Movie’ on up.

More about The Nevada Club. Oh by the way many people mispronounce Nevada. The correct pronunciation is Nevada not Nevahda

Anyway we had some real funny events while we were operating the Nevada Club and some weren’t so funny. The one i’m about to relate falls under the not so funny. If you’ll recall I told you we had Gerald Roberts playing guitar and Gary Anderson playing drums. Well we hadn’t been there long when Gary Anderson quit and we hired Dickie Wardlow. Well at the time Gerald was the agriculture teacher at Moss. The administrators at Moss decided it wasn’t good for a teacher to be working in a terrible old night club and made him quit. So now we’re looking for a guitar player. Lo and behold one night who walks in but Richard Grissom. He was at the time a beautician in Oklahoma City and was thinking about moving back to Holdenville and opening a shop. We visited with him on break and asked him if he would be interested in working with us. We decided to have him up on stage and do a few songs to see if it would be a fit. It so happened our former drummer and his family were in the crowd that night. After the first song as we were trying to get ready for the next song I was on the mic and Gary Anderson came up to the stage. I popped off to him ” get ready you’re next”. I really didn’t mean it and don’t even know why I said it. Richard did a couple more songs and we finished up for the night. I never gave any more thought to my remark to Gary Anderson. Well. When I started out the door on Omy way home Gary Anderson, his mother and dad were all waiting for me. Gary came over and got in my face. His dad got between us and asked me to go back inside until he got him calmed down. I started back inside and then made a bad mistake. I turned and went back to him. My thinking was we had been friends I should be able to make this right. He told me I had embarrassed him before his family because I said he could sit in and then didn’t follow through. I continued to try to reason with him to no avail. He insisted he was gonna ‘ whip my ass” , his words, and I kept trying to talk sense to him. I started walking backwards and he continued punching me in the chest telling me what all he was gonna do to me. I was thinking man you gotta make a decision here . He is younger, bigger, and stronger if he gets the first lick you are in trouble. So after a few more steps I smacked him in the face, it startled him and I was able to get him on the ground. I was on top of him doing my business when his mother jumped on my back and was clawing at my throat. Now that must have been a sight but at the time it wasn’t funny. I was trying to get her off of me and fight him at the same time. By that time the folks inside came out and were running around trying to figure out what to do. Gary, Gerald and Kenneth were running around in some sort of a daze so I shouted out ” Gary dammit hit somebody”. Speaking to Gary Sullivan . Finally someone pulled her off of me and I got up and backed off. Bad mistake. Gary Sullivan and The father were in a face off over by the cars. I saw the dad grab Gary Sullivan ln a bear hug and while his arms were pinned Gary Anderson knocked hell out of him. I charged him and was able to get the better of him again this time I wasn’t gonna let him up. Somebody kept the others off of me and I was able to make him promise to stay down. About this time Ricki let me know they had called the police and I should probably get out of there. I got out of there. I later learned the three of them went to jail. A couple nights later Gary said. ” you know we have only had a couple of fights over here but you’ve been involved in both of them”. This after I jumped in to defend him. Ungrateful I’d say. Let me tell you about my friend Gary Sullivan when it comes to fighting. He just don’t want to fight. He’s bull strong. He has hands the size of platters. He has a vice grip but he just doesn’t believe in fighting. One night I saw a guy blind side him. I mean hit him hard. Gary turned around and was saying ” I dont want to fight you”. Then when he swung again Gary knocked him down. All the time pleading with the guy to stop. That’s just him. Me on the other hand ,the incident I just described wasn’t the last one involving me at the Nevada Club. We wouldn’t have had any trouble at all if I’d have stayed home.

Our life back home was continuing to evolve. Gary always had business ideas. We worked hard to move on up, make more money and improve our lives. He opened a car lot, he later opened a body shop, then a muffler shop. He had a love of cars and always seemed to somehow be in a business having to do with cars. I,on the other hand seemed to always be just looking for a better job. Kingsbury homes, had come to town and Susan had gone to work there. I heard about a job opening there and started trying to get the job. Through the Nevada Club we had become acquainted with the manager there. He kept telling me they wanted to hire “within” for the position. It was a traveling job so lots of people weren’t interested. Finally one night about eight pm he called me and asked me to go eat dinner with him in Wewoka. After dinner, at about 10 pm he finally offered me the job and asked if I could go to Sherman Texas the next morning and be there at 8 am. With some effort I made it. I ended up working for him for quite some time and learned his ways. Thank you Fayne Lindsey you helped me when I really needed it. We became friends and I really liked and admired him.

Another funny Nevada Club story. I hope it’s ok to tell some of these stories. I try to keep them positive and not portray people in a bad light. All the people in the previous story are deceased. The upcoming story involves people still living but no harm should come of it.

A friend of mine had applied and been selected to join the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. He was in the highway patrol academy when this happened. It was the holiday season and he had been sent to his home county to ride with the troopers as a cadet for part of his training. Now you gotta realize as in the previous story some employers didn’t think their employees should be in night clubs. This was definitely true of troopers. Well News Years Eve rolled around and I look out in the crowd and see my trooper cadet friend in the crowd. On our break I asked him if he was supposed to be there. He admitted he shouldn’t but he had decided to have some fun. Some how the troopers in the area were tipped off he was there. I look up and see six or eight troopers come in the front door. Usually when they came in they just hung around up front, maybe drinking a coke or whatever but this time they seemed to be surveying the crowd. We took a break. The Stage in the club was large and was about four feet high. I quickly found my buddy, it was a very large crowd, and hid him under the stage. Sure enough the troopers started walking around inside the club looking for him. We later found out that another guy that was supposed to be our friend had gone up to them and told them he was there. They prowled all over the place but never found him. After they finally left I got him from under the stage and got him out the back door. Now he went on to have a long distinguished career with the Highway Patrol. How sad it would have been if it had ended that night just because he wanted to take his wife out on New Years Eve.

Next martial problems and a new job