Power Plant Snitch
Favorites Post # 4 (posted in no particular order)
Originally Posted March 16, 2013:
Seventeen years before Harry Potter captured the Snitch in the movie “Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone”, the Coal-fired Power Plant in north central Oklahoma was plagued by a similar elusive snitch. Unlike the snitch in Harry Potter, which was a small ball with wings that held a special secret only revealed in the last moments of the last Harry Potter Book (and movie) “The Deathly Hallows”, the Power Plant snitch had a more sinister character.
The Snitch from Harry Potter, “The Sorcerer’s Stone”
The Power Plant Snitch reminded me once again of the phrase that “Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely.” I had experienced this phenomenon only a few years earlier when I was in High School and my father was a victim of this type of corruption. This made me especially abhorrent of deceit and dishonesty in the workplace. This was the reason why I had become so upset while I was a janitor and I learned a little “lie” that Jack Ballard had cooked up to force the employees to use their floating Holiday first so that they couldn’t use it around Christmas (See the post Power Plant Secrets Found during the Daily Mail Run).
You see, in the Lone Power Plant stationed out in the middle of the country in North Central Oklahoma, a plot had been hatched by the Evil Plant Manager that rivaled a James Bond conspiracy to take over the world. Only in this case, it was a conspiracy to take over the personal dignity of honest, descent Power Plant Men. Men who said their prayers each night when they went to bed. Men who went to work each day to provide for their children. Men who held God and country in the highest esteem.
As I mentioned above, I had seen this abuse of power before when I was in High School. It had affected my personality in a way that I became instantly angry at the site of dishonesty. This was something I had to learn to deal with throughout the years as I interacted with men of less than honorable dignity. In order to understand why, I will divert into a side story:
My parents had kept their financial difficulties and other stress out of our lives while I was in Junior High and High school back in the mid ’70’s. They didn’t tell me that my father, who was listed in the top 20 Veterinarians in the world, and among the top 5 bird specialists, was being targeted by the Dean and his minions at the University of Missouri Veterinary College.
I remember that my mother was introducing new foods to our palate, such as Lentils and other types of rice and bean dishes. She had gone to work as a secretary at Stephen’s College to make ends meet. At the same time, I had traveled with my dad when I was 13 to Europe where I met Veterinarians around the world that all greeted my father as if he were some kind of king.
I remember walking down the road on the way to Liverpool from the University (a 5 mile walk) where a group of bird specialists from around the world were meeting to determine the universal Latin names of every part of the bird’s anatomy (which at that point had not been defined). The Veterinarian walking with me from India told me after I had made some offhand comment about my father. He said, “You don’t realize who your dad is. In India, your dad is the Father of Physiology! Your dad wrote the bible of Veterinary Physiology used around the world!”
I knew the book he was referring to. My dad had worked for three years day and night writing this book. Collaborating with renown Veterinarians around the world to compile a comprehensive book of Veterinary Physiology. The first of it’s kind. Before this book was written, you could only find the Physiology of a Pig, or the Physiology of a Dog. My dad had created a masterpiece that included an all-encompassing Veterinary Physiology in one book.
My Dad’s book
I say this, not to lift my father on a higher pedestal than he already is, but to put in perspective, how an important person such as James E. Breazile, DVM was treated by the “Evil Dean” of the Veterinary College at the University of Missouri in 1974 and until the day he resigned on January 16, 1978. Actually, the day my father brought the gold bound copy of the book home and presented it to my mother, she stopped talking to him for about a month for the first time in her life (for a totally unrelated reason which I may relay in a future post). Though the publishing company made a lot of money for years after this book was published, the total amount my dad received for his years of work totaled no more than $10,000 over a three year period (a crime in itself).
Anyway. To make a long story short, (because I could go on for days about this), my father was not able to get a job at any another University in the United States, because he had tried to bring the corruption of the leaders of the Veterinary School (who had been stealing money from the University through bogus expense reports) to light, only to be told by the Chancellor of the University at the time, Herbert Schooling, “Boys will be boys.” It was just like the moment when Saruman told Gandalf, “We must join with him!”
Saruman Tells Gandalf that he must join with the forces of evil in the Lord of the Rings
It was only because my father had worked for Oklahoma State University before, when I was very young, that they didn’t need “permission” from University of Missouri to hire him, and take the multi-million dollar contracts that he had with Purina (and other businesses that had funded their electron microscope and other expensive scientific equipment at the time) with him, that we were able to escape the firewall that had been placed around my father’s career (ok. that sentence is long enough for an entire paragraph).
Anyway (again)…. I can’t let this story go until I give you the moment that was the “clincher” for me. The moment that I finally believed that my mother and my father hadn’t just gone off their rocker and become extremely paranoid living in a “James Bond” world….
My father (secretly) obtained a job from the Oklahoma State University in the Veterinary College. He was to start on January 9, 1978 with tenure (meaning that he couldn’t be fired without a really good reason). One week before he was going to resign from the University of Missouri. As usual, Oklahoma State University would begin classes one week before the University of Missouri after Christmas break.
During Christmas break (when I was a senior in High School), we would sneak into my father’s office at the Vet School in Columbia Missouri to remove his books and personal items from his office. We would go to this office at 10 o’clock at night after the school was closed for the night. At this point, I believed that both my mom and my dad had gone off their rocker and I was already planning on going through the phone book to find them a good Psychologist, or a priest to help them out.
Until (can you start a paragraph with the word “Until”?) Sunday morning, January 1, 1978. New Years Day. My mother and I were on our way to an early morning Church service at Our Lady Of Lourdes. My mom said that she thought it would be safe to drop by the Veterinary school and pick up some of dad’s things from his office (Dad had already left for Stillwater, Oklahoma to deliver a load of books and personal belongings – did I mention that my dad had a lot of books?).
As we pulled into the parking lot at the Veterinary College, my mom told me that I couldn’t go in because that was “Brown’s” car on the parking lot. — She had names for the different “bad guys” in the department. The Dean was “Whitey”. There was an older lady professor named “Brown”. Then there was the one that I recognized the most…. “McClure”.
I told my mom… “Look. It’s 9 am on Sunday morning. New Year’s Day. She was insistent that “Brown” was in the building. Then finally she told me. “Ok. go downstairs (where my father’s office was) and look around. If no one is there, then grab some of his books.”
Then one of the most bizarre moments of my life occurred. I still remember every detail. It was like I had gone into a dream where fantasy suddenly became reality. I entered the dark building using my father’s key. Immediately turned left and went down the stairs into the darkness. I had to feel my way down the stairs, holding onto the handrail.
As I stepped into the subterranean hallway, I turned north toward my father’s office. I immediately stopped. About 40 yards ahead of me I could see two offices next to each other with their doors open and their lights on. The rest of the hallway was totally dark as we were below ground. Having been a “spelunker” in my youth, the darkness didn’t bother me, however, the existence of lights ahead was a total surprise.
I briskly walked down the hallway past the two doors. In the first office a lady was sitting at a desk. In the second, a man. I quietly walked on by. Then I turned around and walked passed the door where the man was sitting and stopped between the two doors. I could tell that both the man and the woman were talking on the phone. After listening for a moment I could tell that they were talking to each other, though I couldn’t hear what they were saying.
As a seventeen year old High School student, I suddenly realized that everything my mother and father had been saying for the past 5 years had been true. All the bugs found in my dad’s phone. All the threatening notes. The trips down to the gas station to use the pay phone because they were sure our own phones were bugged. The reason why he hadn’t received a raise in 5 years… All made sense! These are the guys that were crazy!
I walked south to the stairway and turned around and looked back. “Brown” (the lady), was standing in the hallway with her hands on her hips like Professor Umbridge in Harry Potter!
Professor Umbridge Holding her wand
I stood there for a second looking at her silhouetted against the light from her office, knowing that she couldn’t tell who I was in the darkness. then I darted up the stairs. Ran outside to the car. Jumped in the driver’s seat of the Pontiac Station Wagon and told my mom what I had seen.
My mom explained to me that this was “Brownie”. They talk on the phone so that no one can say that they have been seen talking together. You see…. they are supposed to be at a conference or some other “official” business this weekend so they can claim expenses for flights, hotel and food. That is why “Whitey” can live in a big ranch south of town on his measly salary. This is what my father had told the Chancellor of the University who told him that “boys will be boys”.
I didn’t know whether to lean over and kiss my mom when I suddenly realized that the list of insane people didn’t include my mother and father, or to peel out of the parking lot before Professor Umbridge made it up the stairs! Anyway. On News Years Day 1978 I had a totally new perspective on life. I can tell you that for certain.
To finish up with this side (non Power Plant) story…. in 1980 when Barbara Uehling became the Chancellor at the University of Missouri (from Oklahoma University, where I had attended school two years before), she began to clean house. I remember the day I learned that she had fired “Whitey” the dean of the Veterinary school.
I woke from my sleep very early in the morning when the phone rang. It was my father from Stillwater, Oklahoma. He had received a call from Iowa State from a Veterinarian, Deiter Delman, who had told him that they had just fired Whitey the Dean of the Veterinary College at Missouri. I told dad that was great, and I crawled back to my bed to finish my nightly ritual of sleep.
Moments later I was woken by another phone call. One of my professors from the College of Psychology Dr. Wright had called me. He said, “I have some news that your father will probably like to know. It is really top secret!
I said, “Does it have to do with “Whitey” being fired?” In my head I could see Dr. Wright’s one fake eye spinning around in his head like Professor Moody in Harry Potter (even though he hadn’t been thought of yet in 1981).
Professor Moody… Or is it Professor Wright in the MU Psychology Department?
Professor Moody… I mean Dr. Wright…. said, “What? How do you know? This is “Top Secret?” the meeting was over just minutes ago? I told him that Dr. Middleton had called Dr. Delman, who had immediately called my father, who had already called me moments ago. — To put this in perspective…… The whole world knew within minutes. I wrote a letter to the Chancellor Barbara Uehling explaining the events that I knew about. She wrote back saying that the Provost would be looking into the additional names I had given her.
End of side story…..
Back to the Power Plant Snitch… (I can tell… this has already become a long post and is probably going to break my record of the longest post of all time).
In September 1984, not one year after I had joined the electric shop, Bill Bennett, our A Foreman, came down to the electric shop (which was normal. Since he ate lunch with us every day). This time, he locked the doors. The door to the Turbine room, the door to the main switchgear and the front door…. — all locked. He said, “What is said here doesn’t go outside this shop.”
Ok…. We all went instantly into “serious” mode. Bill explained that there was something up with the grubby looking janitor (I’m sorry… I don’t remember what name he was assuming to use at the time — I’ll call him “Bonzo” from now on). The janitor “Bonzo” had been neglecting his duties as a janitor, so Pat Braden (the lead janitor) had gone to Marlin McDaniel to have him fired. Marlin McDaniel had gone to the Assistant Plant Manager, Bill Moler to start the process of firing “Bonzo”.
Marlin McDaniel (who had been my A foreman while I was a Janitor and on Labor crew after Chuck Ross had left) was told by Bill Moler that he was not going to fire “Bonzo” under any circumstance. It didn’t matter to him that he wasn’t doing his job. Marlin was told to forget about it and not bring it up again.
Bill Bennett told every person in the electric shop…. “Keep clear of this guy. I don’t know what is going on, but something is definitely wrong.” At that point everyone in the Electric shop knew that “Bonzo” was a snitch. Don’t talk to the Snitch…. Ok… from now on I’ll refer to “Bonzo” as the “Snitch”.
I know I have bored all of you by the personal story of my father and the trials that he went through, so I’ll try to keep this short: I knew a year and three months ago when I first started writing about the “Goodness” of the Power Plant Man that I would eventually come to this story. I know that the Power Plant men that read this blog knew that this story had to eventually be written. So, here it is.
Through unforeseen circumstances… and I attribute it to my Guardian Angel who has kept me out of serious trouble up to this point, I was called to Oklahoma City by my girlfriend Kelly Burgess (who ten months and 11 days later became my wife and is ’til death do us part) on February 10, 1985. I called in to Howard Chumbley on February 11 and told him I would not be able to make it to work that day. I would be taking my floating holiday.
The following Monday morning when I had climbed into Bill River’s Station wagon at the bowling alley where we met, with Rich Litzer and Yvonne Taylor and we were on our way to work, I learned about what had happened the Friday before. The day that would forever be referred to at the plant as “Black Friday.”
Bill Rivers explained the entire scenario to me during the 25 minute drive to the plant. I can’t say that I was in tears because my system had gone into shock and I was zombified by each new revelation. If I could have cried, I would have. My system had just gone into shock. All emotion had shut down.
Bill explained to me that on Friday morning (February 11, 1985), a plant-wide meeting had been held. Everyone at the plant had been informed that a drug and theft ring at the plant had been found and eliminated. This included one lady who was a janitor. A machinist named Dink Myers. The Lead Janitor Pat Braden and two of the Electricians Craig Jones and Jim Stevenson.
Drug and Theft ring? Really? At our Power Plant?
Except for the female janitor (I can’t even remember her name), I had a personal relationship with every other person on this list (whether they knew it or not). I never worked directly with Craig Jones, but as an electrician, I did know that everyone held him in the highest esteem. I later found out that Dink Myers was a distant relation of mine when two years later I attended my grandfather’s funeral. Jim Stevenson was a close friend to the point that I used to give him Swedish Massages that would ease the pain of his rampant Eczema. Pat Braden…. Well. Pat Braden.. my Janitor lead. I loved him most of all.
I invited Pat Braden to sit next to my wife and I at my wedding 10 months later, even though the Evil Assistant Plant Manager would be serving as a deacon in the wedding ceremony (he didn’t come.. I understood why). Next to Charles Foster, Pat Braden was my next dearly beloved friend. — Other Power Plant Men, such as Mickey Postman and Ed Shiever, share in my total love for Pat Braden to this day. — Not that I have asked them… I just know… They used to work for this saint.
Here is what had happened…..
Eldon Waugh (the evil plant manager) had heard from a study that came out early in 1984 that 10% of a typical workforce were either on drugs or were robbing their employer. I know. I had read the same study. The company had hired the snitch to become a janitor at the best power plant in the country to infiltrate their troops and bring out the worst in them.
I distinctly remember the snitch walking into the electric shop once as I was walking out…. He paused… looked at me as if to say something, then went on…. (– my interpretation…. “oh… a victim….”…. Guardian angel response…. “This isn’t the droids you are looking for…”) He went on without saying a word.
These aren’t the droids you ar looking for (Star Wars — A New Hope)
So the Snitch nailed a good friend of mine, Jim Stevenson…. I remember in January just before the verdict came down….. Leroy Godfrey had gone on a frenzied hunt for the portable electric generator. It had turned up missing…. Everyone in the shop was sent to look for it… After a day of searching, when it was time to go home….
I remember that as we were walking out the door to the parking lot that Jim Stevenson said, “They are never going to find the generator.” Bill Ennis asked, “Why Not?” Jim answered, “Because their snitch has it. If they are going to let a crook like that work here, they are going to have to live with the consequences. He took the generator.”
A few months after “Black Friday”, Jim Stevenson was suing the company, and the specifically the Plant Manager and the Assistant Plant Manager. Lawyers came from Oklahoma City and interviewed people that had worked with Jim Stevenson and Craig Jones. I was in a quandary. I knew if they asked me about this situation I would have to tell them what Jim Stevenson had said. Jim had been fired for helping the snitch load the generator in the back of his truck months earlier. The funny thing was… I was the only one in the shop that they didn’t interview. I had never been on Jim’s crew, so I wasn’t on their list. At that point, if they didn’t ask me, I wasn’t going to volunteer.
The thing about this whole event was that it was setup from the beginning…. The Snitch asked Jim if he would help him lift the generator into the back of his truck…. This by itself was nothing out of the ordinary, since people could “check out” the generator for their personal use.
Portable Generator
Jim had known that the Snitch had taken the portable generator and said to Bill Ennis that if they wanted to keep scum around like that, then they should incur the cost of that decision. What Jim didn’t know was that he was being secretly taped while he was being entrapped into loading the generator into the back of the Snitch’s truck. Jim reminded me of Dabney Coleman:
Dabney Coleman reminds me of Jim Stevenson
I won’t go much into the stories of Dink Myers, who shared a joint with the Snitch in the locker room, and Craig Jones who pulled up some “hemp” on the road to the river pumps to swap for a “stolen knife set” (though he didn’t know they were stolen) since these were “no-brainer” stupid moments in the life of young Power Plant Men… but I will defend Pat Braden…. The most honest and loving of souls (and again… I apologize for the length of this post).
In previous posts I have mentioned that Pat Braden reminded me of Red Skelton.
This Picture of Red Skelton reminds me of Pat Braden
Today, when I want to reminisce about Pat Braden. All I have to do is watch an old episode of Red Skelton. As kind as Red Skelton was in real life… there was Pat Braden. If you don’t know about Red Skelton… Google him…. He was a sincere soul… He was a soul-mate to Pat Braden. — I finally found an old photo with Pat Braden.
Pat Braden (left) with Dick Dale and Mike Gibbs
This is the story about how Pat Braden was fired…… The snitch came to him one day and asked for the key to the closet so that he could get the VCR….. Weeks later, the VCR turned up missing and Pat was asked if he knew where the VCR went. He didn’t know.
When I was a janitor I used to go to Pat on a weekly basis and ask for the key to closet for the VCR. I had to regularly move it to the control room or the Engineer’s shack for training sessions. It was just part of our regular job and Pat Braden would have not thought twice about it.
As it turned out, the snitch had taken the VCR from the closet and had brought it straight to Bill Moler, the Assistant Plant Manager and handed it to him and told him that he had stolen it (even though technically, it hadn’t been stolen). Then about a month later, Bill sent out the request to find the VCR. At that point, Pat, who was the same age as my father (It’s funny, but a lot of people at the plant were the same age as my father), and on blood pressure medication that made his head swim when he stood up, didn’t remember anyone taking the VCR four weeks earlier… So, he was included in the “Theft and Drug ring at Sooner Plant on February 11, 1985”.
The story about Jim Stevenson is almost as tragic, though he had enough money to take the Electric Company to court. Pat’s income of $10 an hour didn’t quite leave him in a position to complain about being unjustly fired.
As the Tape recorder tapes revealed about Jim Stevenson (yeah… Like Watergate)… The evil Plant Manager, Eldon Waugh had told the Snitch to specifically target Jim Stevenson. The way it was explained in the recording between Eldon Waugh and the Snitch (as recorded by Jack Ballard, the head of HR at the Plant at the time), if Jim Stevenson were gone, then Leroy Godfrey’s only friend would be gone… Then Leroy would have to turn to Bill Moler or Eldon for friendship….. I want to continue printing periods as you ponder this thought…..
So…. Eldon and Bill had Jim Stevenson fired as part of a bogus “Drug and Theft” ring so that Leroy Godfrey would be their friend?….. How bizarre is that? You know… I can put this all in writing because it all became public knowledge when it became part of a trial between Jim Stevenson and the Electric Company a year later. The s**t hit the fan on January 23, 1986 when Bill Moler and Eldon Waugh were attending Jack Ballard’s funeral.
Immediately after the graveside services were finished in Ponca City at the Odds Fellows Cemetery, Jim’s lawyer hit them both with a Subpoena to appear in court… The lawyer wanted to make sure the trial took place in Kaw County (Ponca City) outside the area that received electricity from our electric company. A year later, these two individuals and the company settled out of court after news about the snitch was coming out and the company didn’t want any publicity surrounding this. Both the Plant Manager and the Assistant Plant Manager were “early retired” which opened the door for a new era of Power Plant Management. Jim Stevenson walked away with an undisclosed sum of money that was at least six digits.
Pat? I found out a few years later that my wife had been working with Pat in Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Ponca City. One day after, we had moved to Stillwater, and Kelly was talking to a friend from Ponca City, the subject of Pat Braden came up. When she had hung up the phone, I asked her, “Pat Braden who?” When she explained that she had worked with a security guard named Pat Braden in Ponca City, and that he was the nicest guy you would ever meet. He cared about one thing in life and that was his daughter… I knew she was talking about our Pat Braden.
Everyone that ever met this kind soul was touched by him. It was ironic that my wife Kelly had worked with Pat for a couple of years at the hospital and I didn’t even have a clue. I knew that Pat must have known…. After all…. I was the only Breazile in the phone book in Ponca City at the time. From what I understand… Pat is still around in Ponca City doing something….. Jim Stevenson still runs “Stevenson Refrigeration Services”. Both of these are honorable men.
Note that the True Power Plant Men mourned their loss for years after this event. A certain amount of “innocence” or “decency” had been whittled away. That is until 1994 rolled around….. But…. That is another story for a much later time….
Comments from the original post:
-
Ron Kilman March 18, 2013:
I of course heard about “Black Friday” at Sooner, but it was from Eldon’s perspective. It is evil when innocent people are set up to be fired like that.
We didn’t hire any snitches at Seminole.
-
Jack Curtis April 6, 2013:
An entertaining study of the use of power in a university and in a power plant…with applications to government available!
Comments from a repost:
We have two snitches in our shop, one is overt and the other covert. Both are very unhappy people with very small minds.
Sigh. I have seen this happen first hand and to this day I cannot believe that people can be this brutal and reckless with the careers of other persons. Their day will come
Confucius said, to paraphrase, “Here is a way to tell great men from small. Great men, when they wish to steal something, which is indeed the way of the world, forthrightly tell you as much and bear the responsibility thereafter. Small men instead make every attempt to BLAME AND DISCREDIT THEIR VICTIMS.”
Now you might make the Pat Braden movie, we think it’s original.
Things like this have happened where my husband works. It is truly horrible what people will do to people at work. Thank God there are harassment laws here. My husband knows quite a few people who sued the company and won.
We have a few snitches in our group. Everybody know who they are and what they do so we feed them disinformation.
Enjoyed the post although it was disconcerting to know that so many ugly things happened in the workplace then. I’m sure there’s still the same thing happening today. Ethics is surely needed in our world today. Thanks. Enlightening.
Power Plant Secrets Found During Daily Mail Run
Originally Posted on November 2, 2012:
Mid-July of my fourth summer as a summer help at the Coal-Fired Power Plant in North Central Oklahoma in 1982, Stanley Elmore came back from the office area while I was working fixing a flat tire in the garage. He shook his head as in disbelief… which was Stanley’s normal way of saying that he either had some interesting news to tell you, or that he was playing a joke on you and was about to set you up for something. He told me that I was one lucky person. I had been chosen to do the Mail Run each morning for the rest of the summer.
What this meant was that each morning about 8:30 I would drive the Plant Manager’s pickup truck to Red Rock about 5 miles away to get our mail from the Post Office Box. From there I would drive to Morrison, 23 miles away to go to the Post Office to pick up the plant mail at our box there, and then to the Morrison Bank to cash checks for Petty Cash and make any other transactions that were needed at the plant. After that, I would drive the 17 miles back to the plant. This 45 mile journey along with the stops each day lasted about an hour.
This meant 1 hour each day, I wasn’t chopping weeds, or picking up rocks, or emptying the trash from the cans at the park, or fixin’ flats. I was driving a company truck from place-to-place running errands.
As a Catholic, this gave me time to say all three sets of Mysteries of the Rosary (there were only three sets at that time) each day while on the job. A month and a half later when I became a janitor, it was decided that I would keep delivering and picking up the mail each day. Which suited me fine. I enjoyed the drive, and after I became a janitor, Pat Braden told me how to take the back road (County Road 170) from Red Rock to Highway 64 on the way to Morrison, which was a pleasant drive through the countryside.
After a couple of weeks of doing the Mail Run, it was decided that I could also be used to make runs to Oklahoma City once each week for the Warehouse to pick up parts at various locations throughout the Metro area. I was proud that I was being trusted to do this while still being a summer help. I was given a booklet of POs (Purchase Orders).
I found out POs were like a book of blank checks from the Electric Company that gladdened the hearts of vendors when they looked at me warily while they asked me how I was going to pay for the parts I was picking up. They would gleefully reply, “Oh! You have a book of PO’s from the Electric Company!”
I was 21 years old at the time and had a Commercial Chauffeur’s license, but I looked closer to 16. So, vendors were surprised to see that I was carrying the cherished book of POs for the Electric Company. To them it was better than cash. With it, I could have a vendor load a $20,000 item onto the back of the flatbed truck by signing a slip of paper, tearing it out of the booklet and handing it to them. I was honored that the company trusted me with this job.
This was a long time before GPS systems were in cars, so I relied on Dick Dale and Mike Gibbs to give me directions and tell me the most efficient routes around Oklahoma City to go to the various stops on my route. These trips also took me to various plants in the area. I was able to go to the Power Plant north of Mustang on the West side of Oklahoma City
Mustang Gas Fired Power Plant opened in 1950
and the plant at Horseshoe Pond (or was it a Lake?) on the East side of town.
Horseshoe Lake Power Plant Turbine Room in 1924
I even made a trip to Konawa once to the Power Plant there.
Seminole Power Plant at night outside of Konawa Oklahoma. This picture was found at: http://www.redbubble.com/people/harrietrn/works/1425122-seminole-power-plant
But enough about my own enjoyment. I know you really want to hear about the secrets I learned. They aren’t really secrets as much as they were insights or observations. You see, each morning I would go to the front office before I left to take lunch orders from Linda Shiever, Joan Wheatley and sometimes from Linda Dallas and Carolyn Olbert.
Linda Shiever
They would have me stop by the diner in Morrison to pick up an order for lunch. I would stop by the diner on the way into Morrison and give them their order, then on the way back out of town, I would pick it up. Then I would have to smell the aromatic food the rest of the way back to the plant.
While waiting for Linda and Joan to decide whether they wanted the Chicken Fried Steak, or the Hot Roast Beef Sandwich, I would stand there listening to the conversations that were taking place in the front office. Having grown up around my mom’s Italian family in Kansas City, I had learned to listen to 3 or more conversations simultaneously while pretending not to be paying attention to any one of them.
So, I could hear the plotting and scheming coming from Jack Ballard’s office each morning. He was the head of HR. He was usually trying to figure out how to implement the latest dictate coming from the Plant Manager. So, he would be throwing out suggestions about how to go about them. This used to stick in my craw, because nothing enraged me more at that time than to have management treat their employees in an underhanded way. I had my reasons for the rage that I felt, and maybe I’ll go into those some time in a later post (See “Power Plant Snitch“).
One particular topic I remember was when Jack Ballard was trying to figure out how to keep employees from taking any time off for Christmas. Eldon Waugh (or did it come from Corporate Headquarters? Yeah… right), had an edict that no one could take vacation around Christmas because if they did, they would probably leave town, and if they did that, and the plant had an emergency, then there wouldn’t be enough people available to call.
I didn’t understand that reasoning, since OD McGaha had spent almost his entire life within a 3 county radius around the plant. Sonny Karcher would be right down the road decorating a little Christmas Tree in his front lawn. Actually, most everyone would just like to stay home and spend some quiet time with their family. If some of us wanted to take a trip to go visit family, well. So Be It.
This was before I had realized the full extent that Eldon went to make life miserable for his worker bees (see the Post “A Halloween Power Plant Election Story” for a more complete understanding of “Worker Bees”). Eldon (or was it Corporate Headquarters) had already declared that no one was able to use vacation the last two weeks of the year.
So, what was the problem? The problem was that we had something called, “Floating Holiday”. It used to be used for Good Friday in the earlier days, but then later was changed to one Floating Holiday, which meant that you could take it any time throughout the year. This included some time during the last two weeks of the year since it wasn’t “technically” vacation. Which was once too often for the Plant Manager and Jack Ballard (the head of Human Resources at the plant).
I guess that either they didn’t think that the employees would buy the idea that Corporate Headquarters would make a rule that said you couldn’t take your floating holiday around the time of a real holiday (Christmas), so they had to come up with a way to keep the employees from even having one extra day during those last two weeks, in case we would get it in our heads to drive to Oklahoma City to do some Christmas shopping. So something had to be done about it.
Luckily (or maybe not so luckily), Linda Shiever was taking her sweet time that day coming up with the money to pay for her lunch so that I was able to hear a good 5 minutes of the conversation between Jack Ballard, Sharon Lance and Linda Dallas as they brainstormed a way to prevent the atrocious act of worker bees thinking they should have more than the one or two days allotted them for the Yuletide season.
You see… Vacation usually had to be scheduled well in advance, so a frugal, hardworking Power Plant Man will naturally save his floating holiday for an emergency. Just in case something comes up and they have to take an unplanned day off (or he has to go save his wife from their burning house and the plant manager won’t let him use black time — oh. That wasn’t this Plant Manager).
So, when it came down to the end of the year, and the floating holiday was still floating out there waiting to be taken, then the Power Plant Man would take it during the last 2 weeks of the year rather than lose it altogether. This just made sense. So, Jack had to come up with a solution that prevented this. (This was a number of years before vacation was allowed to carry over for the first 3 months of the following year).
The final solution was that Corporate Headquarters would come up with a Policy that said that the Floating Holiday had to be used first before vacation could be used. — No. I’m not kidding. That way the Floating Holiday would not be available at the end of the year. I heard this being formulated from the mouth of Jack Ballard. Once he said it, it was like a window in the ceiling of his office opened up overhead and a ray of sunshine shown down on his desk and you could hear angels singing, “aahhhhhhhh”. They knew they had found their solution.
I think this policy lasted a couple of years before someone forgot that they had made it, and things were back to normal (in that time many Power Plant Men in order to not feel cheated formulated in their minds that they really did want to take their floating holiday before they used their vacation – They psychological term for this is: Cognitive Dissonance). It just fascinated me to hear how easily this band of vacation time bandits could manipulate the employee’s benefits on a whim. This type of time thievery (as I alluded to above) enraged me.
Time Bandits
Those of us that were at the plant during that time know to what end this group finally met their fate. I will discuss it in much greater detail in a later post that involves someone that the plant employees referred to as “The Snitch” (See the post again: “Power Plant Snitch“). This story about the Floating Holiday is just a minor prelude of things to come in the following years.
On a more humorous note:
One morning when I went into the Plant Manager’s office to pick up the Pickup Truck Key, Bill Moler, the Assistant Plant Manager, entered the office with a big grin on his face and said that he finally found out why Indian Electric kept sending us an electric bill. Of course, Bill wasn’t paying the bill. Why would one Electric Company pay another electric company, just because they kept sending them a bill?
The answer came when the electricians had traced the sudden loss of electric power to the street lights in the Park areas on the south side of the lake. The power had been disconnected at the electric pole. The fuses had been removed. Upon further inspection, it was found that the electric poles did not belong to this Electric Company, it belonged to Indian Electric. They had turned off the electricity because our Electric Company had failed to pay their Electric Bill!
That is a funny irony that was not lost on Bill Moler. He was laughing about it all morning. An electric company that had their power cut off because they failed to pay their electric bill. How embarrassing is that?
Other interesting things happened on my trips to the Post Office and the Morrison Bank. Each morning I would arrive at the Morrison Bank just as they were opening at 9:00. One bank teller would be telling the other bank teller about her new boyfriend (around September). This later turned into a fiancee (in October). Then for a couple of months she would be discussing the impending wedding that was going to take place at the end of the year.
Cool Panoramic view of Morrison Oklahoma. Click this picture to see a blow up of it. Click the Back button to return to this page
Naturally at the end of the year, the bank teller was missing as she was on her honeymoon for a couple of weeks. I think it was a Carnival Cruise or a trip to Branson to go to Silver Dollar City (No. That was someone else. I wish I could put a smiley face here). Anyway. A couple of weeks after the New Year the bank teller returned, and as I followed them into the bank (as I did every morning), the one bank teller asked the newly married bank teller how everything went. The newlywed teller said that her new husband decided after about a week that he didn’t like being married so they decided to get a divorce.
Ok. I have to smile when I think about that one. There must be a punchline to a joke here somewhere. Like how many times does an Okie get married over Christmas? More times than they can take vacation…. Or something like that.
Power Plant Snitch
Originally Posted March 16, 2013:
Seventeen years before Harry Potter captured the Snitch in the movie “Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone”, the Coal-fired Power Plant in north central Oklahoma was plagued by a similar elusive snitch. Unlike the snitch in Harry Potter, which was a small ball with wings that held a special secret only revealed in the last moments of the last Harry Potter Book (and movie) “The Deathly Hallows”, the Power Plant snitch had a more sinister character.
The Snitch from Harry Potter, “The Sorcerer’s Stone”
The Power Plant Snitch reminded me once again of the phrase that “Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely.” I had experienced this phenomenon only a few years earlier when I was in High School and my father was a victim of this type of corruption. This made me especially abhorrent of deceit and dishonesty in the workplace. This was the reason why I had become so upset while I was a janitor and I learned a little “lie” that Jack Ballard had cooked up to force the employees to use their floating Holiday first so that they couldn’t use it around Christmas (See the post Power Plant Secrets Found during the Daily Mail Run).
You see, in the Lone Power Plant stationed out in the middle of the country in North Central Oklahoma, a plot had been hatched by the Evil Plant Manager that rivaled a James Bond conspiracy to take over the world. Only in this case, it was a conspiracy to take over the personal dignity of honest, descent Power Plant Men. Men who said their prayers each night when they went to bed. Men who went to work each day to provide for their children. Men who held God and country in the highest esteem.
As I mentioned above, I had seen this abuse of power before when I was in High School. It had affected my personality in a way that I became instantly angry at the site of dishonesty. This was something I had to learn to deal with throughout the years as I interacted with men of less than honorable dignity. In order to understand why, I will divert into a side story:
My parents had kept their financial difficulties and other stress out of our lives while I was in Junior High and High school back in the mid ’70’s. They didn’t tell me that my father, who was listed in the top 20 Veterinarians in the world, and among the top 5 bird specialists, was being targeted by the Dean and his minions at the University of Missouri Veterinary College.
I remember that my mother was introducing new foods to our palate, such as Lentils and other types of rice and bean dishes. She had even gone to work as a secretary at Stephen’s College to make ends meet. At the same time, I had traveled with my dad when I was 13 to Europe where I met Veterinarians around the world that all greeted my father as if he were some kind of king.
I remember walking down the road on the way to Liverpool from the University (a 5 mile walk) where a group of bird specialists from around the world were meeting to determine the universal Latin names of every part of the bird’s anatomy (which at that point had not been defined). The Veterinarian walking with me from India told me after I had made some offhand comment about my father. He said, “You don’t realize who your dad is. In India, your dad is the Father of Physiology! Your dad wrote the bible of Veterinary Physiology used around the world!”
I knew the book he was referring to. My dad had worked for three years day and night writing this book. Collaborating with renown Veterinarians around the world to compile a comprehensive book of Veterinary Physiology. The first of it’s kind. Before this book was written, you could only find the Physiology of a Pig, or the Physiology of a Dog. My dad had created a masterpiece that included an all-encompassing Veterinary Physiology in one book.
My Dad’s book
I say this, not to lift my father on a higher pedestal than he already is, but to put in perspective, how an important person such as James E. Breazile, DVM was treated by the “Evil Dean” of the Veterinary College at the University of Missouri in 1974 and until the day he resigned on January 16, 1978. Actually, the day my father brought the gold bound copy of the book home and presented it to my mother, she stopped talking to him for about a month for the first time in her life (for a totally unrelated reason which I may relay in a future post). Though the publishing company made a lot of money for years after this book was published, the total amount my dad received for his years of work totaled no more than $10,000 over a three year period.
Anyway. To make a long story short, (because I could go on for days about this), my father was not able to get a job at any another University in the United States, because he had tried to bring the corruption of the leaders of the Veterinary School (who had been stealing money from the University through bogus expense reports) to light, only to be told by the Chancellor of the University at the time, Herbert Schooling, “Boys will be boys.” It was just like the moment when Saruman told Gandalf, “We must join with him!”
Saruman Tells Gandalf that he must join with the forces of evil in the Lord of the Rings
It was only because my father had worked for Oklahoma State University before, when I was very young, that they didn’t need “permission” from University of Missouri to hire him, and take the multi-million dollar contracts that he had with Purina (and other businesses that had funded their electron microscope and other expensive scientific equipment at the time) with him, that we were able to escape the firewall that had been placed around my father’s career (ok. that sentence is long enough for an entire paragraph).
Anyway (again)…. I can’t let this story go until I give you the moment that was the “clincher” for me. The moment that I finally believed that my mother and my father hadn’t just gone off their rocker and become extremely paranoid living in a “James Bond” world….
My father (secretly) obtained a job from the Oklahoma State University in the Veterinary College. He was to start on January 9, 1978 with tenure (meaning that he couldn’t be fired without a really good reason). One week before he was going to resign from the University of Missouri. As usual, Oklahoma State University would begin classes one week before the University of Missouri after Christmas break.
During Christmas break (when I was a senior in High School), we would sneak into my father’s office at the Vet School in Columbia Missouri to remove his books and personal items from his office. We would go to this office at 10 o’clock at night after the school was closed for the night. At this point, I believed that both my mom and my dad had gone off their rocker and I was already planning on going through the phone book to find them a good Psychologist, or a priest to help them out.
Until Sunday morning, January 1, 1978. New Years Day. My mother and I were on our way to an early morning Church service at Our Lady Of Lourdes. My mom said that she thought it would be safe to drop by the Veterinary school and pick up some of dad’s things from his office (Dad had already left for Stillwater, Oklahoma to deliver a load of books and personal belongings – did I mention that my dad had a lot of books?).
As we pulled into the parking lot at the Veterinary College, my mom told me that I couldn’t go in because that was “Brown’s” car on the parking lot. — She had names for the different “bad guys” in the department. The Dean was “Whitey”. There was an older lady professor named “Brown”. Then there was the one that I recognized the most…. “McClure”.
I told my mom… “Look. It’s 9 am on Sunday morning. New Year’s Day. She was insistent that “Brown” was in the building. Then finally she told me. “Ok. go downstairs (where my father’s office was) and look around. If no one is there, then grab some of his books.”
Then one of the most bizarre moments of my life occurred. I still remember every detail. It was like I had gone into a dream where fantasy suddenly became reality. I entered the dark building using my father’s key. Immediately turned left and went down the stairs into the darkness. I had to feel my way down the stairs, holding onto the handrail.
As I stepped into the subterranean hallway, I turned north toward my father’s office. I immediately stopped. About 50 yards ahead of me I could see two offices next to each other with their doors open and their lights on. The rest of the hallway was totally dark as we were below ground. Having been a “spelunker” in my youth, the darkness didn’t bother me, however, the existence of lights ahead were a total surprise.
I briskly walked down the hallway past the two doors. In the first office a lady was sitting at a desk. In the second, a man. I quietly walked on by. Then I turned around and walked passed the door where the man was sitting and stopped between the two doors. I could tell that both the man and the woman were talking on the phone. After listening for a moment I could tell that they were talking to each other, though I couldn’t hear what they were saying.
As a seventeen year old High School student, I suddenly realized that everything my mother and father had been saying for the past 5 years had been true. All the bugs found in my dad’s phone. All the threatening notes. The trips down to the gas station to use the pay phone because they were sure our own phones were bugged. The reason why he hadn’t received a raise in 5 years… All made sense! These guys were crazy!
I walked south to the stairway and turned around and looked back. “Brown” (the lady), was standing in the hallway with her hands on her hips like Professor Umbridge in Harry Potter!
Professor Umbridge Holding her wand
I stood there for a second looking at her silhouetted against the light from her office, knowing that she couldn’t tell who I was in the darkness. then I darted up the stairs. Ran outside to the car. Jumped in the driver’s seat of the Pontiac Station Wagon and told my mom what I had seen.
My mom explained to me that this was “Brownie”. They talk on the phone so that no one can say that they have been seen talking together. You see…. they are supposed to be at a conference or some other “official” business this weekend so they can claim expenses for flights, hotel and food. That is why “Whitey” can live in a big ranch south of town on his measly salary. This is what my father had told the Chancellor of the University who told him that “boys will be boys”.
I didn’t know whether to lean over and kiss my mom when I suddenly realized that the list of insane people didn’t include my mother and father, or to peel out of the parking lot before Professor Umbridge made it up the stairs! Anyway. On News Years Day 1978 I had a totally new perspective on life. I can tell you that for certain.
To finish up with this side (non Power Plant) story…. in 1980 when Barbara Uehling became the Chancellor at the University of Missouri (from Oklahoma University, where I had attended school two years before), she began to clean house. I remember the day I learned that she had fired “Whitey” the dean of the Veterinary school.
I woke from my sleep very early in the morning when the phone rang. It was my father from Stillwater, Oklahoma. He had received a call from Iowa State from a Veterinarian, Deiter Delman, who had told him that they had just fired Whitey the Dean of the Veterinary College at Missouri. I told dad that was great, and I crawled back to my bed to finish my nightly ritual of sleep.
Moments later I was woken by another phone call. One of my professors from the College of Psychology Dr. Wright had called me. He said, “I have some news that your father will probably like to know. It is really top secret! I said, “Does it have to do with “Whitey” being fired? In my head I could see Dr. Wright’s one fake eye spinning around in his head like Professor Moody in Harry Potter (even though he hadn’t been thought of yet in 1981).
Professor Moody… Or is it Professor Wright in the MU Psychology Department?
Professor Moody… I mean Dr. Wright…. said, “What? How do you know? This is “Top Secret?” the meeting was over just minutes ago? I told him that Dr. Middleton had called Dr. Delman, who had immediately called my father, who had already called me moments ago. — To put this in perspective…… The whole world knew within minutes. I wrote a letter to the Chancellor Barbara Uehling explaining the events that I knew about. She wrote back saying that the Provost would be looking into the additional names I had given her.
End of side story…..
Back to the Power Plant Snitch… (I can tell… this has already become a long post and is probably going to break my record of the longest post of all time).
In September 1984, not one year after I had joined the electric shop, Bill Bennett, our A Foreman, came down to the electric shop (which was normal. Since he ate lunch with us every day). This time, he locked the doors. The door to the Turbine room, the door to the main switchgear and the front door…. — all locked. He said, “What is said here doesn’t go outside this shop.”
Ok…. We all went instantly into “serious” mode. Bill explained that there was something up with the grubby looking janitor (I’m sorry… I don’t remember what name he was assuming to use at the time — I’ll call him “Bonzo” from now on). The janitor “Bonzo” had been neglecting his duties as a janitor, so Pat Braden (the lead janitor) had gone to Marlin McDaniel to have him fired. Marlin McDaniel had gone to the Assistant Plant Manager, Bill Moler to start the process of firing “Bonzo”.
Marlin McDaniel (who had been my A foreman while I was a Janitor and on Labor crew after Chuck Ross had left) was told by Bill Moler that he was not going to fire “Bonzo” under any circumstance. It didn’t matter to him that he wasn’t doing his job. Marlin was told to forget about it and not bring it up again.
Bill Bennett told every person in the electric shop…. “Keep clear of this guy. I don’t know what is going on, but something is definitely wrong.” At that point everyone in the Electric shop knew that “Bonzo” was a snitch. Don’t talk to the Snitch…. Ok… from now on I’ll refer to “Bonzo” as the “Snitch”.
I know I have bored all of you by the personal story of my father and the trials that he went through, so I’ll try to keep this short: I knew a year and three months ago when I first started writing about the “Goodness” of the Power Plant Man that I would eventually come to this story. I know that the Power Plant men that read this blog knew that this story had to eventually be written. So, here it is.
Through unforeseen circumstances… and I attribute it to my Guardian Angel who has kept me out of serious trouble up to this point, I was called to Oklahoma City by my girlfriend Kelly Burgess (who ten months and 11 days later became my wife and is ’til death do us part) on February 10, 1985. I called in to Howard Chumbley on February 11 and told him I would not be able to make it to work that day. I would be taking my floating holiday.
The following Monday morning when I had climbed into Bill River’s Station wagon at the bowling alley where we met, with Rich Litzer and Yvonne Taylor and we were on our way to work, I learned about what had happened the Friday before. The day that would forever be referred to at the plant as “Black Friday.”
Bill Rivers explained the entire scenario to me during the 25 minute drive to the plant. I can’t say that I was in tears because my system had gone into shock and I was zombified by each new revelation. If I could have cried, I would have. My system had just gone into shock. All emotion had shut down.
Bill explained to me that on Friday morning (February 11, 1985), a plant-wide meeting had been held. Everyone at the plant had been informed that a drug and theft ring at the plant had been found and eliminated. This included one lady who was a janitor. A machinist named Dink Myers. The Lead Janitor Pat Braden and two of the Electricians Craig Jones and Jim Stevenson.
Drug and Theft ring? Really? At our Power Plant?
Except for the female janitor (I can’t even remember her name), I had a personal relationship with every other person on this list (whether they knew it or not). I never worked directly with Craig Jones, but as an electrician, I did know that everyone held him in the highest esteem. I later found out that Dink Myers was a distant relation of mine when two years later I attended my grandfather’s funeral. Jim Stevenson was a close friend to the point that I used to give him Swedish Massages that would ease the pain of his rampant Eczema. Pat Braden…. Well. Pat Braden.. my Janitor lead. I loved him most of all.
I invited Pat Braden to sit next to my wife and I at my wedding 10 months later, even though the Evil Assistant Plant Manager would be serving as a deacon in the wedding ceremony (he didn’t come.. I understood why). Next to Charles Foster, Pat Braden was my next dearly beloved friend. — Other Power Plant Men, such as Mickey Postman and Ed Shiever, share in my total love for Pat Braden to this day. — Not that I have asked them… I just know… They used to work for this saint.
Here is what had happened…..
Eldon Waugh (the evil plant manager) had heard from a study that came out early in 1984 that 10% of a typical workforce were either on drugs or were robbing their employer. I know. I had read the same study. The company had hired the snitch to become a janitor at the best power plant in the country to infiltrate their troops and bring out the worst in them.
I distinctly remember the snitch walking into the electric shop once as I was walking out…. He paused… looked at me as if to say something, then went on…. (– my interpretation…. “oh… a victim….”…. Guardian angel response…. “This isn’t the droids you are looking for…”) He went on without saying a word.
These aren’t the droids you ar looking for (Star Wars — A New Hope)
So the Snitch nailed a good friend of mine, Jim Stevenson…. I remember in January just before the verdict came down….. Leroy Godfrey had gone on a frenzied hunt for the portable electric generator. It had turned up missing…. Everyone in the shop was sent to look for it… After a day of searching, when it was time to go home…. I remember that as we were walking out the door to the parking lot that Jim Stevenson said, “They are never going to find the generator.” Bill Ennis asked, “Why Not?” Jim answered,. “Because their snitch has it. If they are going to let a crook like that work here, they are going to have to live with the consequences. He took the generator.”
A few months after “Black Friday”, Jim Stevenson was suing the company, and the specifically the Plant Manager and the Assistant Plant Manager. Lawyers came from Oklahoma City and interviewed people that had worked with Jim Stevenson and Craig Jones. I was in a quandary. I knew if they asked me about this situation I would have to tell them what Jim Stevenson had said. Jim had been fired for helping the snitch load the generator in the back of his truck months earlier. The funny thing was… I was the only one in the shop that they didn’t interview. I had never been on Jim’s crew, so I wasn’t on their list. At that point, if they didn’t ask me, I wasn’t going to volunteer.
The thing about this whole event was that it was setup from the beginning…. The Snitch asked Jim if he would help him lift the generator into the back of his truck…. This by itself was nothing out of the ordinary, since people could “check out” the generator for their personal use.
Portable Generator
Jim had known that the Snitch had taken the portable generator and said to Bill Ennis that if they wanted to keep scum around like that, then they should incur the cost of that decision. What Jim didn’t know was that he was being secretly taped while he was being entrapped into loading the generator into the back of the Snitch’s truck. Jim reminded me of Dabney Coleman:
Dabney Coleman reminds me of Jim Stevenson
I won’t go much into the stories of Dink Myers, who shared a joint with the Snitch in the locker room, and Craig Jones who pulled up some “hemp” on the road to the river pumps to swap for a “stolen knife set” (though he didn’t know they were stolen) since these were “no-brainer” stupid moments in the life of young Power Plant Men… but I will defend Pat Braden…. The most honest and loving of souls (and again… I apologize for the length of this post).
In previous posts I have mentioned that Pat Braden reminded me of Red Skelton.
This Picture of Red Skelton reminds me of Pat Braden
Today, when I want to reminisce about Pat Braden. All I have to do is watch an old episode of Red Skelton. As kind as Red Skelton was in real life… there was Pat Braden. If you don’t know about Red Skelton… Google him…. He was a sincere soul… He was a soul-mate to Pat Braden.
This is how Pat Braden was fired…… The snitch came to him one day and asked for the key to the closet so that he could get the VCR….. Weeks later, the VCR turned up missing and Pat was asked if he knew where the VCR went. He didn’t know. When I was a janitor I used to do go to Pat on a weekly basis and ask for the key to closet for the VCR. I had to regularly move it to the control room or the Engineer’s shack for training sessions. It was just part of our regular job and Pat Braden would have not thought twice about it.
As it turned out, the snitch had taken the VCR from the closet and had brought it straight to Bill Moler, the Assistant Plant Manager and handed it to him and told him that he had stolen it (even though technically, it hadn’t been stolen). Then about a month later, Bill sent out the request to find the VCR. At that point, Pat, who was the same age as my father (It’s funny, but a lot of people at the plant were the same age as my father), and on blood pressure medication that made his head swim when he stood up, didn’t remember anyone taking the VCR four weeks earlier… So, he was included in the “Theft and Drug ring at Sooner Plant on February 11, 1985”.
The story about Jim Stevenson is almost as tragic, though he had enough money to take the Electric Company to court. Pat’s income of $10 an hour didn’t quite leave him in a position to complain about being unjustly fired.
As the Tape recorder tapes revealed about Jim Stevenson (yeah… Like Watergate)… The evil Plant Manager, Eldon Waugh had told the Snitch to specifically target Jim Stevenson. The way it was explained in the recording between Eldon Waugh and the Snitch (as recorded by Jack Ballard, the head of HR at the Plant at the time), if Jim Stevenson were gone, then Leroy Godfrey’s only friend would be gone… Then Leroy would have to turn to Bill Moler or Eldon for friendship….. I want to continue printing periods as you ponder this thought…..
So…. Eldon and Bill had Jim Stevenson fired as part of a bogus “Drug and Theft” ring so that Leroy Godfrey would be their friend?….. How bizarre is that? You know… I can put this all in writing because it all became public knowledge when it became part of a trial between Jim Stevenson and the Electric Company a year later. The s**t hit the fan on January 23, 1986 when Bill Moler and Eldon Waugh were attending Jack Ballard’s funeral.
Immediately after the graveside services were finished in Ponca City at the Odds Fellows Cemetery, Jim’s lawyer hit them both with a Subpoena to appear in court… The lawyer wanted to make sure the trial took place in Kaw County (Ponca City) outside the area that received electricity from our electric company. A year later, these two individuals and the company settled out of court after news about the snitch was coming out and the company didn’t want any publicity surrounding this. Both the Plant Manager and the Assistant Plant Manager were “early retired” which opened the door for a new era of Power Plant Management. Jim Stevenson walked away with an undisclosed sum of money that was at least six digits.
Pat? I found out a few years later that my wife had been working with Pat in Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Ponca City. One day after, we had moved to Stillwater, and Kelly was talking to a friend from Ponca City, the subject of Pat Braden came up. When she had hung up the phone, I asked her, “Pat Braden who?” When she explained that she had worked with a security guard named Pat Braden in Ponca City, and that he was the nicest guy you would ever meet. He cared about one thing in life and that was his daughter… I knew she was talking about our Pat Braden.
Everyone that ever met this kind soul was touched by him. It was ironic that my wife Kelly had worked with Pat for a couple of years at the hospital and I didn’t even have a clue. I knew that Pat must have known…. After all…. I was the only Breazile in the phone book in Ponca City at the time. From what I understand… Pat is still around in Ponca City doing something….. Jim Stevenson still runs “Stevenson Refrigeration Services”. Both of these are honorable men.
Note that the True Power Plant Men mourned their loss for years after this event. A certain amount of “innocence” or “decency” had been whittled away. That is until 1994 rolled around….. But…. That is another story for a much later time….
Comments from the orignal post:
-
Ron Kilman March 18, 2013:
I of course heard about “Black Friday” at Sooner, but it was from Eldon’s perspective. It is evil when innocent people are set up to be fired like that.
We didn’t hire any snitches at Seminole.
-
An entertaining study of the use of power in a university and in a power plant…with applications to government available!
Power Plant Cajun and the Hatchet Man
Originally Posted August 30, 2013:
During the 18 years I worked as an electrician at the coal-fired Power Plant in North Central Oklahoma, we often had contractors working from our shop. I have mentioned that from the moment that I first entered the electric shop the first day I was an electrician, one of the first two people I met was a contract electrician. (See the post: “New Home in the Power Plant Electric Shop“).
Gene Roget (pronounced, “Row Jay” with a soft J) was originally from Louisiana.
A Cajun I found on Google Images (this is actually the actor Shia Lebeouf) that slightly resembles Gene Roget
Gene had spent the first 10 to 12 years of his adult life as a construction electrician. Charles Foster told him to be my mentor. At first Gene was shocked to find out that instead of hiring him to be a Plant Electrician along with his best buddy, Arthur Hammond, they had hired a young kid who didn’t know squat about being a real Power Plant Electrician. Yeah…. that was me.
I felt sorry for Gene because he obviously was the better candidate. The only saving grace for my mind was the knowledge that I was hired through the internal job program and that if they hadn’t taken me into the electric shop, they were going to be stuck with Charles Peavler. Charles was… well… he was somewhat older, but, well….. he couldn’t get around the fact that no matter what he did, he was always still Charles Peavler.
The day I entered the electric shop, I was 23 years and about 3 weeks old. Charles Peavler was 43. However, Charles might remind you of someone more around the age of 65. Not because he looked quite that old. He looked more like, well… um….. I guess he did look like he was about 65. I couldn’t tell if it was just the way he walked or stood, or the way his lip curled around the wad of skoal between his front lower lip and gums.
Just a pinch between your cheek and gums…. Never tried it myself.
I know… I’m being a little hard on Charles. I just like to tease him. I could be worse. I could tell you that his first name was really Amos. But I wouldn’t stoop that low. That would be like saying that Andy Tubb’s first name is really Carl, only worse, so I won’t go there. Actually, Peavler looks more like an Amos than a Charles. (Oh. That paragraph was about Amos and Andy!).
Anyway, by hiring me instead of Charles Peavler off of the labor crew I figured that even though I was dumb as dirt as far as being an electrician, I was more apt to learn new things than Charles. So in the long run I was probably the better candidate. Gene Roget wouldn’t have been able to be hired even if they hadn’t chosen me.
There were two openings for electrician when I was hired. Arthur Hammond (Art) was able to be hired by the electric shop was because they convinced the higher-ups that they needed someone with a background in electronics and there weren’t any internal candidates that fit that bill. So Charles Foster, the foreman, made the case that they needed an experienced electrician with electronics background and they needed someone dumb as dirt, but able to learn something more than just how to lace up their steel-toed boot. — That was where I came in.
I figured that Gene Roget would hold a grudge against me for taking the job that he wanted. This is where the true quality of a person may shine through. When you are involved in making someone upset, even though it wasn’t your decision to make, the way a person reacts to you will tell you a lot about that person’s character.
When Charles Foster told Gene Roget to be my mentor and show me the ropes to being an electrician I suspected that I was being setup for failure. “Ok…” I thought, “I’ll watch what he does instead of what he tells me…” I’ll also watch my back to make sure I don’t end up being electrocuted or knocked off of a ledge or some other accident that would create a new opening in the electric shop.
As it turned out Gene Roget was a man of great quality. Not once in the year and a half that I worked with him did I ever have the feeling that Gene wasn’t doing his best to teach me the skills of being the best electrician I could be. It also turned out that Gene was not only eager to teach me, but he was a highly skilled electrician. So, I felt like I was being taught by one of the best.
Gene Roget (I always liked calling him Gene Roget instead of just Gene… I’m not sure why, but I suppose I can blame it on Gene Day. I never could just call him Gene. And Gene Day and Gene Roget rhymed), carpooled with Art Hammond (I always liked calling Art, Arthur, but I’ll call him Art in this post just to make it shorter… except that I just used all these words explaining it that now it’s longer).
Gene and Art were like best buddies. I carpooled with them a couple of times when I had to catch a ride because I had to stay late and my carpooling ride had to leave (that would have been Rich Litzer, Yvonne Taylor and Bill Rivers). During the drive home, I came to learn that Art and Gene had worked with each other on construction jobs for quite a while and their families were close in some ways.
I also learned that there was another activity that they did together that was not all together kosher (I don’t mean in a Jewish way). They asked me on the way into Stillwater one day if I wanted to take a “hit” on the small rolled cigarette they were taking turns taking tokes from. I had spent 4 years prior to this time in college in a dorm where smoking marijuana was more common than cigarettes and the idea didn’t phase me.
I declined, because I had no desire to go down that route. I told them that I wished that they didn’t do that while I was in the car because then my clothes would smell like I had been living in the dorm again, where your clothes were going to smell like that just going from your room to the elevator… At least it was that way my second year in college.
I’m only talking about this now because it was 29 years ago, and by now if Gene Roget wanted to set his grandchildren on his knee and tell them about the times he was a younger construction electrician, he can mention that he had a shady past at one point, but now he’s just a kind old man. So, I’m going to go on with a story that up to now I have only shared with Arthur Hammond.
One day I went into the main switchgear to find some parts in the parts cage behind the electric shop. When I went back there, an operator Dan Landes was in the switchgear with another operator. They were looking for something by the ladders, so I walked over to see if I could help. Maybe they needed the key to unlock the ladders, I thought.
I don’t remember what they wanted, but I do remember that when I walked up to them I immediately smelled the aroma of marijuana being smoked somewhere. We had just recently lost an electrician in our shop when the snitch tricked him into trading some marijuana for a supposedly stolen knife set (see the post “Power Plant Snitch“).
I asked Dan if he smelled that smell. It was pretty strong. I told him that was marijuana, and I could tell him what type it was. You see, even though I had never smoked the stuff, the drug dealer for the entire dorm used to share the bathroom with our room, and three nights each week he held parties in his room. He had high quality stuff and low. There was a definite difference in the smell. So, I would ask my roommate Mark Sarmento about it and he explained it to me.
So, I told Dan that someone had just been smoking marijuana somewhere right there. It would have definitely been a dumb thing to do. Eventually Dan and the other operator (I can’t remember who) left the switchgear to continue on with their switching. So I returned to the rack where the ladders were.
As I stood there alone I realized that the aroma was pouring down from on top of the battery rooms. So I yelled out, “Hey! You better stop that right now! Don’t you know that the smoke is coming right down here in the switchgear?!?! Put that out and come on down from there!” I stood there for a few minutes and then I walked back into the electric shop.
I laid my parts on the workbench where I was repairing something, and then I walked back over to where I could look through the window in the door into the main switchgear. I finally saw someone climb down one of the ladders from the top of the battery rooms. So, I confronted him.
Yep. It was Gene Roget. I had been working with him for a year and a half at this time and I considered him a very good friend. I told him, “Gene! How could you do that? You know if they catch you they will fire you right away. No questions asked!” He said he was sorry, he didn’t think about the smell coming down into the switchgear and he would make sure it never happened again. I told him that he was lucky that I had found him and not Dan Landes. Dan’s nickname was Deputy Dan. He was a deputy in Perry, Oklahoma.
Well. as it turned out a few weeks later, Gene Roget was let go. I hadn’t told a soul about our encounter, but I wondered if he thought I had. Later I found out that he was let go so suddenly because he had confronted Leroy Godfrey about how Craig Jones had been fired because he had done something wrong. He didn’t know all the details about the snitch, but he did know that they said he was part of a (non-existent) Drug and Theft Ring.
No one tells Leroy Godfrey how to do his job, and in this case, Leroy had nothing to do with it. As a matter of fact, Leroy’s best buddy Jim Stevenson had been unjustly fingered by the snitch just because he was Leroy’s friend. So, Leroy had Gene Roget fired. I barely had time to say goodbye to Gene as he was led out the door to the parking lot and escorted out the gate by the highway patrolman who doubled as a security guard.
One time a year later, when I was carpooling with Art Hammond once again, I talked to Arthur about that day in the switchgear. I knew he was best friends with Gene Roget. So I told him about that instance. He told me that Gene had told him the whole story on the way home that day. Gene had just about had a heart attack when I had yelled up there for him to come down. He had swore to Arthur that he was never going to be that stupid again.
I made it clear to Arthur that I hadn’t told a soul about that day. And up until now, I still hadn’t. That was when Art explained to me the real reason that Gene had been fired. That made total sense. I knew how Leroy Godfrey was. He was an “old school” Power Plant Supervisor.
This is where the short story of the Hatchet Man comes up. He was another contract electrician. I think he was hired to help Jim Stevenson and Bill Ennis with the freeze protection. They were preparing for the coming winter and they needed a little extra help. I call this guy the “Hatchet Man” not because he was a hatchet man for the “Tong”, but because the only tool he used was a hatchet.
A Detective holding a Tong War Hatchet
He didn’t have a tool bucket. He just used this one tool. A Hatchet. As it turned out, he was missing two fingers on one hand and three fingers on the other hand. Hmmm… what came first? I wondered… the hatchet or the lost fingers? It seemed comical that a person missing half of all his fingers used only a hatchet as his only tool as an electrician. — how would he screw in a screw? Electricians had to work with screws all the time. Maybe he had a pocket knife for that.
I figured he probably lost his fingers working in the oil fields, since a lot of people lost fingers doing that. This guy definitely didn’t look much like a rodeo rider, which was the other group of people that would lose fingers.
One day, while sitting in the electrical lab during break time or lunch the subject of an upcoming job opening in the shop came up. The Hatchet Man made the mistake of saying that since he was handicapped, they had to give him the job. All he had to do was apply. They couldn’t turn him down. His missing fingers was his ticket.
Well. It didn’t take long before word of this conversation made its way up to the one good ear that Leroy Godfrey used to hear. The other one was out of commission. As I mentioned before. No one told Leroy what to do. He was supreme leader of the electric shop domain. By the end of the day, the Hatchet Man was given the Ax.
Ted Riddle was hired instead. Now you know the rest of the story.
Power Plant Secrets Found During Daily Mail Run
Originally Posted on November 2, 2012:
Mid-July of my fourth summer as a summer help at the Coal-Fired Power Plant in North Central Oklahoma in 1982, Stanley Elmore came back from the office area while I was working fixing a flat tire in the garage. He shook his head as in disbelief… which was Stanley’s normal way of saying that he either had some interesting news to tell you, or that he was playing a joke on you and was about to set you up for something. He told me that I was one lucky person. I had been chosen to do the Mail Run each morning for the rest of the summer.
What this meant was that each morning about 8:30 I would drive the Plant Manager’s pickup truck to Red Rock about 5 miles away to get our mail from the Post Office Box. From there I would drive to Morrison, 23 miles away to go to the Post Office to pick up the plant mail at our box there, and then to the Morrison Bank to cash checks for Petty Cash and make any other transactions that were needed at the plant. After that, I would drive the 17 miles back to the plant. This 45 mile journey along with the stops each day lasted about an hour.
This meant 1 hour each day, I wasn’t chopping weeds, or picking up rocks, or emptying the trash from the cans at the park, or fixin’ flats. I was driving a company truck from place-to-place running errands.
As a Catholic, this gave me time to say all three sets of Mysteries of the Rosary (there were only three sets at that time) each day while on the job. A month and a half later when I became a janitor, it was decided that I would keep delivering and picking up the mail each day. Which suited me fine. I enjoyed the drive, and after I became a janitor, Pat Braden told me how to take the back road (County Road 170) from Red Rock to Highway 64 on the way to Morrison, which was a pleasant drive through the countryside.
After a couple of weeks of doing the Mail Run, it was decided that I could also be used to make runs to Oklahoma City once each week for the Warehouse to pick up parts at various locations throughout the Metro area. I was proud that I was being trusted to do this while still being a summer help. I was given a booklet of POs (Purchase Orders).
I found out POs were like a book of blank checks from the Electric Company that gladdened the hearts of vendors when they looked at me warily while they asked me how I was going to pay for the parts I was picking up. They would gleefully reply, “Oh! You have a book of PO’s from the Electric Company!”
I was 21 years old at the time and had a Commercial Chauffeur’s license, but I looked closer to 16. So, vendors were surprised to see that I was carrying the cherished book of POs for the Electric Company. To them it was better than cash. With it, I could have a vendor load a $20,000 item onto the back of the flatbed truck by signing a slip of paper, tearing it out of the booklet and handing it to them. I was honored that the company trusted me with this job.
This was a long time before GPS systems were in cars, so I relied on Dick Dale and Mike Gibbs to give me directions and tell me the most efficient routes around Oklahoma City to go to the various stops on my route. These trips also took me to various plants in the area. I was able to go to the Power Plant north of Mustang on the West side of Oklahoma City
Mustang Gas Fired Power Plant opened in 1950
and the plant at Horseshoe Pond (or was it a Lake?) on the East side of town.
Horseshoe Lake Power Plant Turbine Room in 1924
I even made a trip to Konawa once to the Power Plant there.
Seminole Power Plant at night outside of Konawa Oklahoma. This picture was found at: http://www.redbubble.com/people/harrietrn/works/1425122-seminole-power-plant
But enough about my own enjoyment. I know you really want to hear about the secrets I learned. They aren’t really secrets as much as they were insights or observations. You see, each morning I would go to the front office before I left to take lunch orders from Linda Shiever, Joan Wheatley and sometimes from Linda Dallas and Carolyn Olbert.
Linda Shiever
They would have me stop by the diner in Morrison to pick up an order for lunch. I would stop by the diner on the way into Morrison and give them their order, then on the way back out of town, I would pick it up. Then I would have to smell the aromatic food the rest of the way back to the plant.
While waiting for Linda and Joan to decide whether they wanted the Chicken Fried Steak, or the Hot Roast Beef Sandwich, I would stand there listening to the conversations that were taking place in the front office. Having grown up around my mom’s Italian family in Kansas City, I had learned to listen to 3 or more conversations simultaneously while pretending not to be paying attention to any one of them.
So, I could hear the plotting and scheming coming from Jack Ballard’s office each morning. He was the head of HR. He was usually trying to figure out how to implement the latest dictate coming from the Plant Manager. So, he would be throwing out suggestions about how to go about them. This used to stick in my craw, because nothing enraged me more at that time than to have management treat their employees in an underhanded way. I had my reasons for the rage that I felt, and maybe I’ll go into those some time in a later post (See “Power Plant Snitch“).
One particular topic I remember was when Jack Ballard was trying to figure out how to keep employees from taking any time off for Christmas. Eldon Waugh (or did it come from Corporate Headquarters? Yeah… right), had an edict that no one could take vacation around Christmas because if they did, they would probably leave town, and if they did that, and the plant had an emergency, then there wouldn’t be enough people available to call.
I didn’t understand that reasoning, since OD McGaha had spent almost his entire life within a 3 county radius around the plant. Sonny Karcher would be right down the road decorating a little Christmas Tree in his front lawn. Actually, most everyone would just like to stay home and spend some quiet time with their family. If some of us wanted to take a trip to go visit family, well. So Be It.
This was before I had realized the full extent that Eldon went to make life miserable for his worker bees (see the Post “A Halloween Power Plant Election Story” for a more complete understanding of “Worker Bees”). Eldon (or was it Corporate Headquarters) had already declared that no one was able to use vacation the last two weeks of the year.
So, what was the problem? The problem was that we had something called, “Floating Holiday”. It used to be used for Good Friday in the earlier days, but then later was changed to one Floating Holiday, which meant that you could take it any time throughout the year. This included some time during the last two weeks of the year since it wasn’t “technically” vacation. Which was once too often for the Plant Manager and Jack Ballard (the head of Human Resources at the plant).
I guess that either they didn’t think that the employees would buy the idea that Corporate Headquarters would make a rule that said you couldn’t take your floating holiday around the time of a real holiday (Christmas), so they had to come up with a way to keep the employees from even having one extra day during those last two weeks, in case we would get it in our heads to drive to Oklahoma City to do some Christmas shopping. So something had to be done about it.
Luckily (or maybe not so luckily), Linda Shiever was taking her sweet time that day coming up with the money to pay for her lunch so that I was able to hear a good 5 minutes of the conversation between Jack Ballard, Sharon Lance and Linda Dallas as they brainstormed a way to prevent the atrocious act of worker bees thinking they should have more than the one or two days allotted them for the Yuletide season.
You see… Vacation usually had to be scheduled well in advance, so a frugal, hardworking Power Plant Man will naturally save his floating holiday for an emergency. Just in case something comes up and they have to take an unplanned day off (or he has to go save his wife from their burning house and the plant manager won’t let him use black time — oh. That wasn’t this Plant Manager).
So, when it came down to the end of the year, and the floating holiday was still floating out there waiting to be taken, then the Power Plant Man would take it during the last 2 weeks of the year rather than lose it altogether. This just made sense. So, Jack had to come up with a solution that prevented this. (This was a number of years before vacation was allowed to carry over for the first 3 months of the following year).
The final solution was that Corporate Headquarters would come up with a Policy that said that the Floating Holiday had to be used first before vacation could be used. — No. I’m not kidding. That way the Floating Holiday would not be available at the end of the year. I heard this being formulated from the mouth of Jack Ballard. Once he said it, it was like a window in the ceiling of his office opened up overhead and a ray of sunshine shown down on his desk and you could hear angels singing, “aahhhhhhhh”. They knew they had found their solution.
I think this policy lasted a couple of years before someone forgot that they had made it, and things were back to normal (in that time many Power Plant Men in order to not feel cheated formulated in their minds that they really did want to take their floating holiday before they used their vacation – They psychological term for this is: Cognitive Dissonance). It just fascinated me to hear how easily this band of vacation time bandits could manipulate the employee’s benefits on a whim. This type of time thievery (as I alluded to above) enraged me.
Time Bandits
Those of us that were at the plant during that time know to what end this group finally met their fate. I will discuss it in much greater detail in a later post that involves someone that the plant employees referred to as “The Snitch” (See the post again: “Power Plant Snitch“). This story about the Floating Holiday is just a minor prelude of things to come in the following years.
On a more humorous note:
One morning when I went into the Plant Manager’s office to pick up the Pickup Truck Key, Bill Moler, the Assistant Plant Manager, entered the office with a big grin on his face and said that he finally found out why Indian Electric kept sending us an electric bill. Of course, Bill wasn’t paying the bill. Why would one Electric Company pay another electric company, just because they kept sending them a bill?
The answer came when the electricians had traced the sudden loss of electric power to the street lights in the Park areas on the south side of the lake. The power had been disconnected at the electric pole. The fuses had been removed. Upon further inspection, it was found that the electric poles did not belong to this Electric Company, it belonged to Indian Electric. They had turned off the electricity because our Electric Company had failed to pay their Electric Bill!
That is a funny irony that was not lost on Bill Moler. He was laughing about it all morning. An electric company that had their power cut off because they failed to pay their electric bill. How embarrassing is that?
Other interesting things happened on my trips to the Post Office and the Morrison Bank. Each morning I would arrive at the Morrison Bank just as they were opening at 9:00. One bank teller would be telling the other bank teller about her new boyfriend (around September). This later turned into a fiancee (in October). Then for a couple of months she would be discussing the impending wedding that was going to take place at the end of the year.
Cool Panoramic view of Morrison Oklahoma. Click this picture to see a blow up of it. Click the Back button to return to this page
Naturally at the end of the year, the bank teller was missing as she was on her honeymoon for a couple of weeks. I think it was a Carnival Cruise or a trip to Branson to go to Silver Dollar City (No. That was someone else. I wish I could put a smiley face here). Anyway. A couple of weeks after the New Year the bank teller returned, and as I followed them into the bank (as I did every morning), the one bank teller asked the newly married bank teller how everything went. The newlywed teller said that her new husband decided after about a week that he didn’t like being married so they decided to get a divorce.
Ok. I have to smile when I think about that one. There must be a punchline to a joke here somewhere. Like how many times does an Okie get married over Christmas? More times than they can take vacation…. Or something like that.
Power Plant Snitch
Originally Posted March 16, 2013:
Seventeen years before Harry Potter captured the Snitch in the movie “Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone”, the Coal-fired Power Plant in north central Oklahoma was plagued by a similar elusive snitch. Unlike the snitch in Harry Potter, which was a small ball with wings that held a special secret only revealed in the last moments of the last Harry Potter Book (and movie) “The Deathly Hallows”, the Power Plant snitch had a more sinister character.
The Snitch from Harry Potter, “The Sorcerer’s Stone”
The Power Plant Snitch reminded me once again of the phrase that “Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely.” I had experienced this phenomenon only a few years earlier when I was in High School and my father was a victim of this type of corruption. This made me especially abhorrent of deceit and dishonesty in the workplace. This was the reason why I had become so upset while I was a janitor and I learned a little “lie” that Jack Ballard had cooked up to force the employees to use their floating Holiday first so that they couldn’t use it around Christmas (See the post Power Plant Secrets Found during the Daily Mail Run).
You see, in the Lone Power Plant stationed out in the middle of the country, a plot had been hatched by the Evil Plant Manager that rivaled a James Bond conspiracy to take over the world. Only in this case, it was a conspiracy to take over the personal dignity of honest, descent Power Plant Men. Men who said their prayers each night when they went to bed. Men who went to work each day to provide for their children. Men who held God and country in the highest esteem.
As I mentioned above, I had seen this abuse of power before when I was in High School. It had affected my personality in a way that I became instantly angry at the site of dishonesty. This was something I had to learn to deal with throughout the years as I interacted with men of less than honorable dignity. In order to understand why, I will divert into a side story:
My parents had kept their financial difficulties and other stress out of our lives while I was in Junior High and High school back in the mid ’70’s. They didn’t tell me that my father, who was listed in the top 20 Veterinarians in the world, and among the top 5 bird specialists, was being targeted by the Dean and his minions at the University of Missouri Veterinary College.
I remember that my mother was introducing new foods to our palate, such as Lentils and other types of rice and bean dishes. She had even gone to work as a secretary at Stephen’s College to make ends meet. At the same time, I had traveled with my dad when I was 13 to Europe where I met Veterinarians around the world that all greeted my father as if he were some kind of king.
I remember walking down the road on the way to Liverpool from the University (a 5 mile walk) where a group of bird specialists from around the world were meeting to determine the universal Latin names of every part of the bird’s anatomy (which at that point had not been defined). The Veterinarian walking with me from India told me after I had made some offhand comment about my father. He said, “You don’t realize who your dad is. In India, your dad is the Father of Physiology! Your dad wrote the bible of Veterinary Physiology used around the world!”
I knew the book he was referring to. My dad had worked for three years day and night writing this book. Collaborating with renown Veterinarians around the world to compile a comprehensive book of Veterinary Physiology. The first of it’s kind. Before this book was written, you could only find the Physiology of a Pig, or the Physiology of a Dog. My dad had created a masterpiece that included an all-encompassing Veterinary Physiology in one book.
My Dad’s book
I say this, not to lift my father on a higher pedestal than he already is, but to put in perspective, how an important person such as James E. Breazile, DVM was treated by the “Evil Dean” of the Veterinary College at the University of Missouri in 1974 and until the day he resigned on January 16, 1978. Actually, the day my father brought the gold bound copy of the book home and presented it to my mother, she stopped talking to him for about a month for the first time in her life (for a totally unrelated reason which I may relay in a future post). Though the publishing company made a lot of money for years after this book was published, the total amount my dad received for his years of work totaled no more than $10,000 over a three year period.
Anyway. To make a long story short, (because I could go on for days about this), my father was not able to get a job at any another University in the United States, because he had tried to bring the corruption of the leaders of the Veterinary School (who had been stealing money from the University through bogus expense reports) to light, only to be told by the Chancellor of the University at the time, Herbert Schooling, “Boys will be boys.” It was just like the moment when Saruman told Gandalf, “We must join with him!”
Saruman Tells Gandalf that he must join with the forces of evil in the Lord of the Rings
It was only because my father had worked for Oklahoma State University before, when I was very young, that they didn’t need “permission” from University of Missouri to hire him, and take the multi-million dollar contracts that he had with Purina (and other businesses that had funded their electron microscope and other expensive scientific equipment at the time) with him, that we were able to escape the firewall that had been placed around my father’s career (ok. that sentence is long enough for an entire paragraph).
Anyway (again)…. I can’t let this story go until I give you the moment that was the “clincher” for me. The moment that I finally believed that my mother and my father hadn’t just gone off their rocker and become extremely paranoid living in a “James Bond” world….
My father (secretly) obtained a job from the Oklahoma State University in the Veterinary College. He was to start on January 9, 1978 with tenure (meaning that he couldn’t be fired without a really good reason). One week before he was going to resign from the University of Missouri. As usual, Oklahoma State University would begin classes one week before the University of Missouri after Christmas break.
During Christmas break (when I was a senior in High School), we would sneak into my father’s office at the Vet School in Columbia Missouri to remove his books and personal items from his office. We would go to this office at 10 o’clock at night after the school was closed for the night. At this point, I believed that both my mom and my dad had gone off their rocker and I was already planning on going through the phone book to find them a good Psychologist, or a priest to help them out.
Until Sunday morning, January 1, 1978. New Years Day. My mother and I were on our way to an early morning Church service at Our Lady Of Lourdes. My mom said that she thought it would be safe to drop by the Veterinary school and pick up some of dad’s things from his office (Dad had already left for Stillwater, Oklahoma to deliver a load of books and personal belongings).
As we pulled into the parking lot at the Veterinary College, my mom told me that I couldn’t go in because that was “Brown’s” car on the parking lot. — She had names for the different “bad guys” in the department. The Dean was “Whitey”. There was an older lady professor named “Brown”. Then there was the one that I recognized the most…. “McClure”.
I told my mom… “Look. It’s 9 am on Sunday morning. New Year’s Day. She was insistent that “Brown” was in the building. Then finally she told me. “Ok. go downstairs (where my father’s office was) and look around. If no one is there, then grab some of his books.”
Then one of the most bizarre moments of my life occurred. I still remember every detail. It was like I had gone into a dream where fantasy suddenly became reality. I entered the dark building using my father’s key. Immediately turned left and went down the stairs into the darkness. I had to feel my way down the stairs, holding onto the handrail.
As I stepped into the subterranean hallway, I turned north toward my father’s office. I immediately stopped. About 50 yards ahead of me I could see two offices next to each other with their doors open and their lights on. The rest of the hallway was totally dark as we were below ground. Having been a “spelunker” in my youth, the darkness didn’t bother me, however, the existence of lights ahead were a total surprise.
I briskly walked down the hallway past the two doors. In the first office a lady was sitting at a desk. In the second, a man. I quietly walked on by. Then I turned around and walked passed the door where the man was sitting and stopped between the two doors. I could tell that both the man and the woman were talking on the phone. After listening for a moment I could tell that they were talking to each other, though I couldn’t hear what they were saying.
As a seventeen year old High School student, I suddenly realized that everything my mother and father had been saying for the past 5 years had been true. All the bugs found in my dad’s phone. All the threatening notes. The reason why he hadn’t received a raise in 5 years… All made sense! These guys were crazy!
I walked south to the stairway and turned around and looked back. “Brown” (the lady), was standing in the hallway with her hands on her hips like Professor Umbridge in Harry Potter!
Professor Umbridge Holding her wand
I stood there for a second looking at her silhouetted against the light from her office, knowing that she couldn’t tell who I was in the darkness. then I darted up the stairs. Ran outside to the car. Jumped in the driver’s seat of the Pontiac Station Wagon and told my mom what I had seen.
My mom explained to me that this was “Brownie”. They talk on the phone so that no one can say that they have been seen talking together. You see…. they are supposed to be at a conference or some other “official” business this weekend so they can claim expenses for flights, hotel and food. That is why “Whitey” can live in a big ranch south of town on his measly salary. This is what my father had told the Chancellor of the University who told him that “boys will be boys”.
I didn’t know whether to lean over and kiss my mom when I suddenly realized that the list of insane people didn’t include my mother and father, or to peel out of the parking lot before Professor Umbridge made it up the stairs! Anyway. On News Years Day 1978 I had a totally new perspective on life. I can tell you that for certain.
To finish up with this side (non Power Plant) story…. in 1980 when Barbara Uehling became the Chancellor at the University of Missouri (from Oklahoma University, where I had attended school two years before), she began to clean house. I remember the day I learned that she had fired “Whitey” the dean of the Veterinary school.
I woke from my sleep very early in the morning when the phone rang. It was my father from Stillwater, Oklahoma. He had received a call from Iowa State from a Veterinarian, Deiter Delman, who had told him that they had just fired Whitey the Dean of the Veterinary College at Missouri. I told dad that was great, and I crawled back to my bed to finish my nightly ritual of sleep.
Moments later I was woken by another phone call. One of my professors from the College of Psychology Dr. Wright had called me. He said, “I have some news that your father will probably like to know. It is really top secret! I said, “Does it have to do with “Whitey” being fired? In my head I could see Dr. Wright’s one fake eye spinning around in his head like Professor Moody in Harry Potter (even though he hadn’t been thought of yet in 1981).
Professor Moody… Or is it Professor Wright in the MU Psychology Department?
Professor Moody… I mean Dr. Wright…. said, “What? How do you know? This is “Top Secret?” the meeting was over just minutes ago? I told him that Dr. Middleton had called Dr. Delman, who had immediately called my father, who had already called me moments ago. — To put this in perspective…… The whole world knew within minutes. I wrote a letter to the Chancellor Barbara Uehling explaining the events that I knew about. She wrote back saying that the Provost would be looking into the additional names I had given her.
End of side story…..
Back to the Power Plant Snitch… (I can tell… this has already become a long post and is probably going to break my record of the longest post of all time).
In September 1984, not one year after I had joined the electric shop, Bill Bennett, our A Foreman, came down to the electric shop (which was normal. Since he ate lunch with us every day). This time, he locked the doors. The door to the Turbine room, the door to the main switchgear and the front door…. — all locked. He said, “What is said here doesn’t go outside this shop.”
Ok…. We all went instantly into “serious” mode. Bill explained that there was something up with the grubby looking janitor (I’m sorry… I don’t remember what name he was assuming to use at the time — I’ll call him “Bonzo” from now on). The janitor “Bonzo” had been neglecting his duties as a janitor, so Pat Braden (the lead janitor) had gone to Marlin McDaniel to have him fired. Marlin McDaniel had gone to the Assistant Plant Manager, Bill Moler to start the process of firing “Bonzo”.
Marlin McDaniel (who had been my A foreman while I was a Janitor and on Labor crew after Chuck Ross had left) was told by Bill Moler that he was not going to fire “Bonzo” under any circumstance. It didn’t matter to him that he wasn’t doing his job. Marlin was told to forget about it and not bring it up again.
Bill Bennett told every person in the electric shop…. “Keep clear of this guy. I don’t know what is going on, but something is definitely wrong.” At that point everyone in the Electric shop knew that “Bonzo” was a snitch. Don’t talk to the Snitch…. Ok… from now on I’ll refer to “Bonzo” as the “Snitch”.
I know I have bored all of you by the personal story of my father and the trials that he went through, so I’ll try to keep this short: I knew a year and three months ago when I first started writing about the “Goodness” of the Power Plant Man that I would eventually come to this story. I know that the Power Plant men that read this blog knew that this story had to eventually be written. So, here it is.
Through unforeseen circumstances… and I attribute it to my Guardian Angel who has kept me out of serious trouble up to this point, I was called to Oklahoma City by my girlfriend Kelly Burgess (who ten months and 11 days later became my wife and is ’til death do us part) on February 10, 1985. I called in to Howard Chumbley on February 11 and told him I would not be able to make it to work that day. I would be taking my floating holiday.
The following Monday morning when I had climbed into Bill River’s Station wagon at the bowling alley where we met, with Rich Litzer and Yvonne Taylor and we were on our way to work, I learned about what had happened the Friday before. The day that would forever be referred to at the plant as “Black Friday.”
Bill Rivers explained the entire scenario to me during the 25 minute drive to the plant. I can’t say that I was in tears because my system had gone into shock and I was zombified by each new revelation. If I could have cried, I would have. My system had just gone into shock. All emotion had shut down.
Bill explained to me that on Friday morning (February 11, 1985), a plant-wide meeting had been held. Everyone at the plant had been informed that a drug and theft ring at the plant had been found and eliminated. This included one lady who was a janitor. A machinist named Dink Myers. The Lead Janitor Pat Braden and two of the Electricians Craig Jones and Jim Stevenson.
Drug and Theft ring? Really? At our Power Plant?
Except for the female janitor (I can’t even remember her name), I had a personal relationship with every other person on this list (whether they knew it or not). I never worked directly with Craig Jones, but as an electrician, I did know that everyone held him in the highest esteem. I later found out that Dink Myers was a distant relation of mine when two years later I attended my grandfather’s funeral. Jim Stevenson was a close friend to the point that I used to give him Swedish Massages that would ease the pain of his rampant Eczema. Pat Braden…. Well. Pat Braden.. my Janitor lead. I loved him most of all.
I invited Pat Braden to sit next to my wife and I at my wedding 10 months later, even though the Evil Assistant Plant Manager would be serving as a deacon in the wedding ceremony (he didn’t come.. I understood why). Next to Charles Foster, Pat Braden was my next dearly beloved friend. — Other Power Plant Men, such as Mickey Postman and Ed Shiever, share in my total love for Pat Braden to this day. — Not that I have asked them… I just know… They used to work for this saint.
Here is what had happened…..
Eldon Waugh (the evil plant manager) had heard from a study that came out early in 1984 that 10% of a typical workforce were either on drugs or were robbing their employer. I know. I had read the same study. The company had hired the snitch to become a janitor at the best power plant in the country to infiltrate their troops and bring out the worst in them.
I distinctly remember the snitch walking into the electric shop once as I was walking out…. He paused… looked at me as if to say something, then went on…. (– my interpretation…. “oh… a victim….”…. Guardian angel response…. “This isn’t the droids you are looking for…”) He went on without saying a word.
These aren’t the droids you ar looking for (Star Wars — A New Hope)
So the Snitch nailed a good friend of mine, Jim Stevenson…. I remember in January just before the verdict came down….. Leroy Godfrey had gone on a frenzied hunt for the portable electric generator. It had turned up missing…. Everyone in the shop was sent to look for it… After a day of searching, when it was time to go home…. I remember that as we were walking out the door to the parking lot that Jim Stevenson said, “They are never going to find the generator.” Bill Ennis asked, “Why Not?” Jim answered,. “Because their snitch has it. If they are going to let a crook like that work here, they are going to have to live with the consequences. He took the generator.”
A few months after “Black Friday”, Jim Stevenson was suing the company, and the specifically the Plant Manager and the Assistant Plant Manager. Lawyers came from Oklahoma City and interviewed people that had worked with Jim Stevenson and Craig Jones. I was in a quandary. I knew if they asked me about this situation I would have to tell them what Jim Stevenson had said. Jim had been fired for helping the snitch load the generator in the back of his truck months earlier. The funny thing was… I was the only one in the shop that they didn’t interview. I had never been on Jim’s crew, so I wasn’t on their list. At that point, if they didn’t ask me, I wasn’t going to volunteer.
The thing about this whole event was that it was setup from the beginning…. The Snitch asked Jim if he would help him lift the generator into the back of his truck…. This by itself was nothing out of the ordinary, since people could “check out” the generator for their personal use.
Portable Generator
Jim had known that the Snitch had taken the portable generator and said to Bill Ennis that if they wanted to keep scum around like that, then they should incur the cost of that decision. What Jim didn’t know was that he was being secretly taped while he was being entrapped into loading the generator into the back of the Snitch’s truck. Jim reminded me of Dabney Coleman:
Dabney Coleman reminds me of Jim Stevenson
I won’t go much into the stories of Dink Myers, who shared a joint with the Snitch in the locker room, and Craig Jones who pulled up some “hemp” on the road to the river pumps to swap for a “stolen knife set” (though he didn’t know they were stolen) since these were “no-brainer” stupid moments in the life of young Power Plant Men… but I will defend Pat Braden…. The most honest and loving of souls (and again… I apologize for the length of this post).
In previous posts I have mentioned that Pat Braden reminded me of Red Skelton.
This Picture of Red Skelton reminds me of Pat Braden
Today, when I want to reminisce about Pat Braden. All I have to do is watch an old episode of Red Skelton. As kind as Red Skelton was in real life… there was Pat Braden. If you don’t know about Red Skelton… Google him…. He was a sincere soul… He was a soul-mate to Pat Braden.
This is how Pat Braden was fired…… The snitch came to him one day and asked for the key to the closet so that he could get the VCR….. Weeks later, the VCR turned up missing and Pat was asked if he knew where the VCR went. He didn’t know. When I was a janitor I used to do go to Pat on a weekly basis and ask for the key to closet for the VCR. I had to regularly move it to the control room or the Engineer’s shack for training sessions. It was just part of our regular job and Pat Braden would have not thought twice about it.
As it turned out, the snitch had taken the VCR from the closet and had brought it straight to Bill Moler, the Assistant Plant Manager and handed it to him and told him that he had stolen it (even though technically, it hadn’t been stolen). Then about a month later, Bill sent out the request to find the VCR. At that point, Pat, who was the same age as my father (It’s funny, but a lot of people at the plant were the same age as my father), and on blood pressure medication that made his head swim when he stood up, didn’t remember anyone taking the VCR four weeks earlier… So, he was included in the “Theft and Drug ring at Sooner Plant on February 11, 1985”.
The story about Jim Stevenson is almost as tragic, though he had enough money to take the Electric Company to court. Pat’s income of $10 an hour didn’t quite leave him in a position to complain about being unjustly fired.
As the Tape recorder tapes revealed about Jim Stevenson (yeah… Like Watergate)… The evil Plant Manager, Eldon Waugh had told the Snitch to specifically target Jim Stevenson. The way it was explained in the recording between Eldon Waugh and the Snitch (as recorded by Jack Ballard, the head of HR at the Plant at the time), if Jim Stevenson were gone, then Leroy Godfrey’s only friend would be gone… Then Leroy would have to turn to Bill Moler or Eldon for friendship….. I want to continue printing periods as you ponder this thought…..
So…. Eldon and Bill had Jim Stevenson fired as part of a bogus “Drug and Theft” ring so that Leroy Godfrey would be their friend?….. How bizarre is that? You know… I can put this all in writing because it all became public knowledge when it became part of a trial between Jim Stevenson and the Electric Company a year later. The s**t hit the fan on January 23, 1986 when Bill Moler and Eldon Waugh were attending Jack Ballard’s funeral.
Immediately after the graveside services were finished in Ponca City at the Odds Fellows Cemetery, Jim’s lawyer hit them both with a Subpoena to appear in court… The lawyer wanted to make sure the trial took place in Kaw County (Ponca City). A year later, these two individuals and the company settled out of court after news about the snitch was coming out and the company didn’t want any publicity surrounding this. Both the Plant Manager and the Assistant Plant Manager were “early retired” which opened the door for a new era of Power Plant Management. Jim Stevenson walked away with an undisclosed sum of money that was at least six digits.
Pat? I found out a few years later that my wife had been working with Pat in Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Ponca City. One day after, we had moved to Stillwater, and Kelly was talking to a friend from Ponca City, the subject of Pat Braden came up. When she had hung up the phone, I asked her, “Pat Braden who?” When she explained that she had worked with a security guard named Pat Braden in Ponca City, and that he was the nicest guy you would ever meet. He cared about one thing in life and that was his daughter… I knew she was talking about our Pat Braden.
Everyone that ever met this kind soul was touched by him. It was ironic that my wife Kelly had worked with Pat for a couple of years at the hospital and I didn’t even have a clue. I knew that Pat must have known…. After all…. I was the only Breazile in the phone book in Ponca City at the time. From what I understand… Pat is still around in Ponca City doing something….. Jim Stevenson still runs “Stevenson Refrigeration Services”. Both of these are honorable men.
Note that the True Power Plant Men mourned their loss for years after this event. A certain amount of “innocence” or “decency” had been whittled away. That is until 1994 rolled around….. But…. That is another story for a much later time….
Comments from the orignal post:
-
Ron Kilman March 18, 2013:
I of course heard about “Black Friday” at Sooner, but it was from Eldon’s perspective. It is evil when innocent people are set up to be fired like that.
We didn’t hire any snitches at Seminole.
-
An entertaining study of the use of power in a university and in a power plant…with applications to government available!
Power Plant Cajun and the Hatchet Man
Originally Posted August 30, 2013:
During the 18 years I worked as an electrician at the coal-fired Power Plant in North Central Oklahoma, we often had contractors working from our shop. I have mentioned that from the moment that I first entered the electric shop the first day I was an electrician, one of the first two people I met was a contract electrician. (See the post: “New Home in the Power Plant Electric Shop“).
Gene Roget (pronounced, “Row Jay” with a soft J) was originally from Louisiana.
A Cajun I found on Google Images (this is actually the actor Shia Lebeouf) that slightly resembles Gene Roget
Gene had spent the first 10 to 12 years of his adult life as a construction electrician. Charles Foster told him to be my mentor. At first Gene was shocked to find out that instead of hiring him to be a Plant Electrician along with his best buddy, Arthur Hammond, they had hired a young kid who didn’t know squat about being a real Power Plant Electrician. Yeah…. that was me.
I felt sorry for Gene because he obviously was the better candidate. The only saving grace for my mind was the knowledge that I was hired through the internal job program and that if they hadn’t taken me into the electric shop, they were going to be stuck with Charles Peavler. Charles was… well… he was somewhat older, but, well….. he couldn’t get around the fact that no matter what he did, he was always still Charles Peavler.
The day I entered the electric shop, I was 23 years and about 3 weeks old. Charles Peavler was 43. However, Charles might remind you of someone more around the age of 65. Not because he looked quite that old. He looked more like, well… um….. I guess he did look like he was about 65. I couldn’t tell if it was just the way he walked or stood, or the way his lip curled around the wad of skoal between his front lower lip and gums.
Just a pinch between your cheek and gums…. Never tried it myself.
I know… I’m being a little hard on Charles. I just like to tease him. I could be worse. I could tell you that his first name was really Amos. But I wouldn’t stoop that low. That would be like saying that Andy Tubb’s first name is really Carl, only worse, so I won’t go there. Actually, Peavler looks more like an Amos than a Charles. (Oh. That paragraph was about Amos and Andy!).
Anyway, by hiring me instead of Charles Peavler off of the labor crew I figured that even though I was dumb as dirt as far as being an electrician, I was more apt to learn new things than Charles. So in the long run I was probably the better candidate. Gene Roget wouldn’t have been able to be hired even if they hadn’t chosen me.
There were two openings for electrician when I was hired. Arthur Hammond (Art) was able to be hired by the electric shop was because they convinced the higher-ups that they needed someone with a background in electronics and there weren’t any internal candidates that fit that bill. So Charles Foster, the foreman, made the case that they needed an experienced electrician with electronics background and they needed someone dumb as dirt, but able to learn something more than just how to lace up their steel-toed boot. — That was where I came in.
I figured that Gene Roget would hold a grudge against me for taking the job that he wanted. This is where the true quality of a person may shine through. When you are involved in making someone upset, even though it wasn’t your decision to make, the way a person reacts to you will tell you a lot about that person’s character.
When Charles Foster told Gene Roget to be my mentor and show me the ropes to being an electrician I suspected that I was being setup for failure. “Ok…” I thought, “I’ll watch what he does instead of what he tells me…” I’ll also watch my back to make sure I don’t end up being electrocuted or knocked off of a ledge or some other accident that would create a new opening in the electric shop.
As it turned out Gene Roget was a man of great quality. Not once in the year and a half that I worked with him did I ever have the feeling that Gene wasn’t doing his best to teach me the skills of being the best electrician I could be. It also turned out that Gene was not only eager to teach me, but he was a highly skilled electrician. So, I felt like I was being taught by one of the best.
Gene Roget (I always liked calling him Gene Roget instead of just Gene… I’m not sure why, but I suppose I can blame it on Gene Day. I never could just call him Gene. And Gene Day and Gene Roget rhymed), carpooled with Art Hammond (I always liked calling Art, Arthur, but I’ll call him Art in this post just to make it shorter… except that I just used all these words explaining it that now it’s longer).
Gene and Art were like best buddies. I carpooled with them a couple of times when I had to catch a ride because I had to stay late and my carpooling ride had to leave (that would have been Rich Litzer, Yvonne Taylor and Bill Rivers). During the drive home, I came to learn that Art and Gene had worked with each other on construction jobs for quite a while and their families were close in some ways.
I also learned that there was another activity that they did together that was not all together kosher (I don’t mean in a Jewish way). They asked me on the way into Stillwater one day if I wanted to take a “hit” on the small rolled cigarette they were taking turns taking tokes from. I had spent 4 years prior to this time in college in a dorm where smoking marijuana was more common than cigarettes and the idea didn’t phase me.
I declined, because I had no desire to go down that route. I told them that I wished that they didn’t do that while I was in the car because then my clothes would smell like I had been living in the dorm again, where your clothes were going to smell like that just going from your room to the elevator… At least it was that way my second year in college.
I’m only talking about this now because it was 29 years ago, and by now if Gene Roget wanted to set his grandchildren on his knee and tell them about the times he was a younger construction electrician, he can mention that he had a shady past at one point, but now he’s just a kind old man. So, I’m going to go on with a story that up to now I have only shared with Arthur Hammond.
One day I went into the main switchgear to find some parts in the parts cage behind the electric shop. When I went back there, an operator Dan Landes was in the switchgear with another operator. They were looking for something by the ladders, so I walked over to see if I could help. Maybe they needed the key to unlock the ladders, I thought.
I don’t remember what they wanted, but I do remember that when I walked up to them I immediately smelled the aroma of marijuana being smoked somewhere. We had just recently lost an electrician in our shop when the snitch tricked him into trading some marijuana for a supposedly stolen knife set (see the post “Power Plant Snitch“).
I asked Dan if he smelled that smell. It was pretty strong. I told him that was marijuana, and I could tell him what type it was. You see, even though I had never smoked the stuff, the drug dealer for the entire dorm used to share the bathroom with our room, and three nights each week he held parties in his room. He had high quality stuff and low. There was a definite difference in the smell. So, I would ask my roommate Mark Sarmento about it and he explained it to me.
So, I told Dan that someone had just been smoking marijuana somewhere right there. It would have definitely been a dumb thing to do. Eventually Dan and the other operator (I can’t remember who) left the switchgear to continue on with their switching. So I returned to the rack where the ladders were.
As I stood there alone I realized that the aroma was pouring down from on top of the battery rooms. So I yelled out, “Hey! You better stop that right now! Don’t you know that the smoke is coming right down here in the switchgear?!?! Put that out and come on down from there!” I stood there for a few minutes and then I walked back into the electric shop.
I laid my parts on the workbench where I was repairing something, and then I walked back over to where I could look through the window in the door into the main switchgear. I finally saw someone climb down one of the ladders from the top of the battery rooms. So, I confronted him.
Yep. It was Gene Roget. I had been working with him for a year and a half at this time and I considered him a very good friend. I told him, “Gene! How could you do that? You know if they catch you they will fire you right away. No questions asked!” He said he was sorry, he didn’t think about the smell coming down into the switchgear and he would make sure it never happened again. I told him that he was lucky that I had found him and not Dan Landes. Dan’s nickname was Deputy Dan. He was a deputy in Perry, Oklahoma.
Well. as it turned out a few weeks later, Gene Roget was let go. I hadn’t told a soul about our encounter, but I wondered if he thought I had. Later I found out that he was let go so suddenly because he had confronted Leroy Godfrey about how Craig Jones had been fired because he had done something wrong. He didn’t know all the details about the snitch, but he did know that they said he was part of a (non-existent) Drug and Theft Ring.
No one tells Leroy Godfrey how to do his job, and in this case, Leroy had nothing to do with it. As a matter of fact, Leroy’s best buddy Jim Stevenson had been unjustly fingered by the snitch just because he was Leroy’s friend. So, Leroy had Gene Roget fired. I barely had time to say goodbye to Gene as he was led out the door to the parking lot and escorted out the gate by the highway patrolman who doubled as a security guard.
One time a year later, when I was carpooling with Art Hammond once again, I talked to Arthur about that day in the switchgear. I knew he was best friends with Gene Roget. So I told him about that instance. He told me that Gene had told him the whole story on the way home that day. Gene had just about had a heart attack when I had yelled up there for him to come down. He had swore to Arthur that he was never going to be that stupid again.
I made it clear to Arthur that I hadn’t told a soul about that day. And up until now, I still hadn’t. That was when Art explained to me the real reason that Gene had been fired. That made total sense. I knew how Leroy Godfrey was. He was an “old school” Power Plant Supervisor.
This is where the short story of the Hatchet Man comes up. He was another contract electrician. I think he was hired to help Jim Stevenson and Bill Ennis with the freeze protection. They were preparing for the coming winter and they needed a little extra help. I call this guy the “Hatchet Man” not because he was a hatchet man for the “Tong”, but because the only tool he used was a hatchet.
A Detective holding a Tong War Hatchet
He didn’t have a tool bucket. He just used this one tool. A Hatchet. As it turned out, he was missing two fingers on one hand and three fingers on the other hand. Hmmm… what came first? I wondered… the hatchet or the lost fingers? It seemed comical that a person missing half of all his fingers used only a hatchet as his only tool as an electrician. — how would he screw in a screw? Electricians had to work with screws all the time. Maybe he had a pocket knife for that.
I figured he probably lost his fingers working in the oil fields, since a lot of people lost fingers doing that. This guy definitely didn’t look much like a rodeo rider, which was the other group of people that would lose fingers.
One day, while sitting in the electrical lab during break time or lunch the subject of an upcoming job opening in the shop came up. The Hatchet Man made the mistake of saying that since he was handicapped, they had to give him the job. All he had to do was apply. They couldn’t turn him down. His missing fingers was his ticket.
Well. It didn’t take long before word of this conversation made its way up to the one good ear that Leroy Godfrey used to hear. The other one was out of commission. As I mentioned before. No one told Leroy what to do. He was supreme leader of the electric shop domain. By the end of the day, the Hatchet Man was given the Ax.
Ted Riddle was hired instead. Now you know the rest of the story.
Power Plant Secrets Found During Daily Mail Run
Originally Posted on November 2, 2012:
Mid-July of my fourth summer as a summer help at the Coal-Fired Power Plant in North Central Oklahoma in 1982, Stanley Elmore came back from the office area while I was working fixing a flat tire in the garage. He shook his head as in disbelief… which was Stanley’s normal way of saying that he either had some interesting news to tell you, or that he was playing a joke on you and was about to set you up for something. He told me that I was one lucky person. I had been chosen to do the Mail Run each morning for the rest of the summer.
What this meant was that each morning about 8:30 I would drive the Plant Manager’s pickup truck to Red Rock about 5 miles away to get the mail from our Post Office Box there. From there I would drive to Morrison, 23 miles away to go to the Post Office to pick up the plant mail at our box there, and then to the Morrison Bank to cash checks for Petty Cash and make any other transactions that were needed at the plant. After that, I would drive the 17 miles back to the plant. This 45 mile journey along with the stops each day lasted about an hour.
This meant 1 hour each day, I wasn’t chopping weeds, or picking up rocks, or emptying the trash from the cans at the park, or fixin’ flats. I was driving a company truck from place-to-place running errands. As a Catholic, this gave me time to say all three sets of Mysteries of the Rosary (there were only three sets at that time) each day while on the job. A month and a half later when I became a janitor, it was decided that I would keep delivering and picking up the mail each day. Which suited me fine. I enjoyed the drive, and after I became a janitor, Pat Braden told me how to take the back road (County Road 170) from Red Rock to Highway 64 on the way to Morrison, which was a pleasant drive through the countryside.
After a couple of weeks of doing the Mail Run, it was decided that I could also be used to make runs to Oklahoma City once each week for the Warehouse to pick up parts at various locations throughout the Metro area. I was proud that I was being trusted to do this while still being a summer help. I was given a booklet of POs (Purchase Orders), which I found out was like a book of blank checks from the Electric Company that gladdened the hearts of vendors when they looked at me warily while they asked me how I was going to pay for the parts I was picking up. They would gleefully reply, “Oh! You have a book of PO’s from the Electric Company!”
I was 21 years old at the time and had a Commercial Chauffeur’s license, but I looked closer to 16. So, vendors were surprised to see that I was carrying the cherished book of POs for the Electric Company. To them it was better than cash. With it, I could have a vendor load a $20,000 item onto the back of the flatbed truck by signing a slip of paper, tearing it out of the booklet and handing it to them. I was honored that the company trusted me with this job.
This was a long time before GPS systems were in cars, so I relied on Dick Dale and Mike Gibbs to give me directions and tell me the most efficient routes around Oklahoma City to go to the various stops on my route. These trips also took me to various plants in the area. I was able to go to the Power Plant north of Mustang on the West side of Oklahoma City
Mustang Gas Fired Power Plant opened in 1950
and the plant at Horseshoe Pond (or was it a Lake?) on the East side of town.
Horseshoe Lake Power Plant Turbine Room in 1924
I even made a trip to Konawa once to the Power Plant there.
Seminole Power Plant at night outside of Konawa Oklahoma. This picture was found at: http://www.redbubble.com/people/harrietrn/works/1425122-seminole-power-plant
But enough about my own enjoyment. I know you really want to hear about the secrets I learned. They aren’t really secrets as much as they were insights or observations. You see, each morning I would go to the front office before I left to take lunch orders from Linda Shiever, Joan Wheatley and sometimes from Linda Dallas and Carolyn Olbert.
Linda Shiever
They would have me stop by the diner in Morrison to pick up an order for lunch. I would stop by the diner on the way into Morrison and give them their order, then on the way back out of town, I would pick it up. Then I would have to smell the aromatic food the rest of the way back to the plant.
While waiting for Linda and Joan to decide whether they wanted the Chicken Fried Steak, or the Hot Roast Beef Sandwich, I would stand there listening to the conversations that were taking place in the front office. Having grown up around my mom’s Italian family in Kansas City, I had learned to listen to 3 or more conversations simultaneously while pretending not to be paying attention to any one of them.
So, I could hear the plotting and scheming coming from Jack Ballard’s office each morning. He was the head of HR. He was usually trying to figure out how to implement the latest dictate coming from the Plant Manager. So, he would be throwing out suggestions about how to go about them. This used to stick in my craw, because nothing enraged me more at that time than to have management treat their employees in an underhanded way. I had my reasons for the rage that I felt, and maybe I’ll go into those some time in a later post.
One particular topic I remember was when Jack Ballard was trying to figure out how to keep employees from taking any time off for Christmas. Eldon Waugh (or did it come from Corporate Headquarters? Yeah… right), had an edict that no one could take vacation around Christmas because if they did, they would probably leave town, and if they did that, and the plant had an emergency, then there wouldn’t be enough people available to call.
I didn’t understand that reasoning, since OD McGaha had spent almost his entire life within a 3 county radius around the plant. Sonny Karcher would be right down the road decorating a little Christmas Tree in his front lawn. Actually, most everyone would just like to stay home and spend some quiet time with their family. If some of us wanted to take a trip to go visit family, well. So Be It.
This was before I had realized the full extent that Eldon went to make life miserable for his worker bees (see the Post “A Halloween Power Plant Election Story” for a more complete understanding of “Worker Bees”). Eldon (or was it Corporate Headquarters) had already declared that no one was able to use vacation the last two weeks of the year.
So, what was the problem? The problem was that we had something called, “Floating Holiday”. It used to be used for Good Friday in the earlier days, but then later was changed to one Floating Holiday, which meant that you could take it any time throughout the year. This included some time during the last two weeks of the year since it wasn’t “technically” vacation. Which was once too often for the Plant Manager and Jack Ballard (the head of Human Resources at the plant).
I guess that either they didn’t think that the employees would buy the idea that Corporate Headquarters would make a rule that said you couldn’t take your floating holiday around the time of a real holiday (Christmas), so they had to come up with a way to keep the employees from even having one extra day during those last two weeks, in case we would get it in our heads to drive to Oklahoma City to do some Christmas shopping. So something had to be done about it.
Luckily (or maybe not so luckily), Linda Shiever was taking her sweet time that day coming up with the money to pay for her lunch so that I was able to hear a good 5 minutes of the conversation between Jack Ballard, Sharon Lance and Linda Dallas as they brainstormed a way to prevent the atrocious act of worker bees thinking they should have more than the one or two days allotted them for the Yuletide season.
You see… Vacation usually had to be scheduled well in advance, so a frugal, hardworking Power Plant Man will naturally save his floating holiday for an emergency. Just in case something comes up and they have to take an unplanned day off (or he has to go save his wife from their burning house and the plant manager won’t let him use black time — oh. That wasn’t this Plant Manager). So, when it came down to the end of the year, and the floating holiday was still floating out there waiting to be taken, then the Power Plant Man would take it during the last 2 weeks of the year rather than lose it altogether. This just made sense. So, Jack had to come up with a solution that prevented this. (This was a number of years before vacation was allowed to carry over for the first 3 months of the following year).
The final solution was that Corporate Headquarters would come up with a Policy that said that the Floating Holiday had to be used first before vacation could be used. — No. I’m not kidding. That way the Floating Holiday would not be available at the end of the year. I heard this being formulated from the mouth of Jack Ballard. Once he said it, it was like a window in the ceiling of his office opened up overhead and a ray of sunshine shown down on his desk and you could hear angels singing, “aahhhhhhhh”. They knew they had found their solution.
I think this policy lasted a couple of years before someone forgot that they had made it, and things were back to normal. It just fascinated me to hear how easily this band of vacation time bandits could manipulate the employee’s benefits on a whim. This type of time thievery (as I alluded to above) enraged me.
Time Bandits
Those of us that were at the plant during that time know to what end this group finally met their fate. I will discuss it in much greater detail in a later post that involves someone that the plant employees referred to as “The Snitch” (See the post: “Power Plant Snitch“). This story about the Floating Holiday is just a minor prelude of things to come in the following years.
On a more humorous note:
One morning when I went into the Plant Manager’s office to pick up the Pickup Truck Key, Bill Moler, the Assistant Plant Manager, entered the office with a big grin on his face and said that he finally found out why Indian Electric kept sending us an electric bill. Of course, Bill wasn’t paying the bill. Why would one Electric Company pay another electric company, just because they kept sending them a bill?
The answer came when the electricians had traced the sudden loss of electric power to the street lights in the Park areas on the south side of the lake. The power had been disconnected at the electric pole. The fuses had been removed. Upon further inspection, it was found that the electric poles did not belong to this Electric Company, it belonged to Indian Electric. They had turned off the electricity because our Electric Company had failed to pay their Electric Bill!
That is a funny irony that was not lost on Bill Moler. He was laughing about it all morning. An electric company that had their power cut off because they failed to pay their electric bill. How embarrassing is that?
Other interesting things happened on my trips to the Post Office and the Morrison Bank. Each morning I would arrive at the Morrison Bank just as they were opening at 9:00. One bank teller would be telling the other bank teller about her new boyfriend (around September). This later turned into a fiancee (in October). Then for a couple of months she would be discussing the impending wedding that was going to take place at the end of the year.
Cool Panoramic view of Morrison Oklahoma. Click this picture to see a blow up of it. Click the Back button to return to this page
Naturally at the end of the year, the bank teller was missing as she was on her honeymoon for a couple of weeks. I think it was a Carnival Cruise or a trip to Branson to go to Silver Dollar City (No. That was someone else. I wish I could put a smiley face here). Anyway. A couple of weeks after the New Year the bank teller returned, and as I followed them into the bank (as I did every morning), the one bank teller asked the newly married bank teller how everything went. The newlywed teller said that her new husband decided after about a week that he didn’t like being married so they decided to get a divorce.
Ok. I have to smile when I think about that one. There must be a punchline to a joke here somewhere. Like how many times does an Okie get married over Christmas? More times than they can take vacation…. Or something like that.
Power Plant Cajun and the Hatchet Man
Originally Posted August 30, 2013:
During the 18 years I worked as an electrician at the coal-fired Power Plant in North Central Oklahoma, we often had contractors working from our shop. I have mentioned that from the moment that I first entered the electric shop the first day I was an electrician, one of the first two people I met was a contract electrician. (See the post: “New Home in the Power Plant Electric Shop“).
Gene Roget (pronounced, “Row Jay” with a soft J) was originally from Louisiana.
A Cajun I found on Google Images (this is actually the actor Shia Lebeouf) that slightly resembles Gene Roget
Gene had spent the first 10 to 12 years of his adult life as a construction electrician. Charles Foster told him to be my mentor. At first Gene was shocked to find out that instead of hiring him to be a Plant Electrician along with his best buddy, Arthur Hammond, they had hired a young kid who didn’t know squat about being a real Power Plant Electrician. Yeah…. that was me.
I felt sorry for Gene because he obviously was the better candidate. The only saving grace for my mind was the knowledge that I was hired through the internal job program and that if they hadn’t taken me into the electric shop, they were going to be stuck with Charles Peavler. Charles was… well… he was somewhat older, but, well….. he couldn’t get around the fact that no matter what he did, he was always still Charles Peavler.
The day I entered the electric shop, I was 23 years and about 3 weeks old. Charles Peavler was 43. However, Charles might remind you of someone more around the age of 65. Not because he looked quite that old. He looked more like, well… um….. I guess he did look like he was about 65. I couldn’t tell if it was just the way he walked or stood, or the way his lip curled around the wad of skoal between his front lower lip and gums.
Just a pinch between your cheek and gums…. Never tried it myself.
I know… I’m being a little hard on Charles. I just like to tease him. I could be worse. I could tell you that his first name was really Amos. But I wouldn’t stoop that low. That would be like saying that Andy Tubb’s first name is really Carl, only worse, so I won’t go there. Actually, Peavler looks more like an Amos than a Charles. (Oh. That paragraph was about Amos and Andy!).
Anyway, by hiring me instead of Charles Peavler off of the labor crew I figured that even though I was dumb as dirt as far as being an electrician, I was more apt to learn new things than Charles. So in the long run I was probably the better candidate. Gene Roget wouldn’t have been able to be hired even if they hadn’t chosen me.
There were two openings for electrician when I was hired. Arthur Hammond (Art) was able to be hired by the electric shop was because they convinced the higher-ups that they needed someone with a background in electronics and there weren’t any internal candidates that fit that bill. So Charles Foster, the foreman, made the case that they needed an experienced electrician with electronics background and they needed someone dumb as dirt, but able to learn something more than just how to lace up their steel-toed boot. — That was where I came in.
I figured that Gene Roget would hold a grudge against me for taking the job that he wanted. This is where the true quality of a person may peer through. When you are involved in making someone upset, even though it wasn’t your decision to make, the way a person reacts to you will tell you a lot about that person’s character.
When Charles Foster told Gene Roget to be my mentor and show me the ropes to being an electrician I suspected that I was being setup for failure. “Ok…” I thought, “I’ll watch what he does instead of what he tells me…” I’ll also watch my back to make sure I don’t end up being electrocuted or knocked off of a ledge or some other accident that would create a new opening in the electric shop.
As it turned out Gene Roget was a man of great quality. Not once in the year and a half that I worked with him did I ever have the feeling that Gene wasn’t doing his best to teach me the skills of being the best electrician I could be. It also turned out that Gene was not only eager to teach me, but he was a highly skilled electrician. So, I felt like I was being taught by one of the best.
Gene Roget (I always liked calling him Gene Roget instead of just Gene… I’m not sure why, but I suppose I can blame it on Gene Day. I never could just call him Gene. And Gene Day and Gene Roget rhymed), carpooled with Art Hammond (I always liked calling Art, Arthur, but I’ll call him Art in this post just to make it shorter… except that I just used all these words explaining it that now it’s longer).
Gene and Art were like best buddies. I carpooled with them a couple of times when I had to catch a ride because I had to stay late and my carpooling ride had to leave (that would have been Rich Litzer, Yvonne Taylor and Bill Rivers). During the drive home, I came to learn that Art and Gene had worked with each other on construction jobs for quite a while and their families were close in some ways.
I also learned that there was another activity that they did together that was not all together kosher (I don’t mean in a Jewish way). They asked me on the way into Stillwater one day if I wanted to take a “hit” on the small rolled cigarette they were taking turns taking tokes from. I had spent 4 years prior to this time in college in a dorm where smoking marijuana was more common than cigarettes and the idea didn’t phase me.
I declined, because I had no desire to go down that route. I told them that I wished that they didn’t do that while I was in the car because then my clothes would smell like I had been living in the dorm again, where your clothes were going to smell like that just going from your room to the elevator… At least it was that way my second year in college.
I’m only talking about this now because it was 29 years ago, and by now if Gene Roget wanted to set his grandchildren on his knee and tell them about the times he was a younger construction electrician, he can mention that he had a shady past at one point, but now he’s just a kind old man. So, I’m going to go on with a story that up to now I have only shared with Arthur Hammond.
One day I went into the main switchgear to find some parts in the parts cage behind the electric shop. When I went back there, an operator Dan Landes was in the switchgear with another operator. They were looking for something by the ladders, so I walked over to see if I could help. Maybe they needed the key to unlock the ladders, I thought.
I don’t remember what they wanted, but I do remember that when I walked up to them I immediately smelled the aroma of marijuana being smoked somewhere. We had just recently lost an electrician in our shop when the snitch tricked him into trading some marijuana for a supposedly stolen knife set (see the post “Power Plant Snitch“).
I asked Dan if he smelled that smell. It was pretty strong. I told him that was marijuana, and I could tell him what type it was. You see, even though I had never smoked the stuff, the drug dealer for the entire dorm used to share the bathroom with our room, and three nights each week he held parties in his room. He had high quality stuff and low. There was a definite difference in the smell. So, I would ask my roommate Mark Sarmento about it and he explained it to me.
So, I told Dan that someone had just been smoking marijuana somewhere right there. It would have definitely been a dumb thing to do. Eventually Dan and the other operator (I can’t remember who) left the switchgear to continue on their with their switching. So I returned to the rack where the ladders were.
As I stood there alone I realized that the aroma was pouring down from on top of the battery rooms. So I yelled out, “Hey! You better stop that right now! Don’t you know that the smoke is coming right down here in the switchgear?!?! Put that out and come on down from there!” I stood there for a few minutes and then I walked back into the electric shop.
I laid my parts on the workbench where I was repairing something, and then I walked back over to where I look through the window in the door into the main switchgear. I finally saw someone climb down one of the ladders from the top of the battery rooms. So, I confronted him.
Yep. It was Gene Roget. I had been working with him for a year and a half at this time and I considered him a very good friend. I told him, “Gene! How could you do that? You know if they catch you they will fire you right away. No questions asked!” He said he was sorry, he didn’t think about the smell coming down into the switchgear and he would make sure it never happened again. I told him that he was lucky that I had found him and not Dan Landes. Dan’s nickname was Deputy Dan. He was a deputy in Perry, Oklahoma.
Well. as it turned out a few weeks later, Gene Roget was let go. I hadn’t told a soul about our encounter, but I wondered if he thought I had. Later I found out that he was let go so suddenly because he had confronted Leroy Godfrey about how Craig Jones had been fired because he had done something wrong. He didn’t know all the details about the snitch, but he did know that they said he was part of a (non-existent) Drug and Theft Ring.
No one tells Leroy Godfrey how to do his job, and in this case, Leroy had nothing to do with it. As a matter of fact, Leroy’s best buddy Jim Stevenson had been unjustly fingered by the snitch just because he was Leroy’s friend. So, Leroy had Gene Roget fired. I barely had time to say goodbye to Gene as he was led out the door to the parking lot and escorted out the gate by the highway patrolman who doubled as a security guard.
One time a year later, when I was carpooling with Art Hammond once again, I talked to Arthur about that day in the switchgear. I knew he was best friends with Gene Roget. So I told him about that instance. He told me that Gene had told him the whole story on the way home that day. Gene had just about had a heart attack when I had yelled up there for him to come down. He had swore to Arthur that he was never going to be that stupid again.
I made it clear to Arthur that I hadn’t told a soul about that day. And up until now, I still hadn’t. That was when Art explained to me the real reason that Gene had been fired. That made total sense. I knew how Leroy Godfrey was. He was an “old school” Power Plant Supervisor.
This is where the short story of the Hatchet Man comes up. He was another contract electrician. I think he was hired to help Jim Stevenson and Bill Ennis with the freeze protection. They were preparing for the coming winter and they needed a little extra help. I call this guy the “Hatchet Man” not because he was a hatchet man for the “Tong”, but because the only tool he used was a hatchet.
A Detective holding a Tong War Hatchet
He didn’t have a tool bucket. He just used this one tool. A Hatchet. As it turned out, he was missing two fingers on one hand and three fingers on the other hand. Hmmm… what came first? I wondered… the hatchet or the lost fingers? It seemed comical that a person missing half of all his fingers used only a hatchet as his only tool as an electrician. — how would he screw in a screw? Electricians had to work with screws all the time. Maybe he had a pocket knife for that.
I figured he probably lost his fingers working in the oil fields, since a lot of people lost fingers doing that. This guy definitely didn’t look much like a rodeo rider, which was the other group of people that would lose fingers.
One day, while sitting in the electrical lab during break time or lunch the subject of an upcoming job opening in the shop came up. The Hatchet Man made the mistake of saying that since he was handicapped, they had to give him the job. All he had to do was apply. They couldn’t turn him down. His missing fingers was his ticket.
Well. It didn’t take long before word of this conversation made its way up to the one ear that Leroy Godfrey used to hear. The other one was out of commission. As I mentioned before. No one told Leroy what to do. He was supreme leader of the electric shop domain. By the end of the day, the Hatchet Man was given the Ax.
Ted Riddle was hired instead. Now you know the rest of the story.
Power Plant Snitch
Originally Posted March 16, 2013:
Seventeen years before Harry Potter captured the Snitch in the movie “Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone”, the Coal-fired Power Plant in north central Oklahoma was plagued by a similar elusive snitch. Unlike the snitch in Harry Potter, which was a small ball with wings that held a special secret only revealed in the last moments of the last Harry Potter Book (and movie) “The Deathly Hallows”, the Power Plant snitch had a more sinister character.
The Snitch from Harry Potter, “The Sorcerer’s Stone”
The Power Plant Snitch reminded me once again of the phrase that “Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely.” I had experienced this phenomenon only a few years earlier when I was in High School and my father was a victim of this type of corruption. This made me especially abhorrent of deceit and dishonesty in the workplace. This was the reason why I had become so upset while I was a janitor and I learned a little “lie” that Jack Ballard had cooked up to force the employees to use their floating Holiday first (See the post Power Plant Secrets Found during the Daily Mail Run).
You see, in the Lone Power Plant stationed out in the middle of the country, a plot had been hatched by the Evil Plant Manager that rivaled a James Bond conspiracy to take over the world. Only in this case, it was a conspiracy to take over the personal dignity of honest, descent Power Plant Men. Men who said their prayers each night when they went to bed. Men who went to work each day to provide for their children. Men who held God and country in the highest esteem.
As I mentioned above, I had seen this abuse of power before when I was in High School. It had affected my personality in a way that I became instantly angry at the site of dishonesty. This was something I had to learn to deal with throughout the years as I interacted with men of less than honorable dignity. In order to understand why, I will divert into a side story:
My parents had kept their financial difficulties and other stress out of our lives while I was in Junior High and High school back in the mid ’70’s. They didn’t tell me that my father, who was listed in the top 20 Veterinarians in the world, and among the top 5 bird specialists, was being targeted by the Dean and his minions at the University of Missouri Veterinary College.
I remember that my mother was introducing new foods to our palate, such as Lentils and other types of rice and bean dishes. She had even gone to work as a secretary at Stephen’s College to make ends meet. At the same time, I had traveled with my dad when I was 13 to Europe where I met Veterinarians around the world that all greeted my father as if he were some kind of king.
I remember walking down the road on the way to Liverpool from the University (a 5 mile walk) where a group of bird specialists from around the world were meeting to determine the universal Latin names of every part of the bird’s anatomy (which at that point had not been defined). The Veterinarian walking with me from India told me afterI had made some offhand comment about my father. He said, “You don’t realize who your dad is. In India, your dad is the Father of Physiology! Your dad wrote the bible of Veterinary Physiology used around the world!”
I knew the book he was referring to. My dad had worked for three years day and night writing this book. Collaborating with renown Veterinarians around the world to compile a comprehensive book of Veterinary Physiology. The first of it’s kind. Before this book was written, you could only find the Physiology of a Pig, or the Physiology of a Dog. My dad had created a masterpiece that included an all-encompassing Veterinary Physiology in one book.
My Dad’s book
I say this, not to lift my father on a higher pedestal than he already is, but to put in perspective, how an important person such as James E. Breazile, DVM was treated by the “Evil Dean” of the Veterinary College at the University of Missouri in 1974 and until the day he resigned on January 16, 1978. Actually, the day my father brought the gold bound copy of the book home and presented it to my mother, she stopped talking to him for about a month for the first time in her life (for a totally unrelated reason which I may relay in a future post). Though the publishing company made a lot of money for years after this book was published, the total amount my dad received for his years of work totaled no more than $10,000 over a three year period.
Anyway. To make a long story short, (because I could go on for days about this), my father was not able to get a job at any another University in the United States, because he had tried to bring the corruption of the leaders of the Veterinary School (who had been stealing money from the University through bogus expense reports) to light, only to be told by the Chancellor of the University at the time, Herbert Schooling, “Boys will be boys.” It was just like the moment when Saruman told Gandalf, “We must join with him!”
Saruman Tells Gandalf that he must join with the forces of evil in the Lord of the Rings
It was only because my father had worked for Oklahoma State University before, when I was very young, that they didn’t need “permission” from University of Missouri to hire him, and take the multi-million dollar contracts that he had with Purina (and other businesses that had funded their electron microscope and other expensive scientific equipment at the time) with him, that we were able to escape the firewall that had been placed around my father’s career (ok. that sentence is long enough for an entire paragraph).
Anyway (again)…. I can’t let this story go until I give you the moment that was the “clincher” for me. The moment that I finally believed that my mother and my father hadn’t just gone off their rocker and become extremely paranoid living in a “James Bond” world….
My father (secretly) obtained a job from the Oklahoma State University in the Veterinary College. He was to start on January 9, 1978 with tenure (meaning that he couldn’t be fired without a really good reason). One week before he was going to resign from the University of Missouri. As usual, Oklahoma State University would begin classes one week before the University of Missouri after Christmas break.
During Christmas break (when I was a senior in High School), we would sneak into my father’s office at the Vet School in Columbia Missouri to remove his books and personal items from his office. We would go to this office at 10 o’clock at night after the school was closed for the night. At this point, I believed that both my mom and my dad had gone off their rocker and I was already planning on going through the phone book to find them a good Psychologist, or a priest to help them out.
Until Sunday morning, January 1, 1978. New Years Day. My mother and I were on our way to an early morning Church service at Our Lady Of Lourdes. My mom said that she thought it would be safe to drop by the Veterinary school and pick up some of dad’s things from his office (Dad had already left for Stillwater, Oklahoma to deliver a load of books and personal belongings).
As we pulled into the parking lot at the Veterinary College, my mom told me that I couldn’t go in because that was “Brown’s” car on the parking lot. — She had names for the different “bad guys” in the department. The Dean was “Whitey”. There was an older lady professor named “Brown”. Then there was the one that I recognized the most…. “McClure”.
I told my mom… “Look. It’s 9 am on Sunday morning. New Year’s Day. She was insistent that “Brown” was in the building. Then finally she told me. “Ok. go downstairs (where my father’s office was) and look around. If no one is there, then grab some of his books.”
Then one of the most bizarre moments of my life occurred. I still remember every detail. It was like I had gone into a dream where fantasy suddenly became reality. I entered the dark building using my father’s key. Immediately turned left and went down the stairs into the darkness. I had to feel my way down the stairs, holding onto the handrail.
As I stepped into the subterranean hallway, I turned north toward my father’s office. I immediately stopped. About 50 yards ahead of me I could see two offices next to each other with their doors open and their lights on. The rest of the hallway was totally dark as we were below ground. Having been a “spelunker” in my youth, the darkness didn’t bother me, however, the the existence of lights ahead were a total surprise.
I briskly walked down the hallway past the two doors. In the first office a lady was sitting at a desk. In the second, a man. I quietly walked on by. Then I turned around and walked passed the door where the man was sitting and stopped between the two doors. I could tell that both the man and the woman were talking on the phone. After listening for a moment I could tell that they were talking to each other, though I couldn’t hear what they were saying.
As a seventeen year old High School student, I suddenly realized that everything my mother and father had been saying for the past 5 years had been true. All the bugs found in my dad’s phone. All the threatening notes. The reason why he hadn’t received a raise in 5 years… All made sense! These guys were crazy!
I walked south to the stairway and turned around and looked back. “Brown” (the lady), was standing in the hallway with her hands on her hips like Professor Umbridge in Harry Potter!
Professor Umbridge Holding her wand
I stood there for a second looking at her silhouetted against the light from her office, knowing that she couldn’t tell who I was in the darkness. then I darted up the stairs. Ran outside to the car. Jumped in the driver’s seat of the Pontiac Station Wagon and told my mom what I had seen.
My mom explained to me that this was “Brownie”. They talk on the phone so that no one can say that they have been seen talking together. You see…. they are supposed to be at a conference or some other “official” business this weekend so they can claim expenses. That is why “Whitey” can live in a big ranch south of town on his measly salary. This is what my father had told the Chancellor of the University who told him that “boys will be boys”.
I didn’t know whether to lean over and kiss my mom when I suddenly realized that the list of insane people didn’t include my mother and father, or to peel out of the parking lot before Professor Umbridge made it up the stairs! Anyway. On News Years Day 1978 I had a totally new perspective on life. I can tell you that for certain.
To finish up with this side (non Power Plant) story…. in 1980 when Barbara Uehling became the Chancellor at the University of Missouri (from Oklahoma University, where I had attended school two years before), she began to clean house. I remember the day I learned that she had fired “Whitey” the dean of the Veterinary school.
I woke from my sleep very early in the morning. It was my father from Stillwater, Oklahoma. He had received a call from Iowa State from a Veterinarian, Deiter Delman, who had told him that they had just fired Whitey the Dean of the Veterinary College at Missouri. I told dad that was great, and I crawled back to my bed to finish my nightly ritual of sleep.
Moments later I was woken by another phone call. One of my professors from the College of Psychology Dr. Wright had called me. He said, “I have some news that your father will probably like to know. It is really top secret! I said, “Does it have to do with “Whitey” being fired? In my head I could see Dr. Wright’s one fake eye spinning around in his head like Professor Moody in Harry Potter (even though he hadn’t been thought of yet in 1981).
Professor Moody… Or is it Professor Wright in the MU Psychology Department?
Professor Moody… I mean Dr. Wright…. said, “What? How do you know? This is “Top Secret?” the meeting was over just minutes ago? I told him that Dr. Middleton had called Dr. Delman, who had immediately called my father, who had already called me moments ago. — To put this in perspective…… The whole world knew within minutes. I wrote a letter to the Chancellor Barbara Uehling explaining the events that I knew about. She wrote back saying that the Provost would be looking into the additional names I had given her.
End of side story…..
Back to the Power Plant Snitch… (I can tell… this has already become a long post and is probably going to break my record of the longest post of all time).
In September 1984, not one year after I had joined the electric shop, Bill Bennett, our A Foreman, came down to the electric shop (which was normal. Since he ate lunch with us every day). This time, he locked the doors. The door to the Turbine room, the door to the main switchgear and the front door…. — all locked. He said, “What is said here doesn’t go outside this shop.”
Ok…. We all went instantly into “serious” mode. Bill explained that there was something up with the grubby looking janitor (I’m sorry… I don’t remember what name he was assuming to use at the time — I’ll call him “Bonzo” from now on). The janitor “Bonzo” had been neglecting his duties as a janitor, so Pat Braden (the lead janitor) had gone to Marlin McDaniel to have him fired. Marlin McDaniel had gone to the Assistant Plant Manager, Bill Moler to start the process of firing “Bonzo”.
Marlin McDaniel (who had been my A foreman while I was a Janitor and on Labor crew after Chuck Ross had left) was told by Bill Moler that he was not going to fire “Bonzo” under any circumstance. It didn’t matter to him that he wasn’t doing his job. Marlin was told to forget about it and not bring it up again.
Bill Bennett told every person in the electric shop…. “Keep clear of this guy. I don’t know what is going on, but something is definitely wrong.” At that point everyone in the Electric shop knew that “Bonzo” was a snitch. Don’t talk to the Snitch…. Ok… from now on I’ll refer to “Bonzo” as the “Snitch”.
I know I have bored all of you by the personal story of my father and the trials that he went through, so I’ll try to keep this short: I knew a year and three months ago when I first started writing about the “Goodness” of the Power Plant Man that I would eventually come to this story. I know that the Power Plant men that read this blog knew that this story had to eventually be written. So, here it is.
Through unforeseen circumstances… and I attribute it to my Guardian Angel who has kept me out of serious trouble up to this point, I was called to Oklahoma City by my girlfriend Kelly Burgess (who ten months and 11 days later became my wife and is ’til death do us part) on February 10, 1985. I called in to Howard Chumbley on February 11 and told him I would not be able to make it to work that day. I would be taking my floating holiday.
The following Monday morning when I had climbed into Bill River’s Station wagon at the bowling alley where we met, with Rich Litzer and Yvonne Taylor and we were on our way to work, I learned about what had happened the Friday before. The day that would forever be referred to at the plant as “Black Friday.”
Bill Rivers explained the entire scenario to me during the 25 minute drive to the plant. I can’t say that I was in tears because my system had gone into shock and I was zombified by each new revelation. If I could have cried, I would have. My system had just gone into shock. All emotion had shut down.
Bill explained to me that on Friday morning (February 11, 1985), a plant-wide meeting had been held. Everyone at the plant had been informed that a drug and theft ring at the plant had been found and eliminated. This included one lady who was a janitor. A machinist named Dink Myers. The Lead Janitor Pat Braden and two of the Electricians Craig Jones and Jim Stevenson.
Drug and Theft ring? Really? At our Power Plant?
Except for the female janitor (I can’t even remember her name), I had a personal relationship with every other person on this list (whether they knew it or not). I never worked directly with Craig Jones, but as an electrician, I did know that everyone held him in the highest esteem. I later found out that Dink Myers was a distant relation of mine when two years later I attended my grandfather’s funeral. Jim Stevenson was a close friend to the point that I used to give him Swedish Massages that would ease the pain of his rampant Eczema. Pat Braden…. Well. Pat Braden.. my Janitor lead. I loved him most of all.
I invited Pat Braden to sit next to my wife and I at my wedding 10 months later, even though the Evil Assistant Plant Manager would be serving as a deacon in the wedding ceremony (he didn’t come.. I understood why). Next to Charles Foster, Pat Braden was my next dearly beloved friend. — Other Power Plant Men, such as Mickey Postman and Ed Shiever, share in my total love for Pat Braden to this day. — Not that I have asked them… I just know… They used to work for this saint.
Here is what had happened…..
Eldon Waugh (the evil plant manager) had heard from a study that came out early in 1984 that 10% of a typical workforce were either on drugs or were robbing their employer. I know. I had read the same study. The company had hired the snitch to become a janitor at the best power plant in the country to infiltrate their troops and bring out the worst in them.
I distinctly remember the snitch walking into the electric shop once as I was walking out…. He paused… looked at me as if to say something, then went on…. (– my interpretation…. “oh… a victim….”…. Guardian angel response…. “This isn’t the droids you are looking for…”) He went on without saying a word.
These aren’t the droids you ar looking for (Star Wars — A New Hope)
So the Snitch nailed a good friend of mine, Jim Stevenson…. I remember in January just before the verdict came down….. Leroy Godfrey had gone on a frenzied hunt for the portable electric generator. It had turned up missing…. Everyone in the shop was sent to look for it… After a day of searching, when it was time to go home…. I remember that as we were walking out the door to the parking lot that Jim Stevenson said, “They are never going to find the generator.” Bill Ennis asked, “Why Not?” Jim answered,. “Because their snitch has it. If they are going to let a crook like that work here, they are going to have to live with the consequences. He took the generator.”
A few months after “Black Friday”, Jim Stevenson was suing the company, and the specifically the Plant Manager and the Assistant Plant Manager. Lawyers came from Oklahoma City and interviewed people that had worked with Jim Stevenson and Craig Jones. I was in a quandary. I knew if they asked me about this situation I would have to tell them what Jim Stevenson had said. Jim had been fired for helping the snitch load the generator in the back of his truck months earlier. The funny thing was… I was the only one in the shop that they didn’t interview. I had never been on Jim’s crew, so I wasn’t on their list. At that point, if they didn’t ask me, I wasn’t going to volunteer.
The thing about this whole event was that it was setup from the beginning…. The Snitch asked Jim if he would help him lift the generator into the back of his truck…. This by itself was nothing out of the ordinary, since people could “check out” the generator for their personal use.
Portable Generator
Jim had known that the Snitch had taken the portable generator and said to Bill Ennis that if they wanted to keep scum around like that, then they should incur the cost of that decision. What Jim didn’t know was that he was being secretly taped while he was being entrapped into loading the generator into the back of the Snitch’s truck. Jim reminded me of Dabney Coleman:
Dabney Colement reminds me of Jim Stevenson
I won’t go much into the stories of Dink Myers, who shared a joint with the Snitch in the locker room, and Craig Jones who pulled up some “hemp” on the road to the river pumps to swap for a “stolen knife set” (though he didn’t know they were stolen) since these were “no-brainer” stupid moments in the life of young Power Plant Men… but I will defend Pat Braden…. The most honest and loving of souls (and again… I apologize for the length of this post).
In previous posts I have mentioned that Pat Braden reminded me of Red Skelton.
This Picture of Red Skelton reminds me of Pat Braden
Today, when I want to reminisce about Pat Braden. All I have to do is watch an old episode of Red Skelton. As kind as Red Skelton was in real life… there was Pat Braden. If you don’t know about Red Skelton… Google him…. He was a sincere soul… He was a soul-mate to Pat Braden.
This is how Pat Braden was fired…… The snitch came to him one day and asked for the key to the closet so that he could get the VCR….. Weeks later, the VCR turned up missing and Pat was asked if he knew where the VCR went. He didn’t know. When I was a janitor I used to do go to Pat on a weekly basis and ask for the key to closet for the VCR. I had to regularly move it to the control room or the Engineer’s shack for training sessions. It was just part of our regular job and Pat Braden would have not thought twice about it.
As it turned out, the snitch had taken the VCR from the closet and had brought it straight to Bill Moler, the Assistant Plant Manager and handed it to him and told him that he had stolen it (even though technically, it hadn’t been stolen). Then about a month later, Bill sent out the request to find the VCR. At that point, Pat, who was the same age as my father (It’s funny, but a lot of people at the plant were the same age as my father), and on blood pressure medication that made his head swim when he stood up, didn’t remember anyone taking the VCR four weeks earlier… So, he was included in the “Theft and Drug ring at Sooner Plant on February 11, 1985”.
The story about Jim Stevenson is almost as tragic, though he had enough money to take the Electric Company to court. Pat’s income of $10 an hour didn’t quite leave him in a position to complain about being unjustly fired.
As the Tape recorder tapes revealed about Jim Stevenson (yeah… Like Watergate)… The evil Plant Manager, Eldon Waugh had told the Snitch to specifically target Jim Stevenson. The way it was explained in the recording between Eldon Waugh and the Snitch (as recorded by Jack Ballard, the head of HR at the Plant at the time), if Jim Stevenson were gone, then Leroy Godfrey’s only friend would be gone… Then Leroy would have to turn to Bill Moler or Eldon for friendship….. I want to continue printing periods as you ponder this thought…..
So…. Eldon and Bill had Jim Stevenson fired as part of a bogus “Drug and Theft” ring so that Leroy Godfrey would be their friend?….. How bizarre is that? You know… I can put this all in writing because it all became public knowledge when it became part of a trial between Jim Stevenson and the Electric Company a year later. The s**t hit the fan on January 23, 1986 when Bill Moler and Eldon Waugh were attending Jack Ballard’s funeral.
Immediately after the graveside services were finished in Ponca City at the Odds Fellows Cemetery, Jim’s lawyer hit them both with a Subpoena to appear in court… The lawyer wanted to make sure the trial took place in Kaw County. A year later, these two individuals and the company settled out of court. Both the Plant Manager and the Assistant Plant Manager were “early retired” which opened the door for a new era of Power Plant Management. Jim Stevenson walked away with an undisclosed sum of money that was at least six digits.
Pat? I found out a few years later that my wife had been working with Pat in Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Ponca City. One day after, we had moved to Stillwater, and Kelly was talking to a friend from Ponca City, the subject of Pat Braden came up. When she had hung up the phone, I asked her, “Pat Braden who?” When she explained that she had worked with a security guard named Pat Braden in Ponca City, and that he was the nicest guy you would ever meet. He cared about one thing in life and that was his daughter… I knew she was talking about our Pat Braden.
Everyone that ever met this kind soul was touched by him. It was ironic that my wife Kelly had worked with Pat for a couple of years at the hospital and I didn’t even have a clue. I knew that Pat must have known…. After all…. I was the only Breazile in the phone book in Ponca City at the time. From what I understand… Pat is still around in Ponca City doing something….. Jim Stevenson still runs “Stevenson Refrigeration Services”. Both of these are honorable men.
Note that the True Power Plant Men mourned their loss for years after this event. A certain amount of “innocence” or “decency” had been whittled away. That is until 1994 rolled around….. But…. That is another story for a much later time….
Comments from the orignal post:
-
Ron Kilman March 18, 2013:
I of course heard about “Black Friday” at Sooner, but it was from Eldon’s perspective. It is evil when innocent people are set up to be fired like that.
We didn’t hire any snitches at Seminole.
-
An entertaining study of the use of power in a university and in a power plant…with applications to government available!
Power Plant Men 