Dedicated to minority and other public health professionals struggling with imposter syndrome.
Copyright © 2025 by John
Thomas Pierce
1st printing – 2025; Printed in the United States. All rights reserved. WALSWORTH. Marceline, Missouri.
Pierce, John Thomas, 1949 –
Authors, researchers and physicians, 20th -21st C. Fiction: Public health, cycling, industrial hygiene & toxicology, environmental justice, educational administration.
John Thomas Pierce
Further environmental legacies: Hospital Safari, Million Dollar Speedway, One-hundred Foot Drop
Nopartofthiswork may bereproducedwithouttheexpressed written permission of the author. Any resemblance of characters, living or dead, to real people is coincidental and unintentional. Recommendations and practices described herein have been adapted to storytelling and should not be relied upon regarding any disease or condition.
Crescent addresses an unresolved issue, vital to minority and other environmental health professionals, too. Oklahoma’s Silkwood at first eclipsed concerns before highlighting further environmental issues.
Five years following Karen Silkwood’s exposures and fatal crash, legendary trialist Gerald Gerry Spence brought her case to life using what have been termed frame stories. Speaking on behalf of Karen Silkwood’s heirs, Spence not only shared historical elements of Silkwood’s life, he did so in a way that allowed the jury to walk down the same figurative path she trod.
Crescent outlines key features of both environmental and public health investigations in human terms. I believed readers would favor frame stories appropriate to lives spent in environmental clinics, night school settings, and even basketball-adapted donkey barns.
John Thomas ‘Tom’ Pierce
November 2024
Late May 1978
Police work possesses unique merits, disappointments, too. The two Oklahoma City Police detectives summoned to investigate the slaying of thirty-threeyear-old Attaway E. Ozby, as far as personalities go, were a bit of a clash, perhaps an advantage to an ensuing difficult investigation.
Dispatchers rushed radio car units to the 6th and Walker Travelodge, a dowdy downtown motel, following a frantic call from its desk attendant. Terrified by the shouts and noise in No. 17, the middle-aged clerk not only secured the office’s entry door but additionally barricaded himself behind the Travelodge’s check-in counter. The dispatcher, later recalled the most defining feature of his call. ‘Do you hear what I hear?’
Desperate sounds originated in the struggle ensuing in No. 17, one in which Attaway E. Ozby fought for his life. By any measure unfair, an unarmed man faced a knife-wielding assailant, perhaps someone attempting to steal Alastair and Attaway’s distinctive car.
The circumstances leading to the struggle began a in a nondescript night club, Oklahoma City’s Talk of the
Town. The fact the two involved met in a northwest neighborhood gay hangout was at most secondary, perhaps irrelevant.
Attaway’s intellectual, bookish persona hardly matched Ronnie’s drifter-come-on approaches although they marginally shared Arkansas-based experiences, Philander Smith College for Attaway, time in a nearby Pine Bluff correctional facility in Ronnie’s case.
Attaway’s assailant had previously rented a shared room in a nondescript rooming house located near 23rd and Classen. Theories differ regarding why he carried a his knapsack containing his personal belongings to the Talk of the Town that evening.
The Talk, as it was commonly known, welcomed gay persons from across the metro, along with neighborhood regulars. Ironically, regulars frequently nursed a cheap draft beer-or-two, overhearing others’ conversations before silently leaving.
The evening started alright, verbal exchanges spanning the horseshoe bar there. To both men’s credit, they asked if seats were committed before seating themselves. There was nothing particularly unusual about two relatively young black males joining a more middleaged crowd on a late spring evening. For Talk regulars, mostly another opportunity to review well-trafficked stories.
While Attaway’s visit to a predominately gay club could have suggested ‘down low’ intent, it better correlated with other exploratory interests, including bicycle tour outings, most of them directed at exploring what he considered white culture.
Noticing the bartender had secured Ronnie’s knapsacked belongings behind the bar created a question. ‘Can I drop you off somewhere on the way to my motel?’
‘Thanks, I’ve been unable to arrange accommodations. I don’t have anywhere to stay actually.’
True to Crescent, if not Philander Smith roots, Attaway reviewed a common mantra. A brother in need is a brother indeed, before inviting his new acquaintance join him for the night at a nearby Travelodge.
Dust Bowl years, wartime ones, too, Oklahomans departed family farms, often settling for a less colorful but more dependable factory surroundings, many near Oklahoma’s City. While multiple features spurred the development of Oklahoma City and its surroundings none was more important than the War Department’s 1940 decision to partner with a centrally-positioned city to develop what it referred to as an Air Depot.
Texas’ 1912-era mineral rights legislation migrated north, allowing Oklahomans to sell land while retaining key mineral rights, mostly notably oil and gas royalties, sometimes termed oil leases.
Oklahoma City furnished multiple employment possibilities, stretching from meat packing to warehousing, recently dominated by aircraft logistics and repair, processes centered at Tinker Air Force Base.
If certified welders, numerically-controlled machinists, and skilled sheet metal workers numbered among the Tinker workforce, it also contained clerks and supply specialists. Barring further training and qualification, clerical workers spent entire careers performing routine, repetitive entry-level tasks, or as described by the more pessimistic, in dead-end jobs.
Oklahoma’s universities supplied the Air Force base with degreed engineers and accountants, often highperforming individuals while their non-degreed counterparts settled for less. The dedication of Oscar Rose (then Junior) College on May 15, 1970 changed all that.
In late January 1969 Mid-Del Superintendent Oscar Rose apparently died from a stroke or heart attack while actively lobbying for school funding restorations in Washington. Prior to his demise, Rose had conceptualized a basis for a Midwest City-based college.
The college’s 1970-Armed Forces Day and dedication ceremony featured General George M. Johnson, flanked by Congressman Tom Steed and Oklahoma’s governor, David Hall. Johnson, the Tinker Air Mobility Commander declared ‘Education and the Armed Forces (to be) inseparable.’
Thus, for Midwest and Del City the commissioning ceremony ushered in a fresh and more inclusive era, one proclaiming ‘all of us’ as a guiding principle.
The early twentieth century ushered contributions from physical culturalists, persons positing that exercise or even static stretches could positively impact health or limit further disabilities.
While not by any means a physical culturalist, physician James Naismith devised an indoor hooped contest largely described by its ball-and-basket components. In 1891 matching half-bushel peach baskets hung at ten feet heights at opposite ends of an indoor running track defined a new sport.
Perhaps as much as an antidote for harsh winters as an alternative sport, Naismith’s creation joined other winter competitions like ice hockey or even velodrome-based
bicycle racing. While physical labor or even mental work have no viewership requirements, spectatorship enormously strengthens sports activities. Thus, ‘the worse the weather, the better the basketball.’
Behavioralists find some self-deprecation to be a distinguishing characteristic of well-adjusted persons. If true, Crescent postmaster, Ralph Godfrey created a master piece. Few human activities appear more comical than attempting basketball goals while astride a donkey.
While hardly the darling of animal rights activists, Godfrey’s donkey adaptation of Naismith’s game subsidized numerous Rotary clubs, FFA chapters and PTA’s. In rural places populated by those more familiar with farm animals, Donkey Ball was a hit.
Crescent’s founding Caucasians, Brown’s, Ryland’s Mock’s and Godfrey’s found themselves flanked by pioneering African-Americans, including Washington’s, Johnson’s and Ozby’s.
While Luther, Boley and Langston, Oklahoma were better recognized for African-American origins, other Oklahoma places sank African-American roots, too. The state’s western counties were more racially tolerant, perhaps even more accepting, than their southeastern Oklahoma counterparts, a region known as Little Dixie.
Ancestral Ozby’ crossed the Arkansas River at Childers Station, later renamed as Sallisaw, before entering the Cherokee nation. Whether in Little Rock, or in Crescent, Ozby’s were well-educated, a consequence of postEmancipation studies at Little Rock’s Walden Seminary, and its successor, Philander Smith College.
Ralph Godfrey’s ancestors bred domestic animals, mostly draught horses and mules, donkeys, too. The introduction of mechanical tractors further decreased demand for domestic animals, leaving him with a vastly diminished, donkey-only operation. Thus, Godfrey moved from farming only to farming plus mail carrier roles. By the mid-1930s, he also supervised the local post office, eventually becoming Crescent’s post master.
While Lawrence, Kansas’ James Naismith was a single state removed, it is unlikely Naismith and Godfrey met in person
. Regardless, Godfrey created yet another winter sport, one he christened as Donkey Ball.
Brothers Attaway and Alastair Ozby had visited Godfrey’s barn, perhaps hoping to pet animals or even to witness drills Godfrey claimed enabled burros to follow simple commands. Regardless Godfrey invited the youngsters to attempt shots astride two of his more docile burros, Dopey and Sprinkles.
Two weeks hence during a mail run to the Ozby residence, Godfrey asked their father if the brothers would like to accompany him to a Donkey Ball engagement slated for Langston, Oklahoma, perhaps to a second contest in Nicodemus, Kansas, noting they would be well treated, compensated, too. Beginning in Langston and later in Nicodemus, the donkeys, if not the Ozby brothers, played to sold-out crowds.
Godfrey noted the Ozby brothers were good with the animals, skilled ball handlers, too. Thus, Attaway and younger Alastair, added road atlas reviews to weekday homework assignments, later splitting wheel-time in the adapted bus, one featuring small tether-based donkey stalls.
An unexpected benefit of road hand responsibilities was one of playing real basketball with dozens of other boys across Oklahoma, among experienced adult players, too. Ralph Godfrey and the Ozby’s weren’t alone in their sports-based ambitions. Sixty miles southeast of Crescent, botanist-turned university president, George Lynn Cross developed another sports-based plan, one emphasizing Oklahoma Football.
1961 – 1975
Most biographers credit George Lynn Cross with being in the right place at the correct time, if in an unusual manner. A small boy during World War I but nearly middle aged by the Pearl Harbor attack, he did not actively serve but became a keen observer of the Navy’s V-12 officer training program, particularly of Iowa’s athletic teams. Cross presciently proposed a championship-level sport might alter, possibly even erase, negative views of an Oklahoma stricken by drought, dust storms and economic ruin.
With war’s end, the U.S. Navy decommissioned dozens of training fields, planning to do so in Norman, too, until Korean war hostilities stalled matters. Eventually, the War Department signed over nearly two thousand acres to the University, complete with a training airfield, hangers and warehouse spaces.
Historians differ regarding the respective roles that Cross and university regent Lloyd Noble played in fostering championship-level football but agree that both insisted on hiring what they termed a championshipinspired coach.
Post-war, talented athletes such as Marine aviator Ted Williams and Air Corps bomber pilot Tom Landry returned to previous sports roles as civilians. Sunny Jim Tatum, a Navy veteran, coached Iowa’s V-12 pre-flight football team, and had likely crossing paths in Iowa with Cross.
Cross and Noble’s ambitions were partially realized when Oklahoma captured the 1949 Big Six championship. If Sunny Jim Tatum was a good coach, he turned out to be an even better recruiter, signing nine future All-Americans plus an ambitious Minnesota assistant coach, Charles Bud Wilkinson.
While most of the 1960-era University of Oklahoma was located in Norman, Oklahoma, the exception was its medical school, near the Oklahoma capitol. The medical school’s co-location beside the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation or OMRF as it was more commonly known, benefited both. In fact, Sir Alexander Fleming, penicillin’s discoverer and principal advocate delivered OMRF’s 1947 commissioning lecture
Only a single five-story brick building near 13th and Phillips had supported OU-based medical science education since 1928, but in 1961 it was complemented by an architecturally similar Research building.
Combinations of federal funding sources plus state contributions finished four of the new structure’s five floors, leaving its fifth level in a framed-out but yet unfinished status. Remarkably, Carl Nau, an occupational disease expert, secured completion funding of its fifth floor, adding elements important to both his research and that of others.
Petitioning support from Oklahoma’s industrialists and philanthropists, some his Mesta Park neighbors, Nau configured modern animal quarters, laboratories and dark rooms. During a commissioning tour, Nau confirmed to visiting dignitaries that the fifth-floor laboratories could prove key to studies applicable to mining or even petrochemical industry-based hazards. No one in Oklahoma doubted the significance of anything petrochemical.
Earlier, Oklahoma’s Native Americans had been relegated to barracks-like living, even near the state’s legacy mines. Native American diets had been similarly reconfigured, substituting institutionally-supplied canned meat and processed flour products for nutritionally superior native diets emphasizing ancient grains, nuts and beans.
Oklahoma’s landscape similarly reflected a good twin –bad twin character. Its broad grassy or wooded plains occasionally interrupted by an acre or two of oil field junk, obsolete farming equipment and further discards. Rivers and streams in three Oklahoma counties, plus their counterparts in Kansas and Missouri, were heavily laced with lead, possibly with other heavy metals, too.
Who knew, perhaps Nau’s diverse projects and interests would headline a more complete 13th and Phillips-based research portfolio. After all, a taxonomy-focused botanist, George Lynn Cross, had adapted sports and scientific principles in support of both university and statewide goals.
Dr. James Naismith’s antidote for unforgiving winters grew beyond peach baskets tacked above a hardwood floor. While much of its impacts are visual, live basketball is amplified via sound, the metronomic rhythm of a dribbled leather ball.
Unless seated directly behind the glass backboards, arena seating favors a view of defenders’ faces. Conversely, end court photos better reveal scorers’ expressions. Few sports better correlated facial expressions with game outcomes. Across the early twentieth century promoters tested fan bases, strengthening both venues and the sports, Madison Square Garden if available, if not, Flatiron’s Armory might suffice.
‘The worse the weather, the better the basketball’ adage was extended to other pursuits including indoor track and field or even board track-based (bicycle and motorcycle) velodrome events. The 1920-era velodrome-based racing became a bookie’s delight, continuous, even perilous action, lasting six days. ‘Vaudeville or velodrome, consistently entertaining.’
Professional basketball possessed urban roots. South Philadelphia’s Hebrew Athletic Association hosted Sunday basketball contests in Sunday-vacant Young Men’s Christian Association,YMCA gyms. One B-sport or another, bicycle-based sports were oddly linked, Philly’s Clover Wheelmen hosted a similarly named Clover basketball team.
Crescent sits nearly half a state removed from Bartlesville, the latter fifty miles north of larger Tulsa. Bartlesville was home to the Phillips 66 Oilers, sometimes also termed the 66ers. Like Kansas City’s Cook Painters, the 66 Oilers traded refinery coveralls and lab coats for distinctive red, white and black Phillips Petroleum game singlets.
Corporate support fueled the 66 Oilers across forty-seven seasons (1921-68) and multiple Amateur Athletic League championships. On two occasions an intact 66 Oilers squad represented the United States in the Olympic games. Professional 66 Oilers shared practice space with College High’s basketballers at Bartlesville’s Streamline Moderne-designed arena.
One hundred miles west of Bartlesville, Henry Hank Iba forged a second basketball legacy, the Oklahoma State Cowboys (1937-1970). Quietly, both sets of coaches
relied upon inter-squad scrimmages, helpful to both squads.
Donkey basketball lacked inter-league scrimmages nor did Godfrey’s infamous Dopey, Bear or even Sprinkles rise to sports page hero status. If Ralph Godfrey were the chief promoter of these odd contests, the Ozby brothers functionalized Donkey Ball game preparations.
While no Ozby females drove Donkey Ball buses, brothers Attaway A-1 and younger Alastair A-2 did so.
Donkey Ball derived-funds supported multiple causes, those important to Rotarians, Optimists, Masons or alternatively Catholic Knights of Columbus. A seventyfive-dollar deposit posted to Ralph Godfrey guaranteed an Ozby-driven bus would bring the burros ahead of an early evening match-up.
Godfrey posted an Exacto-knife adaptable stencil to potential promoters, often bonused by a Sharpie pen.
(CUT gym name - Your location here) (CUT date and time for Donkey Ball)
Photographers captured exuberant fire chiefs, motivated mayors and re-electable legislators posting burrobaskets, typically described by near-miss terminology. While the independent little animals hardly favored being ridden by humans, the Ozby brothers earned the animals’ trust, mostly based on pocketed sugar cube bribes and kindness.
Pre-game periods witnessed A-1 and A-2 taking the floor, too, often challenging local talent, if not high school players, among other townie duos. Ozby’s
generally neglected fouls and steals, relying on shooting accuracy. A-1 brought the ball down, passing to his younger brother, A-2, who had begun to develop remarkable shooting skills.
Given early evening contests, the boys fed and watered the donkeys before bedding them down, often tethering them in a football field’s end zone. Too late to return home, they amused themselves with late-night shootaround contests and dunking on one another. The characteristics of practice, performance and refinement increasingly resembled the characteristics of a professional sports process. Then again, it was.
O
While Carl Nau’s occupational medicine funding may have outfitted the Research building’s fifth floor, his professional output differed from most of its researchers. While many OU’s clinicians, OMRF researchers, too, studied acquired conditions such as hemophilia or probed biochemically-relevant deficiencies, Nau’s work emphasized the effects heavy metals, frequently lead (Pb)-related.
While primarily a clinician, Nau accepted doctoral committee supervision assignments, adding a clinical credibility to studies that could have easily wandered down decidedly theoretical paths.
He had also organized a top-notch research team, one featuring Dr. Ron Coleman, a PhD-trained biochemist, processing dozens, maybe even a hundred blood lead (Pb) specimens per day augmented by a second scientist, Dr. Ray Mill who applied optical microscopy to air pollution samples, hoping to link respiratory diseases like emphysema or even asthma with particle loads.
But Coleman and Mill primarily provided laboratorybased outputs, restricting their availability for studies external to the university. Certain national and regional events spurred Nau to create a third Environmental Health Research Institute arm, necessitating the presence a well-trained scientist, one who could both conduct scientific investigations and perform outreach.
Nau had first encountered Attaway Ozby three years previously when the tall Philander Smith graduate had requested Nau serve on Ozby’s doctoral committee. Yes, like others at OU, he knew that Attaway’s brother, Alastair, starred as a Globetrotter.
Prior to that bright October Oklahoma morning, no Globetrotter had joined a doctoral defense. But as A-1 lowered the room’s lighting, flipping on a 35-mm carousel projector, he witnessed his brother taking a seat, quietly chuckling when A-2 had to abandon his center row choice, his head had partially obscured the projected slide.
As doctoral defenses go, it rapidly became game time. Forty-five minutes of Attaway’s slides described the dispersion of lead (Pb) emanating from three EaglePicher Industry processing plants along with their Tar Creek-based impacts.
The manner in which law firms discover impactful environmental findings remains unchronicled, but the week prior, Attaway’s supervising professor had received a chilling call from a Tulsa law firm requesting Ozby dissertation pre-prints. An unintroduced attendee that October morning, one sporting a blue blazer and an untied while heavily starched white dress shirt, had likely driven there from Tulsa.
Past the presentation, four supervising committee members quizzed Attaway, mainly analytical or statistical issues or concerns. He then recused himself to a connecting hallway while Coleman, Mill, Nau and a Norman civil engineering professor named Larry Canter scored his presentation and oral exam.
Attaway’s presentation and responses had been sufficient, given that ten, long, minutes later he was asked to return, introduced this time by Coleman, his supervising professor, as Dr. Attaway E. Ozby.
Mostly congratulatory handshakes and friendly banter were bolstered by coffee and cookie refreshments. Nearly everyone, including the semi-anonymous visitor departed, the single exception was Carl Nau.
Nau introduced at fresh topic. ‘Dr. Oz, How would you like to serve as our Environmental Health Research Institute field services person, arrange public meetings, disseminate Research Institute findings, plus maybe devise some studies of your own, too?’
What a day, a successful defense and a Nau-provided courtesy. Philander Smith’s, and, by then OU’s finest, welcomed Nau’s kindness. ‘That would pair well with other things I want do, teaching-wise. Thanks for the look Dr. Nau, my brother Alastair and I both appreciate it!’
Switching from serious to comedic, Nau offered. ‘Alastair claims you know Oklahoma’s roads and towns well, particularly end zone grazing areas suitable for burro grazing.’
Only a small staff parking lot separated the older medical school structure from a smaller one-story public television broadcast studio just to its north. Departing the old medical school building, doctor A-1 noted
Alastair had stayed behind, waiting for him, sprawled out in the Cutlass, likely enjoying KOMA radio’s midday music and disc jockey banter.
‘I’ll treat you to some Tom’s Oaklawn BBQ before we leave for Crescent. I’m proud for you, OU’s highest degree and all. But really, Styrofoam-cup coffee and Fig Newton refreshments, you can do better than that!’
Always a Globetrotter.
Nau’s primary limitation was that there was only one Carl Nau, MD. He also struggled to understand Oklahoma’s industrial base. Even after farming and agriculture were factored, twenty more categories were represented, manufacturing and construction certainly, plus energy production, often oil and gas-based, plus hints of nuclear power.
Post-war, automobile and truck reliability increased, allowing lengthier commutes, if not weekend road trips. Similarly, the demand for petroleum products, mainly gasoline, lubricants, too, sky-rocketed.
Intellectual property issues, often patent applications, occupied half a dozen attorneys at Bartlesville’s Phillips Petroleum. In the Oklahoma town of Ada, Kerr-McGee Industries pioneered inorganic-based products, nuclear fuels certainly, but titanium-based paint whiteners, too. Bartlesville’s Cities Service, originally considered mostly a natural gas supplier, similarly diversified.
Shortened origination-to-manufacturing timelines witnessed new classes of chemicals marketed ahead of even basic toxicologic evaluations. Bottling and barreling plants were introduced into shrinking agricultural communities like Bristow or Cushing
despite toxic benzene, toluene or xylene-based compounding steps, often shortened to BTEX, whatever that meant locally.
Responsibility for high-risk chemicals bounced from one state agency or committee to the next. Yes, Oklahoma’s Department of Health was frequently involved but how did Health’s role differ from that of the Pollution Control Department or even Oklahoma’s Water Quality Committee?
Agency administrators attempted to streamline regulatory responsibilities, only to realize their legal backgrounds were ill suited to technically-driven issues. Nau hadn’t gotten very far either, mostly rebuffed by agency officials when he sought human exposure data.
‘That’s great but why don’t you develop an exposure registry over at OU?’
Each morning, a breakfasting Nau pored over Daily Oklahoman and Oklahoma Observer newspaper accounts, especially those describing federal regulatory actions. While not much of a speech-maker, Nau preferred to talk to himself.
Nau noted as necessary. ‘Good, Carter has nominated Eula Bingham, a competent University Cincinnati industrial hygiene researcher to head OSHA. Really, Carter believes Douglas Costle, one of EPA founders, should head that agency. ’
Nau took a note. ‘See if the office staff can locate Costle’s phone number.’
Over coffee and newspapers, Nau fretted and mused, two concerns dominating his thinking, estimating the depth of the administration’s commitment to his fledgling center; and trying to better understand Oklahoma environmental policies.
He further questioned if current OU administrators knew or recognized that he had raised the funds for the fifth-floor build-out. Most importantly, how did leaders there regard the Environmental Health Research Institute’s output?
Nau’s breakfast-based Mesta Park chuckle sessions mainly allowed him to create new group names, rebranding the Coleman, Mill and Nau-based Three Musketeers as the Four Horsemen. After all, Attaway was an important addition.
Attaway’s doctoral studies outlined contamination surrounding lead (Pb) contamination in Oklahoma’s Ottawa county. And if heavy metals from surface mining in northeast Oklahoma were an issue, zinc smelting health issues might be even more problematic in Oklahoma’s Kay county, possibly in Bartlesville, too.
Estimates suggested that perhaps thirty thousand, historical or current, oil and gas wells dominated a thousand unique pastures or woods across Oklahoma, a pumpjack nicknamed Petunia One even adorned its capitol. Impacts from old extraction and piping systems went unrecorded, human or even animal health impacts of equipment and surroundings similarly undocumented.
Not unlike Coleman and Mill’s lab-based investigations, Attaway’s field services efforts began to produce favorable results. Whether in Bristow or Cushing, Nau believed Attaway’s influence boosted the credibility of the Environmental Health Research Institute, if not that of the medical center itself.
Citizen-initiated calls to their field services operation were similarly prefaced. ‘I don’t want to make trouble but perhaps you should know.’ Callers possessed two distinguishing features, they talked fast and only rarely identifyied themselves.
An OU dermatologist had first contacted Nau regarding a series of rashes originating among workers from a NE 10th street junkyard, near where Alastair and Attaway had lunched at Tom’s Oaklawn barbeque. The dermatologist further shared Polaroid photos, ones featuring angry-appearing eruptions across the malar or facial features of two male and a third female worker. His note hinted at potential causes: Chloracne, PCB’s?
Polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) - based transformer oils displayed favorable cooling characteristics. Remarkably, their high bromine-content allowed them to suppress corona arcs, characteristic of lightning strikes. Multiple studies had already correlated PCB-content with undesirable health effects, sometimes skin or liverrelated, other times termed endocrine disruptive. While mineral oil-loaded transformers were more flammable, PCB liquids were being rapidly phased out.
Like other power distributors, OG&E neglected in-house recycling possibilities, preferring to use contract recyclers, many of whom lacked basic knowledge of applicable environmental regulations, much less knowledge of complex PCB-related toxicities.
Even a dry transformer weighed nearly five hundred pounds, one hundred attributable to pricy elemental copper, the balance being iron scrap. Per a worldwide copper shortage 1974 copper prices rocketed from about one dollar a pound to nearly twice that figure, further encouraging PCB-fluid-based change-outs.
Enter Royal Housecamp’s 10th St. Junkyard. Metal scrappers nearing the salvage yard’s scale carrying a smaller transformer might anticipate trading a heavy load of metal for a handsome Housecamp-endorsed counter check.
A 10th St. worker centered a wooden cradle arrangement above an open-topped fifty-five-gallon barrel, splashing the transformer’s liquid contents into the receiving barrel. Only a worn blue plastic tarp separated underlying soil from potentially toxic PCB-splashes. The transformer donated its liquid contents into the receiving barrel. Regardless, 10th St. workers dissected away valuable copper and ferrous components.
In the wake of multiple scrapper drop-offs, Housecamp loaded dry transformer bodies into a Diamond REOgondola trailer rig leading a less distinguished flatbed trucks loaded with copper cores. While I-35 routing would likely have been quicker, the interstate risked overweight scale checks. Instead, they traveled Eastern avenue to the Khoury brothers’ SE 29th St. crusher and foundry.
Only a single commodity remained at the 10th St. Junkyard, palleted barrels full of waste PCB oil. The range of recovered liquid or oil was broad, including road dust suppression, however toxic.
Not only did Attaway lack a warrant, he lacked enforcement authority, barring minimal bully puppet
effects attributable to three written patient histories prepared by OU dermatologists and Carl Nau, MD. Regardless, Attaway accepted the Junkyard assignment.
A faded, sun-bleached sign announced the junkyard, similarly two concrete pillars funneled sellers through its chain link-concertina wire opening. Swinging the car’s door open and exiting, Attaway deliberately left the key behind, the car door left similarly unlocked. Whether in Crescent, Cushing or Oklahoma City, hospitality afforded a clipboard-carrying AfricanAmerican male varied. He noisily shuffled across Housecamp’s steps and porch.
Noting him standing there, Housecamp waved Attaway in. ‘Given you didn’t arrive in a truck, I know you aren’t here to scrap, so what can we help you with?’
Attaway smiled, introducing himself, he explained how he worked for a medical center physician, adding he was not an OSHA inspector. Instead, he produced a handful of photos, mostly applicable to a single worker’s darkly complected nose dotted by chloracne-type skin lesions.
Clasping the Polaroid image, Housecamp doubled down. ‘I just hire them. I can’t force people to wash or bathe so if they get oil on themselves, there’s not a lot I for me to do.’
Attaway deferred, only adding he was there to prepare a written summary of possible remedies ahead of his boss’ and the dermatologists’ review.
Housecamp provided a plan. ‘What if I add a hot line to the existing cold-water lavatory feed and push the wash-up issue with them. Would that suit your physician boss?’
‘Sounds good, could I get a better number to reach you here?’ Handing him a business card, Attaway read. Top prices paid – Transformers, Junk Cars, Unwanted Metal.
Housecamp came up with a related idea, although one less well received. ‘You and your boss wouldn’t like to buy a hundred gallons of waste transformer oil, would you? What a deal I could make.’ Attaway wondered if Housecamp’s wife knew him more as a Roy or a Royal.
Upon his return, Attaway adapted restroom towels to shoe cleaning, after that similarly soap-and-water scrubbing hands, wrists and arms. Glancing in the mirror, he ensured no facial eruptions had arisen since his 10th St. Junkyard visit.
Thanksgiving 1977
Oklahomans often applied city designators to newly settled places, beginning with their capitol, but similarly so for Cimarron City, close to a second Logan county encampment, Crescent, Oklahoma (1899).
Even executive branch transitions created labeling changes. The storied Atomic Energy Commission switched its letterhead in 1975, redesignated as the newly-described Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Notwithstanding its Cimarron City label, Oklahomans associated the Kerr-McGee plutonium processing facility with the Crescent town. Numbering among a handful of African-American families, Crescent’s pioneering Ozby’s often viewed prosperity in geographic terms, more land, assured greater financial security.
Within family circles Alastair Ozby was also known as A-2, regardless he became a Douglas high school standout before joining his older sibling, Attaway, A-1, at Philander Smith College. Past baccalaureate status,
their career paths split, Attaway’s more academically oriented and Alastair’s centering on professional sport.
Alastair’s wife apparently penned persuasive appeals to the Harlem Globetrotters, given the team’s managers afforded Alastair what became a successful tryout. Alastair Globetrotter Metromedia handlers quickly repackaged him as Alastair the Hook Ozby.
Summa cum laude designated Attaway returned to Oklahoma, accepted at the University of Oklahoma Medical Center for further doctoral studies. Despite obvious differences, the Ozby brothers’ respective paths converged in terms of overall objectives, established Harlem Globetrotter star and full professional status conferred by OU’s highest degree.
Crescent-based Thanksgiving homecomings featured a family meal and an early Christmas gift exchange, necessitated by A-2’s December playing schedule. Alastair would shortly join the Globetrotters to tour worldwide for the nearly five months.
Following a prolonged blessing and an even longer sitdown meal, most present adjourned to view televised parades and a traditional Dallas Cowboy Thanksgiving Day game. But A-1 and A-2 had business, choosing the house’s porch as a conversational center. Thanksgiving 1978 dawned chilly, although not cold, making the porch a good place for a talk.
‘Things going good for you with the GT’s,’ Attaway’s shortened Globetrotter reference.
Alastair followed.‘ You might say that, just the usual fifty anonymous hotel rooms and nearly that many flights to twenty places that I don’t call home.’
‘How about you, gonna’ stick with the academic thing.’
Before A-1 could respond, Alastair offered an alternative. ‘I’ve researched opportunities back East for somebody with your skillset. You get interested in coming out my way, I’ll put out feelers with our Metromedia owners who are definitely business-savvy.’
Attaway shared a more local focus. ‘Thanks, but I’m going to stick with Nau and the research institute, possibly add some teaching time at the Midwest City junior college. Most of the students at Oscar Rose look more like you and me, the medical center, more vanilla, less chocolate.’
During the off-season, Alastair left his Globetrotterthemed Oldsmobile with his brother. Thus, A-1 piloted the Globetrotter-themed Cutlass, its floor-mounted seat rail extending the vehicle’s front seat by four inches, an accommodation to Globetrotter legs. I-35’s southbound Wichita-to-Oklahoma City traffic faced Attaway as he drove north to Cushing, Oklahoma.
Alastair had solidified his role as a recognized Harlem Globetrotter star. Despite sports acclaim, A-2 hadn’t lost his country likeability, often noting ‘Globetrotter business doesn’t change who or what I am, I still have my brother’s back.’
His and Alastair’s earlier Donkey Ball experiences mostly conformed with expectations, two young black men ferrying farm animals, even in a converted bus, was broadly accepted across Oklahoma. Attaway had fit reasonably well in his university role, although with
periodic growing pains. He felt supported by his laboratory-based colleagues, Coleman and Mill, even Nau was generally approachable.
But his role as a black professional at a predominately white medical center was more of the exception rather than a rule. An embarrassing situation arose when a patient had mistaken him for a parking lot attendant. A newly hired female faculty member had also requested Attaway restock the lady’s room paper supplies. More amused than offended, he told her that he didn’t have a key to the supply closet, she left speechless, but hopefully more informed.
This trip owed origins to letters penned by Cushing’s sixth graders, young people concerns about impacts surrounding a mostly abandoned Hudson oil refinery. Their handwritten missives suggested that its locked, decaying presence constituted a perceived threat.
Prior to his departure, Attaway had reviewed a NIOSHNational Institute for Occupational Health document addressing refinery contaminants, mainly fire and explosion hazards, plus what the documents authors termed friable (releasable) asbestos. He had also spoken to a state Water Pollution Coordinating Committee specialist who had shared Hudson-derived summaries. Not unlike Kerr-McGee plutonium processing, most matters Hudson reflected reporting shortfalls, perhaps ethical breeches, too.
Cushing was a relatively small Oklahoma town housing about eight thousand residents. At its school district office, he was met by an assistant superintendent who introduced himself before offering a day-long schedule, a fence line tour preceding a meeting with the sixth graders, likely attended by some concerned town people, too.
The superintendent drove him to the refinery site where they parked and began to walk fence lines. Through a chain link fence Attaway photographed combinations of deteriorating refinery catwalk structures, asbestos-clad piping assemblies plus some rusted oil storage units.
Upon their return, his Cushing contact shared that he had ordered take-out pizza and salad for their supper. No matter, Attaway had brought a bologna sandwich complemented by a bag of Guy’s chips, companions to a two-gallon gas can. Donkey bus or an Oldsmobile, lunch bucket food and spare gas decreased probabilities of unplanned stops in unfamiliar surroundings..
The meeting began with the sixth-grade teacher introducing class members who read their letters. The meeting resembled a high school speech contest: Presentations, applause, additional presentations, more clapping, proud parents. As the students spoke, Attaway took notes, more of a concession to politeness than something more required.
With the meeting’s conclusion, he doubled down that their environmental health institute would be in touch with multiple federal and state agencies to find out what could be done and how much of remediation costs would be borne by governmental agencies.
Attaway also described an amendment to the 1965 Solid Waste Disposal Act, something he termed the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, RCRA. But not wanting to oversell, he admitted implementation steps for RCRA had not been shared . Reviewing further opportunities to outline a companion Toxic Substances Control Act, TSCA as it was termed, he declined.
As the meeting shortly adjourned, he joined others there in the parking lot. A Cushing father, recognizing the relatively unusual Ozby surname, inquired. ‘Are you related to the Globetrotting Ozby?’
Pointing to the Cutlass’ rather distinctive blue over red and white paint scheme, Attaway added more detail than what that man anticipated. ‘Yes, he’s A-2 but I’m still A-1.’
Nau’s network expanded but not always as he might have liked. His occupational medicine role at OU was unique, accurate across Oklahoma, too. Yes, FAA hired occupational physicians, plus flight surgeons were posted to Tinker, but neither group served Oklahoma’s environmental patients, much less provided solutions to statewide environmentally-based challenges.
Original interest in what Oklahomans termed the Silkwood matter, moved from car crash theories to broader safety concerns surrounding Kerr-McGee’s plutonium processing operations.
Conservative Richard Nixon had remarkably signed two key pieces of 1970-era legislation, first creating the Environmental Protection Agency before authorizing an
enforcement arm designated as OSHA inside the cabinet-level Department of Labor.
These steps contrasted with Oklahoma’s dated 1915-era workers’ compensation law, one restricting benefits to those working in what the act defined as hazardous industries. While females constituted nearly forty per cent of Oklahoma’s workforce, workers’ compensation regulations oddly favored descriptions of workmen.
An OU civil engineering professor, Dr. Larry Canter, had originated, and later validated, a basis for environmental impact assessments. Despite Canter’s presence in nearby Norman, the Oklahoma City public works department pursued a poorly understood, oftentimes confusing course. The public work department’s decision to expand a Nichols Hills sewage digestor up wind of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum created a vile, repulsive air shed, one that dispatched all but the most dedicated of Frederic Remington sculpture admirers. Similarly, museum staff were left gasping, sometimes even breathless.
Across Oklahoma, asphalt road and parking lot construction projects became a paver’s road to riches. Curiously, asphalt road pavers were compensated to accept refinery still residues (per distillation) as if they were hazardous waste processors. Pavers bled tarry liquid aliquots into a broader hot-asphalt streams, placing them in the enviable position of being handsomely compensated for accepting hydrocarbon fractions they promptly sold.
What if a county commissioner required a consideration (cash-only) fee to secure a lucrative road construction contract. As one paver explained ‘…just the cost of doing business.’
Similarly, the concrete paving crowd courted Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen and Alabama Representative Tom Bevill, seeking regulatory relief even ahead of passage of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Yes, the RCRA remedy Attaway had dangled before Cushing’s citizenry and letter-writing sixth graders.
Nau’s clinical mastery did not surprise Attaway but a second arrow in Nau’s quiver did. Why was the softspoken Nau so universally successful in getting his way, whether in meetings or conferences, Nau invariably prevailed.
In short, Attaway concluded. Nau never let off the gas.
February 1977
Nau had seen three patients suffering from an unusual toxicity, one in which herpes virus-related infections were reactivated by more recent solvent re-exposures. While he only infrequently accompanied Nau to clinic, Attaway performed industrial follow-ups, often estimating the extent of chemical exposures and other times providing strategies for their reduction.
Nau asked the patient-workers to collect what he termed MSDS,’ more completely, material safety data sheets, ones Nau claimed could help unravel the origins of chemical exposures. All three supplied a stack of MSDSrelated paperwork. Nau and Attaway adapted a break room table to sort through the stacked papers. While dozens of chemical names and designators were outlined, one entry stood out, TCE, or more formally, trichloroethylene.
The TCE listing troubled Nau. First, his previous encounter with the chemical had occurred during early medical corps years, when an Army anesthesiology instructor had described the chemical as a secondary anesthetic, a war-time stand-in for more accepted volatile agents such as halothane or even enflurane.
Nau wondered how an approved drug could be responsible for these solvent toxicity cases?
Upon their Oklahoma City arrival, the Nau’s had purchased an elegant stucco-clad home in a close-in neighborhood designated as Mesta Park. Carl Nau numbered among twenty Mesta-based clinicians. none more colorful than his across-the-street pal, Anesthesia Bob, the inimitable AB.
Robert Bob Smith, MD and Nau both served on University’s and Children’s hospitals’ house staffs but their bond was more a result of shared Lake Hefner trail rucks. Given both of their sons were Eagle Scouts, they were joined by their physician - Scout master fathers each summer at New Mexico’s Philmont Scout Ranch.
AB’s greatest strength was that he liked medical topics, often sharing fresh findings with residents or even with house staff. Nau knew any inquiry directed AB’s way generated an informative, thoughtful response.
Here came Nau. ‘AB, I’ve seen a patient trio, each reactivating Human Herpes Virus Six, two have had upper respiratory infections while the third has a rash. They are similarly employed, mostly performing aviation maintenance procedures, fire extinguishers I believe.’
‘Attaway and I dug through a pile of MSDS documents, ones suggesting trichloroethylene exposures, otherwise termed TCE.’
Nau neglected to identify his prior TCE experience, confident would AB would fill in blanks. He was right, here came AB. ‘Ah, our old friend Trilene.’
Having no idea what that meant, Nau constructed a universal inquiry. ‘Huh?’
AB and a disclaimer. ‘Well, I don’t know anything about aviation maintenance but the anesthesiology community enjoys a love-hate relationship with TCE or Trilene according to its commercial designation. ’
‘We don’t care for its toxicity, mainly liver, some heart effects, too but that’s also true for better-accepted halothane. TCE won’t scrub out of our machines but to its credit, Trilene is inexpensive, possibly important during wartime.’
Nau followed. ‘Do you have experience suggesting this TCE can reactivate infections? And what kinds of levels or concentrations apply when used as an anesthetic?’
Full-on, Anesthesia Bob. ‘A lot we don’t know and probably won’t, given its use has been largely discontinued. When bled in at 0.3-0.5%, the mixture yields breathable concentrations approximating five thousand parts per million.’
If AB’s strength were an encyclopedic knowledge, his weakness was a limited attention span, shortly advancing toward Scout-related concerns. ‘Do you intend to break in boots ahead of our Hefner rucks,’
Anesthesia Bob at his best.
During a second Attaway meeting, Nau shared that two of the virus-reactivating patients were of JapaneseAmerican heritage, one from New Mexico’s Holloman Air Force Base along with a Midwest City female refurbishing aircraft-adapted fire suppression systems.
Listening to his boss, Attaway took notes. ‘Japanese American - Female - USAF – Tinker.’
Looking up, he saw Nau grinning, perhaps suggesting it was time for a straight man prompt. ‘So?’
‘I may have disappointed her because my Nau surname isn’t Japanese, perhaps not the second-generation Nisei lineage she expected. Anyway, query your Tinker counterparts to see what they know about TCE.’
Neither noted that Falcon Industries, not the local Air Force base, was the woman’s employer-of-record. Anyway, Nau could be a funny guy.
February 1978
Policies for naming military bases vary by service. The Air Force usually names posts in honor of leaders, Eglin and March, Rickenbacker, too, while the Army mixes leaders’ names with locations, Leonard Wood and Leavenworth. The Navy and Marine Corps largely ignored former leaders in favor of location designators, some of a nautical nature, hence, Port Hueneme.
Midwest City’s Air Depot site had previously accommodated a Douglas aircraft manufacturing plant. Its 1948 Tinker designator honored Pawhuska’s distinguished son, Major General Clarence L. Tinker, lost in a 1942 LB-30 Liberator raid targeting Wake Island-based Japanese forces.
For hundreds of Oklahomans, if sharecropping were a pre-war vocation, then Tinker-field employment was its successor. Possibly to rival Dallas, Oklahoma City’s leaders annexed semi-rural properties across nearly six hundred square miles, irritating their counterparts in nearby Midwest and even Del City.
Strong winds are said to favor aircraft testing and development, where better than central Oklahoma, given fourteen mile per hour annual windspeeds. While Wichita leaders emphasized their airport’s mid-continent
location, Oklahoma City memorialized aviation pioneers, Wiley Post and Will Rogers, naming its two airports in their honor.
Characteristics of Tinker Air Force base’s work force guided the new Midwest City college. While nearly all Air Force officers had previously mastered figure and write exercises such as those associated with integral calculus and literature classes, that wasn’t the case for its enlisted airmen nor many of its civilian workers. Nevertheless, climbing an aviation career ladder meant being able to figure and write.
While motion pictures depicted students strolling wooded paths to lightly-attended classrooms, the Rose collegiate experience markedly differed. Instead, anxious Rose learners peeked in lecture hall windows even before the previous lecturer concluded, eyeing further seating selections. Sadly, even marginal tardiness risked inviting ridicule by tapping on an intentionally locked classroom door or skipping an evening session altogether.
As students departed fifty-minute class sessions, eraserwielding instructors energetically scrubbed chalk boards. Within minutes, spaces previously dedicated to Maternal and child health turned their attention to Principles of plumbing.
That evening Attaway had described colligative properties, noting that certain solutions are altered by the presence of dissolved substances ones he defined as active solutes. While most class attendees prepared chemical solutions at work, they remained at least mildly interested in the topic. While hardly colligative experts, some were also familiar with Mil-Specs, the government’s performance standards intended to qualify military materials, chemicals among them.
Attaway watched a first-row Japanese-American female creating meticulous, albethey tiny cursive notes. But having overrun his fifty-minute time allotment, he neglected questions and answers, mostly preparing to depart the campus.
However, the Nisei female caught up on an adjacent breezeway, one faintly illuminated by sub-optimal tincan lighting fixtures. Dr. Ozby, could you entertain a question?
Accommodating the breezeway-based inquiry… ‘Sure.’
‘Do undissolved solids alter colligative property-derived melting or boiling points?’
Attaway responded. ‘Colligative-based changes are limited to active dissolved substances. Possibly, minor effects from undissolved solids, not much there.’
Her post-class passion perhaps piqued curiosity on his part, too. ‘Does this question have origins in a Tinker-based or Mil-Spec protocol?’
‘Yes and no. I’m at Falcon Industries, an off-post vendor, where we use Type 2 TCE solvent to clean and refurbish aviation fire suppression systems. Per the Mil-Spec, we recycle the solvent until it discolors and picks up particles, making it unusable.’
Even given dim breezeway-furnish lighting, Attaway detected a slight rash on her cheeks, maybe the bridge of her nose, too, wondering what role TCE might have played in producing those lesions.
The odd A-1 and A-2 nicknames had arisen as a family joke, All-Star A-2 Alastair, Globetrotter appropriate
certainly, and Th-Attaway, characterizing an investigative, detective-like persona.
Thus, here came Th-Attaway. ‘So, what do they do with the waste TCE?’
More abbreviations and further giggles. ‘Well, our foreman marks the 5-gallon TCE cans as WB-WK. ’
Amused but uninformed, Th-Attaway. ‘WB-WK?’
‘He translates WB-WK as World’s Best - Weed Killer, frequently disposing of it near roof and fence lines. Who knows, maybe our foreman takes solvent home for similar uses and purposes.’
Again, Attaway. ‘My duties include minimizing, other times even eliminating, hazardous exposures. Would your foreman, Falcon’s management for that matter, let me help reduce solvent-related exposures?’
‘Can’t say for sure but I can ask. Regardless, I’m back here Thursday for class.’
Nau’s TCE – WB-WK - Trilene dilemma was thus deconstructed by two A-listers, AB and A-1.
Early May 1978
Historical accounts fail to document bicycle-related contributions to the Oklahoma 1889 Land Rush, although the machines existed, whether Karl von Drais’ kicker (1818) or the penny farthing high wheeler (1860). Continental references frequently termed bicycles wheels and similarly described acts of riding as wheeling. Wheels and beyond, Oklahoma’s Land Run depended upon covered and uncovered springboard wagons.
Attaway hadn’t driven to the college on a late May Sunday morning to participate in a Land Run reenactment, he came to participate in a statewide bicycle ride, one termed Oklahoma’s Grand Tour. He embraced two objectives, certainly enjoy the roads but also interact with a predominately white crowd enjoying what its thirty participants regarded as a bicycle-based vacation.
The Rose baseball coach hired for the ride’s logistical support directed them into back lot parking spaces.
Plans were for Coach to drive a follow bus, loaded with personal effects, perhaps also to rescue anyone with a mechanical or more physiologically-based problem. Seeing the bus laden with athletic gear made Attaway smile, no donkeys, although familiar enough.
Coach and a second sag bus would return them to the parking lot following four riding days. Sixty-to-ninetymile riding segments would separate their nightly bivouacs.
From Midwest City they would make their way east to Okemah. On their second day they would depart for Bristow preceding a night in Sand Springs. On their third day, they would pedal Sand Springs to Bartlesville ahead of a concluding Bartlesville to Tonkawa segment and a bus ride back to Midwest City.
While the distances were considered minimal for experienced bike riders, they were also intended allow riders of varying abilities to successfully complete the four-day journey. Distributing turn-by-turn que sheets, Coach reinforced the importance of recognizing the day’s collection point, Okemah’s Woody Guthrie statue.
Given few cars in SE 15th eastbound lanes prior to their 7:30 a.m. start, they all rolled out single file. Attaway selected an intermediate position, maintaining a comfortable distance between the lead riders and the trailing bus, or as some termed it, their sag wagon Lanterne Rouge (Fr. red lantern).
Oklahoma’s Shawnee split the day’s planned distance, with a continuation to Okemah. The May morning proved uncharacteristically warm, prompting repeat water bottle and canteen refills.
Almost three hours later they regrouped for lunch at an unused Shawnee service station. Attaway noted it had likely fallen victim to self-service trends and restrictive OPEC(oil-producing country) policies. Noting a faint petroleum-like odor, he also questioned whether the deteriorating station contained leaking gas storage tanks. Given the place’s age, beyond its gasoline features, what about lead (Pb) content.
Lunch complete, the Grand Tourers departed for Henrietta. Oklahoma’s relatively dry, rolling countryside featured clusters of scrub oaks and small cedars, less frequently interrupted by driveway turnouts or oil drilling vestiges.
Daylight retreating, single or paired riders neared Woody Guthrie’s birthplace, the town of Okemah. Anticipating their arrival Coach had prepared a steel grate wood fire, one appropriate to grilled hamburgers and hot dogs. Yes, he had also brought celery sticks and carrot spears bonused by ranch dressing for the single vegetarian present.
Even though there were three married couples among the mostly unaccompanied riders, organizers chose gender-specific, barracks-style accommodations. Coach had reserved four suites for males plus two double rooms bonused by fold-down beds for touring females. Three individuals had also brought sleeping tents, choosing to bed down in city parks before overworking motel showers each morning.
Day two, the Okemah to Sand Springs run, was interrupted by a Bristow-based lunch stop dawned clear, but again warm. A light southerly breeze favored their progress although second day status created assorted aches and strains, a lot of muscle tenderness, too.
The spouse of a more enthusiastic male participant joined Coach in the bus, foregoing biking. Lunch in Bristow turned was more than most anticipated. Coach had apparently phoned his Bristow counterpart who had enlisted four energetic Bristow cheerleaders in preparing a light buffet, egg salad sandwiches and tangy Cole slaw. Yes, chilled lemonade and Arnold Palmer drink selections provided a welcome alternative to tepid water bottle drink mixtures.
Perhaps self-conscious about her non-riding status, the non-riding female bus rider declined an entree until Attaway insisted; they split an egg salad on toast.
Bristow could have been as easily designated as Oil City given it hosted two fallow petroleum refineries and a nearby fuel farm. Recalling his Cushing visit, Attaway wondered whether Bristow’s sixth graders shared similar concerns. Passing an abandoned Pierce Petroleum refinery that afternoon, Attaway realized Sand Springs matched Bristow in terms of abandoned refineries, two each.
That evening under Sand Springs’ stars, Coach provided guitar accompaniment as two dozen bicyclers belted their way through Bob Wills’ Take me back to Tulsa, I’m too young to marry. Bicycle tours invariably include someone proclaiming special route insights, a Geological Survey male predicted punchy hills ahead of Bartlesville.
North of Skiatook wind joined forces with the described punchy hills, forcing most to walk steep hills ahead of angry head winds. No stranger to athletic shortfalls, Coach declared Tuesday a shopping day, offering to buscarry those interested into Bartlesville’s novel Pennington Heights shopping center.
For the moment declining the shopping alternative, Attaway pedaled on, albeit slowly, using windy solitude to judge whether Bartlesville’s western neighborhoods had been impacted by an early-1900 zinc smelter sited there. By three o’clock that afternoon, combinations of sun, wind and hills caused him to mellow sufficiently to load his Mondia bike onto Coach’s bus.
While a rider minority nominated a Mexican all-youcan-eat buffet as a dinner option, Coach reminded them of barracks-like sleeping arrangements, fortunately, calmer minds prevailed. Instead, Bartlesville’s Fortune Chinese served up signature egg rolls complemented by heaping rice and noodle entrees.
Following three days on the road, Grand Tour-ers felt and looked different. Beyond chamois short- and jerseysleeve defined tans they had grown to like one other, a possible Three Musketeer benefit, Attaway as much as anyone else.
The fourth, and final, Grand Tour day would see them pedaling westward, traversing Oklahoma tribal lands. A midday lunch was slated for Pawhuska, again the birthplace of General Clarence Tinker. From there, they would pass through Osage County, rendezvousing that evening in a second Osage-derived town, Tonkawa, Oklahoma.
In Tonkawa an assistant coach-turned bus driver and Coach collected them before his assistant inverted bike pairs, carefully strapping bicycle-based dyads to a single bus seat. Southbound I-35 motorists likely wondered why an otherwise empty school bus carried upside-down bicycles.
Tour accomplished, Attaway stretched out, re-joining a sixty mile-per-hour highway world, abandoning a more
visually-attractive fourteen mile-per-hour pace. Yes, he had enjoyed interacting with a mostly white crowd, making a mental note to bring ear plugs should he participate again, protection against some champion white snorers.
May 1978
Military kids often encounter trouble making friends with town kids when non-military parents attempt to shield their offspring. Don’t get too close, they will move away soon. But shielding didn’t apply to Robbie Risner’s five sons growing up in Warr Acres, Oklahoma.
Given the aviator’s Tulsa childhood, it wasn’t surprising that (then) Lt. Colonel JR and Kathleen Risner chose Warr Acres as an address. As a northwest Oklahoma City suburb, Warr Acres was generally rated as quiet and secure.
Across nearly seven and a half years of Risner’s POW confinement, his Warr Acres neighbors demonstrated unwavering support for the family and for the distinguished aviator’s release. Whether surrounding
the Risner release or other causes, Oklahomans increasingly embraced participatory models.
Events surrounding Karen Silkwood’s contamination and death fueled additional risk- and safety-based questions, ones extending beyond the fuels industry or even its larger nuclear energy sponsor.
James F. Frosty Troy and his Oklahoma Observer curiously applied a Jesuit-derived mantra of comforting the afflicted while afflicting the comfortable, whatever that meant. Kerr-McGee safety policies would not escape Frosty Troy’s scrutiny.
Regional newspapers joined big outlets like the New York Times and Rolling Stone magazine in producing cheesy headlines.
Revisiting Silkwood’s Wild Behavior in the OKC Paseo District
Domestic Violence Charges Filed against Plutonium Plant Guard
Highway Patrol Shake-up Tied to Silkwood Failures
Prior to Silkwood, many Oklahoma-based events went unreported beyond its borders although Silkwood temporarily placed the state under a figurative microscope. Pundits asked in near unison. ‘When will the Silkwood civil matter go to trial?’
Gerald Gerry Spence, Jackson Hole, Wyoming’s flamboyant litigator had been spotted at the Wiley Post airport. An enterprising Journal reporter confirmed that Spence’s Beechcraft Bonanza had been moved into a long-term storage hangar, suggesting Spence was in town for a while.
Mass-goers at Oklahoma City’s St. Monica’s, a tiny African-American church, welcomed Washington, DCbased Jesuits, prelates claiming to have been enlisted as part of a recent environmental justice movement.
The possibility that the Kee-McGee management team would be called to task over repeat, possibly even willful, safety violations became big news, Oklahoma and beyond. Similarly, broad environmental impacts linked to other major manufacturing facilities were similarly questioned.
While Midwest City had had mostly originated as a bedroom adjunct to Tinker Air Force base, its civic leaders increasingly sought state-level recognition for their growing community. In 1967 Midwest City received a relatively minor streets improvement award from the Oklahoma Good Roads and Streets council.
Crest Foods’ Nick Harroz, auto magnate Paul Hudiburg and Humpty-Dumpty exec Sylvan Goldman joined forces to promote Midwest City. Why not, development would likely boost sales of Chevrolets, groceries, too.
The promotional team suggested a minor course correction, one that would redesignate Midwest City as Oklahoma’s Model City. Midwest City homeowners, frequently wage-grade Air Force employees, cheered thunderous B-52-based takeoffs, the Sound of Freedom, were mainly angered by revelations surrounding Tinker Air Force base-derived cleaning-pit contaminants.
Beachler-IGA and Humpty-Dumpty shoppers agreed that neither a Model nor a Midwest City would expose youthful creek waders, nor even excavators, to a poorly characterized, toxic waste. Their concerns expanded as lists of hard-to-pronounce Tinker pit-derived chemicals lengthened. Some had apparently originated in aircraft
part degreasing operations while others were more characteristic of fire-fighting or associated drills. Tinkerderived chemicals were further identified in nearby Soldier Creek, even more critically, below grade, in Oklahoma’s Garber-Wellington aquifer.
Like Warr Acres residents campaigning for Risner’s release or even Mesta Park Matrons for Safer Streets, Midwest City mothers united behind a common cause
While the Tinker base commander most likely would have hosted a public information session, the MC Moms didn’t particularly view a base-centered discussion as sufficiently open. Sunny Lane Baptist similarly declined a meeting room request, citing a Bible class conflict. The Mid-Del school superintendent, Oscar Rose’s successor there opted out, too, questioning the presence of those he described a vocally troublesome.
A Model City Mom suggested contacting OU, referring to its medical center. Following a switchboard reroute, Nau’s secretary took her call, indicating her boss would return her call. Typical of academic physicians, Nau’s work day lasted into the early evening, often a good time to return calls, often finding callers at home for dinner.
Nau listened as the Model City Mom related concerns, if not worries, surrounding aquifer and creek issues assuring her someone named Attaway, would help them find a suitable meeting place, adding this Dr. Ozby possessed multiple ties to their city.
The morning following Nau’s call-back, Attaway popped his bike in the Cutlass’ trunk, planning to leave it with his friend Coy Minatra for the lightweight
Mondia’s post-Tour tune-up. Arriving on SE 15th St., Attaway was met by the bicycle store’s proprietor and his friend, Coy Minatra.
To needle Attaway, Coy inquired. How’s your much better-known Globetrotting brother doing these days?
Attaway matched Coy’s barb. ‘Can I use your phone to talk to someone important, let the office know where I am?’
Coy handed over the telephone, joking Attaway could leave a quarter. Connected, Attaway listened as Nau’s assistant relayed the meeting room request. In fact, Coy listened, too, grinning through predictable Sunny Lane and Mid-Del school declinations. Perhaps the series of disappointments and miscommunications encouraged Coy to help, if in an unusual manner.
He didn’t understand why Coy commandeered the phone’s handset. ‘This is Mr. Minatra, proprietor of a fine two thousand square foot bicycle shop facing Midwest City’s southeast 15th St. Tell the Model City Moms they can have their meeting here, free-of-charge, naturally. ’
A further Coy contention. ‘Maybe Moms buy bikes, too.’
Retrieving the handset, Attaway asked for the caller’s number so he and the newly-introduced Mr. Minatra could offer Coy’s store as a potential meeting place. Yes, his morning had been productive, his Mondia-badged bike checked-in for its post-Tour tune-up, plus the Model City Moms could rest easier, Coy came to their aid.
Before departing, Coy presented Attaway with a claim check, scheduling a bike pick-up date. ‘I’ll have your bike tuned by their meeting night. I assume you’ll be here for the meeting, too.’
...the last time he saw Attaway alive.
POSTSCRIPT: THE TALK REVISITED
Late summer 1978
Per homicides, the first issue is that of motive. For the love of God, why did Attaway’s hospitality lead to his death. The detective’s personality clash eventually proved informative, if not useful.
The female member of the team remained troubled why Attaway’s wallet had been left behind, even a Coy Cyclery repair stub for a Mondia bicycle and cash remained, even after Ronald Ronnie Jackson departed in Attaway’s Globetrotter-themed Cutlass.
Why would a career criminal steal a car but ignore the billfold contents? Furthermore, why was Attaway at the Talk. While not entirely ruling out down low behavior, she believed the series of ensuing events remained largely unexplained.
Within twenty-four hours of his slaying, a second death answered some questions while raising others. Rather than a high-speed chase, accused killer Ronald Ronnie Jackson likely fell asleep in a stolen Oldsmobile west of Elk City, Oklahoma, striking a bridge abutment.
The investigators entering the Talk that summer evening weren’t police officers, the first was a middle-aged OU
physician, Carl Nau, accompanied by the surviving Ozby sibling, Alastair. The novelty of a tall athletic African-American male accompanied by a smaller, bespectacled newcomer paused most conversations, temporarily suspending an on-going 8-ball game, too.
Finding a seat near the bar’s opening, Nau motioned for Alastair to join him there. Like other neighborhood places, the Talk posted obits on a glass-doored beer cold case. Reflective of an older clientele, Attaway’s obit appeared below three more recent entries.
Attaway E. Ozby - Sunrise 1938 – Sunset June 1978.
Attaway’s accomplishments, those originating in Crescent and extending beyond Philander Smith to OU’s Environmental Health Research Institute, were eclipsed by a single defining statement.
A brother in need is a brother, indeed. Attaway.
John Thomas Pierce was born and raised in southeast Kansas, grandson and son of pioneering Sandy Ridge farmers. A researcher and a physician, he has practiced public health on four continents. This is his fifth book, the first two being technical entries applicable to industrial hygiene and toxicology, published by the National Safety Council and the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists, respectively.
His third volume, Hospital Safari (Leathers Publishing, 2005) described sub-Saharan public health and medical care applicable during an era of global HIV prevention and treatment efforts. Between 2017 and 2020 he wrote and distributed Million Dollar Speedway, a Kansas Citybased account. In 2023 he self-published One-hundred Foot Drop, a narrative account of a female aviation pioneer’s Tennessee Valley-based environmental contributions.