Life changing sounds – Music, Beer Joints & a Baby
- The Con man, fellow student & top shelf bar fly.
- top floor main street 3 room apartment – home base kinda!
- The pool shark, girl magnet, trouble maker ‘Top Pocket’
- Sport editor, news photographer, and Bulldog’s fan.
- Became an Infatuated connoisseur of music and bars (beer joints)
The Okmulgee era of mine & Camilla’s journey in life is an important one that shaped much of our future.
- the Main Street apartment,
- the Tech school,
- the jukebox in every beer joint,
- the going from darkroom to covering a championship team
This is not a long story made short this is a long story – made real! The beginning of our together life started out much like how the rest
This is not a long story made short this is a long story – made real! The beginning of our together life started out much like how the rest of our life together went! Like the bass sound coming from a boom box – Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Boom! we got to know each other in Alamogordo, Boom! we got married, Boom! I went to Vietnam, Boom! Soon as I return from Vietnam we went to Okemah, Boom! our oldest was conceived, Boom! we were in Okmulgee, and Boom! Holly was born.
In another chapter I talked about changing and how important to me and even addicted to change i have always been.
While obviously the year in Vietnam really infected me (yes i think the word infected is a better word than affected)! While the constant sounds or mortars & jets & GI slang, Vietnam era songs & Vietnamese chatter from Hanoi Hanna deeply affect me the 2 years in Okmulgee was even more significant if forming who I became and who I am than the 1 year in Vietnam.
The events I experienced in Vietnam (see the STO in Vietnam story) prepared the landscape of my heart and mind for the Life changing sounds – Music, Beer Joints & a Baby of Okmulgee Okla!
As I write this chapter of my life’s story, I can see blatant and unexplainable selfishness forming in my mind, heart & attitude!
I’m not going to attempt to explain or wax eloquently or put into these stories any deep philosophical meaning for everything that happened during almost 2 years in Okmulgee – It just happened so I’m just going to tell it like it was and let the thoughts and stories happen.
Life-changing sounds just happened and my response to those life-changing sounds just happened and those sounds will forever define what happened to me and those around me!
Our little apartment in Okmulgee was cool. I would lay on the floor for hours late at night with the speakers V shaped over my head and face and listen and learned from another love of my life – music. More about who I enjoy listening to later in this article.
A few of the more powerful life-changing sounds came from the new mind-blowing music, a precious new baby and loud smelly juke joints (also known as beer halls or beer joints). The speakers that those sounds emanated from was Okmulgee Oklahoma!
As Chris Stapleton recently sang – what are you listening to….? As Chris Stapleton recently sang – what are you listening to….? The song link is with lyrics and sadly maybe an add – but the lyrics are important to the story! Get teary-eyed every time I hear it…..
Speaking of Songs and Lyrics: But our drug of choice was alcohol!
Anyway, the late 60 and early 70 produced some butt kickin’ music and musicians. Easy to Google and get a list but here are a few that I was really into during that time period.
Sly and the Family’s Stone, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Delaney Bonnie and friends (which included at the time Eric Clapton and George Harrison), Janice Joplin, Bonnie Raitt, Allman Brothers, Leon Russell, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, BB King, Paul,Butterfield Blues, and of course Jimi Hendrix and especially Country Joe and the Fish.
Another very popular song at the time was one from Country Joe and the Fish. . My favorite verses from my favorite song of theirs (“I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag”), which I memorized and memorialized in my mind’s eye a year earlier in Vietnam. The original album version from 1967 was the cleaner “Fish Cheer”: F-I-S-H. They swapped the last three letters (I,S,H) for U,C,K) starting around 1968 but both versions started with ‘Give me a F’. That change certainly harmonized with the lyrics of Dylan’s 1963 song ‘The They times they were a-Changin’.
And it’s one, two, three, what are we fighting for?
Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn
Next stop is Vietnam.
And it’s five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain’t no time to wonder why,
Whoopie! We’re all gonna die!
Often, when I had a choice, who and what I listened to was dictated by my mood. I would crank up certain music and genres according to the mood of the day. My mood, Camilla’s, my friends, bosses and teachers and etc, but also according to the weather, money, health, current local events or what I read in school and at home. Believe it or not I was an avid reader.
Psychology Today was my favorite. It was a magazine published every two months in the United States since 1967. I devoured it and it devoured me…. many of the thought and theories in it literally consumed my thinking.
Of honorable mention but not in any specific order I also was crazy about the following musicians and bands:
Canned Heat, Johnny Winters, Ry Cooder, Stevie Ray Vaughn, ZZ Tops, Booker T & the MG’s Fleetwood Mac, Joe Cocker, Jeff Beck, Steppenwolf, The Doors, Pink Floyd, John Lennon, Bob Dylan (from protest to rock), Jimi Hendrix, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Charley Pride, Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, James Brown, Sam and Dave, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gay, Temptations, Supremes, Jerry Butler, Curtis Mayfield,, Joan Baez (a little), Woody & Arlo Guthrie, (Not Pete Seger and the Momma and the Pappas – real light weights), Bob Marley, Crosby Still Nash and Young, Ritchie Havens, Albert King, Freddie King, John Lee Hooker, Bobby Bland, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Taj Mahal, Son House, Mississippi John Hurt and Bob Seger… to name just a few!!!
There were also other music genres but they all kinda mixed together or overlapped – point is the sound of mind-blowing music that started in the late 60 was everywhere in every music category and opened the door wide for groups to come like the Eagles in 71….
Janice Joplin was becoming a favorite of mine but she died in 1970 about the same time Holly was born so one sound was replaced by another sound!
Janice was a good singer and Holly was a good baby! Anyway, I thought she was! I was only able to enjoy Janice occasionally, but the joy of a firstborn can never be repeated and affected me like no other sound or singer could ever do.
All the crazy stuff here-in happened when we lived in Okmulgee.
We arrived in Okmulgee driving a 1966 Buick Skylark and left Okmulgee in a new 1971 Chevy Nova 4 Door! Camilla said I wrecked the Buick while I was in Okmulgee, but I can’t remember anything about it but most likely she’s right. However, the discussion did reveal that I had wrecked (and I mean wrecked not banged up) two trucks and two cars (3 of those while drinking heavily) and she had ‘dented’ only two cars!
We lived down at the West end of Main Street (6th Street)! Upstairs across from the laundromat and above a car repair shop. I can remember the stairs going up to the apartment were in a wide stairwell and if I stretch my arms out as wide as possible, I couldn’t touch both side at the same time so I would often run up the stairs, arms outstretched, touching one side then the other then the other then the other! All the way to the top! It’s amazing at the weird little things we remember in life.
Our south window faced the laundromat north entrance! There was two benches outside the laundromat that patrons would see it and wait for their laundry to be finished!
I used to love to and sit and stare at people sitting on the benches and see if I could exercise mind control over those sitting outside! I tried various methods of trying to control their mind by getting them to scratch their head or stand up or look up at me! When one of them did I took credit for getting them to do so just by my intense efforts at mind control! Couple times I was even able to get them to laugh out loud!
All coincidences, probably, but it was so fun, and I learned a lot about myself doing so! Remember I was soon to major in philosophy/psychology after I finished my two years studying industrial electronics at Oklahoma State University and Okmulgee!
I theorized that thought waves were somewhat like electrical waves (which I was studying). I felt given the right path & focus I could exercise some power over objects & people if I concentrated intensively enough on them. Could be I was right! But who knows since I couldn’t prove if I was able to or if I was just fooling myself! I read a lot about hypnosis and thought control!
Now about my three closest friends I ran with in Okmulgee – 1st One Eli
Let’s start by allowing me to introduce you to Eli Maghe Jr. a very complex, confusing & at times perplexing personality. That sounds about right even if I do say so myself 👏
Good or bad, like my dad, I would do anything for anyone that I considered a friend and was willing to suffer the consequences of doing so with my wife or my Dads wife – my mom 😐 I considered Eli my friend! I could tell I was his only friend except for his wife who was about 10 years older than him!
Eli Maghe! Overweight, extremely smart Conman! We attended the same Industrial Electronics classes together at Okmulgee State Tech. Now known as Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology. He was my most loyal friend in Okmulgee!
Eli, was five or six years older than me, enjoyed going to juke joints and beer halls as much as I did & when we went together, I’m not sure who’s idea it was his or mine! Doesn’t matter we both immensely enjoyed beer joints. However, Eli could’ve cared less about music which really confuse me!
BTW back then and to some degree even now, as this link suggest, Beer halls, Beer Joints, Juke Joints and Honkytonks are pretty much the same kind of places with just a different name but only slightly different atmosphere.
Eli was very generous! No way I could’ve enjoyed the honkytonk bars and beer joints if I would’ve had to pay for my own beer! If there was an entrance fee, he paid for it and at the end of the night he always picked up the tab!
Even though I never asked him to he insisted on keeping me supplied with quarters to feed into all the Juke boxes and pool tables.
He could drive better with two 6 packs of beer under his belly than most people could drive sober (or so I reasoned with myself when I had to ride with him as we bar hopped)
We were a pair. I loved to talk and laugh and listen to music and he loved to sit at the Bar, drink beer and go pee 😎
We knew all the bartenders and most of the regulars in most of the juke joints in Okmulgee and Henrietta! Some were redneck bars, some were Indian bars, some were black bars, and some were mixed! We didn’t have a favorite and maybe that’s why we got along so well….
Some were rough places, and he carried a pistol! I didn’t! I didn’t even carry a knife except a pocket knife my dad had given before I went to Vietnam!
His wife was a school superintendent in Okmulgee High School and she loved her much younger beer guzzling husband! Go figure!
She didn’t mind his drinking, but she did worry about his drinking and driving! My wife (your Mom) didn’t like my drinking and would’ve never let me drink and drive!
Since we seldom talked as we run together, I was able to concentrate on the amazing sound coming out of the Juke Boxes every Juke Joint had!
Sometimes we would walk in and when certain bartenders saw us they would play one of my favorite songs or one they thought I would enjoy! Remember Eli was very generous and loved to throw cash around so we often got special beer joint attention from bartender and bar patrons alike! Eli would often buy a round of drinks for everyone at the bar.
Usually by the time we set down they had popped the top on Eli’s favorite beer (Falstaff) and would wait to see what I was gonna fancy that particular day!
Often directly after lunch we would play hooky at school and go straight to a beer joint! We would drink a couple hours past when classes was supposed to be out so that his mom (I mean his wife) wouldn’t be so upset with me for staying out too late and I could go with him again!
He begged me not to work evenings and nights (which I eventually did) because it would cut into our beer time together! There was one evening every week when I told your mom I was working but I was actually getting paid in beer by Eli not to work! Remember mobile phones didn’t come on the scene until 1973 so no surprise calls at work or at school!
Every week he would give me $20 or $30 so I could have a little spending money and not look like a freeloader…. I know strange relationship right! Hey, he used to say you’re a cheap date Rock!
We lost contact when we graduated! Yes, I graduated but Eli often let me cheat over his shoulder! He was so damn smart! Anyway, when I graduated, I went to work for Bendix-United Geophysical Corporation, Oil Exploration! He claimed his wife finagled a good job for him in electronics with the Oklahoma state education department! Did I say besides showing off as some kind of a big spender he like to brag! I didn’t mind him doing either one!!!
He was pretty good at pool and really good at shuffleboard – two more reason he enjoyed the beer joints!
His con artist ways eventually got him in trouble! You can read the whole court case here and you’ll see my name included throughout the court document. . He used me to swindle over $3200 from a bank in Morris Oklahoma! I could’ve went to jail in for the life of me can’t remember what I did….
For a while I thought dang, I’m gonna go to jail just like him but they never said a thing to me other than question me! When I told him the police were questioning me he said just tell the truth so I did! Kinda! He was under investigation from about October 70 till the conclusion of the court case in 74…. he did serve some time but I think he got off with a time served sentence. By then I was already hitting the bars in the panhandle of Oklahoma & Texas and the dozens of bars in Alamogordo, El Paso, Las Cruces and Ruidoso. OK I agree I was a barfly for many many years…
I only had two other friends my two years in Okmulgee – 2nd One Pete Pane. One of them was Pete Pane! My cousin Barbara Pelky‘s husband! Barbara Pelky was Zelda‘s (my Aunt) daughter. Barbara’s first marriage to a drunken Indian failed miserably but Pete was a good husband for her and a good man and a good ballplayer and a good student and to some degree even a good example for me!
Pete liked me because I was 1 (his wife’s favorite cousin, 2) a good second baseman and he had his own sandlot baseball team, actually it was a minor league team and Pete insisted I play for him and I did, and we were good, really good! That made Pete really happy!
Pete didn’t approve of my barhopping days, but he seldom complained to me as long as my beer drinking didn’t get in the way of my playing baseball for him and the team! I did my best to keep that from happening! Everyone my age at that time in Oklahoma love to have a cold beer and no one counted!
My other friend got me in real trouble – TP
Don’t remember his real name! Most everyone called him Top Pocket because of his pool shooting skills. Get it ‘the pockets of a pool table’. For short I called him TP.
TP had a real love for his almost new 66 Mustang! It was a beauty! A 1966 Mustang 2+2 Fastback! Dark black with white rim tires!
He was a Vietnam Vet, so I guess that’s why he was drawn to me! There were other veterans in the class at Okmulgee Tech but none that had been to Vietnam!
He suffered from what is now known as posttraumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) & now acknowledged to be a serious health issue. We didn’t know what PTS was back then we just called those with it ‘messed up’ and he was definitely ‘messed up’. (see Work 2 Me Never a 4 letter word)
TP loved listening to Led Zeppelin and so did I! TP was really good at pool (8 ball) and I wanted to be.
While Eli wouldn’t touch the stuff TP also enjoyed puffing on an occasional joint – so did I! TP was good looking, tall, slim, nice dresser and all the ladies at first sight usually swooned over him plus he owned a 66 Mustang fastback! Generally, He wanted nothing to do with the girls because he thought he was such damaged goods! He was right!
Many beer halls and juke joint also had pool tables – TP was what I considered a pool shark and on one of our first nights out we both got the crap beat out of us. I was thrown in jail for overnight and TP spent two nights in the hospital with a broken nose and a concussion! All because of TP’s pool shark ways!
Here was the way the night was supposed to go: TP & I was going to shoot a few games of pool. He would win a few but lose most of them. As he appeared to get drunker, he appeared to get worse! As he did his thing, I was supposed to became more and more persistent that we should leave before he lost any more money! He would tell me what a jerk I was and to stop trying to tell him what to do and that he could play better pool than me as long as he was sober enough to hold a pool cue!
After he lost a couple hundred dollars he was going to act like a drunken fool and bet 500 with one of the better shooters.
We could’ve won an Academy that night because that’s exactly how it went down except for one small problem. How was two so-called tech School students gonna walk out the door with $500 of the local’s money in TP’s pocket?
The pool hall was upstairs above the beer joint! As TP and I started down the stairs to walk by the bar toward the door (playing on the jukebox was Merle Haggard Okie from Muskogee) and even before we got to the door, I realized we were in for some trouble. So did TP!
Two rough looking redneck Cowboys was right on our heels.
We knew there would be no trouble in the bar because the bartender/owner was NOT about to allow his bar & pool hall to get tore up by a bunch of punk students and loud-mouth cowboys! As we walked up to the bar to order another beer hoping things would calm down the bartender/owner (Who was on the phone probably calling the police) said we’re cutting you two off so just keep on walking. Neither of you are welcome here anymore.
The minute we walk through the front door onto the sidewalk someone coldcocked TP with a cue stick from behind! TP fell to his knees on the sidewalk! One of the pool shooters, a cowboy, kicked TP in the ribs while he was on his knees and proceeded to try and pull out the wad of cash TP had stuffed in his front pocket!
As the cowboy was bent over TP trying to steal the money out of his front pocket I turned around, took two steps forward & kicked the grubby fingered thief cowboy as hard as I could in mid-section. I swear I heard his ribs break.
The other cowboy sucker punched me twice (bam bam) in the face!
I didn’t go down, but one big fat Indian man jumped on me and wrestled me to the ground!
A few seconds later the cops arrived! The big Indian on my back jumped up and ran off. The other cowboy grabbed his friend that I just kicked in the ribs and dragged him back inside the bar!
TP and I were easy pickens for the police! They handcuffed us both and took me to the jail and took TP to the hospital.
They booked me for the night but allowed me to call Camilla! My poor pregnant bride called my mom and the two of them had to come and bail me out of jail! Why mom because Camilla and I was broke so mom paid the fine but I had to do the time (One night in jail) cause I had done the crime!
When they saw how beat up I was they took pity on me for awhile. OK for the night I spent on jail.
Both TP and I lost several days of school because it took us several days to heal! However, word has gotten out about what happened that night so when we went back to class, we were like tech-school heroes. We wore our cuts and bruises and concussions proudly like badges of honor.
I was not charged anything so no public record however TP had a big hospital bill but his parents took care of that! Because I jumped in to save their son. I was the favorite of all TP’s friends of which he basically had none….
They offered me a job in their furniture store to move furniture on the weekends and I took it.
My 2nd night out with TP he wanted to go to Tulsa and do some street drag racing with his Mustang! I thought cool that’ll be fun! His first race he won his second one he lost, and it pissed him off something terrible! Just down the street from where we were racing was a beer joint!
As usual I was pretty much broke, and he said no problem the night was on him! Not being one too kick a gift horse in the mouth I took him up on it.
It was a dark dingy rough bar! For most of the afternoon him and I were the only ones in there! The way he was chugging rum and cokes down I figured I was going to have to drive so I only drank a couple of three beers! After a couple hours of drinking, he wanted to go outside and smoke a smoke a joint versus drinking in a joint.
However, about the time we were getting ready to go outside, before the sun went down, two girls came in and both of them at the same time zeroed in on TP. Right away they found out he was the one that owned the Mustang in the parking lot. The only car in the parking lot besides theirs and the bartender/owners.
High on estrogen, weed (they lit up in the toilet) and cheap Falstaff beer both girls decided they wanted to sit at our table! I did not think that was a good idea and I was right! After talking awhile with us they went back to their table. Good, or so I thought!
TP went to the jukebox put in a quarter in and played ‘Good Times Bad Times’, one of Led Zeppelin ‘s first hits.
Then I thought he was headed to the bathroom to go pee but instead he went over to the girls table & asked one of them to dance! She accepted!
I don’t know what was said or who started it but about halfway through the song TP lost it! He started screaming at the girl, cussing at her and calling her horrible names and all the sudden he drew back and backslapped her so hard I was sure she was knocked out, but she wasn’t!
She bounced up off that dance floor like a cat with her claws out and she went after TP screaming and yelling with blood spitting from her mouth going everywhere all over TP’s high dollar shirt! Immediately her girlfriend jumped in and joined the fight!
The bartender looked at me like do something, held up a pistol, yelled for me to to get him out of his bar or he was gonna have to shoot him.
The one girl he had slapped he was now holding in his long arms as tightly as he could and using her (remember he was tall, so her feet was off the floor) so as a shield and ward off the attack from her friend who was trying to scratch his eyes out!
I run toward the three of them like some drunken sailor in a wrestling match! Knocked all three of them off their feet. I jumped up, yanked TP up to his feet and started dragging him toward the door! The bartender could see I was trying to get him outside and gave me the opportunity to do so!
About halfway out the door TP quit struggling and I grabbed him by the front of his shirt and was pulling him out the door when he kicked and shattered the bar room door on the way out! That glass shatter was NOT a good sound….
The bartender had had enough! He evidently must’ve gone over to check on the girls because we had time to get in the Mustang & start it and TP was about to take off when the bartender stuck the gun through the window on the passenger side of the Mustang, to my temple and calmly said ‘Don’t Move’.
Sounds like a movie doesn’t it? Even telling it sounds like a movie but a bad one…
I didn’t move but the Mustang did! TP put the peddle to the metal and the Mustang lunged forward. Several shots were fired (pop pop pop) and I couldn’t believe we (mostly me) wasn’t hit.
TP made a slid through sharp right turn with tires a screeching! He headed toward the low bridge across the Arkansas river which leads towards Downtown Tulsa! Soon two cop cars were on our tail! TP was about to outrun the cops when the Mustang went squirrelly and TP had to slow down just to keep it under control!
Yes, the bartender had aimed for the tires and not my head. Air was coming out of the passenger side rear tire instead of brains out of the right side of my head!
Soon it was obvious we were not going to outrun the police so instead of risking wrecking his precious Mustang he pulled over! Mayhem ensued! They spread eagled us both on the sidewalk in the middle of the river.
Long story short after getting filled in as to what happened from the bartender low and behold, they threw TP in a jail cell and let me go because they heard how I tried to subdue TP to control the chaos inside and keep TP from seriously ensuring all of the girls!
So, I hitchhiked back home 40 miles to face the music with my bride who had just become a new mother. (more ln another chapter about the new Mom and newborn baby Holly)
Much to Camilla’s amazement three days later I snuck off and drove back to Tulsa to pick up TP from the jail house and took him home said goodbye and never saw him again. Hey what are Friends for? I know over the years I’ve often been accused (and rights so) of being a better friend to so-called strangers than I was of being a husband and father.
A few days later I was fired by the family! No 3 strikes and your out here – only two and you’re out. I was no longer their pride & joy!
Now about the Okmulgee Times
Best thing that ever happened because the next day I went to work for the newspaper ‘Okmulgee Daily Times’ (now called the Okmulgee Times), both as sports’ editor and paper photographer! Camilla swears it was then that I started to become a local legend.
I was privileged to be the only sports editor in a small 2 story newspaper operated in Okmulgee which I thought was operated by Gannet News (I think it was located where the Okmulgee Times is now located) but the more I search for just a newspaper online the more frustrated I got so I quit searching decided to just write my experience without maybe using the newspapers proper name! For the sake of this story and until I can research it more, the Okmulgee Daily Times (ODT).
The tech school I went to had no sports team but Okmulgee high school had a great 3A football and basketball team from 68 to 72! In football they were state champions 69, 71 and 72! In basketball they were state champs and 69, 70 and 71
This chapter is already getting long winded so let me just cut to the chase about working for the newspaper! Although a small local paper it was no rag newspaper. It was a fun job! I got to go to all the games played by one of the winningest Class 3A high schools in Oklahoma!
Only drawback was when the newspaper covered crime or a car wreck I had to go take the photos for those articles!
Long story short the players and the coaches liked having me and my 4×5 Graphex Camera at the game. The news paper generously provided me with the Century Graphic or Speed Graphic (in the 2¼ x 3¼ “baby” format), which let you open a hood on the back/top to view the image upside down on a ground glass screen for precise focusing before sliding in the film. I was experienced with using the 4×5 Graphex (which I learned to used at Holloman AFB). The newer model cameras were much better for group team shots and my Canon or Pentax Camera for action shots. When i went on a police call i used the smaller or lights camers I had – best for dead bodies or victims in cl;ose spaces at the wrecks or the crime scenes!
My time as a photographer at Holloman and my one-year stint as a photographer in Vietnam and a few semesters of journalism at Eastern Oklahoma State College prepared me well for this job!
I wrote stories using poor grammar and even worse spelling, but the little newspaper really seemed to appreciate having me on board! Thank God for editors like the one who helped me with this story!!!
Except when I was covering a game I was on call as the go to photographer for wrecks and crime scenes! Any other day to day needs for photos (like weddings, funerals and political events) was taken care of by other newspaper staff employees that knew how to use a canon or Pentax camera!
I had a little dark room next to the typesetting and printing machines. It was a low paying job with lots of pressure to make deadlines but when done correctly I got lots of commendation from lots of people in the community! I loved it!
The typesetter even allowed me to help him at times. I found typesetting to be very hard boring work.
I found my time in Okmulgee to be full of life changing events but by far the biggest was the birth of our first daughter Holly. Mom was a real trooper giving birth in a strange town and hospital. Also living in Okmulgee for years was my Uncle Lee and Aunt Bessie and their kids Bonita, Roger and Renee. The matter of fact Bonita we’re off to babysit Holly for Camilla when Camilla needed to do laundry or some other small task and needed help with Holly. She loved to help!
More on the birth of our girls in a chapter especially dedicated to our girls…. Yes ‘our girls’ – Mom is going to be a co-author with me on that chapter!! lol Hope we can survive the emotions and drama that such a collaboration is bound to result in.
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