Copyright ©2006, 2007 Stephen Joe Payne

One day, we were no longer at Union, at Franklin, and the other schools. We didn’t have a graduation ceremony and we did not get diplomas, just a regular end of the school year. But it was different. We were going to be 7^th graders and we were going to the new building, new to us for it was built in 1918.I had been in it for a few things in the auditorium but it was a giant puzzle to me.

I was excited and scared to death at the same time and I did not want my summer between Union and Pawhuska High School to end. Of course, I was going to go out for football and be a great player. I would be playing with Butch Daniels, Jay Lynn Hurt, Bobby Hughes and others that I knew, so nothing was changing except that we would all have uniforms. I forgot that our dreaded rival, Franklin, would now have its players on our team and we would be one.

An interesting thing happened towards the end of 6^th grade. The high school band teacher, C. G. Arnold, came to Union with a written test and talked to us about band. Band was the last thing that a great football player would want to participate in so I scoffed at the test and my interview with him was probably just as silly, but, he was a pleasant man and didn’t seem to hold my attitude about band against me. I scored well on the test and he told me that I had a future in band, should I change my mind.

In 7^th grade, we were divided into three groups, called 7-1, 7-2, and 7-3, a pretty complex nomenclature that may have been developed by the CIA. Choir was 7-1, band was 7-2 and anything else seemed to fall into 7-3, so as a star football player, I started in 7-3. I attended our first football meeting and listened to Dr. Loy talk about physicals and I reconsidered my football career. I expected to be hit playing football—heroes have to bear some suffering— but the idea of physicals was intimidating to me. And, I had taken a good look at the kids that had come in from Lynn Addition School. I don’t know where they had been kept before, and why I had not met them but this was a rough bunch. In a word, I was scared.

Band began to look good to me so I checked with Mr. Arnold and, even though I was starting late, I could switch to band. At my first class I was far behind and wondering about choir. The other students had chosen and received their instruments and they were tooting, screeching and banging to their heart’s content and I had not yet chosen an instrument. A friend from Franklin, Ernest Daughtry, actually had been a strong influence in my choosing band. Ernie played the snare drum and that was pretty interesting to me. My cousin, Jack Hardy in Ponca City played drums and had a trap set so, why not?

“What do you want to play?” Mr. Arnold asked me, in front of the rest of the class.

"Clarinet,” I blurted out and to this day I don’t know where that came from.

“Clarinet?” he asked, seeking confirmation.

“Yes sir,” I replied and my mother bought my first clarinet, a Bundy. We rented it from Saied Music Store in Tulsa paying out a few dollars a week. It wasn’t bad, but obviously it was a starter horn. I was very bad those first days; a clarinet, without good mouth control and too much force of air can screech like a Halloween horn. I know mine certainly did.

Being new and bad, I automatically went to last chair and that’s where I started. But there was no physical and no one was hitting me although at times, I felt Mr. Arnold wanted to.

It turned out that I became pretty good with the clarinet and I soon moved up and occupied an upper chair. In fact, the clarinet was the second thing in life that began to give me confidence in myself.

I had had some good teachers and Mr. Arnold was one. But he was more than a teacher. Most teachers were with us for one year or one course. Mr. Arnold was a coach, just like the football and basketball coaches. We had him in 7^th grade and those of us that stayed with band for our high school career, had Mr. Arnold each year.

Unlike the football coaches, he did not have an assistant so whenever we had band, we had Mr. Arnold. Unlike a teacher that finally figured us out by the end of our term with them, and hoped that it was the last they would see of us, Mr. Arnold had years to really know us. When we returned in the 8^th grade, he knew us better and he knew more what to expect from us, and he knew how to make us better at what we did and what we were supposed to do.

He wasn’t easy, Lord no! If you botched a piece in band, he listened carefully and you got to play a solo, all alone, for all of the band—and him—to hear. I noticed once, that he usually did this on Friday and he asked you, “Will you be able to play that piece on Monday?” “Yes sir,” we automatically replied. We were smart enough that we were not going to say, “No sir;” not in front of the whole band and Mr. Arnold. So, we went home Friday night, took our clarinet, horn, or drums and worked until our fingers fell off and our lips turned inside out.

If I happened to be the sinner, then I went in Monday, prepared and patiently waited for him to ask me to play the piece. We would start with our general session, fifteen minutes, work on a specific part of the band, cornets, trombones or something, another fifteen minutes, have a written test, another fifteen minutes? “When is he going to ask me to play my piece?” And none of us was going to fight for the chance to play it; we were going to wait to be called on.

And he never did. His goal, I finally understood, was not to embarrass us but to motivate us. And it usually did.

Mr. Arnold had a few axioms that he used. He would say, “Please play that section after the first bar,” calling a student by name.“ I can’t Mr. Arnold” brought forth “Can’t can’t get his pants on. Now play it,” always said with a smile, sometimes even a laugh and we all laughed. It sounded dumb; it stuck—for fifty years.

But the one that has made me better all my life was:“The enemy of the best is just good enough.”

We would practice, a lot for being kids, but we had a tendency to say, “That’s good enough.” It was ubiquitous and he did not like or tolerate it. If he heard you say, “It’s good enough,” he drug out, “The enemy of the best is just good enough.”

He explained that when people have quality and they are the best, if they don’t do their best, they sell themselves, and everyone else, short. It grudgingly made me a better clarinet player. It made us a better band. We earned first division awards in our class each year in marching and then again in concert. We earned number one awards in quartets, sextets, solos and other things and David Meriable won the student conductor award. We were, literally, The Pride of Pawhuska, The Pawhuska High School Marching Band and we felt it too.

After 7^th and 8^th grades, we were ready for the big time, the high school marching band. Only we didn’t know how to march. Somewhere in the summer between 8^th and 9^th grade, we met for extra classes and we marched. We lined up in rank and file and heard our first, “Band! Attenhut!” We learned how to forward march, stand at attention, assume parade rest, turn to right and left flanks and other pony tricks. Then when school started, we did it all over again, this time with the sophomores, juniors and seniors.

Band was ½ credits but I worked harder in band then I did in any other class. We came to school early, which Bobby Hughes hated because he rode with me often and that meant he had to arrive early and sit, which is probably where he developed his great story telling ability. We went to the field and we marched for an hour, learned new routines and then went to the band hall and practiced and learned for an hour. At night, I took my clarinet home and I practiced from one to two hours and on the week ends I practiced four to five hours. Most of my food tasted like a clarinet reed.

We had practiced so much that we were getting cocky. We thought we were pretty good. But we had practiced wearing our school clothes, no hat and an empty stadium, except for an observer or two. Friday night arrived and we met at the band hall, fell in outside wearing our black and orange uniforms with hats and were inspected.

The uniform was heavy, had brass buttons and braid and it was hot sometimes. The hat was heavy but it made the uniform complete and we all looked alike, somewhat. Then we began our march from the band hall to Ormand Beach stadium, a drum cadence, da-rooty-toot-toot, da-rooty-toot-toot, measuring our step.

We stopped at the stadium and did a right minstrel turn and into the stadium. Ronnie Coday was our drum major in our freshmen year. We played The Star Spangled banner and the game began. We played a few marches and fight songs during the first half and then we began to get ready for the half time. for being on the field to play the anthem, we had been in the band section, playing as required but out of sight. Now, we filed into our positions and headed towards the field. We had trained, learned, drilled and practiced but nothing could prepare us for what happened next.

We formed on the field and Ronnie Coday called “Band! Attenhut!” for our first, official time. Then he whistled us, three sharp blasts, into motion and the announcer said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Pride of Pawhuska, the Pawhuska High School Marching Band.” And to “Men of Ohio,” we began our march down the field.We had not expected the cheering that rose from the stadium. All of our practice had not prepared us for that.

We focused on playing and on marching a thirty-inch stride, hitting the notes, keeping the rhythm and following Ronnie’s commands and we survived. But the truth is, most of us were weak in the knees. We did not expect to be weak in the knees but it happened. And we played through our first performance with a few mistakes but overall, we did well. Each week we got better and it got easier but I found that, in spite of my experience, the first time out, every year, when we heard, “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Pride of Pawhuska, the Pawhuska High School Marching Band” and thunderous cheers and applause, my knees went weak.

Memory can be illusory and I found myself telling someone about the size of our band then. I said that we filled the field six ranks wide, ten files deep and that would make us a band of sixty. Was I exaggerating? My 1961 Wah-Sha-She (the school annual or year book) has each band member listed by name so I counted them and found eighty-two names listed. It was a formidable organization in 1961.

I said earlier that there are ways in which you can reposition yourself into other classes. I did not graduate from Pawhuska High School as I left school in my junior year, 1961, and enlisted in the United States Navy. I returned to high school at the completion of my four-year enlistment and I graduated from College-High School in Bartlesville in 1967 as a member of the class of 1966.

Two things helped me get through, first boot camp, the schools and finally my enlistment:“Can’t can’t get his pants on" and “The enemy of the best is just good enough.”

My favorite day with him was April first. He knew it was going to happen and those of us with previous experience knew we were going to do it so there was no surprise. Yet, every year, he named the selection, we placed the sheets on the music stand, he raised his baton, and everyone in the band played something else; few of us playing the same music.“ April Fool, Mr. Arnold,” someone shouted. He laughed, acknowledged our genius and we went back to work on the real music. We never tired of it and neither did he.

One day, Johnny Lawless stopped by his office and said, “Hi, C. G.” Mr. Arnold turned to him and said, “Johnny, if you ever call me C.G. again as long as you are a student, I’ll bust your butt.” Years later, a man appeared in the door way and spoke. Mr. Arnold looked at him, puzzling, struggling to identify him when the stranger said, “The last time I called you C. G. you told me that you would bust my butt if I ever did it again.” A smile broke out on Mr. Arnold’s face as he said, “Johnny Lawless.”

I called him C. G. a few times when I saw him at The University of Tulsa but I shifted back to Mr. Arnold. It didn’t take much more breath and he has earned being Mr. Arnold with me. The years, the subtle influences that Mr. C. G. Arnold exercised over me slowly became apparent.

I was in a seminar once at The University of Oklahoma when our instructor asked each of us to define greatness and give examples. Someone started with Richard Nixon. (We all have our cross to bear.) Someone followed with John F. Kennedy. Then a woman said her mother was the greatest person she had ever known. The professor then broadened the definition saying that fame was not necessarily required to be a great person, man or woman.

When it was my turn, I named C. G. Arnold and I explained his influence and his axiom. So, Mr. Arnold’s names stayed on the board as a Great American for the rest of the day. I told many people that I thought he was a great American and I often said how much he meant to me.

I never told him though. I made my best effort to do that though when I wrote a letter trying to express my feelings about him. It isn’t easy; it is worthwhile. I began college at The University of Tulsa in 1973 when I was twenty-nine years of age and in my first year, I completed thirty-nine hours of study with a 3.9 GPA. My overall GPA remains at 3.8 and I hold two Associate of Arts degrees in Spanish from Tulsa Community College with a 4.0 GPA.

Of any success that I have had in life, I owe much to C. G. Arnold, the greatest man I have ever known.

Stephen Joe Payne

The Greatest Man I Have Ever Known

Date: 04/18/07

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