Don, the Bully

Don worked hard in his classes at OU, but he also worked hard to excel in sports. He not only went out for basketball, but also track. He ran the mile, the mile relay and he threw the javelin.  

Don was exceptionally strong in his arms. He had boxed since grade school, and he worked on improving his arm strength. He told me once that he used to do 300 push ups every night. When I was little I asked him why he didn’t have big muscles like weight lifters, and he told me that they weren’t a strong as they looked. He said that he had beat one of the weight lifters at OU in arm wrestling. 

Apparently Don didn’t quit fighting at OU, and from what I can gather he was short tempered and used to push people around. I didn’t find that out from him. It was Jim who told me that Don's brother Boyd had pulled him aside once or twice to tell him that he couldn’t keep bullying people and succeed as an adult.  

Don still spent his summers in Fay while he was in college, and he was something of a hero there, especially after he made the basketball team. When I went to stay with my cousin Bud in Fay, his dad, Uncle Check, told me that Don worked at a dairy one summer, and that he could unload ten gallon milk containers out of a truck without taking down the tailgate. I guess working on the farm helped Don stay in condition. He told me once that the hardest work he had ever done was to dig a well by hand.  

 

Don at Aunt Laura's Dairy in Canton, Oklahoma

(Cousin Marvin Gunning on L, Laura on R, Don next to Laura)

 

One summer Don had a job surveying for the county, and he told me a funny story about an old farmer he met that summer. What Don was supposed to do was to measure the dimensions of each farmer’s fields. He had a chain of a certain length, and he was supposed to walk along the fence line and count the number of chain lengths on the sides of each field.  

Don said as he walked up to one farmer’s house, he saw the farmer sitting out on his porch in the sun. The man told Don that the sun was good for his arthritis. He said that his boys worked his farm now, because he hadn’t been able to work for several years because of the arthritis. Don asked if any of his boys were around, that he was going to need someone at the other end of his chain. The old farmer said his boys weren’t there, but he’d try to help. 

Don said that the old farmer walked slow, but they eventually walked around every field, and the farmer kept going, even though the chain was heavy and sometimes Don was almost dragging him along. Don said he was feeling guilty about putting the old farmer through such a hard day’s work when they finally got back to the house, but to his surprise the farmer had a smile on his face. He thanked Don for putting him through the work out, and said that he hadn’t felt better in years.  

I don’t think Don continued his boxing matches after he went to college, but he didn’t lose his self-confidence. Uncle Check told me another incident that happened at a rodeo they went to together. Check said they were sitting in the first row, and that one of the cowboys tossed a bucket of water on the ground in front of them, splashing mud up on their pants. He said that Don said something to the cowboy about what he could do with his water, and the cowboy said, “Why don’t you make me?” At that point Don stood up to his full 6 ft, 4 inches, and started to climb over the fence. The cowboy retreated.  

I used to try to imagine what Don was like in school. The stories I heard of him as a young man portrayed him as cocky and belligerent, a person totally different from my father. I never once heard Don raise his voice, let alone lose his temper. He was always calm, gentle, and understanding. He never seemed to assert himself, but people respected his opinions. He was well liked by everyone who knew him. He was a supervisor in his job, and he was elected to positions of leadership elsewhere. He was on the vestry at church, and he was president of the Petroleum Accountants’ Association of Oklahoma.  

Don did tell me one story about why he had changed his personality. He said there was a boy at OU, a member of the track team, who admired Don for his prowess in sports, but Don considered him a pest, so he bullied him and tried to run him off. He said that in spite of Don's attitude though, the boy kept trying to make friend with him, so he gradually decided that he was wrong. He told me, “I just decided I didn’t want to be that kind of person anymore,” and he and the young man became friends.  

This story is another example to me of Don’s ability to change. I think that was the most remarkable thing about my father. A lot of people try to change or improve their  personalities, but very few are able to accomplish it. Don did, not just once, but over and over again.