Many years ago, in Tulsa Oklahoma, I went to a gathering with a good friend of mine, Alan. He and I were in a local band together and for our day jobs, both of us worked in the oil industry. We were hanging around the snack table when a tall good-looking guy with a muscular build, black hair, and tanned-looking skin came up to us out of nowhere. Around his neck, hanging from a thin leather strap, he wore a leather pouch, about 2 inches square.
He introduced himself as Doctor Pepper. Well, that was surprising, but it turned out to be legitimate because his last name was Pepper, and he held a PhD.
“People just call me Doc,” he said.
Doc became another good friend of mine. Each time I saw him, he was still wearing the same leather strap necklace, and I finally asked, “What’s in the pouch?”
“Dirt,” he answered and preceded to tell me about growing up in mid-state Oklahoma. As a child, he said that his clothes and shoes were always stained from the persistent iron-rich clay dirt.
I had been on day trips to well sites with the geological crew with whom I worked as a research technologist, and I remembered visiting a site near Chandler wearing white tennis shoes, how there were mounds and large expanses of red clay dirt, how I washed those shoes and coated them with white shoe polish and, when they dried, how the stain still came through. I could testify to the staining problem myself.
He went on to say that he was of Indian heritage and that it was part of the Indian culture to respect the earth, connect with it, and draw strength from it. So, when he left he took a little pouch full of that dirt with him to give him strength. Since then, I’ve heard other stories of people believing that the Oklahoma red dirt gives you strength and fortitude – others who also carried a bit of Oklahoma red dirt for grit.
Okies do seem to have an uncommon inner strength so maybe there’s something to that. I thought of my father. He also grew up in the Oklahoma mid-state area and was no stranger to adversity. Grit could have been, should have been his middle name.
He lost his father at 18 months, and his mother at 15 years. After that he fended for himself, traveling around the country working, hopping on trains, riding the rails to get from here to there. He visited most places that the railroads ran and traveled often to California working his way there and then back to Oklahoma where he found work in the oil fields.
It was there a decade later in an oil field close to Drumright Oklahoma on a freezing day that he got too close to a campfire built to warm the workers. His oil-soaked overalls burst into flames and him with them. His co-workers pulled them off him and threw blankets around him to smother the fire, but still, he suffered 3rd-degree burns.
The doctors told him he would never walk again, but he was determined. With his customary Oklahoma grit, he overcame and within a year was walking. He soon met my mother, and their love story began along with, eventually, me and my siblings. He became a preacher and pastor of a Free Will Baptist church. No matter what kind of trouble came across his path, he met it with acceptance and then found some way that led him through to the other side. A lot of that was having faith in God, and a lot of that was his resilience and fortitude. Grit.
Like my father, Doc too was a spiritual person, but his beliefs were centered more on honoring Mother Earth and following the Great Spirit. He believed all living things are connected through our bonds with Mother Earth and the Great Spirit. He followed the beliefs handed down through his Indian Heritage.
At the core of every good belief system, it seems to me, is love and acceptance. That and a little grit is what it takes.
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Check out the video for the song “Oklahoma Red Dirt Grit” by JoDan Music released June 1st, 2024.
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Jo Wilburn.
Very nice. You did forgot that he told God if he allowed him to walk he would be his for life. God did and he did. I miss them both everyday
You’re right. Guess I should have added that, but it still took a lot of Grit along with his Faith to get through it. Thanks for commenting.