Discarded Commode

http://www.ericwilder.com  http://www.gondwanapress.com

Traveling west on Route 66, about a quarter of the way between Bethany and Yukon, Oklahoma, you will reach a bridge crossing the North Canadian River. To your left is Lake Overholser, one of Oklahoma City’s manmade lakes that supply water to the people of Oklahoma County. Once, on the south corner of Route 66, just before crossing the bridge, was a place like no other. It was a honky-tonk bar the locals knew as Pauline’s Bait and Tackle Shop.

Pauline, a crusty old woman, and her daughter ran the combination bar, restaurant and bait shop (yes, you could buy minnows outside the restaurant).. The old wood-framed building sat alone in an otherwise vacant lot. On weekends, cars, pickups, Harleys and horses populated the unpaved, often muddy parking lot.

The single-storied building sat on cinder blocks. When you entered, from the front or side door, you were instantly taken aback by bare wooden rafters decorated with stuffed ducks, other birds and animals, all dusty and musty with age. There wasn’t a rug in the place. It was all bare, unpainted wood - old wood, including the floor.

Country swing bands often played live music on weekends, catering to hundreds of sweaty dancers - I don’t recall that Pauline’s had air conditioning. You haven’t lived until you’ve eaten a hamburger and drank a longneck at Pauline’s.

Alas, Pauline’s is gone, razed to make way for a strip center that never materialized. Only memories remain of a place unique in a world Wal-Mart’s, Outback’s and Barnes and Noble’s.

http://www.ericwilder.com  http://www.gondwanapress.com

For every hero or heroine that has won a medal in the service of their country, there are tens of thousands of others that also served and are no less patriotic.  My brother and I were both in the Army during the Vietnam War.  My Dad was in World War II, in Germany and France.  When the war broke out, my Aunt Carmol joined the Marines and served throughout the conflict.  None of us were heroes but we were there and proud to serve.

So many people served their nation without fanfare, often never receiving a single thank you.  Many have never talked about their experiences, even to their family.  Aunt Carmol is dead now, and Dad has Alzheimer’s.  I wonder, how many stories are left untold and how many sacrifices went unheralded, even unnoticed.  To these people, to everyone of you out there, I say THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart.

This is not something that I just thought of.  Here is an excerpt from my novel PRAIRIE SUNSET.  High in the Ouachita Mountains of central Arkansas, an old man with a heart condition is prompted to tell a story about the war that he has kept hidden inside himself his entire life.

EXCERPT FROM PRAIRIE SUNSET

Comforting darkness, piquant chili and pacifying effect of strong beer combined to loosen their tongues. Coaxed by Attie, Lillie Mae and especially Hulk, John told several amusing vignettes from his youth."

            Hulk finally said, "Were you in the war, John?"

            After hesitating a moment, he said, "Yes, I was."

            "Well tell us a war story," Hulk goaded.

            Poignant memories flooded John's mind and he smiled sadly, unconsciously grinding his toe against an empty cardboard carton in front of him.

            Hulk prompted, "We're you in the Battle of the Bulge?"

            Waves of nostalgia crested John's mental bow and he said, "Wasn't supposed to be, but I was."

            "Please, John," Lillie Mae said. "Tell us."

            John did, beginning slowly, and then warming to the tale. "The Bulge was Hitler's last attempt to turn back the advancing Allies," he said. "For a month and a half the Battle lasted, called the 'Bulge' because Germans failed to break through the line, only succeeding in bending it. I was a radioman in the signal corps, too young to serve but I had lied about my age and joined anyway. One night an old colonel appeared at the communications tent, needing to relay a message to Patton. Since we were out of direct radio communication with the main force he decided to deliver it in person. He conscripted me to drive the jeep for him.

            "The night turned bitterly cold. Snow had fallen for days, piled high on both sides of the road. Continuing night and day the line of battle had spread out many miles, constantly moving, like an angry sidewinder. When sun came up the following morning, we realized we had somehow crossed the enemy line.

            "Germans, besides many other things, were excellent soldiers. We found ourselves caught, along with an advancing column of American infantrymen, in a crossfire ambush. Fresh from the States, our boys were young, mostly teenagers, barely out of diapers, and none had ever seen a German, much less been under fire.

            "Finding yourself caught in the middle of a fire fight is like walking a railroad track at night. Hearing the loud blast of a whistle behind you, you turn and stare into the lights of the monstrosity, twenty feet away, and bearing down on you - the remains of your best friend already chewed up beneath its wheels.

            "When the attack began, the noise was frightening and extreme - beyond imagination for the uninitiated. Along with gunfire and violent explosions, steel, dirt and stone whistled randomly around our heads. When our inexperienced boys dropped their rifles and ran for cover, German marksmen began dropping them in their tracks. Blood was running in the ditches, staining the snow crimson, when we reached the center of the column. Unarmed, the old colonel jumped from the jeep and ran directly into the path of the retreating GI's."

            "Thrusting rifle after rifle back into the hands of those child soldiers, he admonished them to hold their ground. Around us, the battlefield was alive with explosions, hot lead and  the mortally wounded, screaming for help. A mortar round exploded near the jeep, spraying me with dirt and shrapnel. When I wiped my face, the blood on my hand was not my own.

            "Any one of a hundred Hun marksmen could have dropped the colonel. None did. Maybe they were awed by his bravery and coolness under fire. Maybe a higher force was protecting him.  With confused soldiers dying all around him, he coursed the length of that bloody road, exhorting them to turn and fight. One-by-one their youth dissolved in a mire of smoke and torn flesh, and they became men in the hot cauldron of battle. They did turn and fight, hanging on until reinforcements arrived."

            John grew silent and Attie squeezed his hand, feeling the intensity of his pain. Finally he chuckled and it drew into a hoarse laugh.

            "Know what's funny?" John's rapt audience shook their head without answering. "I remember the Colonel as old, but he was probably no more than forty. Thirty-five years younger than I am now and I still think of him as an old man. I can't remember his name and I don't suppose you'll ever read about him in any history book, but he did as much as anyone to defeat the Nazis."

            Suddenly aware of frogs, crickets and distant owls, John realized no on had spoken for an interminable period. When she saw he had finished the story, Lillie Mae put her arms around his shoulder like a mother comforting a child. Hulk remained silent, torn by his own conflicting emotions.

http://www.ericwilder.com  http://www.gondwanapress.com

The oil boom and ensuing oil bust of the late 70s and 80s is long past and seems almost like a dream to me now.  I can recount stories about the era for hours, some of them funny and some of them sad and I still chuckle about one that happened to me and my then wife Anne.

Anne was an oil and gas accountant – a damn good oil and gas accountant.  She and I formed a small oil company and began drilling wells.  I love oil business, but Anne was passionate about it.  She poured her heart and soul into our company (and I suppose so did I).

Caught up inextricably in the bust, we both fought with every sinew of our beings to save our floundering company.  We set out on a quest for a “white knight,” or at least a friendly banker.  Alas, we found neither but we had a few adventures along the way.

I have often heard that people that live together for a long time begin to look alike.  If this is true then Anne and I were identical twins.  Why, because we were together twenty-four hours every day.  Hey, and we both had reddish-blonde hair.

Anne and I traveled the country looking for a friendly banker to bow up our company, suddenly needy with Oklahoma banks and companies crashing right and left.  We thought we had found a home with a bank in Los Angeles.  On a trip there, we pitched our company, and our souls.  The banker, a large man with long hippy hair, a longish beard and John Lennon glasses, listened to our impassioned plea with a happy Santa Claus smile on his round face.

“I’m curious,” he said when we finished our presentation.  “How did a brother and sister happen to start an oil company together?”

Neither Anne nor I had a good reply and it didn’t really matter as his inane remark gave us the answer to the question we had just spent an hour asking.

We never found our white knight, or our friendly banker.  Like so many companies during the 80s oil bust, we went belly up.  Yes, the bust is long past and seems almost like a dream to me now.  Some of the stories were funny but many, so many, I keep buried deep in my heart – until moments such as now when they come bubbling up painfully to a surface still frothy with crushed emotion.

http://www.ericwilder.com  http://www.gondwanapress.com

Eric and Anne – 1982

Please check out my new book trailer video.  Thanks, Eric

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e15ePGVK26s