Buddy, my 14-ft. Hornbeck Adirondack pack canoe, waits while
a disabled fishing boat limps back to its trailer.
Anyone that has ever done any type of
construction, or just stood there and watched the construction being done,
knows Ditch Witch. It has been the go-to
machine for trenching to lay pipe, cable, telecommunications lines or anything
else that has gone underground since 1949.
Perry is the birthplace of Ditch Witch by the Charles Machine Works
Company.
On September 16, 1893, 100,000 men,
women, and children would rush west from the county line when the gun fired at
noon in order to lay their claim to Indian land the U.S. Government had opened
for settlement. By nightfall, 40,000
tents were erected in the new town. The
record for both speed and entrepreneurialship goes to Jack Tearney, who arrived
on the town plat in 31 minutes. By 4
p.m., he had erected the “Blue Bell Saloon,” and was selling beer for a dollar
a bottle, a price he justified because of the lack of water. According to inflation, that glass of beer
would now cost $25.64. He sold 38,000
glasses of beer. The blossoming new town
became known as “Hell’s Half Acre,” and within short order, others hoping to
cash in on Jack’s success had erected about 110 saloons and gambling
houses. Most of them were within the
half block east of the current town square.
It's no surprise that Lake Perry is ringed by oil pumping rigs. It is
powered by that huge one-cylinder engine behind it.
Perry’s second historical name was
Wharton, named after the train station built in 1886 by the Southern Kansas
Railway as part of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway. After the land run of 1893, the U.S.
Government established a land office in Wharton to oversee this and other land
office towns. The office administrator
was J. A. Perry, so thus Wharton became the town of Perry, which remains as the
smallest town in Oklahoma with its own newspaper.
For those with an interest in the Old
West, Perry played its part as the target of both the Dalton gang, and the
Doolin gang, when they wanted to rob a train.
After one such foray by the Dalton gang, Charlie Bryant fell ill and was
taken 52 miles WSW to Hennessey to see a doctor. Deputy Marshall Ed Short spotted Bryant and
arrested him. During an escape attempt,
Bryant and Deputy Short ended by killing each other in a gun shootout.
When anything is seen on shore, it is usually just another head of cattle.
This time we chanced to catch a head of donkey.
If you wish to paddle Lake Perry, you
may be confused to find two of them.
Google Earth gets confused too.
Perry lies on I-35, half-way between Oklahoma City and the Kansas state line. There is the little Perry Lake south of town on 4th Street in
the town park, which is east of I-35.
Then you will find Lake Perry south of town on Cty. Rt. N3180, which is
west of I-35. The names get used
interchangeably. The confusion could be
avoided, and the names more descriptive, if the first was called the Perry Park
Pond, but no one has ever called to ask my opinion.
Lake Perry was built in 1937 as part
of a Civilian Conservation Corps work project.
The lake and facilities remain much as when they were first built, which
will be most evident in the restrooms.
The lake has a 13-mile shoreline, is a haven for bass and trout fishing,
and has RV and primitive camping available.
The fees are $5/day for boating, another $5/day for fishing, $5/day for
tent camping, and $25/day for RV camping.
Questions can be directed to (580)572-9465. There is one small single-lane concrete ramp
at L36.25014N, Lo97.33616W on the east side of the lake.
Do I stay, or do I go? Do I stay, or do I (splash)...
I was anxious to get on the water
both because recent high winds have left me sitting at home, and because the
next 9-day forecast is full of non-stop severe storms and tornado threats. I found the day to be full of surprises. The first was the unusually high water level
resulting from the recent heavy rains.
This left the water the color of tea with milk, and a visibility that only
went to a depth of 4-inches if you really strained your eyes. The water came all the way to the top of the
ramp, and also flooded a bit of the loading float. By comparison, the sky was crystal clear and
blue with only tiny puffs of white cloud, and the wind was between 5-12 mph.
Others were equally anxious to take
the chance to get on the water. I never
see other paddlers with their canoes and kayaks in Oklahoma. While on my 161-mile round-trip today,
however, I spotted an SOT kayak on a trailer while I was enroute to the lake,
and on the trip back home I saw a canoe on top of a Jeep. Both were headed in the opposite
directions. Unusual for a Saturday, I
only saw one other boat on the lake. It
was about a 12-foot aluminum deep-vee power boat that only ran in reverse
because of the broken transmission in the outboard.
The most evident thing for anyone
wanting to paddle all the way around the lake is the absence of any place to
stop for a break. This may change at
lower water levels, but I found two types of shoreline. There was flooded vegetation that made it
impossible to land or to reach the water from the land. I did hear a sudden crashing and splashing
that was obviously a deer that I had flushed out but never saw. Where there was the rare gradual shoreline,
it had all been fenced off with barbed wire.
This made it possible for cattle to cool themselves in the water, but
impossible for a paddler to reach shore.
Every arm of the lake was blocked or constricted by barbed wire. Most of the land around the lake has been
taken over by livestock and oil pumping pads.
When I saw a sign forbidding waterskiing in any of the arms of the lake,
I was mistakenly impressed. I thought
how nice it was that they were insuring the peace and tranquility for paddlers
and fishermen. After going around the
lake, however, it was obvious the prohibition was to prevent skiers from having
limbs amputated on the steel and wood posts and barbed wire.
It was an enjoyable day in spite of
the barbed wire, at least until I returned to the take-out. There I found a group of about 15 loud ‘trumpian’
juveniles from about 5 to 16 years of age.
The total and continuous use of vulgarity, even with an adult woman in
their midst, revealed the absolute absence of any parenting or guidance in
their lives. I always felt it was
imperative for adults to monitor their language and behavior to provide a
positive influence on youth. I now feel
perhaps the opposite is true: the young should avoid shocking their
elders. None of the group was capable of
making a sentence, clause, or exhortation that didn’t contain a minimum of at
least one four-letter F word. There are
nine parts of speech: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives,
prepositions, conjunctions, interjections, and articles. I never realized until now that f—k can be
used in place of any or all of these. I
couldn’t get out of there fast enough to avoid having my 73-year-old
sensibilities negatively assailed. The
environment made me both sad and disgusted.
For someone that has spent his career associating with the dregs of
society, that is indeed saying something---something sad for the future of our
civilization.
