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COME DINE WITH AN


OKLAHOMA LEGEND!


“As they got older, they began to understand what was happening,” Vicki said. “It in- creased their fear of what was going on outside.” The couple’s plan of attack was simple—Bob acted like “it was no big deal,” leaving the house like a businessman headed to the offi ce on an average Tuesday. Vicki, who learned to play the “tough guy,” followed suit, working to sidetrack the children’s attention. Sometimes she had to sidetrack her own thoughts. “When I call and he hasn’t answered or he can’t answer his phone, well your mind runs away with you,” Vicki said. “Every time he walks out that door, I say a prayer. It takes a little bit of faith to let him go.” Routine eventually replaced shock. Vicki and the three children—now all adults—settled into a pattern that often featured Bob’s absenteeism. Plans changed quickly around the Anderson household.


“I can’t count how many times we’d be ready to go somewhere and the phone rings,”


Bob said. “I can’t go. That’s not a happy occasion.” Vicki would fi x dinner, and Bob would be called away. The couple would be out enjoy- ing one of their children’s ballgames and suddenly he’d be gone. “He’s even left church,” she said giggling. “Sometimes I’d have to hitch a ride home.


You’d think we’d learn to take two cars. You just never know when he’s going to get called.” Of course, the Andersons are quick to point out how the co-op family helps cover shifts so that linemen can be there for their children’s “big events.” Still, two decades together have yielded plenty of missed holidays as well. Half-a-dozen times Bob had been surrounded by kith and kin for Thanksgiving or Christmas only to be beckoned to rescue the holiday for a few thousands strangers. Bob’s seen it all through his career, and Vicki’s heard about it all. Sort of. As Bob recalls stories about tornadoes dropping down from the sky a few hundred yards from his truck and nearby lightning strikes, he eventually hits a story that’s just too much for Vicki.


“Lightning hit a few poles down from me, and it was like a ball of fi re coming down the lines. You could hear the crackle of electricity as it came down the line,” he said. “I thought, ‘oh no.’ But it went down the pole. I’m still here.” Vicki cringed and added: “There are some things better left for me not to know.”


Do you have to go again? Clint Ingram is somewhere between veteran Bob Anderson and newly minted journey-


man Norvin Graham in the lineman career spectrum. Ingram has served as a lineman at Cotton Electric Cooperative for 13 years. He met his wife, Janie, at Cowboy church, and it was love at fi rst sight. Now the pair has been married a decade and made their home a few miles north of Lake Lawtonka, working horses and raising chickens to give their 6-year-old son Maverick “some responsibility, some chores.” Much like Vicki Anderson and Ashlee Graham, Janie had no concept of living on the lines. “Not a clue,” she said.


Janie can accept the inherent but routine dangers of his job. She can embrace having the daily life rearranged. Even the interruptions in family gatherings and holidays have become a laughable. The most diffi cult part, however, is the phone call. “When it’s blowing wind or rain and you hear the phone ring, you just know,” she


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said. “Your heart sinks a little.” So does Maverick’s. “He hates when Clint leaves. He asks, ‘Do you have to go again?’” Janie said. “Even


when Clint is not going to work, he’s just going out to feed the horses, Maverick will say, ‘Where are you going? To work?’ It’s heart wrenching.” Much like Norvin Graham’s story, Clint was called out to the fi eld early on Christmas


Eve. He returned in time for Christmas morning but was only able to spend an hour before the phone rang again. “He knows I have to go get someone’s lights on,” Clint said of Maverick. “But he does get down.” The infamous 2010 ice storm remains the low watermark for the Ingrams. For Clint the task was Herculean. Once Clint and his partner restored power to a particular area, ice would fall and pull the lines down again.


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