the campaign of 1964, there was a great deal of campaigning against the poor. It was the beginning of railing against the welfare system, as if that alone was bringing about a decline in America and Western Civilization. Cursing the “welfare state” had been a staple of the Birchers and was quickly becoming a staple of the Republican Party. The peculiar thing about all this is that I had no idea at the time what the John Birch Society was, but I was obviously heavily influenced by their doctrines. And, secondly, I was not too far above the poverty line myself, if any at all. I have often reflected on that time and find my conduct somewhat curious. While I am disappointed in myself and my failure to analyze current events and social problems better in those days, I take some comfort in the fact that I eventually became more astute in my observations and better at applying the teachings of Jesus to my daily life.

I came to understand that the government is not my enemy; it is a tool to be used for the benefit of everyone. Problems were simply too big for us to think we could ignore them. And the problems were too big for a single person or a few people to solve. Neither could we address them by expecting responses from organizations occasionally rushing to aid those less advantaged. Sometimes, droughts were too extreme, storms were too severe, national and regional catastrophes were too serious, and economic recessions and depressions were too destructive for the problems to be addressed by anything or anyone short of the entire corporate body of America. There is only one association in which we are all members; we are all citizens of America, and live under the Constitution of the United States and the government created under the auspices of that Constitution.

When campaigning for Barry Goldwater, I was often dismissed with the observation that, in the mind of my hearer, it was a good thing that I wasn’t old enough to vote. I was trying to convince my father, a child of the Great Depression, that he should consider voting for Goldwater, and in the course of the conversation I made some remark which reflected a haughty attitude toward the poor. He listened for a while and finally said, “Son, your problem is that you’ve never seen a man begging for money to pay for burying his little girl who starved to death.” And, with that, I started to think.

The Stovall

Beckham County Courthouse
Sayre, Oklahoma

There weren’t that many institutions for a kid when I was young, the early part of a transition stage when society was moving from adult-centric to one being focused on youth. We were moving from a culture that honored adults to one that worshipped youth and set kids up as the beneficiaries of our largesse. By being on the wrong side of history and time, I essentially missed both eras. Few things were provided for us as kids but we did have two experiences, dragging Main Street and the Stovall Theater.

“Dragging Main” was something we could do for hours. In Sayre, Main Street was four or five blocks long, depending on where you started counting the west end. The County Courthouse sat at the east end and you could either go to the left, out of town east on State Highway 152, or make an approved U-turn and go back west on the same street. Dragging main had a set pattern. Beginning at the Courthouse, we drove west two blocks to where Main intersected U.S. 66, turned right and drove north on 4th Street (U.S. 66) nearly to the end of town where the highway veered toward the east. A block or so east we circled the Dairy Mart Drive In. Sometimes we stopped there for a drink or fries or their best offering, the Chili Cheese Burger. As we circled we got back on U.S. 66, drove south on 4th Street and back to Main. Turning right on Main, one could drive either one or two blocks west, shoot a “U” and then drive east on Main. At the courthouse, we made another U-turn and started the drive all over again.

If we saw friends afoot, we would stop and give them a ride. Sometimes we would ride together and leave a car sitting for a few rounds. Some nights we had a girl friend with us and others it was just a carload of boys or girls. It was a constant flow of traffic on and around Main Street for hours on end. We could do it because gas was less than a quarter a gallon and we did it because there wasn’t much else to do. An alternative was to stop and go to the movies at the Stovall Theater.


The Stovall was an institution which was born, grew and thrived, and then declined and died before my very eyes. Built, owned and operated by George Stovall, it opened for business June 22, 1950, and provided just about the only entertainment available to young people, and even families, for more than two decades. Of course there were ball games and a few other activities available through the schools but that was about it. The theater was the dominate gathering in town. There were many churches and social groups but there was only one theater. There were surrounding towns and settlements, each with their own schools, social organizations and churches, but there was only one theater. George held sway over the community bringing the world to our little town, thereby laying claim to at least a portion of most of the entertainment dollars, few as they were, which were then available.

He hadn’t always been a theater operator. He became a jobber, involved in the wholesale delivery of gasoline, when he purchased the local Magnolia Oil Company in 1925, along with the Mobil station on South 4th Street. But he moved into the new industry shortly after that. Hollywood was cranking out movies as never before. The industry was converting from silent movies to “talkies” and the public, longing for both entertainment and escapism, was taking to the movies with alacrity. In 1934he built the Rio and claimed his place in the business of theater.

The country was deep in the Great Depression during the 1930s and Sayre and the surrounding area was hit hard, perhaps as hard as or harder than the rest of the country. Not only was there an economic depression, there was also a crippling Dust Bowl over a large area of the Great Plains which included Sayre and most of Western Oklahoma. People were suffering, trying in vain to squeeze productivity out of a land without water. People were jobless, sometimes dying of the most rudimentary problem, starvation. Many people fled the area but many more stayed and tried to cope with the elements, tried to play the hand which they had been dealt.

Those people suffering the depression had to have something to draw their minds off their everyday suffering. They went to the movies, watched Hollywood’s fantasies and imagined themselves in those grand places and glorious costumes doing those exciting things while living those exciting lives. It was in this setting that George built the Rio. In 1936 he bought the Ute Theater from his competitor and from then on he had a monopoly on this type entertainment in Sayre.

I remember the Ute and I think I remember the Rio. We lived on a farm in the Hext community, located between Erick and Sayre. Closer to Erick, it was our town for most purposes. As a small child in the late 1940s, there were three small theaters in Erick, a town of about 1500 people. My family enjoyed going to the movies. The Depression was over, having ended with the public works provided by the Roosevelt Administration and the successful involvement in World War II. But there was still the need for escapism and there was more money available for entertainment than there had been in the 1930s. There were a few times we would go see a movie in every available theater in Erick during a week or weekend and then go see whatever was available in Sayre. This was during the 1940s and on into the 50s for a brief while. Then there were other things that became important to our family and took up our time, thus restricting time we had available to go to the movies. We became involved with church and its activities which took up more of our time and there were, beginning in 1950, four children in elementary school which placed demands on our time as well. These things, together with the introduction of television locally in the mid-1950s, meant our own reduced involvement in the movies.

We attended the Ute Theater often in the latter 1940s. Mainly western fare, the Ute was an enjoyable theater, about the same quality as the ones in Erick. I have many memories of seeing old black and white movies of the 1930s there, along with many westerns of the same era. There was always the standard fare of morality plays, good guys and bad guys. Good guys always won. They rode the fastest horses, shot the fastest and straightest guns, won the fights and gained the hearts of the prettiest girls. Bad men lost. Indians were nearly always bad, an unfortunate stereotype of early Hollywood. One time I even remember seeing Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a black and white silent movie. It was the only silent movie I ever saw in a theater.

In 1950, sixteen years into the industry, George built the Stovall and shortly afterwards closed the Ute. (The Rio had been closed earlier.) The Stovall was a grand theater for that day. A single screen theater, everything was new and beautiful. The architectural style of the theater is often spoken of as western but a closer look reveals a mid-twentieth century modern appearance. The box office was just off the right side of the entrance and there was a large and inviting lobby in which you entered. George or another family member was there to take the ticket you had just purchased from the box office. There were two entrances into the theater itself from the lobby and a large concession stand was situated against the wall between the two entrances. You could get just about everything from that concession stand. It was my first experience getting pickle juice or a “pickle Coke.” I would buy a nickel’s worth of pickle juice which was the limit they would sell you. They didn’t want you getting sick during the movie. There was a boy’s restroom off to the left of the lobby and, I assume, a girl’s to the right. That was the first place I ever saw a urinal built into the floor. While the “standing urinal” is one of humankind’s better inventions, to build it right into the floor was a work of genius. The only way to make it better would be to construct an artificial tree in the middle of the restroom with drains all around the bottom in the floor.

The screen was larger than any I had seen before although it was probably not any larger than most in other towns. Two aisles with three sections of seating, there was a larger section in the center and smaller ones on each side. It was a good theater. The facilities were clean and beautiful. They were comfortable. The movie selections continued to be the morality plays, mainly westerns, that didn’t change much. Color movies became commonplace and Hollywood started making some epics. Stars became bigger than life. The MGM musicals of the 50s all made their way to the Stovall.

I attended high school in Sayre, graduating in 1962. I dragged main and I went to the Stovall. I watched many movies, some not worth the time I invested and some leaving an impression on me I will never forget. I took dates to the Stovall, sometimes went alone and sometimes met friends there. There was usually someone there I could sit with. One of the things we did back then that I still find quite amusing was that we would go to the movies when it was convenient, often coming in after the movie was already in progress. We would go in, take our seats and watch from that point forward. We would watch to the conclusion, watch the credits, the advertisements, the previews and the comedy and then begin the feature film. When it got to the point where we came in, we would get up and leave.

George would walk up and down the aisles from time to time. He carried a flashlight in his pocket and used it when he needed to see better or call attention to someone or something. We were expected to behave. We could hold hands, put our arms around our date’s shoulder and maybe sneak a kiss now and then. Sometimes there was a little more than that but it wasn’t openly tolerated. Not by our parents, not by our social structure and not by George. He demanded and he received respect and proper behavior. I never saw him eject anyone from the theater but I always knew he could and assumed he would.

I graduated in 1962 and left town. From time to time I would return to Sayre and go to the movies. With improvement in television, the movies took a beating. They couldn’t compete for a time. George, like the rest of us, got older and the day came he couldn’t run the theater anymore. And then he wasn’t there at all except in a memory, a cherished memory. The theater changed hands and Barbara Lewis completely rebuilt the interior, putting in a smaller screen and reducing the seating capacity. The outside was in a state of disrepair. It closed and someone else tried to reopen it. Finally it closed for the last time. It sits there on Main Street, a block from the courthouse, recognizable to those of us who came to see her and her offerings of entertainment in better days. The owner advertises that she is for sale and more than one of us looks at her longingly, wondering if we could possibly take it over and make a go of it. Probably not.

The Ute and the Rio are gone. The Stovall is also nothing more than a memory. George is gone. His daughter, Micki, is a dear friend of mine. We dated in high school and went to the movies in a neighboring town. Her dad walked the aisles of the Stovall.

Jack LaLanne and Mom

Jack LaLanne died yesterday (1/23/2011) at the age of 97. My mom died in November, 2007. They never met but I am sure she had an unrequited love for the man on some level. He was a greater influence on her life than most people, men or women.

It was the middle of the 1950s that we got our first television. Living 150 miles from the nearest station and transmitter, our reception was poor. A small black and white screen in a large, cumbersome cabinet provided entertainment we had never even imagined before. We had a large antenna stuck atop a pole sixty feet up in the air that drew in three stations, two from Oklahoma City and one from Enid. We watched more snow than we did actual broadcast pictures but nothing dampened our enthusiasm for that new mode of entertainment. And on the rare occasion the signal was clear, we could see the performance as clearly as our relatives who lived in the City.

Jack LaLanne was a fitness guru who was ahead of his time. His fitness and exercise show which was begun in 1951 went national on the ABC network and my mother was one of its first devotees. She exercised every morning with Jack. When he kicked, so did she. When he did sit-ups, she was there lying on the floor with him, keeping up with him all the way. They did jumping-jacks, deep knee bends, stretches, toe-touches and nearly everything one could imagine back then. They weren’t muscle burning, sweat producing, aerobic exercises. They were simply consistent movement which trained the muscles to be active and would have exercised the lungs and heart as well.

She also listened to the message of a simple diet and healthy living, something which would be a part of her the rest of her life. It was a time when she developed habits that helped her live as long as she did. She lived to the age of 90 even though she had a serious heart attack nearly 50 years earlier. Her heart was damaged by a blood clot running through it and this happened not just once but several times, resulting in an arrhythmia which would always trouble her.

It was Jack’s message which probably caused her to think it was not good to eat too much sugar or salt. In her later years she would intentionally not eat too much. She never overate and always “left the table a little hungry.” Overeating put too much work on your system, she would explain. And she never ate late at night. If one couldn’t eat before five o’clock it was better to go to bed without eating and have a good breakfast the next morning. She was convinced that a lot of people who think they are having a heart attack at night were just experiencing indigestion from eating too close to bed time. A late night snack was unheard of in her house. She ate vegetables and fruit whenever possible. Not a vegetarian at all, she believed meat of any kind was just a complement to the vegetables with which it was served. And too much red meat was foolish, but then again, too much of anything was foolish.

There was a time she was talking to a younger woman who was having problems with yeast infections. She explained that she, then in her 80s, had never had such an infection. She shared with the younger woman that she needed to drink buttermilk and eat yogurt. She was appalled at the medicines I take, suggesting I needed to replace some of those with vitamins and minerals. Regarding vitamins and minerals, one can get most of what they needed if they will eat properly. But supplements were alright. Regarding doctors, people probably shouldn’t go to them with every little thing. Sometimes all you need is to eat right and exercise a little every day.

She arose early every morning, around 5:30. Before getting out of bed she would stretch and do deep breathing. And morning exercises, including her stationary bicycle, were part of her morning right up to the day she died. She was 90 years old, still going where she wanted to go and doing what she wanted to do. Her body functioned well and her mind was good. She was getting ready for church one Sunday morning and literally dropped dead. She was probably dead before she hit the floor.

Her longevity and her wonderful quality of life were something which could, at least in part, be attributed to what she learned from Jack. She and Jack LaLanne had a long-term relationship wherein he was the teacher, she was the pupil; he was the master, she was the disciple. And then she became the teacher herself, making it her life’s project to teach her children, her grandchildren and all who would listen that there are ways to help oneself.

Dog Vocabulary

I am convinced that dogs understand a considerable amount of human language. “Heel,” “stop,” “lay down” and other common commands are some we readily know are a part of a dog’s vocabulary. Having experimented in my own home with dogs belonging to She Who Must be Obeyed, I am constantly amazed just how extensive their language potential and abilities are. I have to work with her dogs because I have none of my own. I would have one good dog if the decision was mine but she prefers a pack of mutts. She has three Chihuahuas which had no home, a Boxer/Lab mix that needed a home and no one else wanted her, and a Beagle/Blue Healer mix rescued from a dog rescue place.

Two of these dogs came from Second Chance in Norman and another from a similar organization in Yukon. Another Chihuahua came from a man who was on his way to Second Chance to drop her off and the final came from one of her friends who had a dog with a litter of ten pups and no one wanted them. “Hell,” I said, “I don’t want her either.” But there was never a question as to whether my wants were of any concern; it was just a statement and rationale as to why she had to bring the thing home with her. All these canines have a few things in common, they are her dogs and they are some of the most stupid dogs as a group I have ever seen. And they don’t like me. Even though I am the one who feeds them and makes sure they have water. Even though I am the one who walks them when they are walked, play with them when they are played with, and train them to be respectable citizens.

These are the dogs which have demonstrated to me that they have a certain level of human vocabulary and mastery of at least a minimal level of human communication. For example, I have noticed they understand profanity. I can say, “Come here you precious little darlings,” or some such syrupy language in an endearing tone and they have no respect for me at all. Or I can unleash a level of profanity that would remove barnacles from a battleship and that gets their attention. They don’t understand “please” and “thank you” but they seem to have a high level of comprehension when I burn their little ears with a string of profanity which would make Mark Twain proud. (She Who Must be Obeyed isn’t around when I teach them this noble language nor has she ever read anything I have ever written.)

I finally have them (the Chihuahuas) trained to the point that they will go to their room (the utility room where their bed is kept) by saying in a specific tone, “Go to your room.” Anything other than that phrase and they are at a loss where to go or what to do. I believe they could be eating a T-bone steak and if I uttered those words in that particular tone they would leave it alone and go to their room. Perhaps not Precious, but the others would. She’s the little rotund one that animal lovers would probably accuse us of abuse for allowing her to get so fat.

I have to say “Go to bed” for the Lab/Boxer mix, Cupcake, a name given by my then seven year old daughter, to go to the same room. The Beagle mix, Snoopy, won’t respond to anything. She is pretty good about running to the car when we drive up to see if there is anything we have with us which she can eat. But that’s about the limit of her intelligence. She used to go out and try to fight coyotes but she’s getting a little old for that. She barks more than the other four put together and if she sees someone walking on a nice day she will bark at them. If they are walking their dog she will give it a whipping for them. I can yell at her at the top of my voice and she’ll not respond. So when I see someone coming our way, I usually have to open the door and have her come inside while they go by.

Another expression all of them seem to have familiarized themselves with is the word that indicates they are going out to the back yard. I yell, “Outside,” putting the emphasis on the first syllable and they all run to and out the back door. All, that is, except Precious if she’s still chewing on that T-bone. After they have been out for a while I can say,” Let’s go!” and they will come back to the door. If She Who Must be Obeyed is outside with them they may or may not come back inside. Precious is just as likely to run across the street and down to the neighbor’s house at which time she will have to go retrieve her and I listen carefully to learn new words I had never even heard in legal circles. Lawyers are too delicate to say some of the things she says at that time even though, compared to me, she is something of an amateur using such language and sounds silly.

I have concluded that these dogs, as stupid as they are, have a somewhat limited vocabulary of human words. I am still observing the cat. I think he knows more human language than he lets on. In fact, I have learned to read his mind and that seems to be the extent of our communication. I will give him a command and he will look up at me and telepathically say, “Who the hell do you think you are. The Egyptians worshipped my forbears as a god; yours were nothing but worthless slaves lifting those large stones in building the pyramids.” Because of his total disdain for me and my kind, I don’t try to teach him much. We’re both happier that way.

I will continue to research and report. But for now, suffice it to say that dogs understand something of what you say. They have a limited vocabulary of human words. So be careful of your speech. I don’t yet know what they are doing with the information.

Cage Fighting

Listening to the radio, I was invited to attend a sport spectacular—cage fighting! Now there’s an opportunity I hate to miss. How have I made it so long without watching the equivalent of a barroom fight, a sanctioned barroom fight?

I have seen “barroom” fights, street fights by another name. More than that, I have seen and dealt legally with the results of such fights. Two brothers began a fight in a cheap and sleazy bar which was carried on outside after the management ordered them to leave. One of the brothers pulled a knife, a small pocket knife with no more than a 2 or 3 inch blade. He stabbed his brother and, unfortunately, cut his abdominal aorta artery which resulted in death in a very short time. The fight ended in tragedy. The young man was dead and the other was charged with murdering his brother, and a grieving mother was left behind.

A man and his wife were in an argument which, as often happened between the two of them, turned into physical violence. Each of them was giving as well as they got. She introduced a lamp into the fight and he picked up a piece of firewood, savagely beating her to death. Four young children saw their mother killed by their father who was also lost to them as he had to go to prison for his crime.

Tumbleweeds blew from one field to another, something difficult to control in the American Southwest. The farmer on whom they were blowing got angry as they were getting into his cotton field, there was a confrontation and a fight broke out, one of the men getting the best of the other. The loser of the fight went to town, borrowed a handgun from a local service station and went looking for the other man, finding him at the local pool hall. Finding him there playing dominoes, he sat across from him and asked if he was still feeling brave. The winner of the fight declared he could do it again, whereupon the loser shot him under the table. The bullet entered the victim’s upper abdomen and resulted in death.

These are tragic results from uncontrolled violence. No one expected these things to happen. Those brothers would not have decided to kill each other in normal circumstances. That husband was never expected to beat his wife to death. I’m sure those two farmers spent some good times visiting over the fence, sharing likes and dislikes. The problem is that violence takes on a life of its own. And “controlled” becomes “uncontrollable.”

Violence is becoming an alarming phenomenon in our country. We lament the fact that there is bullying in schools, playgrounds, sports and even families. Fighting, always something of a problem between boys, is now becoming a problem among girls. Physical fights seem to erupt in places we never would have expected before. And they are often recorded for posterity and placed on “Youtube.”

As responsible persons are looking for an answer to this problem, as we try to encourage non-violence, non-violent living and non-violent methods of problem solving, we continue to send mixed messages to society. We speak of the humorous aspects of fighting. We promote fighting and other violence in the media. Movies and television especially use this mode to entertain us. And now, as if we don’t have enough sports, we put two men in a cage and let them fight bare-knuckled for our entertainment and call it a sport. It says very little for these men to engage in such activities but it says even less for us, the spectator.

The “fan”, often a sports-talk radio host who is paid to promote, raises the objection, “Well, boxing’s violent too.” To which I reply, “Okay? Is that the best you have?” There is a difference in both the training and the history of boxing but I don’t have any difficulty comparing the two when discussing the problem of violence in our society. One of the more objectionable aspects of either is that poor people, people with little or no opportunity in life other than fighting for our amusement, are the ones in the ring. We, the fat, pampered and spoiled consumer, are the ones who have an orgasmic-like reaction to the suffering of the young man in the ring. And one shouldn’t compare cage fighting to the violence of football and basketball, it reveals ignorance.

A more apt comparison would be to the gladiators of ancient Rome. This insatiable appetite for human violence on other humans as an entertainment spectacle has always been cited as one of the examples of the diminution of the soul and spirit of the Romans. How far are we from the point of fights to the death? We have people on death row, should we allow them to fight to the death for our entertainment? Is there any activity known to be part of the Roman gladiatorial system which we would find objectionable?

Bare-knuckle fighting, cage fighting, is an unnecessary “sport” which by its very nature is designed to harm someone else. People are harmed in football, basketball, baseball, soccer and virtually every other organized sport. But the harm is incidental to the sport whereas harm is fundamental to cage fighting. Nothing designed to harm another person should be celebrated as a sport, not for the participant and not for the spectator. Neither can engage in the activity without lessening their humanity.

The Rise and Decline of Erick

The town of my youth was Erick, a small town in far Western Oklahoma. It lies next to Interstate 40, just about six miles from the Oklahoma/Texas border. It is about equal distance from Oklahoma City and Amarillo, about 150 miles. When I was a child the town had a population of about 1,500 people, as compared to perhaps 2,500 in Sayre and 4,000 in Elk City. These were the primary towns in Beckham County. There were some other smaller settlements which in their mind may have been considered towns, such as Sweet water, Retro, Delhi and Carter. There were some other smaller settlements but all these would be considered only settlements and communities by objective observers.

El Reno, Oklahoma, the county seat of Canadian County, Oklahoma, is an old town with its principal industry being railroads. It was a crossroad for major train traffic in a time when roads were pitiful, the airlines were not dreamt of and the trains provided the most efficient means of travel both for people and freight. El Reno was a major railroad town even before statehood in 1907.

Beginning in El Reno toward the end of the 19th Century, investors began construction of the Rock Island Rail Road west, finally going into the Texas Panhandle and on toward Amarillo. An allotment of land was allowed the company for the construction as it was in the best interest of the Territory, its economic interest, for the line to built. The “Rock Island Line” was a familiar sight at Erick. Like other towns in Western Oklahoma, the railroad provided access to the greater world. There had been some development of the area utilizing the freighting industry as it was prior to railroads, the freight wagon companies with large wagons heavily laden with freight being drawn by mules or oxen. But it was the railroad which really provided the impetus for development and growth.

There was a company created which was always in the forefront of the development along the Rock Island Line. The Choctaw Townsite and Improvement Company was a corporation which had some kind of relationship with the railroad company. It was probably simply that the principals were the same. But along the way from El Reno west the Choctaw company was instrumental in developing the townsites along the route. At Bridgeport and then again at Hydro, the Choctaw company obtained title to a townsite which was surveyed and sold off to people wishing to settle there. The principals in the company were familiar names from my childhood, people such as John Bonebreak and Beeks Erick.

After Hydro they moved on westward with the construction of the railroad and did the same thing in Weatherford. When they learned that another line was approaching the present location of Elk City, they went there and acquired land to create another town. Elk City was created by the same people using the same methodology and the Rock Island Line ran through it and on to Sayre. All of this activity was prior to statehood. Elk City was created in the year 1901, just six years before Oklahoma became a state. The pattern of townsite development by the Choctaw company was repeated in Sayre and then in Erick.

Land was acquired in Erick by the Choctaw Townsite and Improvement Company, it was surveyed and sold off to prospective businessmen who saw it as an opportunity to create businesses and homes. In many ways it was the last frontier in the United States and was seen as a last chance for people to make something of their lives. The development of the railroad west of Erick did not afford the same opportunities. In Texas there were other developers who would take advantage of opportunities there. As the last stop for the Choctaw company, Beeks Erick, who lent his name to the town, set up business there making it the base for his life and fortune, as did H.E. and John Bonebreak. Bonebreak’s Hardware was an established business operating well into the middle of the 20th Century. Both men also had farm land outside of Erick.

When the town was first formed it sat at a simple crossroad of county roads and cattle trails. The Territory had been surveyed (would eventually be surveyed twice) and roadways had been determined. But there were no paved roads at that time. These roadways were generally simply section lines. Farmers and ranchers could come into town by horseback or wagons but there was no longer a need for the freight wagons to bring goods from the outside. The railroad provided the connection to the world with its goods. The railroads provided the shipping for the produce of the farms and ranches to the more populated markets.

With the development of the automobile, Western Oklahoma changed as did the entire American society and culture. What little travel there was from town to town had to take advantage of the section lines and the county roads which were themselves often merely cow trails. The road from Erick to Sayre is a very good example of this connection. To get to the town of Erick one would go directly west out of Sayre to the North Fork of the Red River. There would eventually be a wooden bridge which was later designated the Corn Stalk Bridge. There is little information available that would indicate when it assumed this moniker but it was probably long after a modern bridge was constructed over the same river just south of Sayre and was used as the crossing for Route 66 when it was built. The old Corn Stalk Bridge remained in service for years but was allowed to go into disrepair. It finally washed out and was not replaced sometime in about 1960 or 1961. In earlier days after crossing the river at the Corn Stalk Bridge the traveler would go west until just directly north of Erick. A straight line along the county roads would take you into the northeast quarter of the town.

U.S. Highway 66 was conceived by people in Springfield, Missouri. It was one of the first major modern highways designed to connect the country. With its origin in Chicago, it ran through St. Louis, on to Oklahoma, through Tulsa and Oklahoma City. It went west to El Reno and then paralleled the Rock Island Line. On its way to Amarillo and then on to California (it ended at the ocean), it ran through Erick. From east to west, it ran right down through the town and the town built itself around it. Erick was connected to the rest of the world both through the Rock Island Line and Route 66.

The highway was conceived and authorized in 1926 and the roadway was constructed in its present location (basically along Interstate Highway 40 in Western Oklahoma) during the 1930s. It provided needed work for people during the Depression. The final paving of Route 66 was not completed until 1938. John Steinbeck’s novel and subsequent movie, The Grapes of Wrath, shows Okies traveling along paved roads all the way to California. There were a lot of people traveling in that migration along simple dirt roads.

Following World War II, the automobile industry totally changed the American landscape and Western Oklahoma was not immune to that change. By then Route 66 ran right through town and while it was only a two lane road it did, nonetheless, carry a great deal of traffic. Another road was built and paved, connecting people and settlements north and south of the town. With the increased travel, services for the people on the roads were provided. Cafes (few were hardly worthy of the term “restaurant”) and motels (originally called “tourist courts”) sprang along the road, including in Erick. Service stations were there to provide fuel and service for the travelers.

There was a four way stop sign at the intersection of Main and Broadway Streets in Erick. And every car and truck traveling along Route 66 had to go through Erick and had to stop at that four way stop sign. Technology enabled the sign to be replaced with a stop light, a single blinking red light situated to stop all traffic going through town, both north/south traffic and east/west traffic. That stop light would eventually be replaced with a traffic light which remains there today.

The 1950s also saw that portion of Route 66 made into a four lane roadway under the leadership of Raymond Gary, Governor of the State of Oklahoma. He was the only governor of the State of Oklahoma who ever showed an interest in Western Oklahoma and its welfare.

The existence of Route 66 enabled the people of that little town to be connected with the world. It was before television, before the internet, before all those institutions which would bring people together and make the world smaller. World War II had exposed an entire generation to a larger world and the development of the automobile industry with better roads and facilities had allowed that area of the state to interact with people from all over the world. Having grown up in and near Erick and being well acquainted with people from the entire area, it seemed there was a social and intellectual advantage to living on that fabled road. It brought prosperity to the town. People had to purchase gasoline and other services while passing through. They ate at cafes. They stayed in motels. More significantly, it opened the world to us. We met and sometimes visited with people from all over the world. People from New York stopped at my father’s service station and they were no longer a mystery. Illinois, California, the Eastern Seaboard. These people were now known to us. The Pacific Northwest. Canada. The Northeast.

I could tell a difference in people who lived along that road, the Mother Road of the United States. Kids and their families who lived ten and fifteen miles both north and south of the road did not seem to be as aware of the world as those who lived on Route 66.

Erick was prospering. It was benefiting from the economic advantage of having a railroad pass through it and having a major highway pass through it. In the 1940s and 1950s there were families on nearly every quarter section of land. These 160 acres farmsteads were often home to families with any where from two to four kids. These families would come into Erick for their shopping needs and for church. Sometimes, even for their kids to receive an education. It was a common sight for families to come to town on Saturdays to sell produce and to purchase necessities. And they simply came to socialize.

You could see everyone on Saturdays. You could go to the barber shop (there were two of them in town) and you could go to a drug store (two of them) which had full fountain service. You could go to the grocery store, clothing store and any other store you needed. There were movie theaters (two and for a short time a third), pool halls, car dealerships, cafes, ice cream parlors, and many other businesses. Two good banks and a host of churches. Main street was lined with cars, often double parked, and the sidewalks were crowded with people. It was a prosperous and busy time and Erick was at its peak both socially and economically.

President Eisenhower had a vision of a modern highway system for America. He had been impressed with the Lincoln Highway as a young Army officer and with the German Autobahn during and after World War II. He envisioned the construction of four lane highways all over the country to be used for military purposes and, when not so used, to be available for commercial and personal use. That vision led to the Interstate Highway system.

Erick and its surrounding area began to fail. Part of it is that it is an agricultural area and that industry isn’t as profitable as it once was. Mechanization and chemicals made it possible for a single farmer, with his crew, to work more land. This resulted in fewer farm families working the same land and whereas there had once been a family on each quarter section, the land became more sparsely populated. As young people grew up there were no jobs available for them and they were unable to stay. They had to leave Erick to find a job.

The other reason for Erick’s demise was the development of the Interstate Highway system. I-40 was built in Western Oklahoma to follow the same basic route as the old Route 66. But it did not go through the towns. It bypassed the small towns along the route so that traffic could flow at a greater speed.

Erick, like every other small town along the way, was bypassed. And with that the town began its rapid spiral downward.

The interstate highways also enabled the trucking industry to develop and this spelled the death of the railroads. Years later, while driving along an interstate highway, fighting my way through the heavy truck traffic, a passenger in the car said, “They should build a road just for trucks so we wouldn’t have to drive in all this.” I replied, “They used to have such a road. It was called a railroad.”

With the death of the railroad (and the eventual disappearance of the Rock Island Line) and the loss of traffic through town, businesses were lost which once marked the prosperity of that little community. Cafes and motels were the first victims. Then service stations. Then loss of other businesses was like cutting into and removing muscle. Erick was a little doomed town that would reach a pitiful level of population and services. With any luck it would arrive at a level plateau and the town would never actually disappear completely. It seems some towns remain alive simply because there is no place for the last of the people to go.

Several years ago, Disney came out with the movie Cars. It was the story of a small town in Arizona which was bypassed by Interstate Highway 40. The old Route 66 had once run right through Radiator Springs but when I-40 was built around it it began to decline and by the time of the story of Cars it was struggling to just barely stay alive. A children’s story, I watched it with interest. There, I thought, is the story of Erick.

With its boarded up store fronts and its dilapidated buildings, the single little traffic light flashes signals to roads with little traffic. It stands as a sentry to a better time and if one will just look back past the empty bank buildings, the empty grocery and drug stores, the disappeared cotton gins and movie theaters, the abandoned motels and cafes, the deserted service stations, one can see the ghosts of people who once lived and loved and made Erick their home.