I was as green as they come in our industry when I first met Mike. He was always very kind in our dealings and I learned much from him over the 25+ years we had business dealings. He was one of my very favorite people to work with and I miss him very much.

Memories of Mike in no particular sequence...Disorderly comments about the short life of an unconditional friend:

* Still waters run deep.
* Mike was quiet.  But he could kick up his heels, throw back his head and laugh 'til his eyes watered.
* Mike seemed simple to many.  Most days, he was.  What you see is what you get.  But he listened.  And considered what he heard.  Then formed considerate opinions based on facts, not prejudices.
* Mike was a blue collar guy.  A pipefitter.  But he got his OSU class ring before most of his college bound classmates from their class of '63 at Northwest Classen Highschool got theirs, didn't he?
* Whom did we turn to when mechanical problems spoiled the moment or the  weekend or the wallet?  Whether the problem was an old Plymouth born before the big fins of the fifties or a sweltering lake cabin decades later, young Mike or old Mike fixed it. Like we knew he would.
* How many hours did Mike take from his personal time to solve our problems? How many times did he get off work and go to work? He seemed to have little inclination to teach us.  But teach us he did.  Usually by example.  But also, when we asked, if we persisted, like his father taught Rex and him.
* Speaking of teaching, their mother taught Mike to play bridge, sometimes their foursome needed to fill a chair.
* Mike was an athlete.  Even if he often took our little games a bit too seriously.  The same vice-like hands and Popeye forearms that crafted delicate bird houses and shouldered hundred-pound compressors up ladders like a waiter delivers cocktails...those hands and arms of that tall, skinny guy could hit a softball over the fence and roll strike after strike at the bowling alley...particularly in beer frames.
* Mike was the most graceful slalom skier on the water.  Legs locked in, he swung like a pendulum at lightening speed, spraying walls of water, side to side behind the boat,straightening, then springing from the wake to pop his ski back into the water with the sound of his trademark 'smack'.  And when he fell...oh brother, arms and legs asunder, skipping and flying...when Mike fell he fell for a while.  And came up grinning the Michael grin. Just 3 or 4 years ago, on a ski at Lake Eufaula, the only thing that had changed was the hair and the length of the ride...one was much grayer, the other much shorter.  But you knew it was Mike from a mile away.
* One last story.  Mike skied on the smallest skis ever made and the largest ski you've ever seen.  His shoe skis were just that.  Only inches longer than your shoes.  Only Mike could get up on them...his trick, a 3rd ski wedged in his crotch for the start.  And then he built Big Ski.  Two skis bonded together, more or less heel to toe.  More than 10 feet long with 4 in-line boots.  The idea was 2 people on one slalom ski.  Mike and his dad had mastered this many years before.  So he said. Rex? True? With the adult version we did not fare so well. But you really should have been there.
* Mike as a teenager remains the only guy you know who could somehow take a lit cigarette in his mouth, use his lips and tongue to grip the cold end between his lower lip and teeth with the burning end inside his closed mouth...can you picture this?...smoke should be coming from his ears...then he'd swim under water to the other side of the pool, come up, open his mouth and unfold the glowing cigarette, smoking and grinning.
* Bonfire guilding became an art when Mike took charge. Beaches at Tenkiller, Eufaula, and on the Arkansas River among others...have been seen from the Moon if not Mars thanks to pyro-maniac Mike's carefully stacked teepees of giant drift wood that singed many of the eyebrows here in this room today.
* One of the coolest early memories...Rex, do you remember your family's baby blue, '58 Ford station wagon? Somehow Mike persuaded your dad to let him put dual glasspacks and baby moons on it.  Presumably paid for with a week's wages from bussing tables at the Tropical cafeteria. The wagon was fast. Ate more than a few clutches, if not Corvettes. One night heading out NW Highway Mike figured out the traffic light timing worked just as well, catching all green lights, at double the speed limit...just as one would at 55 miles per hour. God smiled on us that night.
* Speaking of cars, some here remember Mike's solid black '58 Impala with the 348? Wow! What would you give for that car today?
* Mike was an inventor before he finished grade school. Perhaps the cub scouting projects in his dad's garage inspired him. We had the only tree house with an elevator. Ingenious for a kid who is not supposed to be old enough to think abstractly. A long rope with a huge log tied to one end as a counter weight and a swing-like seat on the other end. But it took some of us 'average' kids a while to learn that the empty seat  needed to be tied off to be available for the next ride up. Lucky we didn't get clobbered by the counter weight. Mike probably had an idea then he'd be fixing our stuff for decades to come.
* Another hot summer when simple Tarzan swings across Deep Fork Creek had lost their luster, Mike devised a long rope and pulley system for thrills. And spills. The budding mad scientist was 11 or 12 or thereabouts. The rope was tied from very high in one tree to a lower point in another tree, perhaps a hundred feet distant. Picture a dangling swing seat attached to a pulley hooked over the rope. Nearly as good as the Big Dipper roller coaster at Spring Lake Park. That is...after we adjusted the tension and after 'Test Pilot Swaim' ran aground at Mach 2 because the rope stretched more than anybody imagined...IF anybody imagined in the first place.
* Even as a soldier, Mike was a builder. His National Guard buddies remember many years of government paid holidays in Stillwater and at Greenleaf Lake. Before Sarah Palin was old enough to vote for President, much less run, Mike and his Army pals were building Bridges to Nowhere...floating bridges big enough to drive tanks and deuce and a halfs and armored personnel carriers across.
* Mike could be really, really funny. A few of those stories may not be fit for young ears. Suffice it to say, he led the charge in practical jokes, be they lugging a motorcycle into a sleeping roommate's upstairs bedroom or hiding a buddy's expensive bottle of whiskey. When the guy with the booze got angry instead of laughing, big mistake. Mike refilled the bourbon bottle with iced tea in a prank that took months to play out. 
*Mike went to work for Harrison-Orr before Mr. Harrison and Mr. Orr. So it seems. Some of us can't see a white truck with blue and red lettering anywhere in the country without thinking H&O. Didn't Mike live in an equipment closet at the phone company throughout the 70's and 80's?  Good training because in this century Mike had an office at Chesapeake before Mr. McClendon, didn't he? Last week, the view out of Mike's hospital room at St. Anthony was fitting...rooftop landscape of chillers and sheetmetal designed and installed by Mike and his team from H&O.
* Long before computers...Some of us remember Mike calculating duct runs and sizes with a funky looking cardboard, circular, slide rule thingamajig called a 'ductulator'.  We still believe he could predict solar eclipses, wet T-shirt contests, and 99 cent sales on Falstaff 6-packs with it.
* Speaking of calculating, another fond memory. Mike doing one of his selfless "help the dummy" jobs...helping a buddy trying to install a kitchen countertop. Needed the miter cut but Mike thought to check the walls. Not square, of course, so simple 45 degree cuts would not work. With a number 2 pencil writing on a 2 by 4, using algebra lessons that the rest of us slept through or forgot, Mike stretches an equation along some 2 1/2 feet of a white pine board. When he finished he knew what angles we needed to cut the miter. Even the mighty ductalotor could not have done that one.
* Ham, spam, ram, bo beef bear and giraffe tonsils. Never quite understood this lunchmeat ditty but it's hard to pass a spam can or chub of bologna without remembering Mike's little verse. Where'd that come from Rex?...His last night in the hospital Mike ate part of a sandwich. When prompted, and at the sight of very boring white bread and something, Mike grinned as best he could and recited: 'Ham, Spam, Ram, Bo Beef and Giraffe Tonsils'.
* We've each lost an unconditional friend.  There are few left on earth. Mike cannot be replaced. May our happy memories replace our sad thoughts more and more frequently as we think of Mike and struggle forward in the weeks and months ahead.

Mike....you are an amazing man...working with you for the past five years..I could always look forward to your smile. I will never forget you...rest in peace.

Rex, Linda, and Brenda:

Sorry to hear about your loss. May God comfort you at this time.

I have always remembered and charished our summer of 1962.  I hope your black 1958 Chevy is waiting for you in heaven. My prayers go out to your family.  Bye, Mike.

In a meeting this morning we at AT&T (formerly SBC, formerly Southwestern Bell Telphone) remembered Mike and all of the good times that we spent with Mike traveling around Oklahoma on construction projects for our buildings.  Mike was a large part of a lot of our mechanical work for over 30 years and he will be missed by all of us.      - Area Manager - Design & Construction AT&T

I will always remember Mike, and the times we spent at Harrison & Orr.  I deeply regret the loss of our friend, and brother, and the great void his passing has left to his family.  His presence in our lives will be greatly missed.

AVIS DE DÉCÈS

Michael Swaim

18 mars 1945 – 27 juillet 2011

Montrez votre soutien

Envoyez Vos
Condoléances

Partager
L'avis De Décès

Obtenir les mises à jour

Prestations de Service