COM M U N I T Y
A Good Life
BY: BILL MOAKLEY
PRESENTED BY
CENTURIONCG.NET
Hardship, Good Memories and Honor Define Vet’s Life
C
urtis Wright has managed to ride an eighth-grade education through a good part of the United States and Europe. Not bad for a kid from Drumwright. “Life is what you make it,” Wright said recently from the lobby of the Norman Veterans Center. “You make it good or bad. I’ve made it pretty good.” Pretty good is an understatement. After finishing eighth grade, Wright left Drumwright for the first time for a 60-plus mile trip to Morris in Okmulgee County and a job with the Civil Conservation Corps. He was 15. “It paid a dollar a day and you sent half that home,” Wright recalled. “You went out and planted grass and trees. They educated the younger people and gave them something to do.” Wright also got a little boxing in at the CC camp, dropping a feared brawler from 12 | March 2020
Detroit in about that lasted less than two minutes. “I was 15 years old, and I had a pretty good left hook,” Wright said. “Some of the boys from my town told the captain, ‘we have an ole boy who can fight him.’ I hit him with a pretty good left hook and put him down.” After a short time in Illinois, working with a brother, Wright met his first wife and decided it was time for a change in lifestyle. He took a job on a farm for $40 a month and a furnished house. “Back then, you could get by on it,” he said. The farm job also came with a deferment from the war raging in Europe. When the property’s owner decided to purchase another adjacent property, Wright decided he’d move on to another career. That turned out to be military service.
