The Orphans' Nine Commandments

Chapter 15

q15Q Drumright came alive on Saturday night. Our small family spent those evenings on Broadway Street, and Mother took on a more spirited air when she dressed up for the weekly event. When the sun sank over Tiger Hill and the earth cooled, hundreds of people who lived on the outlying farms and oil leases streamed into town, joining the festivities. The wide sidewalks easily handled the crowd. “There is no other town like Drumright,” Dad said, and he was right. During the early boom, the farmers and native citizens rejected the newcomers, forcing the oil people to cling to one another and creating a fraternity based on need. Now all were united and the heart of Drumright beat with a vibrant spirit. When a well rumbled to life and crude shot into the air, Drumright prospered. The citizens loved the continuing boom, the whirling sounds of the pumping rigs, the smell of light brown crude, and the tales about the local bootleggers and Kansas City Babe, the town’s madam. “Let’s park near the Citizen’s Bank tonight.” Mother loved to view the town’s goings-on from the corner of Broadway and Ohio where 186 her friends could find her with ease in Dad’s latest Pontiac. The evening started with the high school’s award-winning marching band parading up Broadway. A green and yellow parrot named Jeanette highlighted the band’s higher notes with squawks of “Whatcha doin’?” as she strutted back and forth on the City Drug’s marquee. As Jeanette’s voice faded, the Salvation Army band, in black uniforms with red trim, played its Saturday night concert on the corner. A big boy on the tuba, a spindly man playing the trombone joined the trumpets and tambourines. Their joyous tunes seemed to project the hope of saving a few sinners from the milling crowd. The major delivered a brief message and led the gathering in singing, “Onward Christian Soldiers.” Coins flowed into jingling tambourines as two ladies passed them from one car window to another. Members of the “Town Council,” as Dad called the elderly gentlemen who hung around the Citizen’s Bank, rolled Prince Albert cigarettes and chewed Pall Mall tobacco. With their Case pocketknives they whittled figures out of pine as they told tales of the giant gushers of the past. “When you step around the corner from Ohio Street,” Dad said, “you’d better be quick-footed or be prepared to wipe tobacco juice off your shoes.” But nothing dampened the excitement of Saturday night. People gathered to forget the hard times, hear cheerful stories, nod over the latest gossip, or exchange tales of their neediest friends. Mother liked to remind people of how desperate some couples were. She called them “Two Cup Families.” This meant they had to borrow coffee cups from neighbors should they have company. “Yep, oil people know one day you have chicken and the next you have feathers,” Dad said. He felt everyone would be happy if it weren’t for the Great Depression, but this dark reality only sent more people out on Saturday evenings. The street teemed with cars and a few pickups. Mothers, fathers, 187 and children wandered in and out of the shops. People admired the drillers, tool pushers, and roustabouts as exceptional men. They considered wildcatters local heroes. Clusters of sunburnt farmers and oil workers in starched khaki pants and blue denim shirts walked the hilly sidewalks. Professional men, dressed in seersucker suits, mixed with the workers and shared the latest stories that were seldom listed on the police blotter. Most nights, Bob Blackstock, Ray Sebring, and I sat on the Pontiac’s fenders and tossed popcorn at the girls as they strolled up and down the sidewalk in their flowered, billowy dresses. Younger children stood in small groups teasing one another or searching sidewalk crevices for lost coins. For me, the temptation of hot tamales and chocolate malts was almost as strong as the lure of girls. I felt awkward around them, but when I heard Mr. Nat, a small lean man, cry, “Hot tamales in corn shucks, 25¢ a dozen,” I hustled up the hill to his two-wheel cart. My appetite was stronger than my libido, and I was comfortable gorging down the meaty hot tamales. When possible, I tagged along with Dad when he left the car to shop. He believed in a...