Chapter 26 Field Work and uh, Drilling in Nevada

When I started at PPCo I was working in a relatively new high tech area of satellite interpretation. Remote Sensing it was called. It was based on a series of Earth observation satellites put in orbit to originally monitor crops. The geological community found it could map structures equally well and showed them things that could only have been imagined in their wildest dreams. Geologists had had orgasms over early hand held photography taken by the Gemini and Apollo astronauts. The Landsats as they were collectively called turned them into whores. A whole community of geoscientists became Remote Sensing whores. They sold themselves for grant money and prostituted themselves in order to get companies, particularly oil companies, to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars for processing systems. At the time, the government subsidized the satellites so digital tapes with imagery of large areas were only $200. Photographic negatives or positives were even less expensive. Phillips was one of the first to lie on her back. A whole group existed and they even had their own research support. Namely me. What ultimately happened is we bunch of whores got syphilis and died. Metaphorically speaking of course. The powers that be in the community over sold what we could actually do. The oil companies, Phillips, Cities Service, Amerada Hess, Oxy, Amoco, Exxon, ARCO, Pennzoil, the list goes on and on. Most no longer exist, all shelled out the bucks to have their own Remote Sensing group. The community held annual meetings in South Dakota at the remote sensing data center in Sioux Falls. Still others were held in Michigan, and in Colorado. What I learned right off was that a lot of the "research" was being done by the same guys and a lot of them were in academia. They just flogged the same data, looking at if from 90 degrees and writing a paper, the stepping a few paces to the right and looking at it at 45 degrees and writing another. It was a business. All the while the oil companies were shelling out the bucks for staff and equipment that never delivered. The oil crunch of the mid-80's changed that, along with President Reagan privatizing the operation of the remote sensing satellites. This led overnight to the cost rising 10 times to $2000 a tape with a copyright hanging off of it. No longer could companies swap tapes to save a buck now it was $2000 each time anyone used it. This had a dampening effect on the party. Then the price of oil dropped and almost all the staffs were cut back. Some drastically. Phillips went from probably 20+ people to 5. A whole new industry sprang up then. It was called the value added industry. All those people who worked for the companies set up small companies with new or used equipment they might have purchased from their former employers. They now would do the value added processing on the raw data for the oil companies for a fee. That is pretty much how things work 20 years later. Now as part of the ongoing effort to get the oil companies to shell out money, independent groups, I guess lobby groups sprang up. One was called the GeoSat Committee. Their stated goal was to demonstrate the need, and lobby for new generations of satellites that the government would fund. Things called group shoots where a consortium of companies would fly at their own expense, new sensors while teams mobilized from the participating companies, swarmed over the target areas taking readings in order to calibrate the data received from the sensors. My first experience was to go to Nevada for several weeks with three co-workers and collect ground truth data. We flew into Reno and then drove a circuit of the state, mainly through the central and north, never venturing to Las Vegas. On our first lunch stop, one of my co-workers disappeared into a book store. When we sat down in a cafe he tossed the book in my lap. It was called "The Brothels of Nevada". Well, being the only bachelor of the group, I was expected to give a report of the night's "discoveries" at breakfast the next day. It was a duty I ably performed for the next couple of weeks. It was tough but someone had to do it. Some of the little mining towns had two or three brothels and I felt duty bound to visit them all in the time allotted to me. We headed toward Hawthorne near Walker Lake and the huge Army ammunition depot. Bunkers dotted the valley hillsides as far as the eye could see. We headed on to Tonopah and I sampled the charms of the gals there. They were a delight. We eventually turned north toward Ely, then cut over to Winnemucca, then Battle Mountain and eventually back to Reno. There were a lot of stops in small towns along the way, Goldfield is one I remember. It was a long time ago, but I can still remember the good times. The reader has to remember that this was pre-AIDS. The girls didn't even require you wear a condom. The etiquette went as follows. You walk in. There is a bar. You sit down and order a drink. The proprietor or madam will try to rush you to pick a girl by trotting them all out for a look see. You take your time, have a drink, chat, then choose one. You talk, possibly buy her a drink then head to her room. The Madam tried to rush me, I turned to her, smile and said "Am I in a hurry?" All of a sudden they stopped treating me like the horny 20 something I appeared to be, and was. I all of sudden appeared to be a veteran, all because of the little book. Each gal, has her own bedroom. About he size of a very small motel room. Money changes hands. The Madam comes by and collects it. The clock starts. She asks you to drop trousers and then checks your equipment for leaks. Really. She would manually inspect you for anything she didn't want any part of. Then she would wash you using a basin of warm water. Then you get naked and talk specifics of what you wanted. French, Half and half, etc. Yeah, the book explained the vernacular. Basically, French was your garden variety blow job. Half and half was she started you off with a blow job and finished you with intercourse. Of course you could just start off with intercourse. I didn't need any assistance getting me up so I just opted to get after it. The first gal that entertained me was a very pretty one of Afro-American descent. She was , as most of them were, from southern California, and was up doing a stint at one of the "Ranches". It must have been a slow week, because she broke a few rules. One, we got into some heavy kissing, and two, we ran overtime and she didn't seem to mind much even though the Madam was hammering on the door. Another gal I remember was named Lola. Even had a playboyesque business card with the stylish Femlin silhouette. This gal had big honking hooters with bright pink aureoles and long pencil eraser thick nipples. She had a shock of blonde hair and pale ivory skin. Another gal was named Terry, a pretty brunette with a nice figure. How time flies all those 20 something hookers would be old enough to be grandmothers now.

Chapter 25 Phillips Hazardous Waste

When I first started at PPCo Research and Development I heard stories about the waste pits back west of the Pilot Plant. They were back in the trees along Sand Creek. These things, and I get this second hand from guys who had to survey their locations, were so noxious it make their eyes water just being down wind of them. No telling what went in them. Knowing a bit about geology. I know a meandering creek such as Sand Creek leaves over time a lot of porous sediments just right for migrating plumes. Unlined pits for hazardous waste and toxins make good sources from which these plumes can form. I also know that they tend to migrate to creeks and other surface bodies of water. So my best guess is these pits were unlined due to the fact it was not required at the time. The image of the area now shows that Conoco/PPCo now has four oxidizing ponds in the southern part of the picture. The round white donuts in the square green ponds are bubbles from the aerators in the ponds helping the bugs degrade oil and other nasties in the water. I can not be certain of the location of the old pits. My best guess is the big brown scar to the north west in the trees. Either that or they are hidden by the trees in the middle left of the picture. this is clearly a land fill. You can see the edge of the material to the south where they are pushing it into the trees. I can't say if this is Phillips property, but more than likely it is. There is a big debris pile in the upper right, the white area. It looks like a truck or dozer parked by the black area. There is a chance that the ponds were located where they have built a retaining wall and run-off containment basin just above and left of the containment ponds. The long rectangular structure that looks to discharge into a Sand Creek tributary. Anyone care to do some sampling down stream of this area in Sand Creek? I certainly hope you don't fish there. Sand Creek and Eliza Creek also catch the run-off from the National Zinc Superfund site. In 1984 the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act was passed. This was called the cradle to grave act. This required companies producing listed hazardous materials to provide employees with Material Safety Data Sheets and to also track and inventory all wastes produced until they were destroyed. Cradle to grave. Well one day we start getting all these steel drums out at R&D. Turns out Phillips was none to diligent in disposing of the hazardous materials they produced and the government was shipping them back to them after finding them and tracing them back to PPCo. There are lots of ways to save money. I guess letting Sanford and Son hall your hazardous waste off for you is one way. In the event, they had to destroy it. Problem was nobody knew what was in the drums. A lot of them were rusty and were encased in plastic bags to prevent leakage. There were a lot of them. So Phillips set there engineers to designing an incinerator and a scrubber. Soon they were burning the waste and barrels all in one go. They patented the incinerator. John Mihm was the head of R&D at the time. You might remember him as Mihm the Merciless. Well we were going through layoffs about this time. When weren't we. eh? So he had a great club to find volunteers to man the incinerator. Kind of like the old Royal Navy Press Gangs. If your worth to your current organization was suspect, you were given the choice to be laid off, or work with hazardous and toxic chemicals all day. Nice choice, wot? I guess they had plenty of "volunteers" because the incinerator ran day and night for years. I don't currently see any trace of it on the Google images, nor do I see the Pilot Plant. Looks like they are cleaning up the place. Next up, Benzene spills in Borger and Plastics Plant explosions in Pasadena.

Chapter 24 Bartlesville, Toxic Metals and Superfund Central

In my career I have been an environmental consultant for one of the largest international firms in the country. I have been involved in numerous environmental law suits across the country from California to Dallas to Charleston. When I was in college, I did a special graduate research project on toxic trace metals. There are numerous plants that are called bio-accumulators. That is they preferentially pick up toxic metals and concentrate them in the plant tissue. Now this isn't a problem if the plant isn't a food plant. In the industry, certain plants are used to scavenge metals from affected sites, they are burned and the ash is encapsulated for disposal or the metals recovered. An example of a bio-accumulator is Astragalus mollissimus and Oxytropis lumberti better known collectively as Loco Weed. They are purple and white blossomed plants respectively, and are found in the western 2/3s of Kansas. The plants can poison cattle, horses and sheep. The poisoning occurs through Selenium over dosing. As you may have guessed Selenium is a nutrient too, but in massive doses, like so many other things, it is bad, very bad for you. When I first arrived in B'ville in 1980, I was fascinated by the Zinc smelters. My fascination stemmed from the fact there had been so many, and that Zinc a nutrient metal important to men to keep lead in the pencil as well as proper functioning of the related pump. What I also knew is that Zinc is intimately related to Cadmium. A not so nice metal, as well as Lead. We all know about Lead. Not only will it kill you coming out of the barrel of a gun, but it will make you kids dumb as a post if they choose to eat Lead paint or are exposed to it in other ways. My interest stemmed from the fact that I noticed the prevailing wind usually blew from the southwest. I could see in my minds eye, the town wreathed in open smelter smoke blowing across the town, across the flood plain and on to Dewey. As the smoke cooled particulates would rain out containing Lead and Cadmium. Not too much of a problem if you didn't breath the smoke or eat the soil, unless you had another exposure pathway, like food. I remember raising the question one day with my co-workers as we drove across town from R&D what they thought the Cadmium levels of the pecans from the orchard along the river was. You see pecans LOVE Cadmium. They scavenge it. So if you like those B'ville pecans, you are probably getting a good dose of Cadmium too. The Japanese discovered the culprit disease caused by excess Cadmium, Mercury too. Mercury causes horrible birth defects. The Japs learned you shouldn't shit where you eat. They were dumping Mercury laden industrial waste water into the bay where they did a lot of fishing. So they were poisoning the fish who in turned poisoned them. Not a problem for anyone but pregnant mothers. You just sweat it out in most cases. A little dementia might occur along with it; ever heard the term "mad as a hatter"? That is because hat makers used mercury to block hats and got a lot of mercury fumes in the bargain. Back to Cadmium. It causes Tsai Tsai disease which translates to "Ouch Ouch" disease. Cadmium ions which are nearly the same size as Calcium ions, replace Calcium ions in the bones. The problem is it doesn't make strong bones. So the sufferer gets micro fractures in the bones which are quite painful. I never did test those Pecans, but I never ate any either. Looking at Google Earth it looks like the orchard is still there, between Tuxedo and Phillips Blvds. Now I was in the Houston air port one day on my way out of town when I overheard another consultant talking about Bartlesville. It seems I hadn't been too far off the mark. But the exposure pathway that caused the entire hubbub was different and so was the metal. It seems that all the clinker or slag from the furnaces way back then were cheap fill and gravel to some enterprising eye. So they hauled the stuff off and used it to pave and fill the alleys throughout town. The house I had on Cherokee had a retaining wall and an elevated alley behind it paved with gray gravelly material. It seems the stuff was laden with Lead! The affected area according to the EPA report on the National Priorities List was a 135 acre site along 11th and Virginia Streets. It included schools, day cares, churches, playgrounds, parks, recreational areas and business properties. Further they found that: "NZC operated a zinc smelter on this site from 1907 to 1976, when it was acquired by the Zinc Corporation of America. NZC was also known as National Zinc Co., Horsehead, Inc., and St. Joe Mineral. The NZC smelter had no air emission controls, allowing emissions to be deposited downwind in various areas in Bartlesville. According to 1992 EPA reports, lead and cadmium levels in the top 2 feet of soil are greater than three times natural background levels. Although the extent of the area of contamination has not been completely determined, it includes contaminated soils at two schools and three day care centers. An estimated 1,700 students attend the school and day care centers, and 170 people work at the facilities. "

It doesn't seem that they investigated the other smelter sites around town either. If you haven't heard much about it, go figure, who wants to buy contaminated property? I am sure the city fathers, Phillips, realtors and others have had a hand in it. Some concerned person got on the stick and when National Zinc closed the plant grounds were declared a CERCLA Site. That's' Superfund to most of you. It stands for Comprehensive Emergency Response and Recovery Act, also known as the Lawyers Relief Act since 90% of the billons spent have gone to pay litigation costs and not to actually cleaning up. A Superfund court case amounts to a finger pointing festival. Maybe just maybe they actually find the responsible party and make them clean it up, but in most cases the company is long gone or been dissolved. Coppers Wood Treating, better know as the Creosote King , left contaminated creosote plants all over the country sitting on plumes of black gooey hazardous glop. Toxic to people and fish. The company is long gone morphed into another entity called Beazer. Yep, Beazer Wood Products and Home construction. They just walked away and made the government force them to clean it up. I worked on a suit for Conoco, before the merge. They bought a fertilizer plant in Charleston, next to an old Beazer/Koppers plant and got sued in a cross complaint. Seems once Beazer/Koppers got nailed they wanted to spread the pain around. So they sued Conoco for causing the problem. We won on behalf of Conoco, but they still had to clean up an adjoining marsh because a bit of Lead was found there by the EPA. So in order to save the marshland from a bit of Lead, they had to destroy it. There were numerous civil war cemeteries and battle field on and about the site which could have been the source of the Lead, but no, they probably forced Conoco to dredge the marsh then replant it.

The last word, is if you look at the second photo above you can see that they have cleaned up the plant site. The total area affected as reported above was 135 acres. I do not know how they remediated the affected residential areas. There are also another Superfund sites around town. BARTLESVILLE HWY 123 LANDFILL HWY 123 NORTH OF BARTLESVILLE QUAPAW, ST LAKE Landfill N. FUTURA & E CHICKASAW CITIES SERVICE COMPANY 510 SOUTH KAW STREET EAST BARTLESVILLE DUMP 5.5 MILES EAST OF BARTLESVILLE JOHNSTONE & LUPA DUMP NORTH OF JOHNSTONE STREET NATIONAL ZINC CORP. WEST 11TH STREET OLD DEWEY ROAD DUMP 0.5 MILES N. of Bartlesville SOMEX Limited - injection well 1350 South Virginia Avenue

Chapter 23 Grand Lake and Buffalo River

For a while there in the early 80's Bartlesville, PPCo in particular, had a very active singles group. We met for happy hour, lake, camping and canoe trips. We played volleyball and softball together. There were groups and sub-groups of the larger group. These included locals and non-locals. Couples and non-couples. I'll recount a few of our sojourns.One of the local guys owned a ski boat. So we planned a trip to one of the Grand Lake resorts. It was on Monkey Island, more like a motel really, but it had a covered pavillion in the center of the place and a boat ramp and dock. I rented a room for me and my friend Cindy, the daughter of a well known Phillips geologist. I engendered a bit of resentment among the others because I didn't want to share my room. We wanted a bit of privacy, and well... I think I ponied up more than my share of beer and gas money so I didn't feel any guilt at retaining my privacy. We had a great time. There were a number of couples along and a few singles. We skied during the day, drank and danced at night and I learned the Oklahoma two-step. The boat owner obtained a gallon of genuine Arkansas moonshine which we proceeded to consume. We took a night time boat ride out on the lake, not the smartest of things in an overloaded boat full of drunken partiers. I remember the person at the helm trying to toss me off the back end while I was taking a leak, by gunning the engine. It didn't work, and I remember waking up in the bottom of the boat when we got dockside. We made this pilgrimage several times in subsequent years. I brought a whole pig to roast on one occasion. Attendance dwindled in succeeding years as people married, move away or got laid off. There were several notable folks in the group. Cindy was one. She was the daughter of a noted Phillips Geologist. She was a redhead with legs a mile long and every inch of her feminine real estate covered with freckles. I saw her along Riverside Drive years after she had moved from town. I think she married a former boyfriend and was living in Tulsa. When I saw her I was riding a tandem bike with my future Ex # 2 so I couldn't very well stop. We caught eyes and I am sure it was her. There was another gal very athletic. She was cursed I think. She was every guys buddy, but never a girl friend. She was blonde, and not unattractive. But she had that feminine athletic look, you know, the field hockey player. She was a tomboy. She was fun to be with and could drink you under the table, but few guys wanted that kind of competition in a girl friend. He she could have probably kicked my ass. We were at a party one night out at the apartments off Nowata Road at Kings Road. on the east side. We ended up in the pool after everyone else had gone back to drinking at the apartment. I remember we started out horsing around like two kids, each of us upping the ante, touching this grabbing that until we were at the side of the pool going at it like two bunnies in heat. It is funny how alcohol can be so liberating. If you have ever done it in the bathtub or pool it ain't that great. There is the dilution factor, soapy or chlorinated water does not make the ideal personal lubricant and tends to reduce the efficiency of the lubricant we tend to produce (or the women does anyway) ourselves. None the less that didn't stop us. It was a wonder no one interrupted us. It was a one time thing. No strings, we continued to run into each other as a lot of our friends lived there and we frequented the pool during the summer. There was another gal who had a terrible accident while water skiing. I wasn't there but heard about it later. She got a high speed suppository of lake water. She had a big bum at the time and I guess her buttock cheeks acted like a big water scoop and she suffered a tear. Pretty nasty. She was a sweet gal and went on to marry her sweetheart of the time. We had a gal on our volley ball team report she was raped. I never read about it in the papers. Something the powers that be in Bartlesville didn't like to publicize. Rather have people victimized than let them be forewarned. Two friends had their homes cleaned out by a gang of thieves. They lived in the country just outside of town. On off of South 75 one up in the Osage hills just over Nike Hill. The gang would approach from the prarie side of the house and just load up trucks or whatever was handy and take everything they could. could. They usually had all day to do it. There was the spate of gun point robbings, or worse on Johnstone Park River Walk. One gal wife of a prominent so and so was pistol whipped while jogging. Let's see oh yeah joggers carry a lot of money. She was probably raped too. I still don't think they report the bad things that happen. Some things they can't cover up. Like the son of a former PPCo Chief Geologist, whom I worked with. First time I saw actual nepotism in action. This guy was worthless but moved right up the latter of management. That is until he was caught by his wife bonking thier 14 year old baby sitter. Yep, hard to hide that. But they kept him on the payroll till the court found him guilty. Wife divorced him and probably took everything he owned. He had an office across the hall from me. Clean cut, conservative. A real dufus. It didn't surprise me in the least. Not really. Don't know if the pedophile is out yet, but he probably needs Depends now. His roomy was probably some big black guy that he had to share a bunk with. I cannot even envision the hell his life turned into all because he didn't have the sense to turn down an underaged girl. It may have been statutory, or not. I don't know, but he certainly got what he deserved. A friend and ring leader of the larger group was a guy named Dale Chapello. His family was from over in Arkansas. He worked in the Catalyst Lab and was a chemist. He had worked on Aspartame at another company and was very bright guy. He organized canoe trips over on the Buffalo River. We would drive over and camp on his mother's living room floor in Harrison the first night and hit the river the next day. Imagine 20 people sleeping on the livingroom floor! We generally paired off with a partner on the trip, either female or male. I had my own canoe so took a date along. If a gal got an invitation to go on a canoe trip and camp in my experience it was pretty well understood that there would be sex. It is like inviting someone to go on a trip knowing ahead of time you were sharing the same room and the same king size bed. I took a co-worker by the name of Kathy R. a very bright and sexy lab technician in the Geology Branch. She was pixyish, short hair a impish smile and game for anything. We did a stint of field work in Paris, Texas. We went to a restaurant in Paris, and I got some bad imitation crab, or maybe it was real crab they had driven up very slowly from the coast. In the event I had severe hershey squirts and was dehydrated to beat hell. I was afraid to drink water for fear of leaving a trail of diarrhea across N. Texas. We had to walk about 7 miles in the heat climbing fences and carrying shovels and samples. I became weak as a kitten, but she soldiered on and carried all the equipment for me. A real trooper. I made it up to her later. One of the other team members, who was pretty clueless, must have heard noises in the wee hours of the night and inquired at breakfast what had been going on. He must have been Mormon. No, even they know about that stuff, they have huge families. I mean really, what did he expect me to say? "Oh, that was just Kathy and I boxing the compass last night on my bed..." We had had a FB relationship for some time and personally I don't think it was his or anyone else's business. Kathy left R&D to go back to school I think. She was pretty lonely in B'ville, living in some apartments near down town, it was this square apartment complex, with a center courtyard, more like a motel. Anyway, I don't know what happened to her we fell out of touch. On the canoe trip we had some excitement, turned over at least once, camped at the first 4 mile takeout and it started to rain. We had a fun cozy night together. I really like that. Didn't get too wet, not from the rain anyway. The next day the river had risen to flood proportions and the rest of the group bugged out. Left their canoes and booked. I on the other hand had to get down stream to my truck, which I had already had shuttled to the takeout point. It was the most exciting canoe trip of my life. We covered the 6 miles in a very few hours. We dumped once just upstream of a strainer, a flooded stand of trees. I was able to get to shore with the canoe before we wrapped it. Not having wet suits we were border line hypothermic. Hot coffee we had helped. We finally started following a guy in a solo canoe who knew what he was doing and had no further problems. There were standing wave a good 4 feet high in some places and water would come over the bow and drench the bowman and fill the bottom of the canoe. We were glad to make it to the take out point but very exhilarated as well. I went on more than a few canoe trips and took dates along, a single mom here, a single gal there, and we always had fun. I tended to do the luxury canoe trip. Cooler with food, beer, wine, it was rigged properly with no fear of loosing anything from the canoe in an upset. Dinner might be cajun blackened fish or shrimp etouffe. Dessert might be strawberries and cream. Drinks, beer, wine and even champagne. I even found a blind date; no she could actually see, for a friend from Houston. He came up and we paired him up with her. She was an acquaintance of my future Ex # 2 and the same rules applied and she was ready and eager to go. We three couples shared a cabin the first night at Lost Valley on the Buffalo. My god she was a screamer. My girlfriend and I lay awake half the night listening to them by the fire place. The other couple had taken the loft and we settled in on a pull out bed by the bathroom. The couple in the loft, well the female half was so disturbed by it all; she spent the night, according to her boyfriend, with her pillow over her head. It was pretty humorous at breakfast the next night. This same later on the river saw fit to pitch his tent next to mine, when I took great pains to camp away from him and the carnal soprano of his date. The next morning I got up to fix coffee and almost walked into a used condom hung from a tree branch in front of my tent door. Those kooky crazy guys. He was the same one who detested a pink tie I owned. So on an occasion of me staying at his apartment, with said tie and my camera being present. He enlisted the help of a friend, dropped trouser, tied my tie to his penis and documented it on film in my camera. I got quite a laugh when I got the pictures back. He though I would be appalled. Not so, I still have the tie. Dale hooked up with a troublesome gal from Dallas who played the jealousy card on him a lot. She would drink want the attention of other guys, then have to deal with the consequences. It jerked him around a lot. He finally married her, which was not the solution, obviously. She didn't stop or change and I lost contact with them before they flamed out. Too bad. She was a very attractive gal which was probably why he tried to hang on to her. I think she had some problems though. From a guy who married a bi-polar woman (Future Ex #3) I now know the symptoms by heart and run the other direction. I am sure the alcohol and drugs going around that part of the group probably didn't make things any better.

Chapter 22 Marilyn at Incahoot's

There was one big regret I had about my Time at Incahoot's. There was a very nice gal I met there by the name of Marilyn. She was a stunner, brown hair, willowy figure with all the right curves and a chest, a natural chest, of brobdignagian proportions.

She would enter and win every dance or bathing suit contest they held. Now I refer you back to comments I have made about how people held bouncers in low esteem.

While I worked there, Marilyn did not give me the time of day. She was nice, cordial even, and I got to know her, but that was it. I moved to Houston for a while and then came back as I mentioned earlier.

Our paths crossed after I moved back to Tulsa. I asked her out and we finally exchanged information. She was stunned to learn that I actually had a REAL job, and a good one at that.

I took her out to The Fountains, I believe it was, for a champagne brunch with some friends. We went out a few more times. I really, really liked her and I am sure it could have gone somewhere. But, I really hate that word, it negates everything that comes before it...BUT the girl was teetering between a "hot mess" a full fledged train wreck.

Back then, I had pretty high standards, and I have to say now, after having been married to a woman with bipolar disorder, Marilyn was a dream by comparison.

 When I went to pick her up at her apartment for our first date,  I realized how much drama there was in her life. Her apartment door had been dented up pretty badly by her estranged boyfriend, and he had also broken out all the lights on her car.   That is the kind of drama I didn't want or need at that time in my life.

I worked for a reputable company who in a probability would frown on employees being arrested for public altercations. I really didn't want the lights on my new car broken out either. It was pretty obvious that her ex-boyfriend was a bomb waiting to go off. So I thought very long and hard on it.

For one of the few times in my life, the big head overruled the little head.  As much as I thought Marilyn personified my dream girl, I knew I just could not make it work.

What I know now is that a lot of people who have stormy relationships do suffer from some undiagnosed mental disorder like bipolar or manic depression.  They self medicate by drinking.   I encountered this for the first time in college where I had a drop dead gorgeous girlfriend who I later realized was bat shit crazy due to PPD.  She eventually was institutionalized by her father when she added things like LSD and heroin to her list of self medications that had been limited to alcohol when I knew her.

Well, Marilyn and I eventually shared a night together and it was very nice. I liked her a lot, but I made the faux pas that a lot of guys do.  I tapped her and then didn't call her.

My sister came into town from Enid where she was an Instructor Pilot in the Air Force. I took her to Incahoot's for an evening. Who should I run into but Marilyn. She jumped to the conclusion that my sister was another girlfriend and made a big scene. I don't know if she had had a bit too much to drink, if she was the jealous type or was bipolar, but in the event, it was embarrassing for me in front of my sister.

That pretty much tore it. I tried to explain the situation to her, but I think she didn't want to hear it. Too much drama. I never saw her again. I would have liked to, but our paths never crossed and her phone number got disconnected. I subsequently tried to get in touch via the web and BB's but to no avail. I hope she is out there happy. She certainly deserves it.

I still have dreams of that top heavy figure of hers.

Chapter 21 Incahoot's, 51st and Memorial

Incahoot's was at the time one of the most popular nightclubs in Tulsa. It was at the mall at 51st and Memorial. I lived in Bartlesville at the time and hated to go to Tulsa to go out, then drive home after drinking. The drive was a killer. This was before US 75 had been turned into 4 lane. I had a co-worker who suffered severe head injuries and his wife was decapitated in a head collision on one of the Verdigris River bridges. Nasty stuff. Anyway, I decided to apply for a job as a bouncer at the club so I could party for free and not drive home drunk. I got the job and worked Friday and Saturday nights. My partner at the door was a very affable former Marine. I can't remember his name but he was a great guy, and I trusted him implicitly. We were pretty much alike, clean cut, not into drugs; we'd rather have a beer than a line of coke. Line's of coke were readily available. There were usually parties after hours for the restaurant and club workers. I remember one at the newly opened and still under construction One Eton Square apartments. When the club closed we went on over and the host had a mirror in the bedroom with a mound of coke on it. People were lined up like it was a cafeteria waiting their turn. We looked at each other and headed for the door. It is funny how people are. I worked as a petroleum geologist by day and bounced on weekends. The patrons at the club treated you, the door men I mean, like we were invisible. I guess they felt we were below their station in life. I thought it was pretty funny since I probably earned more than 90% of the people who walked through the door. People I got to know and who got to know me were incredulous that I would work a job like that. Well, I did a lot of duck hunting on weekends during the winter anyway, so I just drove home at 3am had a few cups of coffee and went hunting. I'd come back home after lunch, sleep a few hours then drive back to Tulsa to the club, then go hunting Sunday morning again. The owner of the club was Lebanese; the manager was a nice guy about my age who had a very nice looking wife. I got to know her a year or so later when I lived at One Eton, she worked the bar at TGI Friday's. I can't say I got to know any of the other bouncers at the club, I met them, but most of them were meatheads. They caused more fights than the stopped apparently. One tall blond guy thought he was Larry Holmes. I think he spent more time down at the TPD station than at the club. I only got into one brawl. My skill was in talking the unruly patrons out of the club. I didn't threaten or bluster, I negotiated. The one exception was due to intervention by the dumb ass owner. A local who owned a gym in town, a former lineman for the Bengals, I was told, came in. I guess he was 'roided out or just a plain ass hole. Anyway he proceeds to go into the men's room and knocks all the toilet partitions down. He's hitting them like they're a blocking sled. The manager tells me to get him out of the club. Well, off I go to do it. I later find out that not one other bouncer in the club would have done it. I approach this guy on the dance floor and we have a quiet conversation. At first he isn't taking me seriously, but then agrees to leave. End of story. Not! He's walking out with his date, and the Owner; did I say he was a dumb ass? goes over to him to have the last word. I had followed him at a distance. Just as I approach he is at the grabs the owner by the shirt, did I mention the owner was a dumb ass? Shit it's no wonder the Lebanese blew the shit out of their own country. Anyway, Joe football cocks his arm ready to put his fist through the owner's face (yeah, the dumb ass owner). Without thinking I hit Joe Lineman with a shoulder tackle driving him into the wall. He grabs me by the hair. It is all I can do to hold his right arm against the wall. Luckily in the next instance, the bartenders, and DJ are on him too. We hold him against the wall and he is straining like he is on a Nautilus Peck Deck machine. I yell to slide him down the wall to the emergency exit. At the time I have his brother on my back pounding away on me until someone pulls him off. We get Mr. Dick Butkus wanna be to the door and I hit the latch bar and out on the sidewalk he goes. I slam the door and run to the front door and pull up a stainless steel rope stanchion and tell my fellow bouncer, who up till then was busy making time with a patron, to do the same. I said use it to hit the biggest guy you see come through the door. Luckily cooler heads prevailed and the got Mr. Roid Rage into a car that almost made it out of the parking lot before the police came. End of story. When I moved back to Tulsa, the Mr. Dumb Ass owner's wife who must have been in the back ground that night recognized me as a patron. She asked me if I wanted to come back to work for them. I declined. She remarked that I always prevented fights unlike the other bouncers. I like to think I also prevented her husband having to pay a very large oral and maxillary facial reconstruction surgery bill. My ego likes to think she wanted to get to know me better. Who knows, it wasn't long after that that the club changed names, several times and ultimately closed. We did have a lot of nice after hour's parties. I never kept in touch with any of the people there. Later when I lived at One Eton, I met the manager's wife. She remembered me from the club. I used to come in regularly on Friday for my version of a boiler maker, a Capt. Morgan's and a beer. She would set me up before I got to the bar stool. On numerous occasions I sat next to a guy that had more than a passing interest in her. They new each other pretty well, I'd wager. She was a sweet dish I have to say. I got more than my share of drinks on the house or two for one's. At the time I was dating my Future Ex # 2. I was driving a little red MGB convertible. I recall, after an evening of drinks going out to the car. We only had to drive to the apartment in the second row of buildings down from the clubhouse. As we drove by the glass windows at the front of the place, my Future Ex #2 turns in her seat, rises up on her knees and pulls up her top. All I could see were the mouths dropping open as the window side seats got a grand view of her perky 36 DD's as we drove by. We had been sitting at the bar all evening. I often wonder if more than a few of the guys got their wish by her little act. What surprised me was it was totally out of character for her. I sure surprised the shit out of me.

Chapter 20 PPCo Surface Mapping

I hung out with the Surface Mapping Group my first few years at Phillips. It was my assignment at R&D to give them R&D support in Remote Sensing. I used their image analysis system in the old bank vault quite a bit. There were a number of people I remember, techs mainly. Richard, I think his name was, was the main computer tech, he ran the system loaded the old imagery tapes and wrote our processed images to film for us. He had another assistant, a local cowboy type who worked a farm/ranch down south of town. I borrowed a bunch of hay bales from him on autumn to deck out my garage for a Halloween party. A very nice guy. We had a few beers together at least once. There was an Osage gal, I think her name was Carolyn. She was in her late 30's early 40's. A motherly type. A matronly broad, in both senses of the word. She was great fun. I used to make eyes at this lovely young woman who was also Osage, just a gorgeous example of a native American woman. She seemed to always were these tight jeans... Anyway Carolyn noticed me looking and we got to talking, something we did a lot. Conversation came around to the other gal and she laughed. She said you think she's pretty. I had to admit she was. She pulled out a photograph and said, what about her? I looked at the photo and had to admit the gal in the picture was a knockout. Long black hair, athletic build, very pretty. The spitting image of the other younger woman. I looked up at her expecting her to say with a fair amount of pride that it was her daughter. She said simply, that a picture of me. I did a double take. She laughed again, then explained to me what she called the Osage Blossom. I didn't know what the hell she was talking about. Remember this is straight from her. It seems that in her opinion there is this thing that happens to the women of the Osage, that is genetically coded in them somewhere. In their mid-thirties, their bottoms just begin to "blossom", hence the name. Carolyn had this profound derriere. She maintained that it happened to them all. At some point she told me, that lithe, slender athletic Indian maiden I lusted after would look just like her. Carolyn was not unattractive, she was typical Osage. Round face, sepia colored skin, wonderful smile, dark brown to black hair that she kept cut to her shoulders. And she had a very ample bottom. Well, I will have to defer to her on whether the Osage Blossom really exists or not. Though I did notice that over the time I worked around the young Indian maiden I did notice that the jeans got tighter and tighter, and she did seem to be loosing that "athletic" look. I guess the only proof would be to do a representative sampling and run the statistics. There were a bunch of other characters in the group. I only remember a few of their names. Hal, Garry, Kurt, Steve, Claude, and a host of others I cannot remember. Some disappeared when the group's leader Hal, retired, and the wolves descended on the group laying off or transferring most of them. Out of over 40 odd people only about 4 survived and were moved out to R&D for a couple of years, and were finally "attritted" in the bloodletting of 1988-89. John Mihm, or as we called him, Mihm the Merciless, or Ho Chi Mihm, the head of our division led the executions. When the dust settled, I think only about 4 or 5 people remained out of a staff of over 50 including those assigned to support them at R&D. Phillips had the dubious distinction of making the deepest cuts of any oil company in the industry during the decline of the 1980's. They laid off around 50% of their geological and geophysical staff. With regard to my immediate co-workers, they were pretty much gone. Granted some were found positions in other parts of the company, but a lot left for other companies or left the industry entirely. At the time, I bailed out and got a transfer to Houston, got laid off there after 3 months, then was recalled and transferred back to Bartlesville as part of the reconstituted International Exploration Group, they had moved from Florida. That carefully thought out human resources moved cost Phillips probably around $70,000 dollars of their scarce money. They paid me two lump sums of $10,000 to move there and back in under 5 months. They paid me severance all of which I kept. They paid me living expenses for 1 month and sundry other move related monies. They did it to several other guys I am aware of, one a close friend at the time. He's an engineer and works in the Health Safety and Environment Group. Last time I spoke to him he was in charge of monitoring pipelines somewhere. They should have been laying off the dumb asses in accounting and human resources. Those clowns, it was decided had lain off too many people. In January, they moved 20 of us to Houston, then in April laid most of us off. Then recalled some of us, and moved us back to B'ville. Well thought out, right? Typical Phillips.

Chapter 19 Lisa L.

Lisa was a former ballerina. She had danced with the San Antonio Ballet company but suffered a knee injury. At the time I knew her, her father was the Mayor of Caney, Kansas. She was dating one of the roommates living over west of my house on Cherokee. Kent was her boyfriend, or rather the boy friend she wanted. He worked for Reda Pump as an accountant or something like that. He had at one time been a competitive water skier. Nice guy. Lisa was a quiet but fun loving type. The thing I remember about her the most was the way she walked. I learned it was distinctive to ballerinas. She was very slender but was still well endowed. So much so that she told me they used to require her to bind them down when she danced with the ballet troupe. Her breasts were too pendulous for Kent's taste and he was trying to divest himself of her attentions. I would have to differ with his opinion. To paraphrase the words of Jackie Chiles the attorney on Seinfeld!, "They were real and they were Magnificent!" I guess he liked them small and perky, because both he and his roommates had a derogatory name for her breasts and those of Dana, another gal who made the rounds of the house while dating one of the other guys who lived there. It had something to do with an Italian form of pasta baked in a pan. Dana I believe, went on to marry a minister in town. From what I could see neither deserved the descriptive tag. Guys, go figure. At the time I was seeing someone on and off, but Lisa and I spent a fair amount of time together. She filled out a bikini exceptionally well. The one down side was she was pining away for a guy who split his time between Arkansas and Kansas. He was, by her own admission a real hound, and couldn't be trusted, but for some reason she just could not get this guy out of her system. She eventually married him and is till with him to this day. So I guess she was meant to be with him. But 20 years ago, he couldn't make the commitment. She eventually waited him out. I think I could have really fallen for her if she could have decided she could do without the other guy, but apparently she couldn't. This may have been a contributing factor to Kent loosing interest. He made it final one night at the DI and I was there to console her. She came on back to my place that evening. We hung out a lot together, partied, went dancing. We even went shopping to Tulsa for classical music. She knew where all these small mom and pop music shops were. I really enjoyed my time with her. I had only one complaint, that was she like to drink a bit too much at times. That is still a pet peeve of mine. I was married to a bi-polar gal for 5 years. I guess that was my penance. I learned at that time how much I detested drunks. Don't get me wrong, I love my drink. I home brew and love single malt scotch, vodka and a good sipping rum. But I also know when to quit. So I expect others to know their limit too. I have never plied women with alcohol. I have on more than one occasion tucked a date in bed and gone home or simply rolled over and went to sleep. In my book it is no fun having sex with a drunk, I might as well beat off. I remember meeting this very pretty and very buxom young former stripper in Houston. She had two neat tattoos on the inner swell of her substantial cleavage back before tattoos could be seen on every kid on the block. We went to a comedy show, had dinner and drinks and went dancing. I took her home and she promptly passed out. Now mind you I wanted this girl in the worst way. It was like a movie. I went into the bathroom brush my teeth, I undressed, came to the bed, she was buck naked and out cold. I stood there looking at that very voluptuous young lady out cold and me nursing a very substantial hard-on. I tucked her in and turned out the lights. Thinking there would be another time. There never was. She moved to Dallas and I lost track of her. But I never regretted my decision. Now Lisa owned a house next door to her mom and dad's place in Caney. So we spent most of our time at my house. I can still remember watching her pad around the house sans cloths with her peculiar ballerina walk. It was like a scene out of a very sexy movie. She had this very infectious laugh and a killer smile. She would laugh so hard this vein in her forehead would stand out n her high forehead. I can't remember the color of her eyes, either gray or brown, and she had the prettiest nose with a sprinkling of freckles. She had a lot of the same properties that made Karen Allen, the brunette in the first Raiders of the Lost Ark movie so attractive. Lisa also tanned like nobody's business. The difference between her flat tanned belly and the part covered by her bikini was like night and day. My current wife is a lot like her, in build, temperament and tan. LOL, maybe I never got over Lisa. I spoke with her not too long ago. She's happy and her and Mr. Right now have two small businesses, a garage door installation company and something else. She had a knock-out younger sister whose looks would stop a train. Absolutely gorgeous. Poor kid had some substance abuse problems that she ultimately beat. I was rooting for her. Ultimately Lisa and I drifted apart. She just could not get this other guy out of her head and I felt like a place warmer. I filled the emotional gap when he wasn't around. We did see each other on occasion. I remember having to drive all the way from Tulsa prior to an overseas trip to get my wallet. We had met at a place called Talk of the Town. Very apt name, wot? Well I had left it there on a Friday night when we met after work. Then I had to drive up to retrieve it, around a 200 mile round trip. I guess I have to say that Lisa was worth it.

Chapter 18 The Stables

Once upon a time there was a strip club on Peoria Avenue in Tulsa. After the club on Bartles Road closed, the Stables was the only establishment of the type worth going to in the general area. I got to know the place pretty well. I had a former lab partner from college who worked for Amoco and came up to the Research Center in Tulsa from Houston on occasion. We would head there for a few beers. One night we walked in and this guy started poking us with a pool cue. It took a minute or two for what he was saying to get through all the noise. It turned out to be another classmate from college back east. He worked for Cities Service. Now talk about the odds of that happening. Me from Bartlesville, Jim from Tulsa, and Steve from Houston all ending up in the same hole in the wall strip club on Peoria. Well, I got to know a stripper named Danyel, a 5'7"+ stunner with a pair of snow cone tits. Very pretty. She was somewhat of a headliner there for a while. There was another gal named Judy, probably Osage or Cherokee. She would wear mukluks on stage and do this whistle routine where she'd bend over and whistle and her pootie would move with the whistling. Cute. Now remember this was in the days when total nudity reigned supreme. No latex on the nipples, no g strings. Three dances and you were down to the bare facts, ma'am. I remember Danyel coming out and doing her first two then dropping the g-string and whoops there was her tampon string. She stepped behind the curtain then deftly tucked everything away then finished her number. I ran into her up on 31st or 21st in some club back about 10 years ago, right after the Stables was forced to close. I was up visiting my kids from Houston and staying at a motel over on 31st. I got in late and went over to see the dancers before picking my kids up the next morning. Danyel remembered me and I remembered her. She used to live over off Peoria near me when I lived at Place One on Riverside Drive. I remember seeing her one Friday night at the club, then running into her at the grocery store Saturday morning. She was pushing her daughter in a shopping cart. We probably both looked pretty rough. But she smiled, stopped and we chatted. This last weekend was my daughter's 16th, so I flew into Tulsa to arrange a surprise party. She was born on St. Paddy's day. I dropped into the club Cloud 9 to kill some time and the bartender looked familiar. So I asked. She had been the bartender at the stables probably 20 years ago or more. She remembered all the girls and we had a nice time chatting and remembering the good old days. Old strippers never die, they just tend bar or keep on dancing. I met two young soon to be old strippers. One with two nifty piercings, the other a 6" 2 beauty that could table dance like nobody's business. Viva la dancers!

Chapter 17 Odds and Ends

Blondie There was this blonde that worked as a my mail girl for a while at Research and Development. I can't remember her name. I used to have her name written down, as my Ex-Mother In-Law 2 knew her, or of her. If I recall she had a bad reputation or so my Mother-in-law said. So she must have been from the Dewey Bartlesville area. She was the prettiest thing. She had the most enormous breasts for someone with as slight a build as she did. This gal was straight from Tobacco Road. She would come to work wearing tan pants and sandals looking like the stereotypical waif. Every time I hear the song "Chevy Van" I think of this gal. Especially the line "A dirt-road main street, she walked off in bare feet". I imagine her in cut off jeans and a tied short shirt. Like Daisy in the Duke's of Hazzard. That's how I'll always remember her. I wanted to get to know this young lady in the worst way. It was apparent that she came from a less than affluent background. She used to put makeup on a face that didn't need it. Obviously no one had ever taught her how to do it. Her mascara looked like it had been put on with a trowel. Despite that, she was just gorgeous and had this aura of naive sexuality about her. I asked her out once and we went to the little club that was on 1st Street I think. It was there I learned she was too young to drink. I despaired that the gulf between our back grounds was just too vast to bridge. I truly wanted to make a Lisa Doolittle out of her. I am a care taker at heart. I guess I wanted to save her, give her a better opportunity. I really did. I guess that is arrogant. She was probably as happy as a clam where she was. I learned that later on traveling to a lot of distant places. People no matter how mean there existence are usually pretty happy. Kids in the jungles of Bolivia, don't know they are supposed to have a TV, McDonald's Happy Meals, Cokes, and $2000 worth of overpriced junk called toys littering their bedrooms. The kids in the Christian Children's Fund or whatever are like that. I can't imagine how long it takes them to get the kids not to smile for the camera. Total Crap. When you give to that fatherly white bearded man, you are really paying his and an army of other leach's salaries. The kids get the crumbs they didn't even ask for. She was just so, so pretty and sweet and sexy. You just don't see them come any prettier and sexier naturally any more. This gal had the patent on how brick shithouses are built. The last I heard she got married and probably had a bunch of kids living in a trailer somewhere. I do remember running into her later and she had this hyper jealous boyfriend. They looked like they were joined at the hip He held on to her like grim death. I can't say I blame him. She probably had every guy in a three county area bird dogging her. Rene' Rene' was a dream. She was a regular at the DI. A true local girl. She picked me up one night at DI. I was very flattered, but also very drunk. This girl had the most fantastic body I have ever seen. I mean this girl was perfect. Perfect everything. She had the most perfect breasts, with those pear shaped or what they call puffie nipples. Lean, svelt and just absolutely perfect. As I said I was very drunk and as I recall did not acquit myself very admirably in the bed that night. I rue that day, I really wanted to impress this woman. Well, we hit it off anyway. I took her antiquing the next day, a Saturday. We hit every store in Dewey and Bartlesville. I was on a frame buying jag, and needed frames for water fowl prints I wanted to hang. I had a great time with her and hoped it would lead to more. Imagine my disappointment when I learned that I was apparently a pre-marital fling. Yep, she was sowing her last wild oats. The next time I saw her she was working at the Phillips Hotel and was pregnant. I don't think it was mine, LOL. I had been gone for a while to Houston and she had married in the meantime. Rene', Rene' sweet Rene'. One of the most physically perfect women I have ever known. Like Diane only with a perfect set of boobs. I hope life has treated you well. to be contiued...

Chapter 16 Diane

Diana, or Diane, tomato or tomatoe. The spelling doesn't really matter. This gal was something else. I met her that fateful night of my first threesome. She was the least shy of the two young ladies who picked me up. At least it seemed that way. We hit it off immediately and it was lust at first sight. If you recall, I was sitting home in a nearly empty house after my Ex # 1 moved out. I desired a beer so I chose the little country bar just to the Southeast of the US75 - Nowata Road intersection. The place behind the little motel. I marched in and had a beer and was about to leave when one of the two women approached me. More details are in the chapter entitled, Menage ... That night I knew I had something special and was sad to see her go as I wistfully watched her and her friend leave that morning. This 110lb little lady had a gymnast's body and could arch her back and lift my 190lbs off the bed in her throws of ecstasy. I had to hook my arms around her back and over her shoulders to keep her muscles from squeezing me out like greased salami. The description does not do it justice. It is no wonder she was popular. The next morning I went on to work at R&D then caught the shuttle bus down to the old Frank Phillips Office Building. I worked at a satellite imagery interpretation work station inside an old bank vault in the bowels of the building. I sat in the dark and could still feel Diane clasped around my member. No shit. I guess it was like when they say you can feel an amputated limb long after it was gone. I could still feel her around me. Mid day the phone in the Vault rings and they say I have a call. I picked up and my heart jumped. It was her. I could not believe it. I asked how she found me and she said she called the Phillips directory and she got my office and they forwarded the call to where I was. I was dumbstruck. I guess I made as bit an impression on her as she did on me. She said she wanted to see me again. My mind raced for a millisecond before I said I'd like to see her too. I was now living alone as my Ex #1 had moved into an apartment on the East Side. She moved out while I was in Giddings or some other place doing field work. That was one reason I happened to walk into the threesome, I had left the nearly empty house to go have a beer. Anyway, Diane worked at the old Savings and Loan over on Adams Blvd. across from the hospital. The place went belly, the S&L bust of the late 80's catching up to it in the early 90's. But at the time it was still in business. We started a torrid affair. I knew she was married and lived in Dewey. She was unhappy, and had just had a baby. It might have been coming off of the pregnancy she was looking for reassurance that she was still attractive. Her husband may not have been paying attention to her. In the event we would meet at lunch and after work and on weekends. Whenever she could get away. Eventually she started feeling guilty and we stopped seeing each other. That lasted for a while then she dropped by again. Eventually I had to go into the field for more work. My Ex # 1 was no longer living with me but we hadn't filed for divorce. She would drop in to collect her mail and check on my progress renovating the house. It was on one of these visits that she intercepted a letter from Diane to me. So much for the sanctity of the US mail. She called Diane's husband and the balloon went up. It was ugly, but quickly abated. Diane went back to her husband and we filed for divorce. Then Diane filed for divorce and got an apartment. I then think she moved back. We saw each other for sex now and then, but I got transferred to Houston and we fell out of touch. When I came back and settled in Tulsa we got back in touch and started seeing each other again. She had divorced and remarried, then divorced. I think he was a fireman and she just could not stop running around. I used to stop by her place in Dewey on my way back from duck hunting. She'd still be in bed, I'd shower and crawl in with her have sex and we'd sleep till noon then go out for breakfast. She invited me to the savings and loan Christmas party dinner and I went. We sat across from a middle aged woman named Sharon. Little did I know that she was my Future Ex #2 step mother and the her husband, my future father-in-law was a co-worker with Diane husband at the Dewey High school. This small world was about to get smaller. I was now on Sharon's radar screen as the philandering lout who had broken up Diane's marriage. Well, I don't know that, because I had been in Houston for a while and she had already gone through another husband. But when my name came up with my future father-in-law, I bet my name was familiar from when my Ex #1 had called Diane's husband. Diane was strapped for money after her divorce and she started to work at the Country Club in the dining room. She met a couple of guys that worked there as well. These two were two of four roommates that lived in a house over west of me south of Adams Blvd. One of the guys named Kent worked for Reda Pump and another worked at a shoe store off of Frank Phillips Blvd down town. His name was Ron. I got to know the two of them and we golfed together now and then. Kent had been a competitive water skier. Ron just like to party and probably drank a little too much for his own good. I held a pig roast over at their place one year and we did a pizza party on another occasion. Good guys. The other two slots changed out a couple of times. There was one ladies man who dated a gal named Dana. I admit I had a crush on her for a while. She had this Karen Allen thing going, but with a much nicer rack. She was a beautiful brunette with freckles and a killer smile. Problem was she was just too shallow. We went on one date. She didn't much like my three tone pick-up truck. We went to a disco in Tulsa that has a televised spot on one of the local stations on Saturday night. That was the selling point for her. All she could ever talk about at the time was how much she wanted a Nissan 280Z with the Dallas Cowboy Package. Baby blue and silver with a blue interior. Way cool! She lived over on Keeler or Jennings with some roommates. The gal had a lot of potential, but her pretty looks could not offset her shear mind numbing stupidity and dullness. In high school there is no doubt she was in the beautiful people clique. If that were not enough to put me off, Mr. Ladie's Man went into plenty of detail about her performance in bed to make the rest of us luke warm in light of the potential meager returns. She sounded like missionary wife material. No head, body looked better in cloths than not, etc. I thought she looked pretty good, especially her outstanding rack. He on the other hand disabused us of the notion saying that "she had a set of spaghetti straps". Well, I was right in one regard; she ended up marrying a minister there in Bartlesville. I don't know if they still live in town or not. After Mr. Ladie's Man moved on, a couple of other locals moved in. This is where Diane enters the picture. I used to take Ron duck hunting with me and I came over early one morning and there Diane was laying buck naked in bed with two of them. I guess I woke her up as I continued on through the house to get Ron from his room in the back. When I came back out to the front, she had hopped up and beat feet into the bathroom. I guess a few after work drinks had led her back to their bed. I was seeing Diane on occasion when I moved back from Houston. I had met a beautiful secretary at PPCo who worked in Accounting. We started to date. She came and stayed with me on weekends when her son was with her ex in Tahlequah. I would occasionally stay with her in Bartlesville. Come one Valentine's Day, I was going to be out of the country, so I arranged to have roses delivered to Diane and the other young woman, who was destined to be my Future Ex #2. I had the roses sent to them both at work. This is when I found out that Diane worked with my future ex mother-in-law. The Future Ex Mother in law got an excited call from her daughter (actually step daughter) telling her I had sent her roses. I can imagine the glee with which she told my Future Ex #2 that I had sent roses to Diane too. Heretofore they didn't know about one another. They had no reason to. Diane could have cared less, but of course, my Future Ex #2 did care. When I came back I was given an ultimatum by my Future Ex #2, either her or Diane. Since I only saw Diane on rare occasions, the choice was easy. My Future Ex #2 was a 5'7" stunner who turned heads when she walked in the room. On our honeymoon in on Grand Cayman, she caused a band to stop in mid song. No shit. We walked into a club, walked across the dance floor and the house band, Barefoot Man, a noted reggae band, stopped n mid song. The lead singer had a few choice complimentary comments to my wife's chagrin. It was not surprising, my Future Ex #2 was a jaw dropping 34D-21-32 sheathed in a tight hot pink Lycra dress. I never saw Diane again. Later I heard Diane married an attorney, had another child or maybe two. One died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. She got divorced later and may still be in the area. My ex-mother-in-law used to keep me up to date on the latest news about her seeing how my ex-father in law still worked with her first husband. Diane was a very nice woman, with a whippet like gymnast's body, consumed with working out. I bet the gal didn't have over 5% body fat. She had a few issues with self esteem, fueled I am sure by things said by her first husband's holier than thou family. I remember her talking about how people even her in-laws looked down on her and her mother, coming as they were from the "poor side of town", doot do do wha shoobie doobie.... So I guess she was driven to pull herself up any way she could, but she just gave more grist to the gossip and rumor mills. On the subject of self esteem. I knew more than a few young women in B'ville that labored under that cloud. I don't know what causes it. It could be the conflicting demands or expectations. Case in point. I knew a gal cute as a button. Had guys eating out of her hand all through HS. But she used them and abused them due in large part because that is how she saw her mother manipulate men. After HS she could not buy a date so she focused on her career. Now, the kind of guy she wanted to meet and marry was a country type. Do you see a conflict coming? Well, every guy she meets that fits the mold she wants expects her to stay home and watch the kids. Well long story short, she is now approaching 40. She has had at least 3 broken engagements and currently no prospects in sight. How does that impact self esteem? Well tell gals that they should have kids and some do. Some have careers. Her sister had the kids. Then labored under the cloud that she was something less than her younge sister because she didn't have the college degree that her sister did. Add to that an abusive first husband, and an abusive step dad and you have a woman that starts to believe what everyone has told her about herself. I remember a post pregnant Diane telling me her husband had told her that no one would ever want her except him. Well, she proved him wrong, over and over again.

Update:  As of 2018 Diane is still in Green Country. Her original ex, died unexpectedly a year or two ago from a heart attack and was missed by all who knew him. Diane is single again, and has had her little B cups pumped up to something that looks like EEs. She is involved in real estate or something like that. I wish her all the best. She is still a very attractive lady.

Chapter 15 Ménage à Trois

Yes, boys and girls it does happen in Bartlesville. I had just agreed to a separation with Future Ex #1. I was living on South Cherokee, a block or two from the Frank Phillips Mansion. Judging from what I've heard about old Frank, he would have been proud of my exploits in the bedroom. The first threesome occurred one night when I had decided to leave my nearly empty house and have a beer. I had just returned from a 4 week stint in Montana during which my Ex # 1 had just moved to an apartment on the east side. The empty space and the echo in the partially empty house had gotten depressing, so I decided to go out for a beer before turning in. For a change, I drove to old country bar behind the motel at the corner of Woodland Loop and 75. I can't remember the name of the place. But it was a nice enough and had live music and always seemed busy. I think it was a Wednesday night. I parked my pick up; I hadn't bought the MGB yet and was driving an old F-100. I walked in behind two young women who looked to be having a good time. They were laughing and giggling. I bought a can of beer and was standing by one of the ivy covered drooling lion fountains hanging on the wall. You know the ones where the water runs from their mouths in an endless stream into a basin beneath. I had just about had enough of the band and was ready to leave, when one of the two gals I followed in came up to me asked me to join them. I sat at their table. They seemed to know a lot of people as they came and went over the next hour. I danced with them in shifts as they socialized. Every time I was ready to leave, they would want a dance. Near closing, I really was ready to leave, but one of the two wanted one more dance. WI was dancing with the young woman I'll call Deborah. She said that her friend, Diana wanted to go home with me. She hummed and hawed, then said "Well we both want to go home with you." A light went on in my head. So be it. I talked with her a bit more to make sure they were sure and this wasn't just a big put on. I still was not convinced that I wasn't just being set up for a joke. Well I gave them directions to my house and we left at closing so no one would see us leave together. I was fully convinced that I would see their headlights turn off somewhere between 75 and Cherokee. But no. they followed me to the house and asked that I let them pull in ahead of me. Now mind you. Everyone, and I mean everyone that I knew, knew where I lived and Cherokee is busy street. So if there was a strange car in my driveway, someone would bring it to my attention sometime later in the week if not that same day. If my ex wife came over to claim bedroom privileges everyone would ask about it. So it probably was not a bad idea for them to park in front of my truck. I am here to tell you that there is etiquette for threesomes in the bedroom. You do not want to play it by ear. So for future reference, Rule Number 1 is do not focus on one of your partners more than the other. Spread the attention, than even means undressing. In the event, they were novices like me, so were not terribly proactive. I had to undress them, a bit here from one, a bit there from the other. Rule Number 2, undress yourself. This really speeds things up. You don't know how delicate it can be when you have to undress two women and not play favorites no matter how much you might like one over the other. Rule Number 3 participation by all is mandatory. Think about it. If the women don't take the initiative while the guy and other gal are busy things fall apart. Three people, everyone has to be involved or someone gets left out, and that can be a very very uncomfortable feeling. So as you can imagine this kind of thing is not for the shy or faint of heart. We all have hands and mouths so use them. The man in the mix can only do so much at one time. LOL. Diana was much more into it than Deborah. So once things got started, I guess she felt left out and not being proactive, felt completely left out when Diana and I started getting into it. I can leave it up to your imagination to figure out what I am talking about. Well Deb wasn't the imaginative type, so after the preliminary book end oral sex, she felt left out and went in the living room. Diana and I finished but I couldn't coax Deb back in. So after about 2 hours the fun was over and they left. All was not over though. Find the conclusion under the Chapter: Diana.

Chapter 14 Sick Puppies

In the Couples and Couplings chapter I started to reveal a little of the social workings of our greater circle of friends. We had the Neo-colonials from Kenya, Randy the food manager and his interior designer wife, then the MBA student and his Danish wife. There were also the Child Psychiatrist and his hippy wife Suzie and the jeweler Judy and her husband. All of the relationships were in some degree of terminal illness. All save Randy and his wife, who last I heard were living happily in Florida the beneficiaries of an insurance windfall due to the untimely death of his parents in some sort of accident. Let's take a look at the most interesting case. The hippy wife Suzie was an attractive auburn haired waif. She was right out of the Sixties. Long unfettered wavy hair and long flowing gauzy dresses. She dabbled in a number of enterprises, a knick knack shop on a side street off of Cherokee, then moved up to a coffee shop off of Cherokee between Adams and 6th. It was a nice place and just a stones throw from the house her and her husband lived in off of Cherokee at Adams. I think their house was next to the one that looked like a haunted mansion with the ivy growing on it and the tall oaks surrounding it just north of the elementary school. Looking at Google map satellite imagery, I see that that whole block of houses is no more. Pity, they were as old as the Frank Phillips mansion and were quite nice. If only the owners had taken care of them. Well, Hippy Suzie was not the problem so much as her husband, unless you consider infidelity a problem. She had a taste for dark meat, taking to her bed for a time, a young American of African decent from Oklahoma City who is now considered a notable son of Bartlesville by the Bartian Chronicles. This was before shedding his wife and kids in OKC for two resident pieces of trim in Bartlesville. Suzie was the first I was aware of his current wife being the second. But I am getting ahead of myself. Suzie's child psychiatrist husband had a habit of making obscene phone calls to his wife's friends. The Danish Pastry was a good friend of Suzie's. She was quite a free spirit herself and would soon replace Suzie in her lover's bed resulting in the demise of their friendship. The Pastry had been getting calls from Suzie's husband (not to be confused with her/their Poet/welfare dad boyfriend) for some time and had deduced who it was. After a few parties at which most of the couples attended, some of the other wives started getting calls too. The Danish Pastry reported to me that he had gotten a little forward with her in a hallway and he had gotten a bit too touchy feely. She kneed him in the groin. As far as I know, my Future Ex at the time never got a call from the guy. Maybe he thought better of it since I was a bit more "engaged" and he might have felt I would have taken exception. Well, fast forward about 3 or 4 years. I was living in Tulsa as a bachelor in 1987 or 1988. I had met a group of single school teachers by way of giving science talks at Jr. High Schools. We were at a club on Peoria and I was talking to this one female teacher and told her I had lived in Bartlesville. She confided in me that her roommate used to data a guy from Bartlesville and he was a child psychiatrist. What are the chances right? I asked his name. Today I can't remember his name, something Italian I think ending with an "ioli" or something. Anyway, it was the same guy. I looked at her with a straight face and asked, "He started making obscene phone calls to you?" I wish you could have seen the look on her face. It was priceless. She gasped and said, " My god, how did you know?!" I told her the whole story laughing the whole way through. She couldn't stop shaking her head. There was a party circuit in B'ville at the time. Well probably two, or more. One was the PPCo singles. We partied, camped, canoed, and played sports together. Then there was the party circuit made up of locals. It was informal but if you knew enough people you got invited to parties in Dewey, Copan, B'ville, or anywhere one was planned or sprang up. This led to an almost incestuous bit of bed hopping. I mean you would get the opportunity to do sisters, moms and daughters, hell probably grand mothers and grand daughters. It just depends on where you drew the line. Me? Well I've not done sisters though I would have liked to. I almost had the chance to do a mom and daughter. That would have been fun, but I was waiting on Diane, she was working the bar at the King's Club or whatever the beer joint was on Bartle's Road between B'ville and Dewey. Her mom worked the bar. No it wasn't her and her mom. It was another gal and her mother. I might have taken them up on it, but, I recognized the gal as an LPN that worked for my Ex # 1 at Jane Phillips. Now that would have been a disaster. I would not have under cut my Ex #1 that way. She was too good a woman for me to mess with her in the work place. You know how women talk. I am sure it would have gotten back to her. To this day I don't know if the daughter recognized me or not. I wondered if there wasn't a bit of deliberate intention in the come on. I have to admit it was enticing. Oh, yeah. After Suzie and the Poet split, and the Pastry and the Pastry had replaced Suzie as the Poets new play...thing. An odd thing occurred. The Poet's wife in OKC found out that he was serious about this one. I don't know if he told her he wanted a divorce or what but she beat feet up to B'ville to settle accounts. In best ghetto tradition the jilted welfare mom stormed into the Pastry's salon and dragged her out of the place in front of customers and proceeded to put a Harlem sized ass whipping on her. I guess the specter of loosing governmental support was too much and pushed her to violence, where the simple philandering of her absentee husband would not. The story does have a happy ending. The Pastry and the Poet wed and had three or four kids and are now icons of the Bartlesville community.

Chapter 13 A Geologist and a Gentleman

Right after I arrived in Bartlesville, I realized there were a lot of people trying to leave. Women mostly. By that I mean I got the impression there were a lot of women that wanted to be taken away from Oklahoma, much as the young women wanted to leave the Navy town in An Officer and A Gentleman, by marrying a professional that worked for Phillips. I got some sage advice from someone who had lived in Bartlesville. "Don't get involved." "Have fun, but don't get involved with the local girls." Well, I managed to follow that advice until in the late 80's but that story comes later. There were a lot of women who were looking for someone to take care of them. The first I met was a gal named Vickie. A pretty waitress at the DI, and she was going to school working on a degree. She wore these great halter tops and seemed like a magnet for guys. We got intimately friendly, but never had sex. She was pretty well known at the DI. Ultimately she got a degree, went to work for Phillips in their computing mapping group in the same building I had been in, but only after I had left the company. She had a knack of getting involved with insanely jealous men. I remember one day seeing her by the Adams building and her asking me not to walk her out of the building because her boyfriend was waiting to pick her up and she didn't want trouble. I hope she finally found the right guy. Another was a local gal who was Filipino but pure Okie. Her name was Debbie. I knew her from the DI where she was a regular. I had made a play for her once and she along with a bunch of other people had ended up at my house. I remember her walking in and taking a look around. She was incredulous that a bachelor had a well decorated home. She said, "I can't believe this is your place. Any woman would love to have all this." Now I don't know if she meant it to sound the way it did, but alarm bells went off and I never pursued anything else with her. She dated an engineer friend of mine for a while but he just could not stand her personality. She would hold court in the Ladies' room like something out of a teen movie. Eventually I introduced her to another co-worker, well actually two of them. They were both interested so we went on a triple date. Debbie and a friend of hers, the two guys and me and my Future Ex #2. The geologist of the two got Debbie. They hit it off despite my warnings. Moved in together, he was putting her through community college, and got word of a transfer to Calgary. Well, as you can expect, he really didn't want to take any baggage along. Before he could give her the bad news, she pre-empted him and announced she was pregnant. So being a good guy (he was, a top notch geologist, and a dependable dive buddy) he did the right thing, even if he was crazy to do it. They ran out and got married, and whoops! she lost the baby. Not that there ever was one mind you. Anyway the hook had been set and eventually they did have two kids. The last time I heard they were in Cairo, Egypt and he was working for one of the majors there. So she got her wish and got to travel the world. I only hope she learned to like fish. I don't think any of her friends were as successful. They were attractive, but by any measure were as dumb as the proverbial bucket of rocks. Too bad, what a waste, all that beauty and no brains. I tended to play this angle for all it was worth. I never made any promises; I just let them fool themselves. I remember meeting a gal at the DI just before my transfer to Houston. We had a tremendous one night stand; this gal was on the cusp of BBWdom but was still young and had a rack like two big pillows. Wonderful. She liked to talk dirty too. Well I didn't see her again until I was dating Future Ex #2 and we were at the Red Apple. She came up to me and good naturedly kidded me about how I had disappeared off the face of the earth. I told her I had been transferred, and she nodded. Then it dawned on her that I had to have known but didn't say anything. Okay I was guilty of omission, but not commission. There were a few others but I hesitate to say that they were really looking for a way out of B'ville as much as they just didn't know what they wanted and were looking for a good time.

Chapter 12 Carolyn Cont'd

Back to Carolyn. We set out for Montana, me driving a 24 foot truck and Carolyn driving a 3/4 ton 4X4 pickup. We stopped in Kansas, the first night. We went out that night to a night club in Hays, Kansas. I got a glimpse of what Carolyn felt she needed. Carolyn was a very, very attractive woman. She needed attention and wanted to be desired, but does not want to be approached. Basically she wants thing on her terms with her in control. I was her escort of sorts. She didn't mind if guys oggled her, but she made it clear she was with someone, me. Nothing happened that first night in Kansas, or the second in Wyoming. We got to Great Falls the day before we were to pick up the remaining crew members. We stopped and Carolyn went to check us in while I secured the truck. She got us two adjoining rooms. There was a knock at the connecting room door and I opened it. She announced she was going to shower, and then we could go to dinner Quicker than I could spring an erection, she undressed and got in the shower. To be honest with all the blood draining from my head, I can't remember if I got in the shower with her or showered in my room. I do remember that she was in the bed and lickity split I joined her. Well, we more than made up for the interruption in Giddings. After the lust faded, and we had a cigarette, she said she needed to make a phone call. Well, not to be deterred, as I wanted round two, I stayed and while she talked to her hubbie Mr. B on the phone, I decided to do a little spelunking, or muff diving to those of you who are marine oriented. I tried my best to rattle her while she talked on the phone. She must have gotten something out of having me munching her muff, while she talked to her husband on the phone, because as soon as she hung up we went into extra innings. The next day we went pick up the rest of our crew at the airport. One the two techs we picked up was a guy named Dan Walker, a 350+ lb biker who knew Carolyn's former boyfriend and knew she was married. He took a brotherly interest in looking after her. The crew didn't get into town until late so we postponed setting out on the last leg of our trip until morning. After picking them up and driving from the air port it was late afternoon. The sexual tension between Carolyn and me was pretty high. We were behaving like two teenagers doing something we didn't want mom and dad to find out about, which made it even nastier. So when we split up to go to our rooms to kill time till dinner. Well, Carolyn and I went to her room to "clean" up and fucked like two animals. I mean we didn't even make it to the bed. I laid her on a divan and went at her like an inmate who just made parole. The blush on my ears hadn't gone away before old Dan was knocking on the door. We had a good laugh later because he had this really strange look on his face, maybe he could still smell the sex in the air. Anyway, I think he caught on to what was going on before the trip was over. We drove on into Jordan the next day. I don't remember clearly but I think Carolyn and I shared the truck front seat and talked. She was a bit too conservative to do anything else. In fact I don't think she was much into giving head at all come to think of it. We checked into the motel in Jordan. It was situated along the main running through town, with the town's main street running north from it, like an upside down "T". Across the street on the right was our lab housed in a vacant auto parts store, and on the other corner was the largest bar in town. In setting up the survey and making lodging arrangements I had gotten to know the daughter of the owners of both the motel and the bar. We checked in and I met her. We flirted a bit then headed over to the bar for a beer before dinner. Carolyn and the other tech tagged along. I vaguely remember the other tech who was female, Donna Wilman I believe. Donna knew Carolyn; they had been rivals at one time or other. I had a drink or two and a nice chat with the young woman who worked both the motel and bar. I then headed back to the lab to do some paperwork. Later I got back to the bar on my own and it was like stepping into a deep freeze. So much so I asked point blank what had changed since the last time I had come into the place. The young woman told me that Carolyn had in no uncertain terms told her that I was hers and that the others had better stay clear. I told them that she was my tech and that that was all. I would make a liar out of myself in short order. Due to the inclement weather in the area, the motel was built with a hallway behind the rooms for the maids to use with their carts. So each room had a front door to the street and another door opening to the service hallway. This was October and the weather was already cold and wet. All of us went to the bar that night, well I think we made the rounds of all three bars on the street, saloons really and hit the sack around 10 or 10:30. That night Carolyn came down the hallway and knocked at my door. We screwed to the wee hours. If I recall she scratched and clawed me like a cat that night and I had the stripes to show for it for a week. She got up in the early AM and was preparing to beat feet back to her room before the others woke up. I turned on the light to a scene out of the Godfather where the guy finds the horse's head in bed with him. Only there wasn't a horse's head and it wasn't horse's blood. Apparently she had started her period during our pipe laying and neither of us had noticed, or at least I hadn't. I probably chalked up the excess lube to her excitement. I looked like someone had cut my pecker off, my pubes were matted with blood and we were both smeared from shoulders to knees with the stuff. My bed was a fucking mess, thats' it and all about it. Then it flashed in my brain. The gal at the bar was the one who made up the rooms and she was going to find a scene that looked like I had just butchered some one or some thing in my bed. Else I had screwed a very shrewd woman who knew she was flowing and had indelibly marked her turf. It wasn't the last time Carolyn out smarted me. I got cleaned up and we left that morning for the field. I don't think I said another word to the motel gal the remaining 3 weeks of my stay. She just stayed clear of me. Touché Carolyn. We continued to do the sneaking around for the next few weeks until another crew came up to replace us. We flew out and the replacement crew drove the vehicles back. The next trip with Carolyn was to Rockglen, Saskatchewan. I drove up, again picking up the crew along the way, started the survey, setting up a lab in a vacant auto garage. We were going to do field work on both sides of the US-Canadian border. I left for a while to handle my then Ex # 1's filing for divorce, then flew back. Carolyn was at the airport to pick me up. Carolyn had come up while I was gone and she had talked the rest of the crew into letting her stay at the hotel to do laundry while they were out collecting samples. I checked in to my room then checked into Carolyn. We whammed and bammed until the late afternoon when the rest of the crew was due back. At this point, it was an all girl crew. Terry Nichols, Carolyn, and another whose name escapes me at the moment. We hired the proprietor of the motel to help us in the field both as a tech and as a guide. He had time on his hands and his wife could handle the motel in his absence. His name was Monty. Things were a bit hard at the time and I checked the web and the motel was up for sale so I guess he and his family had moved on. He was highly amused by my all female field crew. They were like cats in a bag. They were always back biting each other as soon as one person left the lab, me included. Since there were no men with us except me and Monty, they could not play the feminine card to get out of work. Carolyn did this a lot, but couldn't this time around. We continued to see each other on the sly. I think Monty like being the stick that kept the mix stirred up. I left the lab one evening while we were still working to get caught up on paperwork. I went to the local bar/restaurant to eat and work. They sent him to see what I was up to, and reported back that I was making time with the local town floosie. Something I was not doing. That got Carolyn and the rest riled a bit. They sent another of their number down the street to check on me and by that time I was talking to someone, so it appeared that Monty had told the truth. I came back to a deep freeze. He pulled me aside and told me what had happened and we got a good laugh. Then I confronted my crew. They were sheepish about it. Then came the truck wrecks. Long story short, the weather deteriorated. We had rented a Ford Bronco to fill out our compliment of trucks for our field surveys. That along with the old Ford 3/4 ton 4X4 was our field transport. Well, I was riding with Carolyn, doing the map reading when she missed a curve and ran off the road in a straight slide cut through a barbed wire fence and hitting a cane break that stopped up just short of an 8 foot drop into a coulee (a dry creek bed). We scratched up the paint on the truck but nothing else. At almost the same instant miles away, Monty and the other gal hit a patch of black ice going over a bridge. She must have accelerated to cause the resulting broad slide, started to go off the road to the right, over corrected and shot to the left completely over the road and off to the left side. She then cranked the wheel to avoid going through a barbed wire fence and into an open field that would have at most caused minor paint damage. Instead she rolled the truck over and it skidded about 40 feet on the roof. Luckily the one piece fiberglass bed cap supported the weight, else the cab would have been crushed level with the top of the doors. As it was the truck was totaled. Just the day before I had them clean out the trucks, including removing all the "neat" rocks the seemed to collect as a matter of course that littered the floor boards. This included a few cantaloupe sized brutes that had they been loose in the cab when they flipped probably would have killed someone or at least seriously injured them. Needless to say it caused quite a stir back in Bartlesville when I called in the first accident. The company was on a safety kick at the time, and there was no such thing as an unavoidable accident. Even though the Canadian Mounted Police had deemed it unavoidable due to the black ice, the company safety wags were on a rampage. When I called in the told me they already knew about it. The were referring of course to the other accident which I did not know about at the time. I cleared that up and informed them that this was indeed a second accident, the second in about 20 minutes. The thought that the most serious accident might cost her, her job reduced the one gal to tears. The net affect was we had to take a truck driving course in Kellyville on our return. I was told that the incident went all the way to the executive committee and so many high up muckity mucks were scrambling to cover their asses that it was promptly swept under the rug. In contrast, on another occasion poor Terry Swift was lambasted and got a reprimand for simply skidding off an ice slick road into a snow bank and causing minor damage to a truck fender. Our incident was promptly ignored and forgotten. So my friends, if you are going to screw up, make it such a major screw up that it endangers a lot of powerful people and they will protect themselves and in so doing protect you. We celebrated the end of the survey by taking Monty and his wife out to a distanct dinner club for drinks and dinner. We got really hammered. I guess we never fooled anyone with our sneaking around. I have pictures of me standing at the table while Carolyn lovingly cups my crotch, an another of her taking a nose dive into my lap. So much for our being discrete. It was all in good fun. We were well into our cups by the end of the evening, but I do remember riding home, letting Carolyn drive while I had my head in her lap face under her blouse, suckling on her nice full breasts as they hung in my face. I can still remember their warmth, and the strains of Billy Ocean singing Caribbean Queen. Life was good. When we got back to the office in Bartlesville, I got the call to see the branch manager I had dreaded. I walked into his office and all he said was, " Well? Did you fuck her?. I told him I was a gentleman and gentlemen did not talk about ladies. Shortly after that, Carolyn set her cap for one a pretty boy PhD on the Geology staff. His wife was pregnant, and according to Donna, who knew the inside skinny on things of this nature, Carolyn was at his house cleaning his pipes while his wife was in the hospital bringing his child into the world. Apparently that lasted a until his wife cam home, or until he got the boot back to academia. The powers that be figured he was too interested in igneous petrology, volcanoes to most folks, and unfortunately, volcanoes don't produce much oil. So he was sent packing back to the university world to pursue his research passion. Donna also said Carolyn critiqued his wife's wardrobe. Cold. But, hey, infidelity is a different sort of drug. When someone betrays all the promises they made to be with YOU, it is a great ego boost. I am not condoning it, I just understand it. I have been on both sides of it, having had a fling with a Navy Seal's wife while in college. I wasn't the only one she was doing at the time, but I did monopolize her attention for a month or so and we may have made a son together. I am in touch with her to this day, but she has never said yea or nay on the matter. It was a rush at the time, years later when I came to realized the extent of the Navy Seal fraternity in Norfolk, Va, it really sobered me up. I mean if our indiscretion had come to his attention, I could easily have become fish bait and no one would ever have known. But this gal was willing to run the risk and potentially and eventually throw away her marriage to be with me. I saw her a few times during her pregnancy, and got the skinny on her divorce. Seems he didn't want kids and with her pregnant...go figure. All I can say is I was plowing the field a lot more than he was, him being on deployment and all. And the timing was right. She even made a point to bring the kid by to show him to me. So, who knows? I never went in the field with Carolyn after than and was transferred to Houston in 1986, then reassigned to International back in B'ville, but decided to live in Tulsa and commute. One fine day, I got a visit from someone on the 15th (Executive) floor of the Plaza Office Building. It seems Carolyn had used me as a reference when bidding on a new position. I knew the guy and was very candid about Carolyn's abilities and her penchant to manipulate men. I used her own words, "I'll tickle the crotch worm if it will help me get what I want." She still got the job. I have often wondered how many of the crotch worms on the 15th floor she might have tickled while working up there. She came by for a pool party one weekend and I have a picture of her and my Future Ex #2 poolside in their bikinis. In with the old out with the new. As it was we saw each other once or twice after that, she would come into Tulsa to "shop" with a girlfriend, and meet me at my apartment. One evening we were going to go out for dinner and instead we ate in on the living room floor. Then we caled out for dinner, had it delivered and ate it lounging on the floor in the living room while watching a movie on the TV. We have spoken since by phone and she seems to be happy. She finally got that corvette that she always seemed to think was the Mt. Everest of status symbols. Carolyn was like the cobra, all your life you've been told that something like that is evil, and you know it is definitely lethal, but it is so seductively beautiful, and hypnotic that you just can't stay away. She was every bit that, and I was lucky that the cobra never bit me. Well, she did scratch a bit. But it was worth every second.