Crossing paths with okies

Published 8:05 am Thursday, October 15, 2015

I went to school with a lot of Dust Bowl Okie kids in California. One of my good friends, Steve Harp, fell in this category. Steve, John and their sister Jodie were all red headed and not bad looking. Steve and I were in the same class and the other two kids were older. The Harp family had graduated from peach picking and working in other ag related jobs to Mr. Harp working a full time job and owning a small farm of his own. This was due in a large part to the entire family’s hard work in the fields

One day at noon I saw Steve and John talking to a guy that looked to be in his twenties. Later that day during a school break I saw them talking to the same guy. He was hanging around in the park next to the school tennis courts smoking cigarettes and playing a guitar. I wandered over and they introduced me to their cousin Merle from Bakersfield. Merle was going to be playing at the Riverbank Clubhouse Saturday night and was staying with Harps for the week. The clubhouse was a roller-skating rink during the week and a dance hall on the weekends. I later learned Merle was fresh out of San Quentin where his cell mate was a well-known country western singer by the name of Spade Coulee. Spade had a number of hit songs in the forties and also doubled for Roy Rogers in the movies. Spade, like Roy, had a lot of Indian genetics. In fact Spade may have been a purebred. Spade’s career came to an end when he justifiably killed his wife who had been having an affair with Roy. Not very Code of the West Roy! I am sure Roy’s wife Dale made sure he didn’t have happy trails for a while after she found out. Trigger, Bullet and all the little matinee Buckeroos would have been horrified if this had come out. Roy didn’t look good in a black hat.

As my Dad always said “It’s a bad wind that doesn’t blow somebody some good”. Spade and Merle spent a lot of cell time playing guitar and Merle learned how to write some pretty good songs. I had assumed Merle’s last name would be Harp also but later learned it was Haggard. He was the son of Steve’s Aunt Flossie and his Dad had died when he was young.

Years later after Okie from Muscogee and many other hits Steve told me Merle had been real spoiled by Aunt Flossie and was pretty lazy. He said Merle would get mad when the family was picking peaches and run away. He said no one ever went to look for him and in a few days he would show up and sulk for a day or two.

One day when I was working for the Ag department I saw Steve at a window applying for a permit to spray his hay. I went over and visited with him for a while. One of the girls in the office was a huge Merle Haggard fan. Carol came walking by and I called her over, introduced her to Steve and told her he was Merle’s cousin. She was tickled to death to meet him. Steve and I talked about Merle and Carol hung on every word. Steve mentioned Merle was going to be in Modesto at the State Theatre in a couple of weeks. I said I had seen that in the newspaper. Steve went on to say “you know, we are going to have a barbeque out at the ranch when Merle is here, would you like to come”. Heck yeah I replied. Steve laughed and said “too bad” as he headed for the exit.

Columnist Barrie Qualle is a working cowboy in Wallowa County.