Oil Field Trucker Trainees of the Early 1960's

Prologue

This here’s a story about a friend of mine, we worked together in the patch from time to time, this fellows name was Billy McGee the best hearted fellow I ever did meet, and that’s a fact Jack, he broke me out on a rig up truck, told me I’d learn in a couple years with a little bit of luck.

McGee said, to drive a rig up truck you got to be a man, you got to have guts and a steady hand, you got to stack that rig, and throw ye poles, suck up your load and make some tracks because you got that pusher breathing down your back.

That Autocar had three transmissions, and all I could think of was decisions, decisions, I’d no more get to rolling till we’d hit a hill and we’d start to slowing down. We had to get the last load that day so we sucked up our float and we were on our way, we were at the old location in nothing flat, that old Autocar was faster than a cat.

We sucked up a mud pump and was making tracks but he told me, stop! at a liquor store on our way back, he ran inside and grabbed a bottle of gin, back in that old Autocar jamming gears again, we topped a hill with that heavy load and their was a hippy standing by the road and McGee was feeling just a little to tippy, cause he told me we ought to run over that long haired hippy.

This is just a warning to all the freak’s, walking up and down our highways and streets, McGee’s still out their hauling a heavy load, so don’t be a fool and get to close to the road!

Oil Field Trucker Trainees of the Early 1960’s, Written by P-Hill

Copyrighted 2018 by P-Hill

Published on Smashwords Edition by P-Hill, 2018

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, without written permission means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without n of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Smashwords Editions License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal use only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the authors work

Contents

Prologue: Mia

Chapter One: Mia

Chapter Two: Mia

Chapter Three: Mia

Chapter Four: Mia

Chapter Five: Mia

Chapter Six: Mia

Acknowledgment: Mia

About the Author: Mia

Chapter One

Pete was his mother’s second child. Her first son was illegitimate, and she named him Buck Williams, as Williams was her maiden name. He was three years old when Pete came along.

When Pete was one year old, his grandma ran off with a shipbuilder and became a welder in a Pascagoula, Mississippi shipyard before the Korean War ended.

It was the year Pete turned two years old that his grandpa packed up and left Pete’s Mama, Buck, and him to live in the sawmill slab shack his grandfather built after making his first crop in the Cove on Jake Jones land.

His mama said, no way in hell I’m moving to Florida!

Jake Jones said, I owe you a bonus, Fred Williams. Rebeca and her boys can have that place you built as long as I’m alive, and maybe longer, Fred.

In the back of Jake’s mind, he had dreams of marrying Rebeca, and if he didn’t it wouldn’t be because he was bashful!

It was rumored that Pete; Buck and his Mama were squatting on Jake Jones’s land and everybody in Pottsville Tennessee worried about how she was paying her rent when she had no job.

I mean, how much you think this shack is worth?" Pete heard his mother ask Jake Jones one day when he was trying to kiss her.

Sweet kisses could buy you a farm," Jake Jones told Pete’s mama, with Pete wishing she would marry him instead of Mr. Martin.

Mr. Martin, who owned the farm to the right if you looked towards the dirt road that ran into the cove had been coming by wanting to hug on Pete’s Mama too! One day Pete noticed this man was winning, as he stood there in his union suit with the back flap hanging down sucking his thumb, so he just busted out squalling!

Mr. Martin didn’t seem to like Pete much at all, and Pete didn’t care for him either, especially after he started calling him, Mama’s Baby Boy.

He came by one afternoon to take Pete’s mama to town when Pete was about three and a half years old, and Pete was on the back-porch pouting because his mother wouldn’t let him go to the spring with her to get water because he was wearing the only clean clothes he had.

That’s when Mr. Martin grabbed Pete up by his ankles and ducked him head first into a fifty-five-gallon barrel full of rainwater that ran off the tin roof through the gutter and emptied into the barrel for his mama’s wash water.

He remembered going down deeper and deeper until his hands touched the bottom of the barrel. All Pete could think of was what his Mama said, stay away from the water barrels because you will fall in and drown and you’ll be dead!

Pete felt like he was going to suck the barrel dry as Mr. Martin jerked him to the surface, his head spinning as the man pulled him out of the water, he was spitting and sputtering, yelling Mama at the top of his lungs!

Rebeca was on her way back from the spring with two five-gallon buckets of drinking water when she heard Pete screaming. She threw the buckets to the ground and came running. What the hell are you doing to my son, she yelled as he pulled Pete up out of the barrel the third time?"

Mr. Martin flipped Pete right side up and set the boy down on his feet, and Pete stood there squalling. Mr. Martin said to Rebeca calmly, I ask him why he was pouting, and he told me he was mad, so I gave him a reason to be mad. Your Baby Boy needs toughening up, Rebeca, Mr. Martin told mama!

Pete’s mama said, come here, son, and she reached out and snatched him up in her arms hugging him tightly.

Mr. Martin just smiled at Mama, but when he looked at Pete, the smile in his eyes vanished, and he said smartly, Mama’s Baby Boy.

Pete’s half-brother Buck stood there, all ears, not wanting to miss what his Mama was going to say, but Mr. Martin turned to Buck and told him, come on boy, let’s go check the oil in my truck while your mama takes care of her Baby Boy.

So, they walked through the house and out the front door, with the screen door banging shut as the long rusty spring jerked it closed.

His mother married Mr. Martin when Pete was seven years old, and the man was always kind if someone was around, and he fooled Pete into thinking he liked him sometimes, but soon as no one could see or hear him, he’d turn into a cruel son of a bitch.

He’d whip Pete for nothing more than asking a question and say, if you tell Rebeca and she doesn’t like it, I’ll beat her ass too!

He used fear to control this child that wouldn’t be diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder until after he was drafted into the army.

Pete took the beatings, and most of the time tried hard to please Mr. Martin and thought he was beginning to like him when he gave him a twenty-gauge shotgun for Christmas the year Pete turned nine years old.

That feeling didn’t last long because all Pete’s step cousins started laughing and telling him, the only reason he bought you that damn gun was so you would shoot yourself, and suddenly Pete knew it was true, this man his mother married intended to run him off, or kill him!

After that Pete used Mr. Martin’s head for a target to learn how to hold a steady aim while lying on the ground beneath the young cedars that grew at the foot of the mountain behind the barn.

It made Pete feel like he was in control, laying there in the bushes aiming the gun at the man's head, but he could never pull the trigger knowing the number eight shot in the shells he had for shooting rabbits wouldn’t do the job!

Pete cried a lot the year his mother married Mr. Martin and was picked on at school for being a crybaby. That went on until Pete came home from school crying one day, and Mr. Martin threatened to whip Pete if he ever walked up that lane again from the bus stop squalling because he’d been beaten up again.

When he turned twelve years old, he’d had enough. No man was ever going to lay hands on him again, and expect him to stand there and take it, not ever! Pete swore to it! He was five-foot-six and weighed one hundred forty-five pounds and could do a man’s days’ worth of work. By now he’d been stacking hay on the wagon and in the barn since he was ten years old.

Pete had an uncle; well he was his step-cousin’s dad, who was in the Army and stationed in Texas since they came back from Korea, and he always treated Pete well.

Pete heard his mother say, that bunch is so proper I bet they don’t even fart! They had the feel of a family Pete had seen on a TV show when he visited his cousin Ronda. Anyway, that’s where I’m going, Pete said to himself, soon as he made it to Jasper, Tennessee.

It took a day and a half for him to walk up the old trail that had been used to snake logs off the mountain. Then he thumbed to the Alabama state line, and walked into a gas station, picked up a free United States road map, sat down on the curb out front, and started looking it over.

The best way Pete could figure out how to get to Fort Hood Texas from here, was to take 72 West, to 79 South, to Guntersville where he’d pick up 69 to Oakman, Alabama, where he’d pick up 18 to the Mississippi line where 18 turned into Highway 12 that would dump him in Columbus, Mississippi on State Route 82 west.

Pete made it to Columbus Mississippi by the next morning with his third ride since he’d left Pottsville, and that was with a trucker who stopped and blew his horn and hollered out the window. Where you going, son? I’m headed over to Columbus if that will help ye!"

It was two am in the morning when Pete stood up gathering his sack of clothes and jacket. He said, thank you, sir, I’ve been here all night!

The driver in the old cab-over tractor said, well get in here and talk to me boy. I’ve been, so doggone sleepy I can’t hardly hold my eyes open, he said. So, if you will keep me awake for an hour, there’s a little fuel stopover over yonder that has some pretty good biscuits and gravy and hot coffee, I’ll buy your breakfast, he yelled again out the open window to Pete!

Pete reached up and pulled on the latch opening the door tossing his paper bag and jacket up into the truck seat and climbed in. Then he talked to the driver for a solid hour when all of a sudden, they came around a sharp curve at the bottom of the hill and there it was. A big flashing sign that read, Food and Fuel and the driver said, by golly, we made it thank ye son!

When they got seated in the restaurant, the driver said, if your hungry boy, this is the place to fill up with Mona’s all you can eat breakfast buffet!

Pete just smiled because he didn’t know what a buffet was so the driver told the waitress, we want two of the all you can eat breakfast, and she asks, are you drinking anything?"

The driver said, coffee.

Pete said, coke.

Help yourself, the plates, and bowls are over there, and I’ll get your silverware," she said pointing in the direction of the food bar as she walked away.

It wasn’t long until they finished one platter full of food, and went back for another fill up twice, once for more ham, eggs, and taters, then once more for a biscuit with chocolate gravy on it!

This is some good stuff," the driver said piling it on!

Pete told him when they set back down how much he appreciated the meal and ask, how much did all this food cost?

The driver said, 1.99 for all one person can eat, and drink. Pretty good, what do you think, he asks Pete?

Yes, I like it, Pete said. I’ve never been in a cafe that served food this way, he told the trucker. What I’m trying to tell ye, Pete said, is I’d like to clean your windows or do something to repay you for stopping and giving me a ride, plus you’ve fed me, sir!"

That’s okay son, you don’t worry about it. the driver said. I’d either be in bed back down the road somewhere, asleep, or I’d be upside down in a ditch had I not stopped for you because I was dead on my ass," he told Pete.

Karma’s a bitch, I pass up no one if I can help it, the driver said, we're supposed to help people when they’re down on their luck, and that’s my motto son, so do not worry about the ride or the free meal, you probably saved my life boy!"

You sure know how