The Old Phillips Petroleum Company and the Family "Ranch"
This is really about 'Oklahoma' and my stay there long ago when married to my late wife. During the weekend, we traveled all we could getting out of Tulsa going everywhere just to get away from the mental midgets in that town. One such trip we went up to Dewey, the home town of Tom Mix, drugstore cowboy where his museum is.
Ole Mix was one of my heroes, a pall-bearer of Wyatt Earp, and a former deputy sheriff of Dewey, Oklahoma as well as a cowpuncher hisownself.
Anyhow, in Bartlesville, just up the pike a piece is the home of Phillips 66 oil company, now defunct I am told. The Phillips boys - I forget the big guy's name, fancied himself a cowboy, got dudded up as one, with woolen chaps, a k-boy hat about the size of the Frank Lloyd Wright designed office building in town and mounted a dumb looking house, then galloped around the 'spread' with a bunch of near-do-well yes men oil men all following, trying to hold on t their reins. I am told by the docents of the museum (which is the best gun museum I have ever seen anywhere on the planet, by the way) that Mr. P fancied himself quite the ladies man, Mrs P notwithstanding.
Kept it to hissonself, they say, but even if his spread was huge, and it was, the Mrs is NEVER that stupid....more on my assumptions, later.
Anyway, Mr. P had an extra lodge built on the property, all shined up redwood down by a lake, invited guests down there, sit by the fire, lit up stoogies and discussed world-wide events. Presidents: Roosevelts(s), Truman, international figures, occasional terrorists, big money wall street types (you would know the types), Hollywood types of all three sexes, dinner parties up at the main plantation (let us not forget Oklahoma is the "South.")
I visited both houses: I have a photo of myself on the porch of the cabin overlooking the lake.
The Mr and the Mrs slept in different bedrooms. I remember as a child during the Hopalong Cassidy days, most kids had Hopalong paraphrenalia in their bedrooms, pictures, cattle horns, Hopalong saddles gunbelts, lassos, you know what I mean, rawhide stuff.
Entering Mr. P's bedchambers, which we huge, I snapped back to my Hopalong Cassidy days, Six guns drapped over the head of the bed and all. His 16 and i/2 gallon hat hung on a bar room hat rack by the door.
Now, here's the catch. When I entered Mrs. Phillips bedroom, I was blown away. It was huge, twice as big as the Mr. It was long and narrow and twenty feet high and wall papered with burlap. Her bed was at the far end, very feminine.
Every inch of the four walls was peppered with autographed pictured of Male guests personally signed to her, most like this, " With personal love and affection to ...... from Harry Truman. " ... or Winston Churchill, ....or Harold Stassen...." with deepest personal regards for your feelings, I am yours, Count Mount Batten.
I counted over 250 personally autographed fotos addressed to her, just two inches apart that covered every inch of those massive walls.
The docents would make no comment.
###
Ole Mix was one of my heroes, a pall-bearer of Wyatt Earp, and a former deputy sheriff of Dewey, Oklahoma as well as a cowpuncher hisownself.
Anyhow, in Bartlesville, just up the pike a piece is the home of Phillips 66 oil company, now defunct I am told. The Phillips boys - I forget the big guy's name, fancied himself a cowboy, got dudded up as one, with woolen chaps, a k-boy hat about the size of the Frank Lloyd Wright designed office building in town and mounted a dumb looking house, then galloped around the 'spread' with a bunch of near-do-well yes men oil men all following, trying to hold on t their reins. I am told by the docents of the museum (which is the best gun museum I have ever seen anywhere on the planet, by the way) that Mr. P fancied himself quite the ladies man, Mrs P notwithstanding.
Kept it to hissonself, they say, but even if his spread was huge, and it was, the Mrs is NEVER that stupid....more on my assumptions, later.
Anyway, Mr. P had an extra lodge built on the property, all shined up redwood down by a lake, invited guests down there, sit by the fire, lit up stoogies and discussed world-wide events. Presidents: Roosevelts(s), Truman, international figures, occasional terrorists, big money wall street types (you would know the types), Hollywood types of all three sexes, dinner parties up at the main plantation (let us not forget Oklahoma is the "South.")
I visited both houses: I have a photo of myself on the porch of the cabin overlooking the lake.
The Mr and the Mrs slept in different bedrooms. I remember as a child during the Hopalong Cassidy days, most kids had Hopalong paraphrenalia in their bedrooms, pictures, cattle horns, Hopalong saddles gunbelts, lassos, you know what I mean, rawhide stuff.
Entering Mr. P's bedchambers, which we huge, I snapped back to my Hopalong Cassidy days, Six guns drapped over the head of the bed and all. His 16 and i/2 gallon hat hung on a bar room hat rack by the door.
Now, here's the catch. When I entered Mrs. Phillips bedroom, I was blown away. It was huge, twice as big as the Mr. It was long and narrow and twenty feet high and wall papered with burlap. Her bed was at the far end, very feminine.
Every inch of the four walls was peppered with autographed pictured of Male guests personally signed to her, most like this, " With personal love and affection to ...... from Harry Truman. " ... or Winston Churchill, ....or Harold Stassen...." with deepest personal regards for your feelings, I am yours, Count Mount Batten.
I counted over 250 personally autographed fotos addressed to her, just two inches apart that covered every inch of those massive walls.
The docents would make no comment.
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