My Dad was taken out of school at an early age and was put to work with his dad, first was "cutting ties" (cutting down trees and shaping them into railroad ties).  Then they both went to Texas to work in the oilfields.  First they worked dismantling huge steel oil tanks.  Then Dad became a teamster back when "team" meant horses.  He learned to be a blacksmith while in the oilfields.   He met and married my Mother.  When The Great Depression struck the oilfield work died.  After several years of very terrible living Dad was hired by Sinclair Oil Company and stayed with them until he retired.  He was hired as a common laborer.  He was then transferred into a 1940's "State of the Art" machine shop where he learned to be a Master Machinist.  He was again transferred to one of their pumping stations where he worked on and supervised monstrous diesel engines as big as a house.  After WWII, Sinclair updated their pumping stations from diesel to electric motors.   Dad was told he could keep his position as Chief Engineer provided he could pass a written test covering the operations of an electric pumping station after six months of study.  They gave him manuals to study to prepare for the test.   He passed that test and became Chief Engineer of the electric pumping station where he stayed until his retirement.

He died unexpectedly in early1974.  I had just taken a position at Youngstown State University in Ohio.  When I received the phone call telling me he had died I was devasted.  To deal with my feelings I sat down and wrote this semi-poetic eulogy.  

When he was a boy in Arkansas he became noted for his physical strength.  One of his neighbors said he was as strong as a mule.  From that he got the nickname "Carrikers Jack" (a Jack is a male mule).   The nickname was shortened to "Jack" and that was how he was known the rest of his life.

Dad was the most "straight-arrow," honest and hard-working man I have ever known.  I never heard him say a "cuss word."  On very rare occasions he would drink one shot of whiskey if offered to him.    I saw him lose his temper only once - that was when my brother was Killed in Action in the skies over France.  His anger towards the Germans erupted.

He was a quintessential father.  And the following is my tribute to him again - on Fathers Day, 2012

CARRIKERS JACK

They called him “Carrikers Jack”

        Back there in Arkansas

In the days when men strode through the woods with

      a pistol tucked into their belts

And full confidence in their ability to account for themselves

       resting comfortably in their breast.

It wasn’t a name they laughed about though

     as one or two of them found out. . .

For Carrikers Jack could use his strength in more ways than one.

Those hands

     grasped a double-bitted axe and went to the tie-woods

at an age when they might have been more suited

   to holding a school boy’s slate.

The muscular arms that might well have been

    Slamming out home runs in the school yard

were instead

     Wrestling railroad ties onto the running gear of a woods wagon.

And later, in the oil fields of Oklahoma

   did you hear those tanks ringing out their song

as red hot rivets were pounded and bucked into submission?

Ten thousand rivets for every rock in those barren fields

      of Arkansas.

But he and “Old Pap,” they got it bought

    and paid for

And took no back seat to any man while doing it.

He got his girl too,

   His “Shug,”

who saw the strength that all could see, but saw also

   the gentleness under it and took them both

for her own.

Those hands again

   Communicating their strength through the leather of the traces.

They got more work out of a team of oilfield horses than any

    two others

Carrikers Jack was right there

   helping suck the oil right out of the ground.

And when he hung up the harness

   to learn something new

Texas shrank just a little.

Then in a flash

   That great strength was stymied

And the times made him call on that strength

    that not strong men can find

But Carrikers Jack found it

   and through the long grinding years when

the world had no work for those muscles to do

    he used it.

And he prevailed.

Later, in mid-life

   at a time when lesser men are settling down

to watch the river flow past,  Mr. Reed said:

    “Jack, can you?”

He didn’t puff up or boast,

    He just quietly said: “Thank you for the chance

And he proceeded to do it

Even then his race wasn’t won

   for while Carrikers Jack had been busy

So had others

   Men in offices far removed from the slime of the oil fields,

 From the heat of the smithy’s forge, and

         from the metallic shriek of the machine shop

had engineered his world away

     The diesels of Cobb Station were stilled.

“Six months, Jack, You’ve got six months.”

   And in those six months

Carrikers Jack read the books given him as avidly as any Rhodes Scholar

    And when the time came. . .

Carrikers Jack showed another dimension of his strength.

 He stood back, wiped the oil off his hands and

    played with the fire of 10,000 volts as if

he had been born to it.

So now the time comes.

Carrikers Jack has hung up

     His axe

         His harness

             His micrometers, and

Has answered.

For somewhere his boss has again said:

   “Jack, Can you?”

And what else would he say except

   “Sure,”

And thank you for the chance.”

*******************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Written on the occasion of the death of my Dad, Willard Samson “Jack” Carriker, on March 6, 1974

and read at his funeral on March 9,1974.  

Willard S. "Jack" Carriker and his Bride Adeline "Shug" Beavers Carriker

This is their wedding portrait

They were married in the town of Ranger, Texas BY a Texas Ranger