What is the significance of a dome?

Prominent landmarks in our nation’s capitol are the Washington Monument and the dome of the Capitol Building, But what if the dome happened to be obscured by several strata of the earth’s crust? Thankfully, people with the ambition and intellect to develop methods of locating and mapping such geological abnormalities, have been a boon to the science of oil prospecting. One such genius, who sold newspapers on a downtown Wichita corner at age 5, was an Eagle Scout, and fishing-buddy of mine, and a partner in the firm that was my dad’s employer. This link will take you to The Tulsa World article that is worth the read, even if your only interest in petroleum is what you run through your automobile engine. For background on segment #11, and to find out about one of my heroes, for best results, copy and paste into your address bar (more direct than clicking on the link)
http://www.tulsaworld.com/archives/ferris/article_3fb0877e-484a-5c47-b57a-ff3f2e286c65.html

( 11 )
Boll Weevil, Lookin’ for A Home
Doodlebug, Lookin’ for A Dome

The boll weevil crossed the river from Mexico at Brownsville, Texas, in the 1920s and for decades, decimated cotton crops in every state where it was grown, with devastating results to the economy, especially during the depression. It was finally brought under control in every state but Texas, but lives on in folklore and song, as many versions of the “Boll Weevil Blues” were recorded from the ’20s through the ’40s by dozens of artists and blues performers. The version I remember was popular on the radio, a hit by Tex Ritter, in which the farmer asks the weevil, “Why’d you pick my farm?”  The famous reply by the weevil; ”Jus’ lookin’ fer a home, jus’ lookin’ fer a home”! This became a stock remark by anyone who was continually on the move.

There was another bug sweeping the country at this time, and it was all about the business of subsurface geology. Reflective seismology involved drilling holes in the ground in which to place charges of explosives, that when detonated, would send out vibrations that could be recorded and analyzed, and the reflections would reveal the presence of subterranean structure that could trap or hold oil in “pools”. The result of drilling into these traps would hopefully result in a productive oil well. The nature of this process earned the operators the nickname, “doodlebuggers”, after the ant-lion larvae, or doodlebug, that made cone-shaped holes in fine sand, that an ant would wander into, and could not escape!

The gravity geophysical method, involving my dad, was another system, a relatively less expensive, non-invasive, non-destructive remote sensing method that did not require drilling holes, or dynamiting. But having the same goals, locating and defining subterranean structure that typically would trap or hold oil where oil-bearing formations existed, the nickname was applied to gravity crews, as well, and it stuck. The gravity method required fewer crewmembers, was faster and less costly, to provide the information about densities of rocks underground so that geologists can make inferences about the distribution of strata,  determine the geometry and depth of covered geological structures such as uplifts, subsiding basins, faults, folds, igneous intrusions and salt domes. Interpretation of the collected data allowed them to measure the physical properties of the subsurface, along with the anomalies in those properties, potentially locating practical, and profitable, well locations.

From the time we left Tulsa in August of 1944, until we settled there again in October of 1956, we lived in forty-three towns in several states and one Canadian province. Some of the moves were before I was old enough to be in school, and some were in the summer months while schools were not in session, so this kept the number of schools attended to just above thirty. As soon as the contract at Shoshoni was completed, we were off-and-running, which could more appropriately be said “often-running”, as we were on a whirlwind tour! First, there were two small towns in the Big Horn River Basin, with Cody, on the Shoshone River, thrown in for good measure, before heading South, with contracts in Mississippi and Texas, before coming back to Wyoming. This appears to be more the agenda of outlaws on the run than a legitimate quest for nature’s black gold. By the time I was ready to enter first grade, I was an expert at folding, unfolding, and re-folding a roadmap!

I would love to have been present with a recording device in the home office when the clients would meet with Company executives to decide the agenda for the exploration crew! (crews, for there were several; sometimes there would be a Company crew in a  neighboring town close to us contracted to a different client ). I have no idea how the  final decisions were made, but here is a sample of the results of such meetings. We moved from Shoshoni to Lovel, Wyoming, then to Cowley, then Cody, then clear to the Gulf Coast to Wiggins, Mississippi, then Picayune, across the river from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Bay Spring, Magee, and Hazlehurst, all in Mississippi, then to Albany and Stamford in Texas, then north again to Worland, Wyoming, then Graybull, where I entered the first grade in the fall. Each of these moves required packing up all of the household belongings, and upon reaching the destination at the end of the trip, finding and cleaning an apartment, unpacking, re-supplying the kitchen pantry and fridge, treating tomorrow as if it were any ordinary Monday, getting the boys enrolled in school, and in due time, leaving the place cleaned, and moving away. If the company had provided a suggestion box and if Mom would have been allowed access to it, she could have busted it at the seams and still had plenty left to say!

At this age, I was considered by some, mostly little old ladies, to be a cute little kid. Some considered me to be funny, or at least, amusing. But one thing I definitely was, I was an escape artist. If Mom had to get into the bathtub, this was my cue to find a way out the front door. She was continually “shortening my leash”, figuratively. “Actually” would have been better! One highlight of our stay in Shoshoni was more accurately a “low-light”. The landlord caught me trying to start a campfire behind the cabin. My attempt at adding a bit of realism to my cowboy scene was reduced to something ugly when it was labeled as “playing with matches”. It even sounds ugly, and had I seen it in that light, I’m sure I would have known better! It was a valuable lesson in learning to see the other fellow’s point of view!

The move to Cowley left me a bit uncomfortable in some respects. I had made friends with the gentleman who owned the Red And Whites and I provided a ready audience to observe his maintenance activities on the buildings and grounds. He even allowed the occasional question or comment, as long as I didn’t permit every thing that went through my head to come out of my mouth. The grown daughter worked in the grocery store and office and would give me an occasional conversational opportunity. I was fascinated by the antelope heads displayed on the walls of the office, which she had bagged herself; definitely my kind of woman! Without these diversions, Cowley afforded me too much slack in my schedule,  and I disliked watching my brother go off to school each morning. I had been to the school a time or two for legitimate reasons, but never inside, and never alone. Never the less, one morning, I wanted to see my brother. I urgently wanted to see him! So, I went to find him!

I found my way into the building, but all the doors to the hallway were shut. I embarrassed myself by peeking into a few of them so I just wandered the hallway waiting for inspiration. The news spread quickly! One would think Mary’s little lamb had followed her to school one day! As I found myself being interviewed by an adult, all I could tell her was my brother’s nickname, which is all I had ever called him. She quickly decided it had to be “that new kid”. I don’t think he was very glad to see me, but he was certainly glad at recess to escort me home. I have managed to bury deep within the recesses of my memory any unpleasant consequences of my adventure!

Cody and the area north east toward Powell was “host” to one of the Japanese American confinement camps, "Heart Mountain Relocation Center", from August 1942 to November 1945. Initially, feelings of Wyoming residents, upon the sudden arrival of thousands of Japanese Americans, resembled the feelings of the rest of the country. Many in Park County wondered why a group the government deemed too dangerous to stay on the West Coast would be safer in their communities. However, many in the region ultimately came to accept the Heart Mountain residents, who shopped and utilized services in nearby Cody and Powell. Camp residents were awarded special permits to leave the camp for shopping and temporary work. When downtown in Cody, if I saw one of these persons coming our direction on the sidewalk, I would try to disappear behind Mother’s skirt. History has demonstrated these families to be loyal American citizens, to whom a gross injustice was done. But this was wartime and nothing about wartime seems to be fair.

I think that one thing that is universally loved by small boys is water, especially when it is in its natural environment. Cody has a river. We had a cabin that was close to the river. One thing that boys like to do around water is toss rocks and pebbles. There was a rolling hill that formed the bank of the river, and approaching the river was difficult because there was always some “hill” left, blocking the view. Once the river could be seen, the bank was very steep, and dropped directly into the swift water. I wanted  to get to where I could see the water and toss some rocks. The rocks I tossed couldn’t reach the water, even on first bounce; it was more like tenth or twelfth bounce, and the splash not very impressive, so I went home. My guardian angel went directly and asked for a transfer! Mom wanted to know where I had been; she had already looked everywhere I normally would have been playing. When I told her, she had something to tell me: the old “this is going to hurt me worse than it will hurt you” speech! After a sufficient administration of frontier justice, she finished her remarks with “just wait ‘til your daddy gets home!” This was not a threat; it was a promise! I crawled under my bed to hide, and cried myself to sleep. It took quite a while for them to find the sleeping child, and they were so amused, it took the sting out of Frontier Justice, Part II.

We had experienced some bitterly cold nights in Cody. It was not without some measure of anticipation, that in October, we  accepted the next assignment in Mississippi. We could spend the winter months in a warmer climate! There was a bonus that came into play, that some would call “coincidence”. I would prefer to list it as Providence! If one were to rule a straight line on a map of the United States, from Cody, over the tip of the “toe” of the Louisiana “boot”, and extend it into Mississippi to our destination, that line would pass over “our” part of Northeastern Oklahoma! A short discussion was held; plans for the trip were made. We would spend an overnight stay at Grandma’s house! I could envision our arrival. There would be lots of hugs, more hugs, smiles, tears, and more hugs! Then I would make a break for the kitchen, where, over the fragrance of the wood-burning kitchen stove, there would undoubtedly be the aroma of gingerbread!

(  12 ) Over Nighter  Over-eater

It would be easy for this tale to become a narrative featuring my grandparents because they were so prominent in my life, especially in the years prior to our moving away. To my knowledge, my maternal grandparents and paternal grandparents were never acquainted with each other until their daughter and son started their romantic encounter, even though they had mutual friends. And census records reveal that the families often lived in the same proximity, and seemed to follow one another on a migration from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, through  Sevier County, Tennessee, Madison and Carroll County, Arkansas, and eventually Mayes County, Oklahoma.

There is plenty of colorful history involving the family members, but there is not space here to tell it in detail. My dad’s oldest brother, Earl, as a youngster, could remember his great-grandmother, Louvencia Elvirene [Weaver] Baker, telling of being part of the wagon train, along with baby daughter, Sarah Melissa, that left Barry County, Missouri, and Carroll/Madison county, Arkansas, for homesteads in the West, only to be massacred at a place called Mountain Meadows in Utah. Were it not for a brief but serious illness of John Sherman Baker, her husband, that delayed their departure by a few days, leaving them trying to catch up with the rest of the train, the same fate would have been theirs also. (The historical Utah incident is depicted in a 2007 Jon Voigt movie, “September Dawn“.) A few other wagons banded with them and had formed a small train. They were making good time and were only a day or less behind the main train, when they were attacked and robbed by “renegades” on the Republican River in Kansas. They were able to conceal themselves in the brush until the attack was over, then survivors straggled back on foot to Fort Riley in two, three, or more days. There is documentation, a judgement dated November 14, 1900, showing that the Federal Government reimbursed John S. Baker, $686.00, including $102.00 for his lawyer, for cattle stolen by government wards, the Cheyenne Indians. John and Elvirene’s daughter, Sarah Melissa, was my great-grandmother.

I used to play in a trunk in my Grandmother Smith’s attic that was  brought back from California by her father-in-law, John, after his “gold rush” days. It had old nick-knacks, and  several leather pouches containing metallic looking rocks of various shades of color, probably planting the seed for acquiring my hobby of gold-panning.  He and his sister’s husband took their families, by ox-train, to try their hand at prospecting and mining. The brother-in-law stayed three years, then returned to Arkansas by mule train, and kept a detailed journal of the trip. The journal was transcribed and distributed to family members by Uncle Earl. The author of the journal made it back to Arkansas just in time to be killed on his own farm by “bushwhackers” during the civil war! My great-grandfather stayed fifteen years, near Grass Valley, before returning and staking claims in Western Oklahoma at Hobart and Clinton, where with Grandpa and Earl, they farmed, while living in a dugout, an earthen home with a sod roof. John brought his Seth Thomas mantel clock for a touch of civilization. The chimes were a nice touch, and a wake-up call since they didn’t bring a rooster.

My maternal grandfather came to Oklahoma the year it became a state. He and his brothers, in an old photo from the family archives, looked like they had been cast in a movie to play outlaws. Wearing well-worn black felt hats and stern, almost menacing expressions, they appeared ready to take up long rifles and take on the winner of the Hatfield-McCoy skirmish. His nickname, “Juggy“, was picked up in his youth by transporting moonshine jugs strung over the saddle horn of his mule. He settled down to win the hand of Julia Omega Gore, a doctor’s daughter of Eastern Tennessee stock. In Peggs, Oklahoma, his father, John Madison Littlefield, and his mother, Minerva Mainard, reported to have been a nurse for the Confederacy, and a Cherokee lady,  had a general store. The town was obliterated, destroyed by a tornado, May 2, 1920, three days before Mom was born. Great-grandpa John, aged 72, was found tangled in telephone wires among the dead. A total of 71 persons were killed and another 100 were injured by the storm. Thus, nearly 30% of the town's population was killed and another 40% were injured.
 
My maternal grandmother grew old before her time, leaving a vacancy in the family circle. Nobody was calling it Alzheimer’s back then but, too soon, making it seem sudden, the perpetually jolly lady was gone, and in her place, a still-smiling lady that seldom spoke or left her bed. No more would she sit, pumping the organ pedals and singing the words to the tune she was playing, or strumming the guitar or banjo; she could seemingly play anything that could produce a tune! I remember her as having a “tolerate almost anything” attitude when it came to the kids in her midst. She would take the time to play for us on the piano, teach us kid-songs, or hold us in her lap. ‘Til the day she passed away, if she ever had a gray hair, I never saw one, and she never stopped smiling.

So, I was down to one grandmother. I was thinking, it would seem as though I was favoring one grandmother over the other, therefore a bit of background information would be appropriate to prevent this from happening. One place where “favorites” definitely existed, though, was the houses where they lived. Neither had electricity, nor indoor plumbing. Both used wood burning stoves for heat and cooking. But one had a definite advantage. If you remember your “nursery rhymes” and “fairy tales”, you may recall that, though imaginary, there was often a “moral” to the story which gave them a ring of truth. One of my childish fears was of scary wild animals, and the three little pigs gave me all the warning I needed. When you leave town, out in the countryside where wild animals live, you are better off sleeping in a house made of stone! Mom’s dad’s house had a stone porch enclosure, but Grandpa Smith had built his house completely of stone! We have a winner!

Not only was a better night’s sleep assured, you could bet that breakfast would be special, too. Grandma always had a big garden; she was used to providing a table set for a large family, and as the children grew up and moved away, I never saw her shrink the size of her garden. One end of her garden was filled by several long rows of grape vines. When she harvested the grapes, she would “put up” the juice in gallon jugs and half-gallon jars, then in the winter, when the house needed the heat, she would “put up” the juice as jelly. At berry-picking time she would take her buckets and pans, and volunteers if she could get them, and head for the berry patches, wild blackberries in the persimmon groves where the shady spots made the berries larger and more lush and easier to pick, gooseberries on the way to the cow pasture, strawberries from the garden, and huckleberries would be bought on Saturday from some of the Cherokee families who would bring them to town. One volunteer who was always welcome, was the family dog who would search the patch for copperhead snakes!

Grandpa had to have his biscuits! And his sweet tooth required honey he had harvested, or maple syrup, or molasses to whip into his fresh churned butter. Apple butter and a variety of jellies, jams, and preserves would be arrayed in the center of the table. A glass of grape juice, or on very special occasions blackberry! juice would await us by our plate. Farm fresh eggs, home-cured smokehouse ham or bacon or both, and gravy, cereal or oatmeal, would make up the typical breakfast. The only way to keep from becoming  morbidly obese was to work from before daylight ‘til after dark! One thing was certain, Grandma would send us down the road well-fed, and if we could find a place to stash it, anything from her fruit-cellar full of home canned jars of delicacies would go to Mississippi with us! My favorite was the mustard-pickles! Get a big jar: there’s no telling how long they’ll have to last!

My grandpa back row, far right, his dad, white whiskers. some brothers and neighbors/

What a wonderful story, Ron! Thank you for expending the effort to share it with us.

Your early life was filled with advertures! While it didn't make life easier, you've learned a lot.

Keep writing!

A.J.