Memories of the good folks living in the Oklahoma sticks

​        My dad grew up in the sticks east of Tulsa in what was referred to the Verdigris bottoms and the Oak Grove areas of Wagoner County.
      Verdigris was a 300-mile-long river and tributary to the Arkansas River that ran from Southeast Kansas through northeastern Oklahoma.
        My dad loved fishing on the Verdigris River and could sit in a lawn chair or on a five gallon bucket and fish until the cows came home.
        All he needed was a few worms and a bobber.
       I couldn’t do that and would spend the day tossing my bait in the water and reeling in my line and doing it again and again. Needless to say, I didn’t catch any fish and my dad would often catch a mess.
My dad loved to visit with the hardworking fine folks of the bottoms. On occasion, Dad and I would travel to the sticks and visit, including stopping at the Replogle place.
        I always thought that was the coolest name.
       I remember one Sunday afternoon when I was a youngster, my family took a trip to the sticks and stopped at a house where my dad grew up.
      The windows and doors were all gone and the house was nothing but a well-worn frame and a memory from years past. We all sat on the back porch and enjoyed a picnic lunch that my mom had prepared.
       It was at the house in the late 1940s that the Verdigris river got out of its banks, not once, but twice. It knocked down the cornstalks, but didn’t destroy the corn.
        My dad and his younger brother, Charley, hand-picked the 40-acres of corn and they sold it for enough money that my grandfather used it to buy a used Alias Chalmers tractor and harrow for $1,500 in nearby Broken Arrow.
          I have a set of horse harnesses that were my grandpas that he used during the WPA days to build roads in Oklahoma. I don’t have any documented history on the harnesses other than what my dad told me. I’ve considered donating the nearly 100-year-old harnesses to the Midwest Old Threshers Reunion, but haven’t followed through.
         A trip to the sticks also meant a visit to see Sonny and Ova Smith.
       We often enjoyed big family get-togethers on my dad’s side at the Smiths. Ova was quite a cook and there was always enough food to feed a dozen for a week.
      Sonny died some years ago, but Ova lived a good number of years in a comfortable ranch-style home that the couple built in the 1960s.
      And just down the road was the Oak Grove School where my dad attended through the eighth grade. He never finished high school. Some years later, the Smith’s boy, Mike, turned the school into a house and lived there for a while.
       Every time Dad and I visited the good folks in the sticks, I’d find a comfortable chair and quickly fall asleep. When dad was finished visiting, he’d would wake me up and off we’d go to the next place.
       One of those stops was the home of Nelda and the now late Archie Brown on old Highway 33. My dad grew up with Archie and enjoyed visiting with him and Nelda when visiting the area. The couple had two boys and I believe a daughter. They used to own a DX service station up the road from their home.
      It was one of those places where you could fill up your gas tank and your stomach with a deli sandwich, a bag of chips and a cold bottle of Pepsi from the cooler.
      My dad also had family living near Locust Grove, Okla., near the Boy Scout Camp that I attended from 1972-1976. Locust Grove is about 50-miles east of Tulsa.
      When in the Locust Grove area, a stop to see Fannie and Bowman Grimes was always on the agenda.
       The couple built a new house in the 1960s and there was no toilet. They still used the outhouse and water from the well to drink and do dishes when I was a kid. The couple had one son, Robert.
      When I was a youngster, probably age 7, I found an old antique wood burning stove iron in the barn and took it home. When my folks learned of the error of ways, they made me take it back and fess up to my sins. It didn’t bother Fannie and Bowman a bit.
      There was also Buck Grimes who lived down the road on Highway 82 between Locust Grove and Tahlequah. His daughter, Bernice, married my mom’s younger brother, Leon.
        Buck was as good as they come. His house was small, but was inviting and comfortable. And I can’t forget about Howard Hemphill, a friend of my dad’s. Howard lived in an old shack up the hill and behind Fannie and Bowman’s place. There were old vehicles and junk everywhere. He’d tinker around and build an old wagon and pull it behind a team of horses. I always enjoyed taking a spin in the wagon when we visited.
       In later years, Howard moved into an old mobile home in Rose, Okla., east of Locust Grove, where he oversaw a herd of cattle that my uncle Orval owned. Orval was my dad’s younger brother. Dad and I went to visit Howard one year when I was around age 12.
       As I was milling around outside, I discovered that I was covered in ticks. I said something to my dad and he stripped me down and poured alcohol over me. Later that day, I took a shower and it was brown well water fed. If the alcohol didn’t do it, I’m sure the brown well water finished them off.
       Howard went through vehicles like some people go through shoes. He drove the gravel roads fast.  He’d get to the top of a hill and shut the engine off and coast to the bottom and let out the clutch and start the engine again and off he’d go.
      What I remember the most is when you’d step into his home there on the chair or counter was his well-worn Bible.  
       I have lots of great memories from back in the day!
       Remember that Good Things are Happening, every day and always.