Carl Stilwell AKA CaLokie

SECOND CHANCE

In the second year of Franklin Roosevelt’s Presidency, I was born 

in Oklahoma City. the second born to Lawrence and Wilma Stilwell. 

My older sister, Dolores, was born four years before me at 

the beginning of the Great Depression.

My younger brother, David, was born two years after me.

My mother was one of seven children born to my grandma,

Dottie Osburn who had been abandoned by her husband,

Paul, to raise them on whatever money she could make

washing clothes and cooking at pow wows.

Shortly after Mom met Lawrence, Grandma strongly hinted that 

if my mother married him, they’d have one less hungry mouth 

to feed in their family.

And so during her sophomore year, Mom dropped

out of high school to get married.

My earliest memories were our family living in the home 

of dad’s brother, Roy and his wife, Minnie.

Mom worked as a seamstress.

Dad was a truck driver.

I was clueless as to why my family was living 

in someone else’s home when both parents were working 

and dad owned a car.

Shortly after Pearl Harbor was bombed, my cousin, Leroy Stilwell, 

was killed on a cruiser during the Battle of Midway.

And then while playing in Uncle Roy’s backyard, my stomach 

began to hurt real bad.

Dad drove me and Mom to the hospital.

They said I had appendicitis.

When I woke up from surgery, Dad was gone

and Mom was sitting by my bed while reading to me 

from the Wizard of Oz.

I didn’t see Dad again till I was 15 when he picked up 

David and me to go to our grandfather Stilwell’s funeral. 

His full name was Charles Brady Stilwell 

but everybody called him Happy.

His middle name was also mine as well as 

being the first name of David’s son.

In 1943, Mom married James Dalton, a sailor from Dallas 

who was stationed in the Norman naval base.

The first thing Jimmy did as our stepdad was to take 

David and me by trolley to a ball park to watch the 

Oklahoma City Indians play a Texas League baseball game.

When Mom was off work, our whole family would travel

by trolley to the Oklahoma City Zoo.

When the circus came our way, we walked a few blocks 

to the Municipal Auditorium to watch it.

A few years after the end of World War II, Jimmy

used his G.I. Bill to finance the purchase of a new home 

in Midwest City, a few miles east of Oklahoma City.

O brave new world of neatly trimmed lush green lawns 

with latest model cars in every garage.

I was embarrassed our old car was the only one

on the block made before the war but hey,

we were still middle class!

Mom and Jimmy were called Mo and Po by their grand 

and great grand kids.

Soon after Mom died, Jimmy drove alone in his pickup from 

Oklahoma to South Pasadena to visit my family.

I took him with grandsons, Luke and Mark to watch 

a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball game.

I went with Jimmy also to Santa Anita where he won a 

$70 exacta bet which he used to treat my family to 

dinner to a favorite South Pasadena restaurant.

That’s the kind of guy my stepfather was—not one 

goddamned selfish bone in his body.

My late, great firstborn son, James Luke Stilwell 

was named after him.