Coach Gilbreth - small things make a big difference

Growing up in Grainola it is clear from my other stories that I was always a rather large person for my age but luckily  a lot of folks caught up with me in high school like Frank Ball, AJ Jacques, Dave Jacques, Jody Price, Julian Codding, and I am sure several more but one time when Coach Gilbreth was at Grainola with one of the Shidler teams he made one of those comments to me that made a big difference.

We were probably in the 6th or 7th grade and he had a Shidler team playing Grainola and I would have to admit we were outmatched.  In fact I remember PeeWee Robinson, Steve Chrisco, AJ Jacques, Jim Whitt, Ricky Cottle and more who just ran circles around us to the point it was embarrassing.  The only good thing going was that I was about 18 inches taller than all of them and I could bully myself on them and block shots and physically knock them down.  Yes they beat us and they always beat us as far as I can remember.  Their team was made up of kids in one grade where our team was made up of kids from the 6th, 7th and 8th grade and maybe even the 5th and 4th grade, it was not fair and LIFE IS ALWAYS FAIR, just kidding.  Anyway after the game Coach Gilbreth came up to me and told me I should play football for him.  I did not know much about football but I knew I liked to compete and I liked to hit folks in sports as it was my best weapon.  You see I was never fast enough to out run anyone but I was taller and bigger so I could push folks around like Hugh Allen Jones.  The good thin about Hugh is he liked to fight and not in a mean way but he loved the conflict.  I guess that is why he became a great United States Marine.

Well that conversation stuck with me.  I started thinking I could be good at something and I started watching football on TV and occasionally going to Shidler for a high school football game.  One of my fondest early memories was Ronnie West who was like greased lightning as a running back and what seemed like a really nice guy.  That is something to think about.  Here he did not even know my name but I was four years or five younger than he and I was watching how he acted on the field and off the field.  He was my mentor and did not even know it.  Somehow we need to let young people know they are mentoring someone even when they do not know it.

Also consider that Coach Gilbreth was a mentor and he made a big difference in my life with just a little bit of encouragement.  Also when I went to Shidler and played for him I thoroughly enjoyed how he would always put me up against different people in one-on-one drills and let us go after it.  He would just laugh and as I remember there was a coach Bouer (not sure how to spell it) who particularly enjoyed watching us young rascals fight it out in those uniforms.  They probably should not have been paid to have so much fun, just kidding.  I loved the pep talks where he would challenge us to do our best and push us to run faster and longer than I thought was humanly possible.  To be truthful going to football practice was actually a relief from work and I would gain weight each year when football practice started because I was already in shape from the farm work.  I would also say that the running all the time is what was hard for me.  I could haul hay all day or run a tractor but running was a different sort of pain and suffering.  In the end I learned a lot about myself and working as a team.

Well I just have to say thanks to all the coaches and especially Coach Gilbreth for taking a little extra note of a big insecure boy and encouraging him he could be good at something.

So what do you learn in the Osage?  This is really a long list but I will keep it short.

• Persevere, you can always do more than you think you can

•  Mentoring someone is not a big deal to do but it is a big deal to do for someone 

• YOu are always mentoring someone, even if you do not know it, even if you are a bad mentor.  If you want your kids and kids friends to grow up to be good citizens take a look in the mirror first.

•  Small talk is big talk when a child is listening

Thanks for your time and thanks for all those who quietly and not so quietly mentored me in the Osage,
gary@thepioneerman.com

The lost check

Pitiful, pitiful, pitiful!!!!!

This is one of those things Dad would say when something funny but shameful would happen and this is one of those times, the time we lost a check.

I use to have a Shetland pony and a surrey which I could ride up and down the gravel roads at high speed.  It was a lot of fun and I was probably in the 11 or 12 year old timeframe when I got her.  She had an attitude but when you hooked her up to the cart she could get up and go. 

Speaking of "get up and go", I will never forget the time Janie Shumate did a 4-H skit at the Osage County talent show over in Pawhuska and the name of her skit was "When my get up and go had got up and went".  I thought it was one of the funniest things I had ever seen.  She had a real talent for the acting and she was one of the sweetest people out of Grainola and the oldest daughter of Beth Shumate (the cherry pie lady and my 3rd, 4th and 5th grade teacher).  As I recall she did another single person skit a year or so later and it was called "George and Martha ".  The only words in the skit were George and Martha but she said those words with many different voice inflections and you could see how George and Martha first met, got to know each other and finally fell in love.  You could hear it in their voices as their love grew deeper and deeper and as I recall it right threw the aging process to the end of a long life together.  I suppose it was one of the most moving skits I had ever seen to this day.  In my mind she should have won the contest.

OK, back to the lost check.  I bet you cannot wait for this? 

Well racing up and down that gravel road was a lot of fun but one day I had taken my favorite sister, Debbie, for a ride and disaster struck.  The Shetland Pony got its front left leg on the outside of the guide rails on the surrey and as it poked into her flank she got wild and wilder.  Finally she took off to the left toward the bar ditch and gravel was flyer because we were going so fast.  I could see we were running straight into the barbed wire fence and if you don't know what that is let me tell you.  It is wired twisted together with barbs every four or so inches to help keep animals from going through the fence as the barbs would dig into their hide.  Well let me tell you I could see what was coming and I yelled "Geronimo, get off of this cart".  Being the brave man I am, I jumped and Debbie did not!  It was a grave mistake.  Debbie must have gotten a hundred stitches in the back of her leg and I would say she was blessed it was not any worse.  She was cut up bad.  It was such a traumatic mess that I have no idea what happened to the horse other than Dad got her untangled and back safe to the barn yard.  The cart was not even damaged at all.

Yes, there is a check in here somewhere. 

After that I decided to sell the cart and yes I got a check for $40 from some folks over in Bartlesville.  Mom put the check in a safe place until we could go to the bank and I could deposit it.  Of course it would be deposited at the Shidler State Bank where Mr. Wendal Andrews was president (remember he was my first banker) except for one problem.  Mom put the check up so we would not lose it and we could not find it.  In fact it was at least one year and maybe two or three before we found it.  The sad thing is when we found it.

Have you ever dusted your house and furniture and not picked something up but just scooted it around until you got the surface dusted?  Well Mom put that check under the BIBLE and sadly it was not picked up for a long long time.

So what do you learn in the Osage?

• you ought to read your Bible once in a while
• Have a Bible in your house protects NO ONE from the tragedy of HELL
• Don't be critical of folks who have a Bible because they may not know what is in it, it might have a check in it
• What if it had a check which said, "this is your ticket to heaven so bring it when you come, John 3:16"?  Would you be ready to meet your maker?

Thanks for your time,
gary@thepioneerman.com


lsot $40 dollar check for a couple years.

Broom corn and cotton picking

I ran in to Stan kelly of Edmond who is just a little older than me and he was telling me he grew up on the farm and use to pick cotton and cut broom corn.  Now I know in the Osage we did not do those crops back then although I hear Lebby Williams (LEB) is now raising cotton in the Osage.  Anyway I am really glad we did not have these two crops as I have heard too many stories about having to hand pick cotton and how it would cut  your fingers.  And broom corn is just about the nastiest thing to cut because you have to do it with a strangely made knife that was curved and was tied to your index finger and then you would use your thumb and index finger to cut the broom corn with the knife.  The trick is to not stick yourself with the knife which was always easy to do.  You see I did raise broom corn and it really is nasty.

The problem is broom corn is grown for the sticks or stubble on the top of the stalk which can be higher than your head.  What this means is you are always cutting over your head or at head level and the dust is getting all over your face and neck and down your shirt.  It itches terribly.  In my opinion the only way to cut it is with a bare back, no shirt.  Most folks prefer long sleeve shirts and pants to protect them as much as possible.

Now just what do you do with this stuff? I am sure everyone knows what you do with cotton but just in case you or the manufacturers make thread which is made into cloth which makes into sheets, pillow cases, shirts, pants, underwear, etc.  But broom corn is not so well known for what it is made to do.  Well here it is, you make brooms just like the ones at your house used to sweep the floors.  Therefore broom corn.  The reason the name includes corn is that it looks like a corn stalk when it grows.

So what does this all have to do with the Osage?  NOT MUCH.  But I am glad we did not have to mess with these two crops when I was a kid.  One thing worth knowing is that Oklahoma use to be the center for broom corn for the US and it was grown down in the SW part of the state around Alex, Chickasha, Altus, Binger, and into the panhandle of Texas.  In fact if you know the Hough family (Hough Ear Institute) in Oklahoma City Mrs. Hough's family were some of the largest broom corn farmers in the country.  How about that for a little piece of information.

So what do you learn in the Osage?

• Not much about broom corn and cotton
• How to be a good worker and to give a good effort with hope of a good return, kind of like planting and reaping
• Where a broom comes from

Thanks for listening,

gary@thepioneerman.com

Skipping rocks

Where there is water and a few rocks and preferably flat rocks a boy has to do what he has to do, skip rocks.  I bet you I have skipped rocks thousands of times and in fact have shared the art with my children, even Preston can skip a rock.

So what is so exciting about skipping a rock?  Well, for one, if you cannot do it you have not tried and you have certainly not failed.  Skipping rocks is a lesson in success and overcoming disappointment.  It is also a lesson in geometry, physics and common sense.  Let me explain.

First to skip rocks you have to know that a flatter rock is easier to skip with than a round rock.  Also you learn that a heavy rock is not necessarily the best rock.  You see a round rock is more likely to not skip on water because it has less surface area when it hits the water which means the surface tension of the water is lower in a small spot and therefore more likely to sink.  Also if the rock is heavy it is more likely to break the surface tension of the water and sink.  That is PHYSICS and common sense.  Now for the geometry part of the equation.  It is very important that you throw the rock as close as possible to parallel with the surface of the water.  If you do this correctly you maximize the surface tension of the water, minimize the effect of a heavy rock and you maximize the number of skips on the water.  Once the rock hits the water the first time it will bounce off the water and arch into the air until its weight and momentum combined cause the rock to fall to the surface of the water again where the surface tension of the water and the weight of the stone plus its speed of descent to the water allow it to once again sink or skip.  Now with all that said surely it is plain to see the lower the angle or parallelity (my word) the more skips you get when combined with high throwing speed and a modest size rock.  I should also tell you that if you spin the rock when thrown it will also cause the surface tension of the water to have less impact on the speed of the rock and cause more skipping.

Well in the end our success is measured by how many skips you get and how far it goes.  A little understanding of physics and geometry are by products but the fact is, you learn by doing.  Now that brings up another thing and that is, Do you fail if you never try?  I contend that if you don't try you automatically fail and that if you try and fail you really WIN.  If for no other reason you win because you are a better person because you know that you tried.

What do you learn in the Osage?

• if you don't try you cannot succeed
• skipping rocks teaches folks to compete
• failure is never failure unless you chose it, it is a decision not an emotion

Thanks for reading and spending time with me,

gary@thepioneerman.com