Chapter 6: Drugs in Bartlesville

In my experience, where there is excess money, there are drugs. It came as a great shock to the whole town, when in the mid 80's probably 1985, the Quarterback at the high school, the one off of Cherokee, got caught selling drugs. Big scandal. I had to laugh. My response was to say, "Take a look at the HS parking lot. There are more new cars there than the parking lot at R&D". The kids were spoiled. They got new cars and a big allowance so there was a big market. I mentioned that the leggy brunette I worked with, Carolyn, was living with a long haired 40 something biker named Ron. He worked at R&D and the drove in to work in a new Cadillac. I used to see him without her with a few buddies at a lot of clubs dealing. There was one club that opened out in Osage County off of Route 60 west of Bartlesville. Can't remember the name. But it was very popular for a short time. The place probably got busted for serving under aged kids or drugs. Anyway, the place went from 90 to nothing in a heartbeat. They probably lost their liquor license. Well Ron was there every time I was. When I played ball, there was a young geophysicist he and I got friendly. What I didn't know was he was working on developing a coke problem. We were both friends with Richard and were on the team. Turns out that the company was monitoring his phone calls. He was working in the Asia group but was requesting a lot of wells for N. Oklahoma be processed by the well log analysis group. Turns out he was selling the analyzed well data to a local company. He confided in Richard, who told him to quit the company before being fired. He didn't but was lucky the company didn't prosecute him for theft. They fired him and he got hired by the company he was selling to. This leads us to the biggest revelation. There was a very well respected Sedimentary Geologist/Petrologist who worked at Phillips. For a time he headed up the Training program for new hires. About a year or two ago, he dropped dead of a heart attack in the Houston Airport. If that doesn't tell you who he is his initials were Gif Kessler. Every 3 months or so, may be 6 months, a new crop of new hires would come through town and be run through a series of classes. Since I was in R&D, I caught the classes on a space available basis. There was a lot of partying going on, and even if you were not in the classes, being local you were invited if you had a mind to go. Gif didn't like or have time for women. From what I know he was a momma's boy and was decidedly gay. Not that there's' anything wrong with that, as Jerry Seinfeld would say Hell I had a gay Uncle I loved very much who died of HIV. Gif was misogynistic. I remember the look on his face when I introduced my girl friend. He looked like he wanted to spit on her. During all these training classes he had a protégé' usually a male new hire from Europe in tight jeans. Gif also supplied drugs at the parties. It was common enough knowledge that the geophysicist and I ended up at Gif's house, I think it was either off Silver Lake road, or 123 one evening. My friend wanted to go there for something, and as it turned out it was for coke. Gif obliged and turned out about 8 lines. I said thanks but no thanks and watched as my friend did his fill. I imagine the drugs were Gif's bait. I don't think I ever saw him do any. But he had them for anyone who cared to ask, so long as you were male. Gif was blonde, overweight, with a shock of thinning blonde hair, a van dyke beard and rosy cheeks. He wasn't a bear in the homosexual vernacular, but more of a teddy bear. He looked more like a receiver than a pitcher if you get my drift. More like Truman Capote. Anyway, I think the drugs were what he used to attract male companions. I liked Gif; the industry lost a very competent geoscientist. I just hate hypocrisy. He might have been outed to his friends, but I don't think many know about the drugs. I used to visit him in his office to chat, and attended his Sedimentary Petrology Field Trip. But that's another story. Drugs were used by a lot of the Phillips professionals for recreation. I dated an R&D librarian. She did a lot of pot. She cleaned her stash in my car one day. I found the seeds later and in a perverse move planted them in my backyard. This was at the house at 1316 South Cherokee. I had built an 8 foot privacy fence in the back and had a Doberman. The next spring I was weed eating and noticed I had a crop of 3 foot high marijuana plants along the fence. The bottom of the fence was boxed in by rail road ties forming a planter in order to bring the fence up to the level of the alley behind the property. Anyway, long story short, I forgot about the plants and got a 4 week field assignment to Montana. I called the police to put my house on police watch while I was gone. No I didn't need the back yard checked on account of the dog. I was on the plane to Montana when it hit me. Holy Shit! I had a crop of 6 foot high plants in the back yard. I called the then Ex #1, and thankfully we were on good terms. I had her pull up all the plants and put them in the back of the garage. Problem solved. When I got back I cut and dried the stuff. Now why you might ask did I run the risk of growing the stuff if I didn't use it. Well, I was stupid and I wanted to please. Most of my friends, including a current Phillips VP smoke pot. I wanted to have some for them when they came over. Imagine the look on their faces when they wistfully said, "It sure would be nice to have some pot." And I said " Pot?, not a problem." And climbed into the attic and produced a Tupperware cake saver full of cut marijuana. I let them take a quart zip lock full. In short order I was out of the pot supplying business as the free pot disappeared pretty quickly. I have to say that THAT was the single stupidest thing I have ever done in my life. The ramifications of getting caught for something I didn't even like still boggles my mind. It still gives me shivers to think about what could have been. Hell you don't know who your friends really are and I could have been ratted out by anyone as a dealer simply to save themselves. I never sold as much as a leaf. I gave it all away, and never lit a joint for myself. It was stupid, stupid, stupid.