Chapter 4: Couples and Coupling

While I spent a lot of time on the ball fields, my girl friend bar tended at the Quarter's Club. She worked with a nice group of young women. Some of whom stayed loyal to Larry Lively and made the move to his new club over on Frank Phillips Blvd. I think it was called Lively's. or MacDougal's or something like that. One gal in particular sticks in my mind. She became a bar tender at the new location and got a pair of nice breast implants. I got a critique by my girl friend (future ex #1) who had seen the before and after. In her estimation the gal went from tube socks to snow cones. All I can say is they looked marvelous in her clothes. But I digress. Couples. Yes, there were a lot of couples around. Not always committed mind you , but we tried. Future Ex #1 finally got her OK nursing license and landed a job at Jane Phillips Memorial Hospital as a charge nurse. There were too few RNs at the time so she shot up in the ranks. She was responsible for dragging JPMH into the 1980's with regard to dress. She refused to wear a hat, and wore white running shoes. This was not popular with the Hospital Administration, but the doctors to their credit stood behind her. Then she started wearing pants. The rest is history. Before this they still required the nurses to wear dresses and nursing hats and those white leather shoes. Groovy. Anyway my German American sweetheart single handedly came in like Guderian's panzers in the Ukraine and changed the hospital's policies. About this time she met the manager in charge of the SAGA (Soviet Attempt to Gag America) Food service at the hospital cafeteria. His wife was an interior designer that looked like a young Diane Cannon. She was a dish. His name was Randy, I can't remember her's. Another couple were white neo-colonials from Kenya. He was in the Phillips insurance group. I think he was actually an employee for Traveler's but seeing how PPCo and Travelers were in bed together; they had offices in PPCo's buildings. He was kind of a smarmy guy. He saw me out dancing with other women so took it as an invitation to hit on Future Ex #1. Now mind you, his wife was classic British. She had a pie round face, red cheeks, and curly blonde hair. You just could not help but smile when you looked at her pleasantly freckled face. She was on the short side a bit shorter than my Future Ex #1 but had her beat by a mile in the rack department. No slouch she in that department. She was an RN at the hospital as well but at the Annex on the west side of town. That is where I happened to be when I went in for a hernia repair in early 81. Since my Future Ex #1 was a bit jealous she made sure that a male orderly and not our RN friend shaved my private parts. Later after I was released and the couples were meeting over drinks I brought a crimson shade to the lass's face when I asked my Future Ex #1 if it was normal for the floor nurse to check a patient's incision every half hour. The waves of knowing laughter drowned out her pleas of innocence. After my Future Ex #1 and I went our separate ways I was persona non grata with the other couples. It is funny how once close friends seem to think you have something contagious. Well he eventually got involved with his secretary and she divorced him. At least I cheated and got divorced before I had any kids to drag through the mess. It took him too many years to get enough balls to do what he had wanted to do all along. And even then it took him getting into a position of responsibility above his would be partner in order for him to do it. Last I heard his ex-wife and kids were still in Bartlesville. I have mentioned the Danish Pastry and her husband. He has I think gone on to great success in Atlanta. At the time there was a real sense of inferiority on his part as he was in school and we were all working. He had two kids with the Pastry a boy and a girl. Nordic god and goddess. Blonde and beautiful like their mother. Trouble was she wasn't happy. I remember a July 4th party at their farm rental of Nowata Road. She was pregnant fit to burst. It was the first time I ever saw a pregnant woman parade around half naked with her belly hanging out. We all got drunk, the food manager and his wife, the couple from Kenya, the Pastry and her husband and me and Future Ex #1. Even then she made it known she was interested. I was drunk and a little obtuse, but it became more than clear later when she called about playing on the volley ball team. The party was a hoot until the dipshit from Kenya decided that the row boat we were paddling around the small lake would look better upside down. This is the kind of shit for brains that kills someone else by accident then says he didn't mean to do it. The boat tipped and I remember getting coming up under the overturned boat in pitch black water. Then I got hit in the head with an oar. I was not happy. Had someone gotten disoriented in the dark water, this was midnight mind you, and we were all drunk, we could have had a drowning. On another occasion, we had get togethers at the Kenyan couple's house. It was okay, but they were not much in the way of hosts. The food service guy new how to throw a party. They lived on the southwest side in our future neighborhood. They had a super bowl party when San Fran played Miami. Joe and Dan went head to head. Great party. His wife and I won the pot. While on the subject of his wife... She was a hot number that really let her hair down when she had a few. Too much touchy feely and kisses. This made me uncomfortable and it made him a bit jealous. I think this was the downturn of our relationship. I can't blame him. I wouldn't have liked it either. We hunted together with the Kenyan fellow, but they wanted to make it too much like a competition. The problem was they were not very good shot gunners and took it hard when I always out shot them. Randy and his wife eventually got a transfer to Florida and moved away. Another couple, Jim and Liz, are still with Phillips. She was the Kiwi on a mission having met Jim in the Perth office. She came to visit him and was determined not to leave single. My Future Ex #1 was her maid of honor in the OKC wedding. I don't think the old girlfriend was invited. Jim has gone on to VP status at Phillips. All of us that played ball with him knew he was on the fast track. Being an OU fraternity alum did not hurt him a bit. Well as things progressed I got to know the Danish Pastry better. She opened a shop on Phillips Blvd over the old barbershop and business went gangbusters for a while, then she had to downsized a bit. They had moved into town and had all of us over and I remember getting some particular vibes from her. She struck up a close relationship with my Future Ex #1, and before I knew it we were in a hot and heavy affair that lasted for about a year on and off. We grabbed it where we could, the seat of my truck, her house or mine. I remember parking on the RR right of way near the west exit of Johnstone Park near the old Kids Amusement Park, one rainy night and being interrupted by a RR employee who told us we were trespassing. That was pretty funny. You've never seen two people get dressed so fast! Our little affair continued up until we both got divorced and neither of our respective spouses never knew. It was only when she professed that she was in love with me that I had to break it off. I was not going to rub our affair in my then Ex #1's nose, since the Pastry was supposed to be her best friend. She did admit to me that her friendship with my Ex#1 was based solely on a desire to get to know me better. It just goes to show that you can never underestimate the wiles and guiles of a woman.

Chapter 3: The Recreational Sports Leagues

Phillips offered a lot of recreation sports activities, softball being one of them, volley ball being another. There were two fields south of the R&D compound. Both industrial and recreation leagues were played on the fields. The recreational leagues included co-ed and men's. I hooked up with a long time geologist in international E&P who captained a team in the Phillips men's league. He also fielded a team for Patrick's a local bar. Patrick's was a watering hole across the intersection at Johnstone and 4th from the Plaza Office Building. At the time it was the Phillips Office building before it was demolished leaving only the tower and the new building. Patrick, the owner was a former Fleet Force Recon Marine, a very nice guy. Unfortunately I was able to witness his gradual spiral into cocaine addiction resulting in him losing everything including the bar. But that was to come later. Patrick's was one of only two bars that were really happening. On any given night the place would have a good crowd. Particularly on Fridays and Saturdays. League nights also turned out a good crowd. Patrick had a gold mine but squandered it all on drugs and topless dancers. At the time, Phillips was awash with a lot of young single employees fresh out of college, or hired locally to fuel the demand for support staff. The sports fields were where we all came together. From the softball field I met a large circle of acquaintances. The same ones that played softball played volleyball. We saw each other at Patrick's too. If someone threw a party for Halloween, Christmas or just because, you'd see the same faces. There were couples and there were singles all thrown into the same pot. We did canoe trips, lake trips or curry parties, you name it. It was a party crowd. Hell, it is hard to remember all the names of people that moved through the leagues as they transferred in and out of Bartlesville. There were the two black Griggs sisters, one a long legged Zulu princess that would put Tyra Banks in the shade, and her equally attractive but shorter stockier sister. They both played on a championship co-ed volley ball team I captained. The Danish pastry played on the team too even though she wasn't an employee. Her husband's father was an old Phillips hand. Her hubbie was working on an MBA and watched the kids while she played volleyball. I even recruited the president of the Oklahoma Chapter of the National Organization of Women to play on my team. She was an attorney in the R&D Patent division. There were two or three leagues going on at the same time on alternate nights for volleyball. Softball had a men's league and co-ed going on alternate nights and I played for Patrick's in the Washington County league up at the fields up north between Dewey and Copan. It was a full schedule. The fields or courts were very much akin to a singles bar. You could check out the talent and later talk to them at the bar. There were more than a few women spectators who only came to check out the players. There always seemed to be a bunch of single women in the bleachers. On more than one occasion there were multiple young women sitting in the bleachers rooting for the same guy. It happened to me once and another member of the team on a different occasion. His girl friend and fiancé wanna-be from OKC paid an un-announced visit for a tournament and his future wife from New Zealand happened to be there too. The gal from OKC was none too amused when he broke the news to her that they were no longer an item. On occasion the Patrick's team made it to the C Division State Playoffs. I remember going to Ponca City one year and Norman another year. We usually tried to make the division that was being held in the best party town. Ponca City was an exception to that rule. Most of the time out team was a pick up team since most of our regulars couldn't afford the trip or had other commitments. What the Phillips Athletic Department never envisioned was their sports leagues spawned a completely different kind of recreational league, the recreational sex league.

Chapter 2: Wanda Talley Welcomes me Phillips Research and Development

I started work on the second floor of the Petroleum Lab of Phillips R&D. I was just down the hall from the Stockroom (hello! it's Christmas time!). My office was just around the corner from the breezeway that led to the Forum, just a hop to the vending machines. We were just down the hall from the analytical labs. I shared an office with the Mormon guy who specialized in water rock interaction (geothermal stuff) and a couple of vacuum pumps for a Mass spectrometer. We had a bunch of military surplus desks and partitions to separate us from the equipment. This is when I met Wanda. She was a freckled, corvette driving red head that was hotter than a $2 pistol. She was older than me by a year...ahem...or two, but was a delight. She zeroed in on me in a fun sort of way. I remember her following me out to the parking lot as she talked to a friend and commenting on my ass. I stopped turned and thanked her. Her pretty freckled face turned a shade to match her hair. She didn't realize I could here her comments. Despite all the brazen talk, Wanda turned out to be a very devoted wife and mom. She had at least one kid maybe more while I worked there and took in several of her sister's kids as well if I recall correctly. I remember them reassigning her to the stock room from the lab due to the risk of exposure to chemicals on the unborn fetus. Wanda used to wear the sexiest knit bikinis out at Birch Lake. I joked to her that she should have a zipper tab tattooed on clearly displayed caesarean scar since they opened her up that way more than once and she kept having kids. Wanda was a hoot, with an infectious smile and a personality to match. She was a great broad in the best sense of the word. There were other players around too. I can't remember most of their names, but there was one mail girl with the most beautiful eyes I have ever scene. She liked mine as much as I liked hers. At the time my hair was dark brown and I had a full beard, with striking green eyes. I guess at times they looked blue to some people. She liked them, but somehow we got our wires crossed. It might have something to do with her brother running into me rabbit hunting out at Copan Lake and thinking the gold beaded tip of the cable ear piece of my shooting glasses was an ear ring. Remember folks this was 1980. That might have colored her families perception of me. Go figure. There was a nice black couple that lived in a trailer up near Miami. Last name was Phelps. Bozzie, was his name, can't remember his wife's. They used to host the annual meteor shower party on a prairie hilltop. I remember attending several times before the first round of layoffs at which time they took a severance package packed up and went back to school. There was our department secretary. A strawberry blonde, married or with a significant other. This didn't stop her from taking a proprietary interest in me. I guess she sensed something about me (availability may be?). In the event she fixed me up with the predatory blonde lab tech, the one that subsequently owned or operated the Red Apple. We hooked up for a quickie on her couch prior to or after one of the meteor showers. She was just a little too beefy for my taste, but was a nice gal. I don't know at what point in time she left PPCo. The department secretary may have left when our branch manager a Mr. Smith moved down town and he was replaced by a hoot of a manager I'll call Marcus. During this period they were busily constructing what would become the Geosciences Building. But I am getting ahead of myself. During this time I lunched with a gal I'll refer to as the China Doll. She worked in the Production Research lab. She never had a hair out of place, and walked like someone had run a gun cleaning rod up her ass. She was cute, so we went to lunch down at the Ramada Inn on 75. I ordered a beer with my lunch and she looked like I had just pissed in her ice tea. It was then I discovered she was a strict southern Baptist. Needless to say that was the last time we spoke. Well not really. She eventually married a guy who up to that point had been a staunch hunting and drinking buddy. Needless to say that ended. Her last name now would be Maddox, but her first name escapes me. I can only thank god that he guided me to order that beer.

Chapter 1 Out of school and running amok!

In the summer of 1980, I successfully made it through a three day interview process at PPCo and was offered a job. I packed up my stuff at the university and made the drive to Oklahoma with visions of Henry Fonda and an old Model-T in my head. On the drive I rooted for the Phillies in the World Series, and they went on to victory over George Brett and Kansas City. The best house I was able to rent in a booming market was on Graystone behind the Quarters. My girlfriend had yet to pass the nursing boards so she went to work for Larry Lively at the Quarter's Club. Little did she know that the pudgy smiley faced club owner was a girl friend/wife abuser. It wasn't long before my girlfriend, (I'll call her future ex #1 or ex #1 for short) was filling in on shifts that Lively's girlfriend could not work due to black eyes and bruises. There was the occasional stop along Hwy 75 on odd nights coming back from Tulsa where he would beat her with his belt like some errant step child. Yet the bimbo married him anyway. Oh yeah the funniest time was when she hid from him in a closet and he nailed it closed. I can only imagine there were lively times at the Lively house. (sorry I could not help it). Since my better half was usually occupied till 3 am, I took advantage by becoming acquainted with the Disco International on south 75, and the all nude strip club on Bartles Road just south of Dewey. I could always make it home before her. So I spent a lot of my nights taking in the sights, so to speak. I would have to say that I spent fully 5-6 nights a week out till 1am. The existence of a total nude club in staid Oklahoma was a mind bender. Not until I discovered the Stables Club in Tulsa did I learn so much about the female anatomy for $1 a peek. That place, I don't remember the name, was short lived as someone set fire to the place. Who knows it could have been my Ex #1. They were a personable group and friendly enough to allow me; on one occasion when I was short on cash to come back the next day to pay my tab. Disco International was a different world. You have to remember this was right on the heels of the Urban Cowboy boom. Gilley's was going gangbusters in Houston (okay, Pasadena) so was B'ville going to be left out? Hell no! I remember being fresh in from Virginia and walking into the DI. It was a sea of cowboy hats with the mechanical bull running full tilt in the south east corner. I felt like a duck out of water. No, a turd in a punchbowl would be more correct. I asked the bartender for a draft. I was looking at all the bottles with people's names on them. He looked at me quizzically and said "You wanna draw (draught)?" I raised my hands in front of me defensively (I'm not making this up I actually did this). I said "Mister, I don't even have a gun." The tender looked at me like I just cussed at him in Swahili. I said yes. I figured right then and there, that 1) either Okies had no sense of humor. 2) They took their drinking seriously or 3) the bartender was so dumb his IQ measured in decimal places. So now with a cold beer in hand I found a seat at the bar. A seat that I might say I filled with great regularity for the next 8 years. I noticed one thing right off. There was something about the women of Oklahoma. They for the most part were trim, and very shapely when compared to the grain fed heifers in Virginia. I chalked it up to Indian blood. I was partly right I found out in the future. So sipping my beer I took in the sights as pair after pair of well filled Lee jeans paraded by. I realized that me in my shorts and running shoes stood as good a chance as a snowball in hell of even striking up a conversation with one of the cow girls or cow girl wanna be's. I needed to find out what passed for bait in these here parts. I mean I hadn't learned about noodling yet, so I needed to learn how to bait my hook. I need to back up a bit. While on my interview I met a few of my future co-workers. One took my breath away. She was a raven haired beauty about 5'6" or 5' 7" slender, with about a 21 inch waist and a D cup shelf under her chin (silicone induced I'd find out later). Our history had just begun. I also met another tech. this gal was a big beef blonde, she lived out near Miami, and would later go on to marry an (India) Indian and would for a brief time run the Red Apple club next to the bowling alley (around 1987). She had a monster rack and a hungry man eating look in her eye. I must have looked like a Murphy's Hot Hamburger to her, I would later find out.

Introduction: The story begins....

I graduated from a university back east. At the time the oil industry was nearing the hiring peak in the early 1980's. I got a position in Phillip's Research and Development and relocated in fall of 1980. I remember listening to the Phillies and Kansas City play in the World Series during the drive west. I probably should give a little back ground on myself. I come from a military family, traveled my whole life. Lived overseas, in the Far East and Europe attended some college in Munich, Germany. Not a lot surprises me. I have been exposed to a lot of drugs, but since my father laid down the law so to speak with regard to that form of recreation, I have never done drugs. Yes, I did the odd toke on a joint in college, but due to allergies (yes, this is really true) I have a real aversion to pot in all it's forms, particularly hashish, the sweetish odor of which turns my stomach. I was lucky to have a roommate my first two years with a similar aversion. So we were probably the two straightest guys on our floor with regard to drugs. We had a heroin pusher at the end of the hall and 4 pot/hashish heads across the hall. So I do know a little about drugs and the folks that use them. Going to a small American University in a foreign country introduced me to what you would call the musical beds. In dealing with a small finite group, there are only so many men and women and paths, or more correctly, genitals are bound to cross. As incestual as it may sound it was not uncommon for a girl or guy to date and mate with roommates. Or in my case, my sister's roommates. My older sister's roomies saw me as a safe alternative to a lonely night or an unknown and chancy one night stand. They knew me, liked me and were protective of me in a big sisterish kind of way, only this little brother had bedroom privileges. On their terms of course. I was at their beck and call. Poor me. So not too much surprises me sexually. I make acquaintances easily, and can usually break down social barriers pretty quickly due to my itinerant past. It did not take long for me to find and become a part of several loosely associated social groups in Bartlesville. I liked my co-workers at Phillips at first sight. Most of them anyway. My supervisor was a slow talking Texan with a ready smile and a grin that only west Texas could produce. My mentor was a Harvard fellow with the same bizarre sense of humor that I possessed. There were a few other professionals; the local born and bred lab supervisor, the goofy nutty professor type geek chemist, the Mormon stiffy so uptight his asshole squeaked when he walked. The lab techs were a little more normal. Let me say that while most professionals employed by Phillips were from out of state, imports you might say, like me, the non-professional staff were all locals. Now a lot of them were very good. Some had even worked their way up from the mail room. Others were simply riding out the good times at the ole oil company till the next down turn sent them back to the farm or ranch. We had quite the collection of techs. The 20 something willowy, beautiful busty brunette who lived with the 40 something biker/drug dealer tech working in the same building. Then there was the single mother/desperately single cow girl type who wolfed diet pills to fit into her skin tight jeans. The A&M dropout who dipped so much snuff he had to take medication for his nicotine induced heart condition. The 400lb biker from the Kansas Sand Hills. The quiet bookish cute little blonde. The trim buxom, 50 something cow girl that still looked like a million with a name to inspire Kenny Rodgers. No, I don't know if she took her love to town, but I sure wish she had brought it as far as my house. Outside of my immediate coworker's the cast got even more interesting. Over in data processing, there was the auburned hair daughter of a very high profile PPCo geologist (this guy published more than Mathew Mark Luke and John put together, he was a real Rascoe..l) and his daughter, well, lets just say she liked it. What about the secretary with very prominent assets who was caught getting boinked in the conference room? We have the Danish pastry, her future husband, the black writer poet/absentee welfare dad and his irate wife living in OKC. The former hippy store/restraunteur and her child psychiatrist/sex offender husband who was former mistress to the black poet and friend of the Danish pastry before he met and bedded the Danish pastry and then she and the wife found out. (Follow all that?) You also have the petroleum engineer/fraternity brother/future Conoco Phillips VP on the fast track and his very determined Kiwi girlfriend/future wife. We can't forget his high riding big spending frat brothers who ran (and would run into the ground) a thriving insurance company. What about the Okie Filipina who marries a geologist using the old I'm Pregnant scam. Wow! I just remembered there were two of those. There was also the wife of the high school football coach, who had a thing for threesomes and collecting husbands. There was the coach, the fireman, (that lasted a week or two) and the attorney (that lasted for at least one or two kids). I managed to squeeze in (double entendre intended) between the coach and the fireman, and again between the fireman and the attorney. No telling who she might have met (heh, heh) while she worked at the country club. And we can't forget the Team roper's wife. She ran around a lot while he was on the road and ran into me. I hear tell she married one of the sons from the moneyed family who owns a big ranch to the north east of town. I just remember the brothers from Birch Lake driving their jet boat. You remember, back when the beer and drugs ran as free as the water. Leading up to several unfortunate deaths and the prohibition on drinking that is now in effect there. Last time I was there it was like one of the Caney Valley's many ghost towns. Too much of anything can ruin a good time for all it seems. We also have a huge cast of singles. A bevy of quietly desperate women willing to give up sexual favors in return for escape from Bartlesville in a play that would eclipse An Officer and a Gentleman. You have the huge supporting cast down at the Disco International other local country joints. You have members of the Jane Phillips Memorial Hospital cafeteria and nursing staff. We don't want to forget the gals at the Phillips credit union, or the ones down at the now defunct savings and loan on Adams Blvd. Then there were the girls at Larry Lively's bars, his abused wife and the local boob doctor's belly dancing wife. We can't forget the BBQ Place, or the stroke inducing hot hamburgers and fries out at Murphy's on the west side. Just to flesh out the itinerary, we have the beer and sex filled canoe trips down the Buffalo River, the wild sex and beer filled weekends out at Grand Lake, wild beer and sex filled Fridays at Patrick's, wild beer and sex filled Tuesday's Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at Disco International, the old titty bar and country bar out on old 75 on the way to Dewey, and ménage a trois starting at the old country bar just south east of Nowata Road and 75 behind the old motel. Yep, they were the fun old days. There were other people and places and I will bring them up as the story crosses their path. So what do all these folks, me, Bartlesville, and Phillips Petroleum have in common? Well we all came together to weave a neat tapestry of sex, drugs, and rock...well, a little rock and roll and country music, but certainly sex, drugs and relationships in a small town dominated by a big international oil company desperate to maintain an image, that sadly never existed. And I the writer run through the whole tapestry like an out of control thread. Join me for the ride.