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Ed Shuck
 Feb 29, 08 - 12:45 PM |
The premier chat pile pond
My early years were divided between Oklahoma City and Picher. When I first came to Picher, the hospital was still at the American Apartments and all the stories about miners being injured and killed at an astounding rate were true. Grandma lived on S. Columbus (I had forgotten the S. until I looked up the map yesterday on Google). The alley behind grandmas was shared with the businesses on Connell Ave. One was the hospital. This would have been just after the war when the hospital closed and before Earl Hand bought it and converted it to the American Apartments. The transition time is when this story happened. For some reason, My uncles, Larry and Earl, along with some of their friends decided that it would be funny to convince me that the hospital was haunted. One day, the door to the boiler room was ajar and someone went in and with a boot on the end of a broom stick, marked along the ceiling and down to the laundry chute with black paint on the sole of the boot. The group had been working on me for a couple of weeks about the ghost and now they took me to see his trail. I saw. We later lived in the Apartments and whenever I entered the room, now used as both a boiler room and a clothes washing room, I could not help but look for traces of the footprints from the ghost. |
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fredas
Mar 1st, 2008 - 11:46 AM |
Re: The premier chat pile pond
Keep 'em coming, Ed. I love every one of them. fredas |
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Ed Shuck
Mar 5th, 2008 - 5:45 PM |
Re: The premier chat pile pond
I started this about the premier chat pile pond and stopped, changing the subject entirely. Once, when I was home, dad mentioned to me that it had been filled in. Some one had drowned. As wonderful and varied as our adventures were, there was always danger. Drill holes. Caved in shafts. Swimming holes with bits and pieces of mines and mills still anchored to concrete at the bottom of ponds that on the surface, look calm and clear. I regret the death or injury to any of our fellow chat rats. What follows is a memory of childhood. That time before the nature of the world takes some of the wonder away. Swimming lessons Grandma lived at 325 S. Columbus and the Patterson's lived across the street/creek. Those familiar with S. Columbus may remember the creek. Rip wrap from the WPA days. The flow started up near N. Connell, was joined by the outflow from Little Hole (through a culvert under Connell, South under A street, behind the Tri State Tribune, joined by the outflow just South of the Bayliss Car lot (later Perry Dairy), also just North of Shorty Dunbar's auto repair. The creek moved west and south until it passed what was recently the 2nd Street Bar and went under concrete for half a block, then the concrete ended . The creek ran in the open until the bridge at 3rd and Columbus. The bridge was supporting a train track and was built very strong. Lots of reenforcement and concrete. After this the creek ran open to the air until the 4th Street bridge. The only obstruction was a wooden foot bridge half way down the block, from the front of Mae Shuck's to near the front of Carl and Reba Patterson's. The Patterson clan consisted of Carl, Reba, Harley, Wendel Carl (Buddy), Judy, Donna Sue, and the two younger boys. Judy was a couple of years older than I and Donna Sue was a year or two younger. They also had a dog name "Pooch". Pooch lived at the Patterson's but he was the neighborhood mascot. During the summer, at about 4 in the evening, just as grandma would start dinner, we would head off to swim at the Premier pond. We would put on our trunks at home, cross the bridge and join the Patterson kids (and Pooch). There was no place to walk between Columbus and the creek and from time to time a car would come along. Or maybe an ore truck. So we walked on the west side of the street. Across 4th Street, past the house we would one day rent from Izzy Zablonski, across a drainage ditch that came all the way from the other side of main street, running behind Wolfenbargers (I know some of my spelling is wrong - forgive - please) filling station. Past an old scrapped Model A that had been left there by John Combi. Just across the creek was a barn that housed some mules. Access to the front of the barn was down an extension of the alley from 4th Street. For us, it was a great place to get fishing bait. The barn would be torn down in just a few years, leaving no sign of its passing. We would cross the gravel/sand behind the storage sheds of Mr. Combi's lumber yard. Across an open stretch of gravel/sand. To the edge of the North pond. Over a plank laid in the muddy alkaline that would one day be right field of the little league ball park. Along a break where the deep end of the pond was seperated from the shallows of the alkaline with the water weeds. To the edge of the Premier and a small break between the north and middle, with some cottonwood growing on it. To swim in the North pond was not allowed AT ALL. There was all manner of steel and wood structure submerged and it was deep. Rumor had it that there was an open shaft. Maybe, maybe not. But we left it alone. We stayed in the small area within the middle, no more than about 20 yards from the cottonwoods. The water would have been deep enough for me to learn but Larry (bunt) and Earl ( Little Boy) would give up trying to teach me. They never did teach me to swim. That would take a flood at Tar Creek. There was no shade. We were swimming from the side of a chat pile, directly into the water. High above us, the eroded and solid chat formed clifts. From the back of the chat pile, a person could climb to the top . From the pond side, about 2/3 rd of the way to the top, the hard chat would stop progress. The front was not negotiable. Some black birds (probably martins) had dug holes in the face and had nests in the small caves. On the peninsula dividing the north and with the cottonwood, was also some plant life with small frogs. There were some cattails but they were edging the north pond. Pooch would run and splash and chase the frogs. He would spend some time swimming and when tiring of that would head back toward the lumber yard and a location where he knew there were pigeons. It was similar to living in a Good bye my lady by James Street or an Erskine Caldwell novel. Maybe like Fried Green Tomatoes. A few years later, we buried Pooch not far from the lumber yard he loved so much. |
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