My very first real life bona fide job was working for Dr Phillip Chitwood at his veterinary clinic. In high school I had worked at Sonic for a few weeks and hauled hay for several summers, but Dr Chitwood was my first professional type job. I think it was in the summer of 1993 when I started to work there. This was before the new bypass was built. His old clinic was at the end of the bypass where the highway department is now, when the bypass was built he built his new clinic at the current location in town by Taco Bell.
I was a first year student at Carl Albert State College and I was a prevet major, so I was super excited to get to work for him. I will never forget he gave me some sort of test the day I interviewed for the job. After I took it he said the test told him I was honest. I’ve never had to take a test like that since.
Not long after I began working at Dr Chitwood’s vet clinic he brought me to the surgery preparation room to prep a cat for spaying. He gave the cat a shot and then told me in a very stern voice, “Now James make sure this cat keeps breathing while you shave its belly.” There was a little door that swung both ways so people could go up front to where the front office and exam rooms were. I was shaving that cat’s belly and trying to do a good job when I heard people laughing. The entire crew that worked at the clinic was peering through the little window in that door that went up front. When I spotted them they all came in where I was. Dr Chitwood walked in and said, “James, is that cat still breathing?” I looked at it, and sure enough it wasn’t. I was mortified. About that time the entire staff started laughing their heads off. It turned out that the cat was an old stray that was brought in to be put down. Dr Chitwood and the staff had a good laugh at my expense.
That fall on the opening day of dove season Dr Chitwood’s son went dove hunting with a bunch of his friends. He proceeded to shoot himself in the big toe with his shotgun. When he came to the clinic Dr Chitwood pointed out that his son wore his hunting boots, and now they had a hole shot in them.
A few months later we had a big old holstein cow that had to be milked every morning. She moved very slow and most mornings she absolutely refused to walk into the squeeze chute. One morning she stopped as I was driving her down the alleyway that led into the squeeze chute. There was a little pipe gate in the alley, so I grabbed it and slammed it into her butt as hard as I could. She kicked with both back feet and the gate hit me on the end of my nose. Her kick knocked me down, but I caught myself on the pipe fence as I was falling backwards, otherwise I probably would have busted my head open. I’d been in several fistfights in school and no one ever came close to hitting me as hard as what that cow did.
I rolled around on the ground for a minute, my nose squirting blood and my clothes getting covered in cow manure. Once I got my senses gathered I stumbled into the back door of the vet clinic. Dr Chitwood had me lay down on an old couch in the medicine room. Once my nose stopped bleeding he had me get up and go deal with the cow and clean up the blood my nose had dripped in the hallway of the clinic. I used the hot shot on that danged cow, and didn’t get anywhere near her back feet, I’d learned my lesson on that. Once the cow was cared for he looked my head over good and then he said he thought the gate missed the bone in my nose, so he didn’t think my nose was broke. The next morning when I came to work I showed everyone that I could push on the end of my nose and my two front teeth would move. I think that cow broke the front of my face where my teeth attach to my skull. Ever since the cow kicked me in the face my front teeth don’t line up with my bottom ones, it makes it hard to bite beef jerky or eat a tough steak to this day.
One time we had to do a surgery on a huge bull. The bull was a Santa Gertrudis type with a lot of sheath from under his jaw all the way down underneath him. The briars had caused the bull’s sheath under his belly to become infected, so Dr Chitwood basically cut off the infected part. I held the part that was being removed. Dr Chitwood would cut a little bit, then sew a little. It took us over an hour to complete the surgery. I will never forget when the last little sliver of tissue was cut, the part I was holding in my hands died. I felt the life go out of it. I had never felt anything die before and it kind of bothered me. I had a very in depth conversation about heaven and all living things with Dr Chitwood that day.
Of all the conversations I had with him over our thirty year friendship, that is the one I will always remember. He was always active in church, he went out of his way to invite me to church almost every time I saw him.
All living things, heaven and hell, that conversation in the back of the vet clinic that day had a huge impact on me. Exodus 18 teaches us to surround ourselves with many advisors. Dr Phillip Chitwood was a great one for me, I’m sure going to miss him.
James Lockhart lives near the Kiamichi mountains in southeast Oklahoma. He writes cowboy stories and fools with cows and horses.
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