No Blood, No Fowl

Once upon a world at war; July 5th 1943??? Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Leonard Churchill were knee deep into their bombing campaign against Adolf 'no middle name' Hitler.

This was known as “Operation Pointblank” should this question ever decide a CITIZENSHIP?

During this offensive??? The United States would pool in (just by itself???) over a million and a half TONS worth of Earth chewing noise makers in order to help carve out all that strategic European countryside in an attempt to castrate Charley Chaplin's fascist soup-strainer twin.

Well on this particular evening??? The only blood thirsty bogies buzzing around could be easily taken out by a slap to the back of one's NECK.

The chirping belonged to crickets and thankfully NOT Nazi gunfire?

Well; at least I only claim battling insects for THIS certain swatch of OKLAHOMA anyway?

Found wedged between colorful Colorado and the panhandle of Texas, I'm talking about that funky part of the map that nobody really thinks about until we're all being pummeled by an era defining DUST BOWL or squeezing our bladders while trekking the 287.

The only action to be found during this particular spacetime??? Whined from a rusty spring right before a screen door destined never to latch smacks shut.

The only wicks ignited??? Served to illuminate porches. No; from right through here, Hitler might as well have been an alien on Mars.

I mean... Locals were called abroad for the cause, but for the most part? Boise City was tucked away in another dimension.

We're back in a simpler time too, you know? There was no air conditioning to be had in 1943? Your best bet was to either find an evaporative cooler??? Or just stew and bathe.

I'm sure the bonfire must have been in full bloom prior TOO; despite it being a good couple degrees heavier then normal?

As a matter of fact, the temp had been dangling annoyingly a few notches SHY of that mood altering third digit this entire WEEK.

Of course the buzzkills would have already chased all the good boys and girls off to bed, by this point? But, it doesn't take a historian to deduce the activities that go on on the fifth of July – especially in the middle of THIS up and coming neighborhood during a heatwave?

Remember, they've got BOOMERS to spawn in a couple of few?

You can't tell me SOMETHING SOMEWHERE in close proximity wasn't set ablaze and promptly congregated around?

Speaking strictly as a Pacific northwesterner??? I KNOW that NOTHING CEMENTS RELATIONSHIPS quite like periodically having to crane your neck away real hard either to the right or left in order to find oxygen? The value of blinking real hard together and clearing those lungs in harmony every time the wind decides to change direction isn't lost on me either. I'm completely onboard. If this is not a scientific fact - then someone's falling asleep in the lab – that's all I'm saying.

It's as primal as the taste of beef and the feel of nudity.

Nothing says “we got this” quite like a pair of hot eyebrows, dried cheeks and roasted inner nostril membrane, I don't know what it is.

While these eleven-hundred souls settled in for their sweaty summer's nap??? Four Flying Fortresses from the triple three Bombardment Group arrived overhead from Dalhart, Texas. They were approximately forty miles OFF COURSE, they were GREEN and on a night practice bombing run?

Kids sanctioned to make things go boom in the dark and runaway.

No one had a clue anything was a miss either.

Loaded for bear, these mighty birds spun sixteen propellers between them; two per wing? The big boys were looking to “get 'm some” from their proving grounds near CONLEN, TEXAS?

Conlen, Texas and Boise City, Oklahoma are obviously two different locations, but they share a lot of similarities considering they're in the same prairie?

Especially in the dark.
Kinda, “You're off, but not by much???”

Analogue precision takes hours of practice too, let me tell you.

I’ve had the pleasure of training GUYS how to navigate once upon a time before Google?

Have YOU ever had this opportunity?

I used to instruct rookie over the road truck drivers how to maneuver semi tractor trailers from point A to B once upon a time?

The first lesson I LEARNED?!

Is that newbies will ALWAYS find a way to BURN you. Unless you are magically clairvoyant and able to predict every POSSIBLE outcome around every corner? The key is to know that going in and expect surprises. If you can evolve a sense of humor real quick, you MIGHT make it out the other side alive?

I mean OR you just might DIE quicker, you never know.

Just so we're clear about what I'm talking about??? Picture training wheels still left on a bike and its riders still cloaked in darkness.

Picture men who only have a one in four chance of even living through this experience, impatiently whipping on reigns and making HUGE decisions.

Not even a month earlier, back in June?! Operation Pointblank claimed 903 from the old stars and stripes.

These pork tenderloins were the next in line, riding war era piston-engine dragons that's more liable to deliver her warriors to HELL than any actual war zone.

They just had maps, compasses and calipers.

Everything was manual back in the day.

Well everything except for gravity?

Gravity has always been automatic.

Loaded with four pounds of dynamite and sixty pounds of sand, the first party favor fell through Forrest Bourk's garage near the post office.

I should probably showcase Boise City, Oklahoma's courthouse a little in order for you to appreciate this tale of yesteryear.

This is the one feature I or anyone whose ever ventured this way think of when this particular location gets brought up. Besides that possibly being the last old school Pizza Hut I ever dined in?

There’s this brick sonofabitch that makes me think of my sister Laurie's elementary school. Right in the middle of a round about and the choices between Texas or Denver.

This is still worlds away from a freeway so I'm sure the streets haven't changed a whole lot over EIGHTY years?

Our friends from the south mistook the corner lights of this neat structure as their bull's eye.

Eight people slept inside the unattached Bourk home, but were reasonably startled awake by the noise this popper made when it crashed through the garage's roof and cratered its floor by four feet.

Folks would start to rouse as I'm sure you can imagine?

The bewilderment worked to a lather as quickly as those sixteen angry spinning fan blades circled back and produced ANOTHER heart stopping whistle.

The second bomb just missed the baptist church?

Pastor Dodd's eyes fixed upward almost in horror. Of course he hightailed it out to the lawn as soon as he got his overalls on?

Just SEVERAL windows?

The sound of the air raid circling back must have puckered quite a few POOPERS? The Sheriff with two LAST NAMES (Harris Powell) had to make that awkward phone call in the middle of the night to the appropriate air base.

A THIRD bomb chunked Cimarron road a stone's throw from this masonic masterpiece?

“Well God damn, Irene they are bombing us.”

Fortunately by this time? Harry was able to get through to the powers that be down there.

Meanwhile there's this TRUCK STOP?!

Long haulers eat at all hours of the night and this particular night was no exception?

There was a couple fuel tanker drivers that earned the plaid in their capes and the gleam in their belt buckles this evening?

More than one of these absolute legends rolled up their sleeves and selflessly hightailed their OWN placarded BOMBS as far from this disaster as possible.

(Keep in mind no one knows that this is a training accident yet, for all anyone knows – the panhandle is being MANHANDLED by an enemy.)

A FOURTH bomb barely missed the last rig while they were grabbing gears and plinking back road grit. It only managed to mud up a porch.

By the sixth bomb? The power to the city was off and more than one set of eyebrows were furrowed; more than one intergluteal cleft was clinched - that is all I can tell you.

Whether it was the lights or Dalhart control tower reached our wayward boys, we'll never know, but the thirty minute raid on Boise City, Oklahoma concluded.

The next morning the F.B.I. and investigators from the U.S. Army Air Force descended into town to poke around and see what they could find out?

Lee Wright apparently slept through the whole ordeal? All he wanted to know was who muddied his porch.

These investigators found a community that didn't seem that disturbed by the mistake.

In fact the total damage was only estimated at a bank busting twenty-five bucks.

Everyone was satisfied that no one got hurt.

No blood, no fowl.