Early on, it was clear to me that Ryan was not an average little boy. My pride might be ignored as the ravings of a proud daddy, and perhaps there is some of that, but really, we started to realize Ryan was smart. Ryan was crazy smart. I wish I could say he got that from me and his mother, but Ryan was adopted. It is possible Ryan’s smartness is genetic. The debate about nature and nurture is not going to be settled by me.
I wanted Ryan to be smart. As soon as we needed a babysitter we used the wife of one of the school’s custodians. Jim Grant, and his wife and home daycare owner, Barbara Grant. The house was painted green and as soon as Ryan started talking he called the house Green Barbara’s.
One of our peers, Mr. Sanders, had a little girl, Shasta, who was very close in age to Ryan. I remember once when Shasta spilled her drink. Shasta said, “I spilled this all over my dress!”
I was shocked. Ryan wasn’t talking beyond saying a word or two. Here was his female contemporary speaking in complete sentences.
So yes, I was interested in Ryan being outstanding. He seemed outstanding to me, but I knew I was seeing him through the eyes of love.
The summer arrived and my wife, Kathie started going to OU with Ms. Butner to take a class. I was home alone all day with Ryan. I would put him on my lap when I was reading something. I started pointing to a word and I would say, “Ryan, this is the word ‘the.’ Find all the ‘the’s’ on the page.”
Ryan was just a tiny little guy, but he would find all the ‘the’s’ easily. I would move on to other words and repeat the game.
Kathie would also give Ryan little challenges.
Kathie would teach Ryan to say some big words like, zygomaticus, or orbicularis oris and pointing out where those muscles were in the face.
Once we were at a football game at Butner and we were sitting near Mrs. Factor. Kathie prompted Ryan to say his big anatomy words and point to where the muscles were in his face.
Mrs. Factor said, “Oh, I could never say such big words.”
“Yes you can,” said Ryan. “Just say it real slow: zi-go-matacus.” Everyone thought that was cute and hilarious, but it just seemed to go way beyond what I would expect from a very young little boy.
By the time Ryan was five years old he was starting to correct my spelling, and he was reading age appropriate books.
I remember another time when we were driving from Wewoka to the gynecologist in Shawnee. Kathie had developed endometriosis and was preparing to have a hysterectomy. The trip took us past the drive-in movie theater that had a big marquee outside the gate. One day as we were driving past Ryan looked up and said, “They’re showing POLTERGEIST. Ryan was not recognizing the logo for the movie. The sign was in all caps and it was just standard sign block printing. How could a preschooler read the word POLTERGEIST?
MORE CHURCH OF CHRIST TROUBLE
One day Mr. Hoover, the Superintendent of Butner Public Schools, called me into his office. He got pretty parental, or bossy with me.
“Tex,” he said, “you and Kathie have been coming to church here [meaning Cromwell Church of Christ] but your attendance is not good.”
What was I supposed to say?
“And you have never placed membership.”
I was still waiting for a question or something.
“I think it is time for you to place your membership, and start being apart of the church.”
I told him I would talk to Kathie about that.
I talked to Kathie. I was not wild about placing membership, but Kathie thought it was a good idea.
We decided to go to church the following Sunday and place membership.
We did that. We came forward to the sound of Just As I Am, filled out the little card, and we had done what we were asked to do.
After church we drove home, and we were changing out of our church clothes when the phone rang. It was Mr. Hoover. He and his wife were in town and he wanted to come to my home immediately.
Within a few minutes Mr. Hoover and his wife were sitting in my livingroom. [This was before our move to the log house.]
The conversation went something like this:
“There is a problem with your placing membership at Cromwell,” he said. “I guess as soon as church was over someone called one of the Wewoka Church Elders and told them you’d placed membership. The Wewoka Church is not going to let you place membership in Cromwell unless you repent at the Wewoka church for your part in the withdrawal of fellowship that happened back in 1972.”
“Then let’s just not be members of the Cromwell Church,” I told him. “You asked us to place membership. I didn’t want to place membership. I placed membership because you asked me to.”
“But all will be OK if you just repent with the Wewoka Church.”
“No,” I said. “How can they tell the Cromwell Church what to do?” I asked. “We were never withdrawn from,” I added.
“I’ve talked to the Elders,” Mr. Hoover said, “and all you have to do is write a statement and they will read it in the Sunday night service.”
“I won’t say that I was wrong about objecting to what they did to Stormy Winters.”
“You don’t have to say you were wrong,” Mr. Hoover, my boss, told me. “All you have to say is if anyone was offended by my refusal to comply with the Elder’s action, that you are sorry for that.”
Kathie thought I should be able to say at least that. I was feeling pressured to do what Mr. Hoover wanted because he was an elder and my boss.
I caved. I agreed to say that if anyone was offended by my actions during that withdrawal of fellowship that I am sorry. It sounded to me like I was sorry I’d not agreed with the Elder’s action when the actual wording was that I was sorry if other people were offended.
I did this. I did not go forward, but Mr. Hoover and his wife picked me and Kathie and Ryan up and drove us to the Wewoka Church of Christ building. I sat through their Sunday night worship service. Charlie Butler stood up and read my statement aloud and then lead a prayer thanking God for my willingness to comply with the leadership of the Elders and the healing of our relationship with the Body of Christ.
I was pretty steamed about this whole thing.
I was not sorry I didn’t comply with the Elders. I did not give a flying fuck if my actions offended anyone. I was mostly mad at myself for not having enough spin to stand up to Mr. Hoover and telling him to leave my house and not to talk to me about church matters ever again.
I was, and still am, ashamed of myself when I cave in to intimidation and fear.
I did what I was pressured into doing, but I again fell into a long period where I was not going to church.
THE HOOVER PROBLEMS
In my view, Mr. Hoover was an arrogant, dictator, who ruled the teachers like a teacher of a coach might try to cow down and control students. But the teachers were adults. Mr. Hoover was often sarcastic. He had a way of dropping his head and giving you a death stare that he would hold until the target of this treatment would drop their head, look away, and, almost always, they would cave to whatever it was he was wanting.
Over time the majority of the teachers had a list of grievances against Mr. Hoover. I remember driving down the road Harold Rowe would flash his headlights and I would pull over to the side of the road. He would get out of his car and tell me about some complain or mistreatment he had against Mr. Hoover.
Eventually the teachers started to meet as a large group, and they met in my room. I was asked to contact the Oklahoma Education Association and to see if they could send someone out to talk with us about our complaints.
Mr. Hoover saw us meeting in the room and he started picking off teachers and grilling them about why were were meeting. OEA sent a Uniserv Director out to talk with us. We were told we could form an association by filling out cards. Once we had the majority of the teachers who had joined, we could actually bargain a contract with the School Board.
When Mr. Hoover had word of what was going on he called a faculty meeting and he yelled at us for over an hour about the problems we were causing for the school and how it was unprofessional for us to air our dirty laundry in public.
I started gathering information and letters from the Superintendent and I would slip them to a reporter at the Wewoka Daily Times.
This resulted in another faculty meeting. Now we were not just airing our dirty laundry in public, but we were putting that stuff in the newspaper. Mr. Hoover wanted to know who had given information to the newspaper.
Eventually the faculty signed membership cards and we had 100% signed up. I was elected as the first president.
Now I had no idea what I was doing.
There was a heated school board meeting and a number of parents showed up. Negative things were said. It seemed that this parochial attitude Mr. Hoover had towards the teachers he had with at least some of the parents, and the lid boiled off that school board meeting.
I was asked if we, the teachers had concerns we wanted to turn over to the School Board. We had such a list. I said we would like to go over our list with the school board, but we did not want Mr. Hoover in the meeting.
Again my lack of courage showed up. The president of the school board said they needed someone to take notes, and he wanted Mrs. Hoover to sit in on these quzi negotiations and to take notes. I offered to have Mrs. Scott to take the notes, but the president of the school board said they wanted someone impartial to take the notes. I caved.
But clearly Mrs. Hoover was not impartial. Mrs. Hoover was going home that same night and telling Mr. Hoover every single complaint we voiced to the school board. The other teachers were really taking huge risks. Teachers like Mrs. Scott and Mr. Rowe lived in houses that belonged to the school board. If they needed repairs they had to go to Mr. Hoover to get those repairs. They were risking their homes to stand up to Mr. Hoover.
I honestly do not remember everything that happened then, but my memory is that there were lots of hard feelings then. I can remember the look on the faces of Mr. Hoovers two daughters and I felt like a turd on a stick.
Mr. Coker moved up to be the new Superintendent. Slowly feelings calmed down. As Association President I had no clue what I was supposed to do. One of the things I thought was a good idea was to write letters to our elected readers on topics that might advantage or disadvantage teachers and students. When I say letter writing, I don’t mean just me. I would call all the teachers together and have them all write letters to the elected leaders. I thought a lot of letters would get more attention that just a few letters.
I remember several years after I left Butner Schools I ran into Enoch Kelly Haney. He remembered me. Mr. Haney said that he never got the volume of letters he got when I was at Butner Schools.
Did those efforts make any difference? I don’t think so.
DEPRESSION
In 1980 it was clear I was seriously depressed. I sometimes would be at home and just start crying. I felt trapped. I felt homeless.
I started seeing a psychiatrist in Oklahoma City and took my first antidepressant medication that year. Here it is 2015, as of this writing, and I am still taking antidepressants.
Early on I figured we would retire from Butner Schools. I thought Ryan would go through Butner School and end up at OU or OSU. But I was not making enough money. Ryan was about to start school and I wasn’t sure I wanted him to go through Butner Schools.
I don’t mean to imply there was anything wrong with Butner Schools, but I do mean to imply that all schools are NOT equal. The electives were limited. I thought Ryan was above average in intelligence and he needed as many advantages as I could prove him.
To me it felt like we would never have enough money if we stayed at Butner Schools.
We applied for teaching jobs at Putnam City Schools, the school system Kathie had graduated from, and that would put us closer to her parents. Moving your wife closer to her parents is rarely bad for the wife.
One day Kathie was called and she was hired to teach Junior High Science at Putnam City. I didn’t have a job but we followed the old saying, “Leap, and a net will appear.”
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