Now I See

Now I See

Larry Jones (photographed December 6, 2018)

I have a close friend named Larry Jones whom I met in 1982. We did not hit it off at first, not for any real reason, but just because we have different personalities. Larry is quiet and I tend to talk, even to be boisterous at times. Also, Larry and I have a fundamental difference. He is quite a bit less tall than I am and I am five foot seven inches tall.

Larry and I worked together some as he was located in Elk City, Oklahoma and I was temporarily in Oklahoma working out of Bartlesville but on my way to North Dakota for my permanent location. He was an experienced mud engineer and when I could, I learned from him and his experiences. Over the next year I saw him only at our company meetings and we greeted each other like gentlemen and talked about business but we still had not yet grown into a deep friendship.

One day, about two years later, we were to have a sales meeting at Lake Conroe, Texas. We spent our first day at the airport Double Tree Hotel and the next day departed for the conference and as luck would have it, Larry wound up riding with me, just the two of us in my company car. Larry was in the market for a new car and interested in a Volvo so he asked me to stop at the dealer. Larry said, “Stephen, when he comes out, he will walk over to you, shake your hand, offer his card, ask how you are and all, and he won’t even see me.” I felt bad that Larry saw the world this way but I could think of nothing to say. The young man, good looking, well dressed, smiling, and warm rushed out to meet us. We both got out of the car and the young man bypassed Larry, rushed to my side, shook my hand warmly, asked how I was and offered me his business card. He did not say hello to Larry nor even see him. I said, “Sir, my friend here is the one interested in your cars.” The young man blushed, embarrassed at his blunder, and then he turned to shake hands with Larry, finally realizing his error.  It was not Larry's first experience with this behavior.

For the first time, I had a glimpse of life through a black man’s eyes, a sobering glimpse. I had known black kids, boys and girls, and I had had some acquaintanceship with black people. We called them colored then. I did not have the same depth of friendship with any black kids as I did with my white and even Indian friends and Indian friends included my cousins. I had never had a black friend close enough that I stayed the night with them; I have never asked a black kid to stay the night with me. I did not think I was racist or biased in any way. From the day I saw that happen to Larry, I began to watch my own behavior and that of my friends. I am not nor will I be perfect in this life because, try as I might, I still see color between people. I wish I did not because I want a better world for everyone and I know it won’t arrive until the election of a black woman or man, or just about anyone who is different, is seen as just another election, not an historical one as was John F. Kennedy (The first Catholic), and all the others that have been different.

One day, in a fast food restaurant, I saw a family that had two half-sisters, one a white child, the other a child who was half black and half white. She looked more black than white because her skin was dark and her features were more towards some of the black children I have seen. It was obvious they were sisters and that they loved each other. The grandfather with them loved them both too and that was just as obvious. Since the day of the Volvo, I began to watch what I say. I have told few jokes that involved black people since then, because if I did, my little small voice asked, “Stephen, would you tell that story in front of Larry, in front of Deborah (his wife), in front of Cody (his son)?” The answer was always “no,” and I began to see how I had contributed to the way life was, and is, for black people. I try to make my small contributions now, and they are small, but when someone tells one of these stories, I try to find the courage to speak up in my own gentle way and tell them that what they did was not right and I ask them, “How would you feel if you had a half black child?” I think of the things my grandmother went through when she was called a squaw in a derogatory fashion and when she told me that there were places she was not allowed to go and that some people would not speak with her or sit with her because of her dark skin. Sometimes, in front of my grandmother, I said something stupid about an Indian and I would see her reproachful gaze and I learned to respect my Indian relatives, who were more Indian than I and who got the bulk of any statements from other kids. Jess Tomey, a Pottawatomie Indian, was one of my best friends and we kidded about things such as our differences and he used to joke with me and David Meriable, an Osage Indian, saying, “Payne passed for white when we went into the restaurant.” There was big laughter from Jess and David but I cringed inside because there was a sobering truth that I was both Indian and white and I did, not only pass for white, but get mistaken for white when I wanted to be close to my Indian cousins and friends. My whiteness kept me out of the Indian culture that was my grandmother’s and that I wanted to be a part of. These things work both ways. I learned, that if I have to preface what I am going to tell Larry with, “I hope this doesn’t offend you,” I should not say it because that in itself is offensive and it is beneath me as the person I want to be, that I try to be and sometimes I fail to be. I try to be a better person than I was growing up because I was ignorant of feelings of many others. I met a woman from the civil rights movement, she being then a Black Panther, and she said she hated white people. I was stunned and then she said, “Can you imagine how I felt when I had my first half white grandchild?” She told us she loved that child and all that came later. Again, I saw through a black person’s eyes, this time a woman and one who had been vocal in her disgust for white Americans. How we live is a choice. How we are born is not. I was born with my racial mix, slight as it is. And I can’t change it. It also makes me who I am, just as my friend Larry’s does. Larry told me once that every morning he saw a black face in his mirror. All he meant was that he knows he is a black man and no one needs to tell him or remind him. Sometimes he has spoken against bad behavior of another black man and our managers would respond to him in wide agreement, seeming to say, “You’re one of us Larry. Yeah, right on!” He told me, “I’m not.” He gets treated differently, even in the positive sense because of his color. He is a fine man, filled with character and I’ve seen him help others in so many ways. When my friend Dennis lost his daughter to a horrible car accident, I called Larry and asked if I could stay with him so I could attend the service and help Dennis. “Come on,” he said, “We've got room for you.” I spent three days in their Houston home as a guest. I shared my ship and quarters with black sailors but never in their home. I had the courage to ask and he had the graciousness to offer.  Maybe I don't see, not as much as I believe I do, but at least I begin to see.

Stephen

A Purpose Under the Sun

Truth does not wait on us. It comes in its own time, when it is ready, not when we are ready for it. Sometimes it comes with a hard chill. We have just had a season of truths for which we were not ready, as we have lost a number of alumni from Pawhuska High School. This has been difficult for all of us.

In my case, I have been absolutely stunned by some of the deaths that we, as a connected group, have experienced in such a brief time. Long ago, when we were in our classes and divided by years apart, we might have thought of a classmate as only someone in the class of our year and limited it to that. We made the transition from being a single class of sixth graders at Union, Franklin, Lynn, other schools and even Booker T. Washington school to being a larger and mixed class of seventh graders at Pawhuska High School. Still, we were divided by 7-1, 7-2, and 7-3 with our specialties of band, choir, and trades. For the first time, the division was not created by the geographic boundaries of Ninth Street and other boundaries; it was our choice, based upon what we wanted. Still, we thought of a classmate as simply someone in our class.

With the passage of years, the modification of memories, the creation of new memories, and the connections and reconnections that are forged by reunions and chance encounters, our definition of a classmate expands. One day, a classmate is no longer only someone who shared our class year of 1962 but anyone who went to Pawhuska High and with whom we can find a bond.

Each death diminishes me in some way, but some more than others.

Losing Judy Carlile was surprising and very hard. I knew her well considering the spread in class years between us, 1960 and 1962, and I don’t really know why I knew her well, but I did. Once she discovered who I am by something on Classmates.com, and sent me a note to confirm my identity, we were in frequent contact. Often we exchanged fairly long notes, and at times it could be just as though we were in the same room talking, except that we did not have the problem of stepping on each others’ words and cutting each other off as we so often do in real conversation. She wanted to reminisce about her mother’s white 1956 Ford and I was just as eager, so we did. We talked about the Dairy Queen and many small things that were common to us. The small and long ago common things we shared built a connection between us today.

I received news of the death of Eddy Mansholt and I was caught so off guard that I found myself in sudden tears. I did not expect it. Eddy and I had sent enough messages back and forth, and yet he had never said anything of his illness. Stunned is the only word I found for my response as I read the note from Marcy Loy Williams.

Eddy Mansholt was in my class of 1962 and I liked Eddy a lot. I played a clarinet; he played a trombone. That meant that we sat on opposite sides of the band. We never did many of the things that other students and I did, but still, we had a nice friendship at our class level. Eddy was in my driver’s education class with teacher Jim Minor, and Eddy and I were in the car pool when four of us rode together in the practical sessions. Most of us had driven some, and some of us thought we were pretty good. We had learned to drive in cow pastures, empty parking lots, country roads, and an odd assortment of places, but few of us had any real skills on the streets or highways.

At least we knew which direction to go. Jim Minor tended to relax during our practice sessions, and seemed to think that the emergency brake on the passenger side was there as a decoration, rather than a true security device. I think that the car we drove was a green Pontiac, and my vague memory is of a station wagon, but perhaps not. I can’t imagine the system turning us lose in a station wagon.

The car was parked at the swimming pool, and Eddy was chosen to lead out. He eased into the driver’s side, while Mr. Minor read something that he had brought with him. “Take us out, Eddy,” he said, barely looking up, and Eddy looked back over his shoulder, put the car in gear, and roared straight towards the fence surrounding the old pool. He panicked, and Mr. Minor got the brakes on in time, so that all the damage was only to the small hedge guarding the pool.

I had not seen Eddy in forty-one years, when I saw him at the 2002 forty year reunion of the class. The night before that, Charlotte and I had gone to the Tulsa State Fair, and I had a severe episode of the arthritis I have, a form of rheumatoid arthritis. When I experience that, it literally takes me several hours to dress, and sometimes I can not dress without help. Johnny Lawless telephoned and asked if I could rush over for the class photograph, which I could not do. Charlotte did not want to go, so I drove my pick-up truck over, and I stayed only about an hour. I could not bend my legs enough to sit down, especially with the table and chair arrangements that had been made, so I stood the entire time that I was there. I stood at the back together with Roger Dixon who perhaps just had not found a place he wanted to sit.

I had read the letter that Roger sent in along with his fee, and I knew that he was gravely ill, but he smiled and seemed to be enjoying himself greatly. I remembered him, and I am pretty sure that he remembered me. He did not seem to have changed much since the last time I had seen him in 1960.

I was able to walk by a few of the tables and have brief conversations with some of my class, and Eddy was one of them. We shook hands, and I mentioned our wild ride in the driver’s education car. Eddy said that it was the first time he had ever driven a car, and he did not want the other boys to know that he had not driven; so he bluffed his way through, until the truth became impossible to hide. We laughed about it a bit and had a brief conversation. Through our e-mails, we shared much more information over the few years since then.

Charlotte did not want me to go to Pawhuska that day, since I was in so much pain and she was right; I shouldn’t have. After I got outside of the building and to my truck, I opened the door and eased myself in, and got stuck with a stiff leg and cramps. I considered having Charlotte drive over and rescue me, rather than trying to drive home and doing it unsafely. But I struggled and got in, and into a position where I could drive the truck. I could not have driven a car, and I might have had to lie down in the back seat had I been a passenger in one. I wish I could have stayed longer and enjoyed more of it, but I was not able to. I told Charlotte that I really wanted to go, if even for just a little while because, that it might be the last chance I had to see some of the people from my class.

Since then, we have lost Roger Dixon, Eddy Mansholt and Florien McKee. I mention those three, because they were there, and it was, after all, the last time that I saw them.

It seems to me that we have never lost so many in such a short span of time, and all around the holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas, which still remain the great holidays for us. We do not like them marked with such sad events.

I am comforted by scripture, and mostly by Ecclesiastes, when we are told that “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under the sun. A time to be born and a time to die.”

It is the fact that life has some finite length that most makes it worth living. It is this that makes not only my life of value, but the lives of all the people I have known and loved.

It is sad and heartbreaking to lose someone we love, no matter the depth of our love, or how we expressed it. What if we had never had that person in our life at all? We would have never known the joys, the laughter, the secret things we shared, the fun we had.

We would have never known the frustration, the tears, the secret things they told others, and the pain we had. It is the valleys that make the hills seem so high, and it is from the hills that we can see the beauty that surrounds us.

If I had to choose between having had my son Stephen in my life and losing him, or not ever having him there at all, I would always make the choice of having him.

The pain of losing a child goes right along with the joy of having one. But it isn’t mine to choose; it is simply a gift, and one unearned. As long as I live and can remember, the gift of his life continues to fuel my life. I would rather have had, loved, and lost my son, than to never have had him at all.

If I think of the others in the same way, most of them brought me more joy than anything else and though I do now and will later miss them, my life has been fuller and richer for the gift of their lives into mine.

I wish that they weren’t gone, some more than others, for I cared for each in a different way and I can’t help that. I can not deny the truth that they were here with us for a while and then gone, the season fully complete with a time to be born, a time to die.

When I think of them, I will think of the gift, not of the loss. But I will remember that they have gone.

Stephen Joe Payne
A Purpose under the Sun
Date: 05/10/07


It is the fact that life has some finite length that most makes it worth living.