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Chance Collinsworth and Rusty Hammer have always had one thing in common:  they both believed in fate. And well they should, as they both have proof of its existence.

The whole idea of fate is one a lot of folks struggle with.  Chance used to share with folks the Shakespeare quote, “Our wills and fates do so contrary run, that our devices still are overthrown; our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.”  But, let’s face it.  This is Fort Stockton and nobody really knew what the hell that meant.  Maybe you had to live through a few life threatening, death-defying events to fully grasp what the Bard was saying.  But both Chance and Rusty had plenty of experience being somewhere at just the right time to witness events and experience the power of fate.

Several of Chance’s brushes with providence have been well documented in other stories.  There’s a strong possibility more will be shared in the near future.  We’ll see.  Rusty’s astral influence is less well known, but no less sensational.  

It took place in 1982.

Rusty was a young man, newly married, and was in the process of working his way up in the family business, The Rusty Hammer Hardware Store.  It was well known that he’d one day take over the business from his father, Rusty Sr., who’d taken it over from his father three decades earlier.  Of course, it wasn’t the plan for Rusty to be the one to take over the business initially, not being the oldest of the Hammer brothers.  But when his brother, Claw, was injured in an accident in the back of the quonset hut storage building behind the store, he was never quite the same.  

While moving several pallets of cotton seed meal with the fork lift, Claw bumped into several cases of insecticide stacked nearly to that rounded ceiling, spilling their contents and trapping the startled lad.  The result of being pinned under the exposed chemicals for an extended period of time had an effect on his mental acuities.  After a long stay at the Fort Stockton Regional Hospital and Animal Testing Facilities, he declined going back to the hardware store and went into politics instead, relocating to Austin.  The responsibility then fell to Rusty.  While reluctant at first, the fact that they wouldn’t have to change the sign was the selling point that made the difference.

In late 1981 Rusty Sr. felt it was time for the boy to attend his first American Hardware Merchants Association Convention being held in Portland, Oregon that year.  The AHMAC was a big deal at that time, before all the manufacturing moved overseas and hardware sales shifted to big-box retailers.  Displays were set up in big convention halls, speakers would give talks on new products that were soon to be unveiled, and relationships between suppliers and hardware store owners all over the country could be developed and strengthened.  Rusty Sr. had been going for years, but he felt like the kid was ready.

This is where the plot thickens.

On January 6, 1982 Rusty left on his trip, the first time he’d ever been more than a hundred miles from Fort Stockton, much less ever on an airplane.  Taking a small twin engine, four passenger Air Goodman flight from Fort Stockton Regional Airport and Feedlot to Lubbock, Rusty got on an actual jet to fly the rest of the way to Portland, where the convention was being held.  Being so high up in the air was an unsettling experience. He couldn’t stop looking out the window.  But it was that constant staring out the window that would lead to his kismet.

Flying over Colorado at relatively low altitude, while looking out the window Rusty noticed what appeared to be a body using a blinking light and signaling for help in the snow below.  He pushed the ‘Call’ button on the overhead panel above him and a flight attendant quickly made her way over to his seat.  She looked at the window, confirmed what he had seen, and ran in a full trot up to the cockpit to notify the pilot.  The pilot radioed to the ground what had been seen from the air and a full rescue team was dispatched to the coordinates he had relayed.

Sure enough, Alan Lee Phillips was discovered by the rescue team, stranded in a snowdrift in the middle of a severe snow storm.  Temperatures had dropped to -22 degrees by the time rescuers reached Phillips.  Had he not been spotted from the air by Rusty, Phillips would not have survived the night.  Phillips had been driving his 1978 Chevrolet El Camino when the storm hit.

Finished in gray metallic with options that included dual side mirrors, bright rocker and side moldings, and chrome bumpers, the 14″ steel wheels wore chrome trim rings and center caps mounted with Firestone Firehawk Indy 500 white-letter tires.  None of those features kept the car-based pickup from sliding off the road once it became icy, trapping Phillips in the bench seat reupholstered in red vinyl trim joined by a color-coordinated dashboard pad, headliner, carpets, visors, and door panels.  Despite the push-button AM/FM stereo, armrests, and rubber floor mats, Phillips felt that if he was to survive, he would have to free himself from the wrecked car-based pickup.  

He put his boot on the two-spoke tilting steering wheel wearing an aftermarket wrap and framing a sweeping 85-mph speedometer, an analog clock, and a fuel level gauge. Phillips continued to apply pressure to the driver’s door, till it eventually popped open.  The blunt force caused cracks in interior trim pieces.  He slogged his way through the snow, the storm only getting worse with each bit of progress he made.  He was about to give up and lose hope when he collapsed into a snowdrift. That’s when Rusty spotted him from the air.  Alan Phillips literally had someone watching over him from above.

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And that would have been that, until it wasn’t.

Rusty went on to Portland, and enjoyed his very first AHMAC experience.  He attended the workshop, “How Weedeaters  Can Whack Your Competition”.  Shortly thereafter, a girl outside the convention hall dressed in a leopard print top and tiny black shorts offered to whack something else for fifty bucks.  He’d never had that offer in Fort Stockton before, at least not at that price. “Everything is so overpriced here in the Pacific Northwest,” he told his wife when he phoned home that evening.

But in Breckenridge, Colorado a different scene was unfolding with very different implications.  On January 6th Barbara Jo Oberholtzer, and Annette Kay Schnee vanished without a trace.  The two had each been hitchhiking from the ski resort when they disappeared. It wasn’t till six months later, when Annette’s lifeless body was found, that police made a chilling connection linking the two girls together.  Annette wore an orange sock that had been a Christmas gift from her mother. The other matching sock was discovered near the body of Bobbie Jo.  Police knew that the same individual had been responsible for killing both girls.

On the very night of the murders, the police had launched the massive rescue operation that saved the life of Alan Lee Philips.  It was 40 years later that they were to discover that he became trapped in the snowdrift after disposing of the bodies of the two women he’d just murdered.  He was arrested in 2021 after the discovery of DNA left at the crime scene that positively proved he’d been the one that killed both women.  He was convicted at the age of 71 in 2022, 40 years after committing the crime, and will spend the rest of his life in prison.

For his part, Rusty continued to attend AHMAC conventions.  In 1982 The Rusty Hammer Hardware Store won the Weedeater Retailer of the Year Award.  By the end of the decade, he was actually teaching a seminar called “Nailed It”, a symposium for beginners on selecting the proper size nail for every project.  An assistant in a leopard top and tiny black shorts handled the visual aids while he gave the talk.

Between Chance Collinsworth and Rusty Hammer, there’s never a shortage of stories being swapped at the Lucky Lady on any given night.  After a few Lone Star Longnecks, Rusty likes to tell folks, “I can control my destiny, but not my fate. Destiny means there are opportunities to turn right or left, but fate is a one-way street.”  It shows a side of Rusty most people don’t know is there.

But then he starts talking about reciprocating saws and variable speed augers and people get bored real quick.

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