Further Along the Journey to the Point Defiance

Watch #8

I wasn't running with bad kids.  But all of us had problems and especially two of my friends.  One of them we often called the Big Indian, even when he was sitting there with us.  He used to kid me heavily after a movie we had seen called "I Passed for White."  He would say, "Well, Payne passes for white so let's send him in."   The "in" was a restaurant or store where we joked that they might not let Indians in.  Jess Paul Tomey, the Big Indian, said he was a Pottawatomie Indian and I never doubted it.  Most of my friends in Pawhuska were Osage Indians, including many of my relatives.  I am Cherokee and only one-eighth Cherokee, but I have always been more interested in my one-eighth Cherokee than my seven-eighths everything else.  David Meriable was an Osage and our friend Charley Edgar, who would have a lasting impact upon Jess and me, by what he did, never mentioned Indian in his heritage.  Charley Edgar was the oldest among us and with a confusing romantic situation with his girlfriend, he was lost.  His parents had divorced, adding to his confusion and Charley was talking to military recruiters although he barely shared that with us.  I don't remember what season it was, but suddenly, Charley had enlisted in the navy on what was called a "Kiddie Cruise."    The navy minority enlistment worked this way:  A sailor enlisted after he was seventeen years of age, but less than eighteen.  Then, he was discharged from the enlistment one day before his twenty-first, or majority birthday.  Hence, it was called a minority enlistment and got nicknamed the "Kiddie Cruise."  Edgar did good research and exercised even better timing so he enlisted one day before his eighteenth birthday; that meant he would leave the navy with just three years of service while receiving credit for four years.

Edgar had gone to Ponca City, forty miles west of Pawhuska along Highway 60 and a much larger town than Pawhuska to meet the recruiter.  Pawhuska had a population of about 5,000 in 1960 while Ponca City had a population of nearly 30,000.  Through Edgar, I met the recruiter, a nice fellow named Hall.  When I understood more, I would learn why he wore a bus driver's uniform instead of the sailor suit I had known. Hall was a Chief Petty Officer and a radarman to boot.  Jess Paul and I made several trips to Ponca with Edgar and, without any intention of joining the navy, we were talking to him more each time.  By then, he knew us by sight and by name.  He was rapidly becoming our new best friend.

More on the next watch

Stevie Joe Payne