by Ed Nelson
Chapter 6
This was all in the future. Early Monday Tab and Elvis headed to their next destinations, as for me I stuck my thumb out and headed North on Highway 101.
It turned out to be an easy trip, and I found myself out by Long Beach midafternoon. One of my rides told me that if I were looking for work he knew the oil rigs were always looking for roughnecks.
This was a high-paying dirty hard job that required a strong back and a fairly weak mind. I met those qualifications. All the walking and daily exercising I had been doing certainly had me in better shape.
I got a hotel room for the night as sleeping on the ground in Long Beach was out of the question. I could not resist the name, Hotel California. It showed I was really there. Years later when the song came out I wished I had sent some of their post cards.
However, the next day, after breakfast I did check out and leave the Hotel California. My first stop was to buy a new pair of boots, seems the stitches had all dissolved, from my Mexican shoe shine. After that I found my way to the Union hiring haul.
My SAG card and ten dollars got me into the International Oil Rig and Drillers Union. I asked the guy who took my money if he thought I would have a hard time getting on. He just pointed to all the derelict drunks sleeping on benches in the hall.
It turned out one oil rig was hiring roughnecks at sixty dollars a week for a two-week stint. They had some extra stuff going on and thought they would need the help.
Well, I was hired. I had to buy a hard hat, safety glasses and steel-toed work shoes. I was taken by water taxi to the rig which wasn’t that far from shore. I spent the next week dirty, tired, sore and absolutely certain that I would never want to do this regularly.
They had so many men on board, that we had to hot bunk. One guy would get up. Another would take his place in the bed. Drilling for oil was around the clock; talk about a stinking mess of unwashed, farting men. The food was a horrid greasy mess, and showers were salt water. This was not what this Ohio boy was ready for.
I toughed it out but knew I would never come back. All my clothes, but one set were ruined the first two days. I saved one set after I realized I would have to buy new ones when the job was done. They gave us coveralls, but they didn't help.
That all said the guys working the rig were a hard lot, but they didn’t seem to resent me in any way and would give me pointers on how to do things. I quickly became known as Kid. “Hey Kid do this”, “Hey Kid wake up," “Hey Kid get your head out of your butt.” This was all yelled, but never in a mean way.
I mentioned that to one of the supervisor types one day, he told me, “Kid these are really hard cases; they have learned to be polite to each other and the world in general. They have nothing to prove and if a fight broke out here, there would be dead men. You don’t want to see a dead man.”
I didn’t tell him I had already killed two men at my young age. As a matter of fact, no one on the rig had asked my age, and I didn’t volunteer.
Events took a sudden turn on the second week when I heard a big voice yell, “Hey pilgrim. What are you doing here?”
I turned and there was John Wayne. It seemed he was doing some location shots for a movie called ‘Hell Fighters,’ a take on Red Adair the oil rig fire fighter. That was why the extra crew had been added on.
Since I already had a SAG card, I was hired to be an extra in the movie. I was being paid twice, once to do the job and the second time, so they could take pictures of me doing the job. When the finished movie came out you had to look quick to see my face.
My stock certainly went up with the other roughnecks when Wayne told a group at lunch one day how I had got in a fight down in Mexico, and had to bail my buddies Elvis Presley and Tab Hunter out of jail. That is when I found out there were pictures in Variety magazine.
After my second week, the job and the movie deal were done, so I hitched a ride back to shore with John Wayne. He had his own boat which we took directly to his house on the water in Newport Beach. His wife made me clean up at once and throw all my old clothes away. I had no problem with either.
After dinner that night we went to the recently built Del Webb hotel and listened to a new group trying to get together that the Wayne’s knew, ‘The Beach Boys.’
During one of their breaks, John let Brian Wilson know that I was a bull rider and would be appearing in his next western. Brian asked, “Rick can you sing?”
“My singing scares the cattle, but not bad enough to start a stampede.”
“Seriously, we are hunting for a cowboy type to sing a song. It doesn’t meet the image we are establishing, but it is too fun not to do. We would be the backup band, and our studio would handle all the distribution.”
In a moment of weakness, I agreed to an audition the next day. The first thing I did was replace my destroyed wardrobe. I learned all the fancy terms like wardrobe hanging around the movie sets.
The wardrobe on the oil rig was funny. Instead of the rigs grey coveralls, we wore red ones. That was the extent of the difference; I even used my own hard hat.
After buying several sets of jeans and western shirts, a pair of boots and a new belt for my largest buckle, I splurged on a real black Stetson. It cost sixty dollars but looked sharp. I wanted one ever since the Disney show.
Everyone knew the bad guys wore black hats and that was the look I was going for. Hey I was fourteen!
It was amazing that I had grown again. I was now six feet two inches and weighed one hundred and eighty pounds. I was tall and thin, and hard from the work and exercise I was doing. No longer, the trending towards the pudgy kid who left Bellefontaine!
My audition went well enough that we did the record. After several false starts due to me, we did a complete cut and "Rock and Roll Cowboy,” was born.
The band carried me because my voice wasn’t that strong or even pleasant sounding. Brian gave me his business card and a copy of my contract.
He asked me to call him in a couple of weeks to see how things were progressing. I promised I would. That also reminded me to send a post card home. I was doing better at mailing them, meeting the weekly goal.
They only said I was doing fine, etc., but they did let them know I was alive and where to start the search if I went missing.
From there I hitched up to San Francisco and finally got to see the end of US 40. While exploring the area I ended up on the Berkley campus. While looking at the buildings I merged with a group heading into a hall.
I wasn’t thinking, just going with the flow. The next thing I knew I was being welcomed to freshman orientation. I was too embarrassed to get up and leave so I listened to the talk. I am glad I did. I heard something that got my education headed in the right direction.
Paraphrasing the speaker, “If you want to do well here, then read the book and work all the problems at the end of the chapter BEFORE you come to class. This way, you will understand what is being said, you will know what you don’t know so you can ask the right questions.
If you are really lucky, any home work will be problems that you have already done so you will be that far ahead, if not at least you will have a firm understanding of the material. Treat going to school like a job. Plan to spend the time to do it right.”
For some reason, it rang true to me. I had straight A’s up to the eighth grade, but I never had to study to get them. My eighth-grade year grades dropped to B’s and C’s. Maybe I would have to do some work!
Chapter 7
I went out to the old gold fields from sheer curiosity and of course the fantasy that I would find my fortune. My first stop was a working gold mine where they let tourist pan for gold.
They did give an interesting lecture and movie on gold mining, but it didn’t take me long to figure out that they were mining the tourist for their gold. I had rented a pan and was taught how to use it. After an hour of swirling sand I had one small flake or what the miners called a “color”.
I took it up to the young attendant who said it look
ed like about a nickel's worth. He took my pan with its single speck in the remaining water and held a strange looking gun at it. The gun had a two inch barrel.
When he flipped a switch on it, it blew extremely hot air on the water drying it up very quickly.
I asked about it, he replied, “It is an industrial heater. It has a heating element inside and a small fan so it blows hot air. This is much better than having an open flame around the tourist’s.”
He offered to sell me a glass vial for a dime to keep my gold in, but I declined and let him keep the flake.
I decided I would rather spend my time hiking in a nearby National Forest. It was really neat and I enjoyed my outing immensely, those big old trees made it feel like being in church, though my family wasn’t really church goers.
One of the things we had been shown in the gold mining movie was to look for quartz, it was associated with gold. If we found a big enough outcrop it might even have a pocket of gold in it. It would be in nugget form still, as erosion hadn’t broken the gold down into fines.
At the head of the hiking trail there was a sign that said, “Do Not Feed the Bears.” I didn’t have any food with me, so that wouldn’t be a problem. I did have the nasty thought that a bear might consider me food!
That put a different much stronger connotation on not feeding the bears. There was a sheet pinned on the sign that gave information about the local black bears. Strange enough the black bears were almost any color but black, mostly a shade of brown.
The important information to me was that bears have the right of way. In others words if you see one, get out of their way. Don’t turn and run, just slowly back up until you are out of sight. Then turn and run.
It sounded like a good plan to me. The chances of me running into a bear was slim and none, but now I knew what to do.
The hike was very pleasant. The giant trees gave a hush to the area that felt peaceful.
The peaceful feeling continued until I heard a grunting sound. Two half grown black bear cubs walked out onto the trail right in front of me. The brochure was right, they were more brown than black.
I don’t know who was more surprised me or them!
I stopped dead and slowly started to back up. They just watched me. I was feeling like I might get away when a loud roar came from the trail. Momma had shown up.
I kept backing up, but Momma started towards me. Now the instruction said to calmly back up until you were out of sight before turning and running. Of course I immediately turned and took off.
I could hear growls and yowls behind me. At this point I wasn’t about to turn and look. I wasn’t a fast runner, but I set a personal best that day.
I was still on the trail with bears on my heels when I came to a turn in the trail. I had just traversed this part, so I knew what to expect. The turn was at the top of a rise, not a big one. If I followed the trail it would go down to a creek.
Instead I went straight, half running and half plunging down the hill to the creek. Gravity is a wonderful thing. I really picked up speed. At the bottom the creek wasn’t wide or deep, so I high stepped it across, splashing as I went.
I risked a look back when I got to the other side. Momma and the kids were still at the top of the trail. The bears had stopped and were sniffing around. It appeared that I had got far enough away they couldn’t see me anymore. The question was did they care enough to track me. As I continued downstream the answer was no, as they turned and started back up the trail.
Now my only problem was that I had left the trail and had to get back to it. I knew it wouldn’t be that far down the creek, but my goal was to find it and get out of there.
As I made my way downstream I saw the small footbridge ahead which marked the trail.
Before I got that far there was a flash in the corner of my eye. The sun had reflected from something. It was an outcrop of quartz that appeared to be newly uncovered by a small mudslide. It had rained heavily the last few days. So being no dummy I used a large rock from the creek bed to break up the quartz.
They were correct; there was a pocket of gold nuggets. Later at home it weighed out at a little over one hundred and twenty pounds. I now had the problem of being two miles deep in a National Forest and I had taken a bus to get to the area. How to get the gold home?
The first thing I did was carry the gold nuggets to the nearby stream and collapse part of the bank to bury them. I then hiked back to the tourist gold mine and caught the next bus back to town.
From there I rented a hotel room for several days. In those days they were a lot easier about renting rooms. The fact I had a passport for identification and paid cash up front was all it took.
The next morning I bought a heavy duty three wheel bicycle with a basket in the back. I also picked up a shovel, some feed sacks and shipping cartons. I took the cartons to the hotel.
I pedaled the six miles back to the Forest from the hotel and dug the gold out of the steam then loaded it into the feed sacks. Then it was back to the hotel to package the gold in the shipping cartons.
I next took the cartons down to the railroad station and paid extra to have a wooden crate built to contain the boxes of gold.
Then I shipped the crate via Railway Express back to my parents in Bellefontaine with a note, to not open till I was home. At the gold mine they explained that gold was legally priced at thirty five dollars an ounce, but they were talking about taking the price controls off. If they did that gold might go up to four hundred dollars an ounce.
Actually I sold the gold in 1979 for eight hundred dollars an ounce; or one million four hundred thousand dollars.
Chapter 8
It was now time for me to head to Dallas for the Rodeo Championships. I hitched most of the way there. I had finally learned to stick my thumb out near restaurants where long distant trucks were stopped.
There were even some places out West that had combination restaurants and gas pumps. They called these Truck Stops. I could get longer rides much quicker.
I had got into the middle of nowhere Texas and my ride luck had worn out. I was on a deserted road with nothing in sight and it was getting dark. Rather than fight it I walked over a small rise beside the road and unrolled my sleeping bag. I dropped right off but was awakened about three in the morning by the sound of cattle.
I peeked over the hill and saw two cattle trucks and a pickup towing a horse trailer. One of the trucks had already been loaded. I crept close enough to hear them talking about this was the easiest heist and most profitable job yet. These were cattle rustlers! There were five of them.
Three of them were riding out and collecting the cattle and two were staying with the trucks. I checked the loads on the two Colt forty-fives Mr. Wayne had given me for target practice.
On the movie set we used special pistols that would only fire blanks. Apparently people had been killed on sets where they used live weapons.
When the three galoots left to rustle some more cattle, I snuck up on the two stay behinds. They were just talking and didn’t have any weapons in sight so I just stepped out with weapons cocked and told them to reach for the sky.
I knew the lingo; I had been watching westerns for years. They were very surprised and did put their hands up.
Now I was like the dog that chased the car and caught it, now what was I going to do with them. I had them drop their jeans down to their ankles. They both wore boots and were now effectively hobbled like a horse.
I then checked around the truck and trailers and found rope. I had them lay on their stomachs near where I had been sleeping and tied their hands behind their backs. They looked like they were related and were different ages so I asked the younger one if that was his Dad. He said, “Yes”.
I let that go for then. I checked the cabs of the three trucks out and did find several empty lunch sacks from the Fort Worth Cattle Auction House. I wandered back over to the kid (early twenties) who I had kept apart from his Dad. I asked the kid his name.
“Er
ic,”
“What’s your Dads name?”
“John, John Bear.”
“After you drop off the cattle at the Fort Worth Auction House where were you heading?”
“Home I guess, Mom doesn’t like us to be gone too long.”
“Okay, just be quite and this will be over soon.”
Over soon I thought, and your Mom is going to be real mad when you and Dad don’t get home for another five to ten years.
I waited patiently for the other three to come back and start loading the next truck. They yelled for the other two and when they didn’t appear went to the smaller truck with the horse trailer.
They dismounted to talk and I braced them in the same manner. Jeans to ankles, down on their stomachs and hands tied behind their backs. I also ran a rope between their legs and up and over their jeans. This really locked them together.
I had found a full five gallon gas can and several bales of hay in the trucks. I had a nice fire going in the center of the road and in about fifteen minutes two Texas Ranger pulled up.
It didn’t take long for them to figure out I was the good guy and had captured five rustlers in the act.
One Ranger stated that I had done it as if John Wayne had taught me. I let it go.
I showed them the lunch sacks and shared what the youngest rustler had told me. They talked to him separately like I had and he reconfirmed that they were meeting someone he didn’t know. He would recognize him but didn’t know his name.
The Rangers told me that this gang had hit the area pretty hard and that was why they were on patrol in the area. When they questioned the other guys they wouldn’t say anything.
The Rangers weren’t surprised as this had happened before. The low level people when caught kept quiet and had all sorts of high level legal talent on their side. They would get very short or suspended sentences.
I asked, “Why don’t we deliver the cattle? The boy seems dumb enough to help us.”
They went and struck a deal right there. If he and his Dad would take us to the leader in Fort Worth we might lose them in heat of the moment. If two low level rustlers got away no one would spend a lot of time and effort chasing them. They agreed to the deal.
