Days of Old
Think I will
spend some time writing about my life in Wooster area and some of the
characters I met there. One friend of mine lacy
Crisco as that was his name, he was one of the finer people I know from
that area , a short man and usually the really short guys don’t like hanging
around guys like me, and really as far as friends , I mean really good friends
go. He was the type you could wake up in the middle of the night, and say “Hey
guy I have this body and need to get rid of it, any ideas?” Lacy would know
what to do, and where to go so it would never be found. He was that kind of guy,
and then goes to his death before rather than utter a word. I never had to test
him but I just knew he was my go to guy.
As friends like we were, we would talk about our
home life , fishing , getting drunk, which I did a lot of back then, and
generally just cutting up at work or about anything our hearts desired and
never once would we have a bad opinion but more a sarcastic camaraderie between
us . We both worked at Halliburton, as well, we both worked at Scumburger but
never on the same crew, the bosses seemed to know better. It seems we had too
much fun together always laughing, never being serious, and the oilfield wanted
you miserable like them so you were not allowed to have a good time, but we did
anyhow.
Another fact I
forgot to share was that we both had the same birthday date, and weird as it
gets lacy had blue eyes as fiery as mine sometimes, and a twinkle in them let
me know we were about to be up to no good, like the day we took the new pickup
painted Scumburger blue, with only 5 miles on it to pick up some auto parts for
the trucks, which by the end of the day we had totally forgot. We started forgetting
when we picked up a 12 pack and headed to the Shreve Swamp which was under
water from a swollen summer rain over flowing the creek, the road coming into
the swamp and the low lands was under about a foot of water as we drove the new
ford truck out into the water, on what we hoped was the road . I drove the
brand spanking new truck till the water was floating the beer bottles around on
the floorboard of the truck, and by now we were deep in the swamp at least a
quarter mile from dry land. I stopped
the truck and shut off the engine and we decided to hop in the back of the
truck bed. We opened the doors and a few bottles escaped but as we stood on the
floorboard leaning out of the truck and transferred ourselves into the bed of
the truck by swinging around and avoiding stepping down and getting wet. We
proceeded to set up the lawn chairs we brought and party down.
We sat and
drank and smoked a couple of bowls of some really rope dope and at times we
would talk and laugh, and at other times we would just sit and listen to the
water lapping at the tailgate and washing through the floorboards until the
absurdity of what we were doing would wash over us like all the lost water
around us and we would laugh for no reason. We thought if only the Scumburger
engineers could see us now. Their brand new truck in the middle of this now
lake and us sitting in the back drinking and smoking. Surely there would be questions as to what
happened to us, but we will just laugh it off, because our jobs sucked working
for Scumburger and they needed us, besides who would train all the newbie
engineers from Houston with the blue Ford LTD’s. We finished that 12 pack way
to easy and decided to head back into town and grab another. The water was
rising where we were sitting, as suddenly we could see the beer cans floating
around in the back of the truck where they had not done that before, as we
leaned back in our lawn chairs our feet on the side of the truck bed to keep
our feet dry, and thought that maybe we
had better just get out while the getting was good. So I backed up real slow in the same direction
trying to not cause too many waves to drown the engine. The brand new blue ford
Scumburger truck never missed a beat or slipped and soon I was backing up out
of the water, when we were in the dry, we opened the pickup doors up and out
rolled the water and beer cans we had in the cab. We grabbed those back up and
tossed them in the bed of the truck and decided we had as much fun in the truck
as we could possibly have, and had initiated the new blue Ford into Scumburger
fold . I remember at one point while still in the water I smashed a beer bottle
against the bed and christened it the SS. Scumburger, out on its maiden voyage.
By this time
lacy and I were rolling on the ground laughing so hard at watching the water
roll out of that new pickup, and we thanked Henry Ford for being cheap as it
didn’t have carpet in there. Besides being wet in appearance you would have
never knew where we were that day. Our sides hurt so bad from laughing that we
decided we had better quit while we were ahead. Nothing hurt, so we went back
to the shop and threw the beer cans in the dumpster, and parked the truck in
the garage and punched out on the time clock , oh yes we were getting paid to drink
and smoke . Why should we go on our own dime?
We headed
home and partied some more but we both had to be into work early the next day ,
and when I came in first I noticed old Claude Denton the friend of mine who was
later killed that I had talked of before, but he did such a particular thing as
I watched him as he climbs out of his car and heads over to the edge of parking
lot to a drop off and stares out over the expanse and doesn’t say anything, I said
to him ‘How you doing Claude’, he snaps back to attention as if in a daze, and
says ‘Oh I am fine’, and we start
talking about the day before and what happened to us as we never came back till
everyone had left. I said we stopped and had dinner and avoided the shop for a
while. As I am saying this I am walking past the pickup in the shop and I
notice now a brown water line that wasn’t evident when we parked it last night,
had dried and became apparent as it looked to be even up past the floorboards
and above the floor of the pickup bed. I never said anymore but instead grabbed
the keys to the cab over truck, we regularly use in the oilfields, and proceeded to pull it out, and wash it
with a steam jenny knocking the mud off of it from the job a couple of days ago,
and was supposed to be done the day before till we were sidetracked. I did a
quick spray of it and then pulled the new pickup out and hit the bottom of it
taking the bathtub ring off the bottom of it when Lacy pulls in to work. We
hastily get our stories straight and laugh about the bath tub ring and I mentioned
to Lacy about how I had seen Claude get out of his car and do this ritual of
looking down over the hill.
Lacy proceeds to
tell me that Claude had told him there was a pot plant growing over the bank
apparently when we cleaned out our ashtrays and dumped them over the edge of
the bank we had seed in there and a plant was growing and it was 6 feet tall
but someone had just recently topped it.
He said Claude told him in confidence and didn’t want me to know because
I would steal it. He was right.
Claude even went
as far as to call the sheriff, and they came out and assured them it was pot
but they were not going to take it, instead they told them that Scumburger had
better burn it, before some kid got ahold of it and left. They didn’t even
bother taking it. I thought at first it may be a trap and so I didn’t do anything
at all for a couple of days. Lacy and I never did hear anymore about the pickup
or even being gone that afternoon but someone did complain that it seemed
strange the new pickup lost that new car smell pretty quick and in fact smelled
a little musty. We laughed it off to the fact that maybe the person who said that
smelled himself, as we knew he needed a few more showers than he was getting.
Kinda like the pot calling the kettle black.
Anyhow this pot
growing at our shop, really had my attention and I would check it out without
getting to close to it, as everyday now I would see Claude pull in and get out
and inspect his pot plant. I was always early just to watch him from the shop
when he wasn’t looking. Finally I made plans with a friend of mine, to take it
one night after I came in from a late job. I called from the truck as I was
heading into town on our mobile phone and then met him in the parking lot and
we had a tree saw we absconded from another friend and within a minute and a
half, even with a car driving by, and us ducking out of site, that soon we had
it in the trunk. We took it home and hung it to dry and partied down, but not
long as I needed to hit the hay and be up early in the morn to watch old Claude
when he came into work. Claude shows up and gets out of his car and as he is
walking I notice him kinda fall back in disbelief and shock like old man
Sanford having the big one in Sanford and Son as he leaned up against the front
of his car.
I come out of
the shop and head to my car to get anything at that point and say to him
“What’s the
matter Claude?” He looks at me in this awful expression of disbelief and says
to me.
“Someone stole
my pot plant,” real loud. I tried not to laugh at the hysterical nature of it. Yes
I was bad to steal the guy’s pot plant but heck he was never going to smoke it
and he was just leaving it there to get stolen, so he could have the reaction
he was having now. A bit dramatic but he was from West Virginia and sometimes
those guys exaggerate their feelings a bit. Claude was no virgin at this.
I kept my composure
and said, “You mean you were holding out on me shame on you Claude. I thought
you were my friend. “
He says “It
wasn’t for me , I swear,” as he goes on , “I just noticed it growing one day
and I have been watching it for over four months, day after day, it is the
first thing I would see or look at when I climbed out of the car.”
I said, “Wow Claude that’s too bad.”
Then he goes
on and asks, “You didn’t see it there?”
I said, ”No Claude,”
telling a little white lie, and then going on myself,” I wasn’t really looking
or expecting one to be growing there , it is kinda out in the open Claude. If
you are going to grow it I suggest you move it a little closer to the trees.”
He assures me it wasn’t him that grew it and at that he told the story of
calling the sheriff and what they did. I suggested that maybe it was them that
stole it, I mean after all everyone is smoking now a days.
Clade says,”Well
I never.” I asked him if he wanted a joint to ease his pain as I really felt kinda
sorry for him. At this Claude laughed and we walked down and looked around at
the stump that was about 3 inches wide. I picked up a couple of leaves that
fell off the night before and gave them to Claude and said here Claude you may
need this. He laughed and threw the pot leaves down and headed into the garage.
Lacy had come in and was drinking coffee in the break room, he had seen us out
there and knew what had happened before Claude even opened his mouth.
He was about to
crack up when Claude says to him” You will never guess what happened lacy,
someone stole my pot plant.” And soon
everyone in the shop was laughing and joking about the pot plant growing at Scumburger.
Not everything at Scumburger was blue we did have splashes of green here and there
if only for a short time. I know I shouldn’t have taken that pot plant as it
wasn’t mine to take, and so therefore by telling the story now I absolve myself,
and I am making amends, and I am truly sorry
that Claude never had a chance to experience the pot for himself, because not
more than 2 weeks later he was killed working when a piece of manifold pipe
steel exploded and knocked him off the derrick killing him. I will never forget
the vision of him standing there looking down over that hill searching for his
pot, Bless him, I am sorry Claude you
are not hear to read this now.
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