Oscar

Oscar was a retired Air Force colonel. We talked shop some as I had done a few years. He was a C-130 pilot and pilots who made a career of it become squadron commanders and then eventually - if they play the game right - a wing commander - a wing being usually a base with several squadrons. Sometimes it was two bases with several squadrons as or two bases as was the case where I was. You get the chicken you're over a unit at that level.

He had some weight on him when he arrived, having been retired for a while. Wife a bit mouthy but not as bad as some. Had a house up on Cumberland road - a twisty road through some hills and little side streets usually with a cul-de-sac at the end. When I was a kid in high school some of them cul-de-sacs weren't developed beyond having the asphalt put down and realtor signs up and the girls that were inclined to fornicate in the back seats of cars sometimes got caught doing in those cul-de-sacs. In town it was mostly middle and upper class types so the cops pretty much ignored it. The cops were familiar with the cars - usually the car of the boy that was getting some - and didn't bother to investigate. The lower class types did it on country roads but a buddy of mine had a non-upper-middle type - good looking though - and got caught by a sheriff's deputy on a gravel road. He hadn't got it yet and after the cops intruded he didnt't get any.

Where was I? This was after the area was pretty much developed and his wife has a local and they moved there and bought a house on Cumberland. He was probably in his sixties and why he went to work at a bank I have no idea. A bird colonel was pulling down some serious bread and with all the health care paid for didn't much need to work. As I just remembered his wife was related to one of the guys that owned a Chrysler dealership in Twin Falls. Chrysler and Dodge and Plymouth. Dodge trucks did OK in those days - I bought one of the first Dakotas there in 1987 - and it was a pretty good business. Nothing like the GM or Ford - the Chevy/Oldsmobile dealer and Ford/Linclon/Mercury had pretty fancy operations but Harris-Holden Motors was in an old place on the main drag. He married one of the Harris girls and moved to her hometown when he retired.

Twin Falls National hired Oscar as a business development officer. I didn't read the job description of know if there was one but it seemed the job involved in drinking coffee and schmoozing with important customers - those that had a lot of money in the bank or a lot that bank wanted to be in their bank. He drank some coffee for sure. It was believed then that more than one or two cups a day was bad but these days it seems the more the better is how it works.

He drank some coffee for sure and not much else. He sometimes dealt with people like the guys that stocked the vending machines in the breakroom and some grounds maintenance people. And presumably developed some business. His wife being in the family of the car dealers and one of them being on the board of directors probably had something to do with his employment.

One thing he didn't drink was adult beverages. He was about the only one that didn't and so he was often the designated driver. In fact if he was present on an outing he was the designated driver. The president insisted on it and if he was present Oscar would be the designated driver. The guy that was screwing the president's secretary and got beat up by her ex-husband (the ex was trying to get her back) liked to tell stories about their escapades said one night one of the other guys - who may or not have believed he had imbibed sufficiently little to be driving offered to do so Dean (the president) said "No, I want my boy Roscar to drive." He said Oscar wasn't pleased with the pronunciation of his name but was glad to drive. Dean Billings liked to drink but even being a bank president never bought liquor on these trips - whether he bought it for use at home I never knew.

As I said Oscar didn't do much except schmooze with customers or potential customers and drink coffee. He was still there when I left but later departed. I was still in the bank occasionally as I had gone to work for the software company that they used and was in there occasionally. One day I was there and was told that the bank had fired some people for whatever reason you suddenly fire four people that didn't seem to be somebody that was about to get fired. Some insider I knew said they. One of them was Cheryl, another was the secretary Bill had been banging for a good while, one was a gal in the loan department and one was Oscar.

They all sued the bank but you know how that went in an at-will state. Cheryl probably had the best case as she was pregnant (unmarried) and her boss had suggested she have an abortion but they all lost. Oscar as I said didn't really need a job but whatever. He died a few years later. There was this time his wife came to the bank and had some kind of beef and they called the police and they came and arrested her. Times change and their family wasn't one of the local version of the big club. The president was still the same but was gettin on in years and apparently Oscar's next of kin (it was the Chrysler dealer and even then it didn't have the came cachet as the GM and Ford dealers) wasn't part of the club. Harris-Holden Motors wasn't much of a thing then either and was soon sold. C'est ta la vie