Mr. Frog’s Wild Power Plant Ride

I woke up from a dream this past Wednesday where I had just insulted a young lady who had cancer treatment by calling her “baldy”. In the dream I was attempting to be funny, but as soon as I said it, I knew I had crossed the line of common courtesy. I acknowledged right away that “I shouldn’t have said that”, and rose from my chair to go find whoever it was so that I could apologize. In my dream I was never able to find the person, though I thoroughly searched whatever restaurant-factory-office building we were in. You know how thing are in dreams.

I preface this post with that thought because someone may take offense to the title I have chosen today. So, let me just say that this is a story about someone that has been the source of constant conversation in my family for the past 30 years. Though I never refer to him as “Frog”, that is a title reserved for one of this man’s best friends. It is an expression of friendship bestowed upon Walt Oswalt by Ray Eberle.

Walt Oswalt

Ray Eberle is the most amazing storyteller of our time.  He captivated Power Plant audiences for the past 40 years up until the day he recently retired.  I have heard hundreds of stories by Ray, but none of them were ever said with more compassion and humor than the stories that Ray Eberle would tell me about our fellow Power Plant Man, Walt Oswalt.

Ray Eberle

I used to think that Walt’s parents name him Walt so that it would be easy for him to spell his entire name.  Once he learned his first name, he just had to add an OS to it, and he could spell his last name.  Well, actually, his full name was Walter Lee Oswalt.  But whose counting?  I also thought that OD McGaha (prounounced Muh Gay Hay) was in a similar situation, because OD simply stood for OD  (prounounced O-D or Oh Dee).   Not to forget Dee Ball.  I’ll bet all of these guys could spell their names by the time they graduated the third grade.

Look closely at Ray Eberle’s picture above, because if you look closely into his eyes you can see that back behind those orbs, thousands of wonderful stories are packed in there waiting to be told.  I don’t know if I have mentioned this in a post before, but Ray looks just like my grandfather when he was younger.  I think I mentioned that to Ray one day.  Since those days when we used to sit side-by-side working on the computers in the Coal-fired Power Plant in North Central Oklahoma, I have loved Ray with all my heart as if he is a member of my family (see the post:  “Tales of Power Plant Prowess by Ray Eberle“).

Even though this post is about Walt Oswalt, I am spending an unusual amount of time talking about Ray, because the stories I am about to relay are told through the eyes of Ray.  I have already passed on some stories about Walt in other posts, so I will focus on those stories about Walt experienced by Ray.  I will only scratch the surface today, as it takes some time to absorb the universal significance of each story.  If I flood you with too many  Walt Oswalt stories at once it may cause confusion.  I appreciated the fact that Ray didn’t lay all his Walt Oswalt stories on me in one sitting for this very reason.

Ray Eberle began his stories about Walt by telling me about going over to Jimmy Moore’s new house.  Jimmy had just moved into a new house outside Morrison Oklahoma not too far from Ray.  Ray described how nice the property was at the time.  It was a picture perfect piece of property.  The surrounding fields were pristine giving the feeling of peace when you looked around.

Jimmie Moore expression after moving into his nice house

Note the Sparco notepad in Jimmy’s pocket.   A Power Plant Electrician Necessity, just like the notepads I always used:

One of My Power Plant Sparco Wirebound Memo Books

Just when Ray was soaking in the perfection of Jimmy’s new property, dreaming that he could have found such a great spot, Jimmy mentioned that Walt Oswalt bought the property across the road.  Ray’s response was “Frog bought the land across the road?  Oh no!”  Not wanting to upset Jimmy, he didn’t say anything else, but he was thinking it….  You see, Walt is sort of a “junk collector”.

I have always been a junk collector myself, as you may have figured out by the fact that I still have a notepad left over from Christmas 1995.  Actually, I could take a picture of the Sparco notepads I have kept from my time at the power plant and it would look like this:

My personal collection of used Power Plant Sparco Notepads

So, I was a note taker…  Each page of these notepads are filled with work order numbers, part numbers, phrases I heard, Things Gone Right, Things Gone Wrong meeting notes, Meeting schedules, tools needed, and sometimes just thoughts that came to my mind.  I am mentioning this because I have this common bond with Walt.  We both like to collect things that others see as “junk”.

Ray was worried that after Walt moved in across the road that the Beatrice Potter Meadow was going to change into Fallout 3  terrain (well, my phrases, not his, but I think you can picture what I am saying).  From what I understand, this is what happened.  — This by the way is not a Walt Oswalt Story.  This has been more of a Jimmy Moore story.

I have been waiting so long to actually write down a Walt Oswalt Story that I actually find it hard to bring myself to put it down on virtual paper, but here goes….

Here begins the first Walt Oswalt Story:

In the mid-90s the Internet was something of a new phenomenon.  I had taught most of the Power Plant Men how to use the Internet (excluding upper management)  as you can read in the post:  “Power Plant Quest for the Internet“.  One person who immediately saw the benefit of using the Internet beyond looking up indecent pictures or connecting with clandestine online “Match.com” experiences was Walt Oswalt.  Walt saw “business opportunity”!

So, follow me on this story, because Walt stories can become complicated on paper because I can’t talk using my hands.  I may need some help from Walt’s son Edward, since he played a major role in this one…

One day, Walt and Ray were talking and Walt told Ray that he was looking at buying a dump truck.  Let me just show a picture of a dump truck, even though I don’t know the specific truck Walt had in mind.  I just know the approximate size:

A Ford Dump Truck

Let’s just suppose that it is a truck like this….  anyway, Walt explained to Ray that he could buy the truck he wanted up in Wichita one hundred miles away.  However, Walt wasn’t going to do that.  He had found the same truck on the Internet for sale for $500 cheaper near Virginia Beach, Virginia, 1,400 miles away.

Ray asked, “But isn’t it going to cost you more than that to have the truck shipped to Oklahoma?”  “Oh, I have that all figured out.  I’m going to go pick it up myself.”  He went on to explain that he and his son (this is where Edward enters the story) were going to drive non-stop to Virginia Beach and pick it up.  They won’t have to stop because they can trade off driving while the other rests.

A Flat Bed Trailer

So, a marathon trip for 2,800 miles was planned.  Walt had a trailer attached to his truck to bring the new truck back… Though I’m not sure why the thought that they could just drive the new truck home wasn’t considered (or flying out there and driving the truck back, but then, that would cost more than the $500 they were saving by buying the truck)….  The plan was that they would load the truck on the trailer and haul it home.  Maybe it was so that they didn’t have to stop because they could swap off driving if they were only driving one of the two trucks.

Two members of the Oswalt family took off for the East Coast one Friday evening.  They arrived early Sunday morning at the place of business where they were going to purchase the truck.  From what I understand, the business was closed, (being Sunday, and all), so they called the owner and told him they were there to pick up the truck.  After waiting a few hours, the truck was purchased, and Walt and Edward were on their way back home.

A couple of days later, Ray noticed that Walt had made it back home, so he went over to his house to see how he managed.  Obviously, after travelling 2,800 miles in four days, the two were bushed, but the new truck was finally home.  While Ray was talking to Walt about his trip, he happened to notice that the back of the dump truck was loaded with blown out tires.

“Hey Walt, what’s up with all the tires?” Ray asked.  “Oh.  Those.” Walt replied….  “Well, the trailer wasn’t really big enough to carry this much weight, so we kept blowing out tires on the trailer when we were coming home.”  They must have blown out more than 20 tires driving home.  So, it seems to me that this turned out to be a pretty costly savings of $500.

I would leave this story at that, but after a couple of trips to Los Angeles and back from Round Rock, TX, I have to say that spending countless hours with your family in the car where there is nothing to do but to talk to each other is an incredibly priceless experience.  Once, my son Anthony and I drove the same distance, 1400 miles non-stop from Los Angeles to Round Rock without stopping and we talked the entire time.  I would say it is an experience worth a million bucks.

The night before last, I received a message on Facebook from a Power Plant Technician, Doug Black.  He wrote:  Sooner retiree, Walter Oswalt passed away on September 30, 2015.  Walter will be laid to rest at Yukon Cemetery with a grave service on October 23, at 2 p.m.

Doug Black

I looked up Walt’s Obituary, and it seemed to me that there was one phrase missing from the description.  It said that “Walt had went to work for OG&E in Mustang Oklahoma and later retired from the OG&E plant in Redrock…”  I didn’t see the words, “Power Plant Legend” mentioned anywhere in the Obituary.  It should be mentioned, because that’s exactly who Walt Oswalt is.

I may not have had the benefit of sitting in a truck with Walt for 20 hours at a time, but I was able to work one-on-one with Walt one day for 19 hours straight on a Saturday when we were on “Coal Cleanup” that had turned into a job repairing conveyor belt rollers.  During that day, while I was a young man of 20, I went through the motions directed by Walt to remove and install rollers on the number 10 belt up toward the top.

Coal conveyor carrying coal to the coal silos from the coalyard

I didn’t have much of a clue about what I was doing, but I had placed all my confidence in Walt.  I felt the entire time as if Walt was keeping me safe in a potentially unsafe situation even after being awake for 19 hours.  So, I have a little knowledge of what the road trip was like that Walt and his son Edward took “There and Back Again.”

It may seem that Walt had made a bad decision to make the Internet Purchase of a truck 1,400 miles away in order to save $500, but I think that God helps us along some times by sending us down a path that seems a little foolish, only to force us into a benefit we would not otherwise encounter.  I keep Walt in mind whenever things like that happen to me today and I thank him for keeping me from being disappointed with those times in my life.

Now that Walt has met his maker, I’m sure that Walt is sitting there with Jesus Christ reviewing not only Walt’s life, but also Ray Eberle’s retelling of Walt’s story.  Walt may now be surprised to find that moments that he thought were rather insignificant to anyone but himself have actually been spread to others across the world.  As I mentioned in the post about Ray Eberle, a few years ago, CEOs of large companies across the U.S. were all learning about the “Wisdom of Walt”.  Some day I wouldn’t be surprised to find that the Walt Oswalt Stories have become required reading in Oklahoma Schools.

Rest in Peace Walt Oswalt.  We all love you.

Walt Oswalt