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From: Paul Odle <>
Subject: [ROOTS-L] EARL EDWARD NOVAK/BARABARA LEE "BOBBI" FULKERSON/Paul Odle
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 07:46:36 -0700 (PDT)

Another Adventure With my Pal Earl

I do not suppose I will ever find another Pal like my childhood friend EARL ED NOVAK. Every day that I spent in my childhood with my best buddy EARL ED would be a new adventure. I often thought that EARL ED had nine lives. Just being Earl¡¯s friend was like living on the edge. When Earl Ed and I were growing up in Yukon, Oklahoma; where ever you saw one of us you knew the other was there. I believe it was when Earl was 9 years old that he moved with his widowed mother Frances Nespor/Novak and his sister Doris Novak from Spearman, Texas to Yukon, Oklahoma. That same year 1944 I moved with my parent, my brothers Buddy, Jimmie Lee, and Larry Joe Odle and my Sister Carol Sue from Los Angeles, California back home to Yukon, Oklahoma. That was the year that Earl Ed and I met, we took a knife and sliced his finger and then my finger. Then I placed my finger over his finger and we took a solemn oath to be brothers forever.

Earl Ed¡¯s mother Frances and his older brother Frank farmed their wheat farm in Spearman, Texas. I went to their farm in Spearman several summers with Earl Ed, Aunt Frances and his sister Doris for the wheat harvest.

Earl and I liked to sleep in the bunkhouse with the college boys that Frank Novak had hired on as harvest hands. You know how to days children are taught sex education in school. Well back in 1944 Earl Ed and I learned all about sex from playing like we were asleep when the harvest hands would come home from a night on the town of Dumas, Texas. I am here to tell you those boys¡¯ tales were far better than anything Hackberry Finn ever dreamed of telling.

One thing I remember is fried chicken, cucumber salad and Coors beer tasted better in the summer time in Spearman, Texas.

One summer I think I was 12 years old and Earl Ed was 10 years old. We had taken the pickup out to the harvest fields with an old washtub full of ice and hot coor¡¯s beer for the harvest hands. I could not wait for the beer to get cold so I opened a hot bottle of Coors beer and started drinking it. We were out in a plowed field, Earl Ed was airing up a tractor tire, I was sitting on the tractors seat holding the air compressor with one hand and sipping hot beer with the other hand. I looked up to see my old buddy Earl sailing backwards about 75 feet. The tractor tire he was airing up exploded. Both of Earls wrists and arm were broken. I was going to drive him into town. The Pick up was standard shift. I had never driven a standard shift. Earl Ed said he would drive it to the hospital because he was use to it and could get their faster. Earl stopped the pickup just long enough to yell at his new brother-in-law Bill Cornwell and tell him what happened. Earl and I went on to the
hospital. The Doctor put a lot of bolts and nuts though Earl bones to hold them in place. And the Doctor put a plaster cast on each arm and hand. My macho friend who was use to helping his self needed a helping hand and he did not want any part of the nurses helping him. He would only let his sister Doris Cornwell and I help him. So Doris and I became my old friend Earl Ed¡¯s Private duty nurses. We would take turns staying with Earl. Aunt Frances would come into town and take Doris or I out to eat.

Earl Eds brother Frank Novak, Jr. had an airplane and he flew Earl Ed to Mc Bride Bone and Joint Hospital in Oklahoma City. I rode back to Oklahoma City with Aunt Frances.

I remember one other time when Earl and I was in Spearman , Texas on the Novak farm at harvest time. I must have been 12 years old. Aunt Frances ask me if I would take the pick-up and go into town for groceries and supplies and I was supposed to drop one of the College boy harvest hands off at the Dentist. That Harvest hand had a very painful tooth ache. I did not know all of the gears on that stick shift pickup. We jerked all the way to town I was careful to park where I could pull out foreward as I did not know where reverse was on this truck. When I stopped by the Grocery

Store was down town so I was forced to pull into a parking space. The Curbs were about 2 feet tall. All the local drifters were sitting on benches in front of the stores. When I came out of the grocery store I think all of the town loafers were placing bet¡¯s as to if I could back that pickup. The longer I tried to back up only to find myself trying to climb that high curb. I got out of the truck and gave the town loafers a good old Yukon, Oklahoma Cuzzing. Then I ask a total stranger to back the pick up for me. He ask me if the pick up was mine? Wrong Question? The nice man got me back out on the street. I was able to pick up the harvest hand and get him back to the farm safely but a little jerky. As far as I know everyone lived happily ever after. Earl Edward Novak lived to grow up and become a Dentist probably so I would never have to take him in that pickup to a Dentest! He also threw lots of hard work on his part grew up to be a larger than life cattleman and wheat farm!
er. Earl
married the prettiest girl at Baylor University BARBARA LEE ¡°BOBBI¡± FULKERSON. They brought two great kids Cinda and Hunter into this world. EARL ED was a Great Friend to me and I will never have another friend like him. I miss him very much he has been deceased for over a year.

By Paul L.Odle, Sr.
Lawton/Fort Sill Veterans Center
P.O. Box 849
Lawton, Oklahoma 73502

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