The truth, the truth, nothing but the truth.

These truths are almost self-evident. I wrote them to purge my soul. Some are humerous, others sad, a couple dark. They are all true.

Sport of Fools

During the years my wife Nancy and I bounced around the country, we lived in Denver.  The sport of skiing had never tempted us before and never would have we not been so close to the slopes.  When one lives in Colorado, one skis.  

Our first foray onto the slopes was uneventful and consisted mostly of lessons and hot toddies.  Our first instructor ran us through the paces, and then he took us to the mountaintop.  We made our way down.  Notice that I didn’t say we skied down.  We made our way down, and then we chose to bring the bunny slope to its knees for the rest of the day.

The next trip was a weekend jaunt to Keystone. Since we had already skied at Loveland for a couple of hours, we considered ourselves season vets.  Our first instructor at Keystone went through the lessons again and proceeded to select those ready for the slopes.  Strangely, he omitted our names.  Incensed by the oversight, we decided to dispense with further instruction and use the intermediate slope on our own.  

We trudged to the lift, a primitive apparatus, and mounted the seats.  Getting on was easy.  Getting off was another matter.  When we reached our destination, I bailed out and crashed into the snow.  Nancy flung herself out into space and proceeded to jam her ski pole into her ribs when she landed. The trauma interrupted her breathing apparatus.  I prayed for her, because I couldn’t regain my feet to help in any other way. 

Finally, we regained our composure and regrouped.  We had to.  There was no other way to get back to the lodge and remove the medieval instruments of torture commonly referred to as ski boots.  

However, our challenge lay before us, so we started our journey. To expedite the trip down, we performed figure eights, and did quite well as long as we didn’t look at each other.  On the few occasions when we did, we both fell down laughing.  

I am convinced that Nancy belongs in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s slowest skier, but she insists that the honor is mine. I decided that I would die from old age before reaching the bottom if I waited for Nancy, so I picked up the pace a bit which proved problematic.  The figure eights became smaller and smaller.  Finally and without intent, I found myself flying down the mountain at full speed. I waved my arms and yelled “runaway” at the top of my voice.  

I knew that all I had to do was fall down, but since I traveled at the speed of light, that did not strike me as an option.  Other skiers peered at me askance, as I flashed by.  A line of beginners trudged across my destructive path, and a future filled with casts, crutches, and maybe caskets, flashed before my eyes.  They were blissfully unaware that they were looking into the face of death.  I cast my poles aside and headed between two elderly skiers.  They waved as I passed.  

As the parking area rapidly approached, I viewed the seriousness of the situation.  Fortunately, the lot was not crowded. I flashed across, found a seam between a Caddy and a maroon pickup, and buried myself in a pile of snow that had been around the block a few times.  After a moment of repose, I extricated myself, took off those instruments of Satan, and vowed never to get within a hundred yards of anything that smells of skiing.  So far, I have kept my promise.  

The Sprain

There were no swimming pools, tennis courts, little league fields, community centers, or youth activities in Naples, Texas, in 1949. Constantly exuding excess energy, boys would sample most activities in a small town, legal or otherwise. We had the Inez Theater, but a movie only lasts so long, so when it was over, and we had all of those daylight hours left to kill leaving us with few means of amusing ourselves. One reliable source of energy releasing activity required a criminal act on the part of the participants. Breaking and entering the Naples High School gymnasium was the evil deed. Indoor basketball was the payoff.

There was an unspoken, “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” agreement between the authorities and the criminals. The rule for using the gym was a matter of us younger kids not abusing the facilities, so there was no reason for anyone enforcing the locked door policy. Besides, who was kidding whom? No one bothered to lock up the basketballs.

*****

It was a Sunday afternoon after the matinee. We hummed the theme from The Third Man as we headed for the gym. The locked front door forced us to go around to the back of the building and enter through a window. We got the game underway in short order. After a while, there was a loose ball rolling down the court. One of my friends was in hot pursuit of the ball, but he was slow and I was fast. I flashed by him, but our feet got tangled and I went down. I landed on my hands. As he went by, he kicked my arm. After I finished falling, I realized that my left arm was in dire pain. I had a sick feeling as well. My basketball activities for the day were over.

I took my throbbing arm home and informed my foster mother that I had damaged my arm. After a brief but vigorous lecture on the evils of playing with my next-door neighbor, or anyone else for that matter, she asked, “Bud, did you sprain your arm?”

“I don’t know, Mama,” I replied. “But it sure does hurt.”

Mama grasped her left elbow with her right hand, and supported her chin with her left hand. She sagely advised, “Ellie will be home in a little bit. She can look at your sprained wrist. Bud, do you want an aspirin? You know where they are.”

I lamented, “I guess so. Does this bone look like it’s moving to you?”

“Bud, you know I am nearly blind. Wait ‘till Ellie gits home.”

Having no other options, I went to my own private reading room, which consisted of a long, narrow storage room that I had commandeered for reading my pulp fiction books. I selected a copy of Planet Stories, lay down on my quilt, and allowed my interest in the story to overcome the pain.

*****

My foster sister, Ellie, was a nurse at the local hospital and our resident medical expert. She soon came in amidst the slamming of doors and her strident prelude to the ubiquitous, blow-by-blow, recap of her day in the wards. Finally, she and Mama came in my room. “Buddy!” she barked. “Did you sprain your wrist?”

“I don’t know. Look! Is this bone moving?”

Ellie grabbed my arm, and I yelped. She tried again, but in a more nurse-like manner. “Is the bone moving?” I persisted.

She ignored my question, looked at Mama, and said, “We could take Buddy to see Dr. Leeves and let him take an X-ray. They cost $35, but I could pay it out.” She turned to me and said, “Buddy, if it’s broke, they will have to set your arm, and you will have to wear a cast for six weeks. You won’t get to play no more basketball.”

Mama added, “Don’t forget the doctor bill on top of that. Besides, it is just sprained. Bud, do you want another aspirin?”

The pain had subsided to some degree, and I was not eager to get my arm set. “Ellie, do you have any tape to put around my arm?”

*****

I made the basketball team, and even though I was only in the ninth grade, I got in some games. The primary difficulty with my arm was that the out of bounds on the east end of the gym was only about two feet from the wall. When I had to stop myself with my hands, my arm smarted. Still, there are times when an athlete must play hurt.

A few weeks later, I was out in the pasture building a rabbit hutch for my FFA project. Don’t ask me why, but I felt compelled to jump over a barbed-wire fence. I caught my toe on the top wire, and I landed on my hands. There was no doubt this time. The bone in my sprained wrist was dancing in all sorts of directions.

Mama and Ellie agreed that an aspirin and some tape would not do the job this time, so Ellie took me to see Dr. Leeves at the hospital. He knew that I was not Sir Galahad, so he used gas as an anesthetic while he set the obviously broken wrist. When I regained consciousness, Dr. Leeves informed me that from the looks of the new bone growth, I broke the arm about a month ago. He also casually mentioned that I had a bad reaction to the gas, and he lost me there for a while. He gave me a shot of adrenalin and I responded. He assured me that there would be no lasting harm.

A Magical Night

                 It began with a group of farmers around the turn of the twentieth century. The Stubbs family had relocated from Newton County, Georgia, to Cass County, Texas, in circa 1890. They were hard working people who cleared land, planted crops, and harvested. During the growing season, there was not much time or energy for frivolity; but at other times, fishing the creeks with seines and cane poles; hunting quails, squirrels, and rabbits; and playing baseball filled their leisure hours. Yep! The young men from the richly populated rural areas of East Texas gathered after church on Sundays and played America’s game. After all, it had been around for about eighty years.

 My father, Marvin Stubbs, was born in 1900. He was a diminutive drop-ball pitcher in those games. Having no knowledge of how to prepare his arm for a season of throwing curve balls, he was typical of players during those days. Everyone threw the ball hard on the first day. As a result of this lack of preparation, Marvin damaged the tendons and ligaments in his elbow and was unable to pitch effectively in a game for very long. Daddy described his older brother, Walter, as being of major league quality, but I had no way of knowing if he really was. However, events unfolding during the present time suggest that he may have possessed such talent.

Hershel Stubbs, nicknamed Huck, was a year younger than Marvin. He was Walter’s son. Huck and Marvin played baseball together. It is likely that Walter was still playing at this time as well. Huck was the tallest of the Stubbs clan, and considered a top-notch baseball player as well. Huck had two sons. One of them named Bernice Harlan, produced a son named Rick. It was with Rick that the Stubbs gene for speed and athletic ability roared to the international scene. Rick not only had speed, but at 6’4”, he had size. He specialized in the hurdles and, at his peak during the seventies; he ranked number three in the world. He still owns a hurdles record at the Texas Relays. Records also show that Rick was the fastest white hurdler in recorded track history.

Rick fathered three sons two of which became high-level baseball players. Clint is a senior baseball player at Louisiana Tech. Drew played baseball for the University of Texas and is presently the centerfielder for the Cincinnati Reds. This story is about the last night we saw Drew play.

It occurred to my son Mark and me that it might be fun to go to Phoenix and watch the Cincinnati Reds play a few games during spring break. Grandson Aaron, who is thirteen and a baseball player, was only too willing to share an opportunity to meet his famous distant cousin and personal hero.

The Reds had called up Drew late during the last season, and he paid them back by hitting a game winning walk-off homerun in his second game. Drew completed the season with quality play. Walter would have been proud. The fact is, we didn’t know Rick very well, and we didn’t know Drew at all. I had met Rick years ago at a church reunion in the community where the Stubbs family settled. I enjoyed our conversation in Flat Creek and chose to give him a call in Atlanta, Texas, and inquire if we might meet with Drew during our visit. As it turned out, Rick and his wife, Kathryn, planned to be in Phoenix, or Goodyear where the Reds play, at the same time. He offered to arrange a photo- op for Aaron. Mark and I were about as excited to see Drew up close and personal as my grandson.

We arrived on Wednesday and went to the park, but discovered that Drew was not playing. However, Dusty Baker, the Reds manager, scheduled Drew for the Thursday night contest against the Cleveland Indians. Before the game, Rick and Kathryn arranged for a picture with Drew on the sidelines. He signed Aaron’s bat and his cap. We were thrilled beyond words.

Our day was not over. Drew hit a line drive double during his first at bat, and we settled in to watch the rest of the game. After the contest concluded, Rick prearranged for us to spend some quality time with Drew at a nearby hotel.

Physically, Drew is a clone of his father. He is tall, rangy, and in perfect physical condition. He lives in Austin during the off-season and works out with other professional athletes. He was gracious to us during the visit, patiently answering our questions while querying a tongue-tied Aaron about his own athletics. We thought our cup had run over, but the best was yet to come.

Drew played again on Friday night. We had good seats behind the Reds dugout and had easy visual access to the pre-game activities. The Seattle Mariners were first at bat. When their third out came, Drew assumed his position as the leadoff hitter for the Reds. He pulled a sharp single to left field, but a nice fielding play by the left fielder prevented extra bases. Unfortunately, a Reds player hit into a double play that forced Drew out at second to end the inning.

His next at bat came in the third. He casually dropped a Texas leaguer into right center for his second base hit. Again, his teammates failed to advance him to score. When Drew came up to bat in the fifth inning, the Reds had three hits and Drew had two of them. He smashed a hard line drive off the wall in right center. I figured it was worth at least a double, maybe even a triple. I began watching that young greyhound-like athlete churn around second base with unbelievable power. I also noticed that the Mariner outfielder mishandled the ball slightly; that is all that it took. Big Drew flew around third after the coach gave him the windmill. Amazingly, the Mariners managed to get the ball back in play, but after Drew hit the deck, it wasn’t even close. He had just completed one of the most difficult feats in baseball-- an inside the park homerun The Reds bench went wild. So did the Drew Stubbs section of Reds fans that I had recruited during the course of the game.

I hope that Drew enjoys a long and productive career, but three for three with an inside the park homerun is tough to beat. We were there, and, yes, I suspect is it true that his great-great grandfather Walter was of major league quality.

Big Chin and a Pair of Sixes

The cruise ship, Norwegian Dream, moved slowly through the narrow waterway that is the Kiel Canal in Northern Germany.  This was the second day of a Baltic vacation cruise, the first spent crashing through the troughs of an irritated North Sea. Locals were out walking along the canal with their large dogs and small children. They eagerly waved to the denizens of the large pleasure craft, as it disturbed the tranquility of the sunny morning.

Missing out on the pastoral surroundings, warm sun, and friendly Germans,  I trudged up the stairs to deck ten to the ship's Casino, where the operators had scheduled a tournament of Texas Hold'em poker to take place at the ungodly hour of 10:30 a.m.  The fact that I am notorious for not gambling added additional mystery to the moment.  It seemed like a great idea when during the previous evening, and after a couple of glasses of wine, I signed up for the event,. 

The fact that I don't enjoy gambling does not mean that I don't enjoy card games.  In fact, like countless others around the world, I play Texas Hold'em almost daily on the internet but for play money, not real money.  My son Mark often invites me to become involved in a real money game, but I always decline.  This game was as much for Mark as for me.  I plunked down the $60 and took on the bravest of the 1,700 passengers.

When I signed up, the official involved offered tips on the game if I was interested.  The tips turned out to be a series of questions perpetrated by a glamorous Asian dealer on my preferences during certain playing situations.  An example was, "Would you ever stay with small hole cards."  My answer was an old East Texas standby, "That depends." 

As the dealer questioned me, another shipboard World Champion of Poker wannabe hovered over my shoulder.  He had already signed up for the game and was scouting out the opposition.  I learned after a brief conversation that he was a high-level bridge player with numerous Master Points or whatever. He appeared stunned when I inquired of him if he had ever scored ten thousand points in one evening of party bridge.  Perhaps he had never partaken of such a plebian game as party bridge.

Following through on decisions made while influenced by the grape brings to mind an old Willie Nelson song to the effect that last night I went to bed with a ten but this morning I woke up with a two.  Nevertheless, I contracted for the game so there was nothing for me to do other than avail myself of the shark pen and get the show on the road.  Little did my adversaries know how much my opponents on-line feared and respected me.

There were ten players.  The dealer issued $2,000 in chips to each of us and explained the rules of the game.  Not everyone antes in hold’em poker.  A single player antes the big blind and likewise for the small blind. Those questionable privileges travel around the table. In this game, the big blind was $200 and the small blind was $100.  The amount would double every 15 minutes. 

My strategy was to use the large number of players and the numerous opportunities to play conservatively in the beginning which would not be possible once the blinds were large and often.  Like most plans, mine disintegrated early.

My friend, the bridge player, sat directly to my left.  I played little attention to most of the other players with one exception.  I noticed a large shadow covering the table and looked up into the dark sunglasses of the largest Chinese person I have ever seen up close and personal.  He was 6'4" if an inch and smiled at me with shark's teeth that would make James Bond's arch enemy, Odd Job, look like a Cub Scout.  His name was Chin.  From that moment forward, I thought of him as Big Chin. 

The dealer was a young, attractive Jamaican woman with a warm smile and personality to match.  The pit boss lurked behind her.  He exuded charm was as well.  Every player at the table, with the exception of me, just knew they would win the tournament and first money of $500.  My goal was not to be the first one out.  That almost didn't happen.

Finally, the dealer mixed the cards and dealt the first hand.  I drew a king and a queen for my two hole cards. The hole cards belonged to individual players and remained hidden from their adversaries. As usual, someone felt really good about their cards and raised the pot.  I covered the raise and waited for the flop. The flop amounted to the next three common cards dealt to the middle of the table. All players could use them as if they were in their hands.    

I knew from countless hours of playing Texas Hold'em on line that I had a good hand.  It was likely that I would get a high pair out of the flop and maybe two out of the hand.

The flop delivered another king and a queen.  That meant that I had two pairs, which would lose to three of a kind and several other combinations. I didn't want to depend on my two pairs to win the hand, so, I decided to get the shoe clerks, the undecided players, out of the hand and make a statement.  Good poker players must instill fear into their opponents.

When my turn came, I gently pushed my stack of chips into the center of the table.  I went all in. That meant that if other players were to compete for the pot, they must match my bet. Only the winner of the hand stayed in the game unless they started out with more money than I. Since this was the first hand, we all had the same amount of money. The risk was enormous, but I had lots of experience with pressure albeit with play money. 

Texas Hold’em is a conservative form of poker. Players do not like to take unnecessary chances, especially early in the game. One poor decision can take a player out of the game. If I didn’t win this hand, I was gone.

Dead silence reigned.  I brought my steely blues up from my cards to the next player and concentrated on the space between his eyes.  He folded.  The next player quickly followed.  At the end, only one poor sheep chose to follow suit.  He moaned when I turned over my hole cards.  However, the hand was not over.

My opponent had two opportunities to win the hand. The dealer placed the turn, a single card, to the line of cards on the table. It didn’t help me or him. The final card was the river. After a pregnant pause, he turned the card over. No help. I won the hand. 

Appearing stunned, the first causality of the game reluctantly rose from his chair and vacated his spot at the table. All of a sudden, I was feared and respected.  Big Chin's toothy smile lost some of its luster. From that moment on, that game was hombre contre el hombre.

During the next several hands, the play went according to expectations.  I had money to burn, so I only played good hands and once lost with a full house.  I won a few good pots and watched as players fell by the wayside.  I noticed that Big Chin's stack matched my own and his smile had returned. He was a talented player and he knew it.

Time passed and the blinds increased to $400/$200.  That changed the game somewhat. Blinds were more important but still did not justify playing a bad hand.  I did a lot of folding and a little winning.  During one hand, when I stayed for the turn and folded when I didn't get my card, Big Chin complained that I folded too much. That was bad form. I told him that he could tell me how to play right after he beat me.  The die was cast.

The turning point came after the blind was up to $800/$400.  The dealer blessed me with king/king in the hole.  I played possum waiting for the flop.  It produced yet another king.  Mentally, I was dancing in the street. Several players bet heavily on the hand but no one had went all in.  That changed when it came my turn to bet.  I pushed my rather large stack of chips to the center and three others eagerly followed suit.  I figured it would take a full house to win but mine would be larger if I got it.  Big Chin tossed in his cards.  It was lucky for him that he did.

The turn produced at least one and maybe two full houses.  I was not one of them.  The river produced a king.  The other players were so excided about which full house would win that they overlooked my four kings.  Finally, the dealer noticed, and three players went home.  That left the bridge player, Big Chin, and me. 
            

The blind was important at this point.  If one invested $800 in the big blind and called a couple of $500 bets, the flop could be hard to come by.  I stayed with my game plan and drew the ire of Big Chin on more than one occasion by folding when the flop didn't produce or if I had poor cards in the beginning.  He picked up on this and began to bluff on every hand.  He intended to drive me out by winning early pots and it was working. 

Big Chin and the bridge player went all-in and the bridge player was gone.  That left just me and Big Chin.  His evil smile was back, and then it occurred to me.  This was the ultimate game.  This was good versus evil.  I represented hope and he despair.  The gods were involved.

By this time blinds was $1600/$800.  I knew I couldn't continue to be conservative but would have to take wild chances.  If I had even decent hole cards, I went all-in.  Big Chin would fold.  If he went all-in and I didn't have a strong hand, I folded.  Finally, I won a couple of good hand and my stack was slightly larger than his.  The playing field was level.  It just came down to who got the cards. 

On the last hand, I had jack/six in the hole.  Big Chin didn’t ever hesitate. He went all-in and, having little choice, I followed suit.  He showed ace/queen.  It appeared that I was toast.

The flop was king/ten/eight.  No help for me. No help for him. The turn was a six.  I had a pair and Big Chin had squat. I commented, grinning from ear to ear, "Game over!"  Big Chin hemorrhaged.  The river was a seven.  Big Chin gave off a guttural roar.

*****

There were other Texas Hold'em games during the course of the cruise.  I was dying to get in, but the fact that I could leave the ship as the winner wouldn't allow me to play.  Big Chin turned out to be a high roller.  He was in every game and did very well.  I don't remember ever passing through the casino without him being there.  He begged me every day to enter the games, but I told him I just wasn't a gambler.  I was a player.  Finally, he offered to back me in Vegas, but I declined.  What would the guys on-line do if I became a pro?

A Pressed Flower

Elizabeth possessed a gift from God.  The gift was beauty.  Her presence in a room caused a hush. Her deep brown eyes, dark luminous hair, full lips, and superbly boned face left no doubt in the eyes of the beholder that her appearance was breathtaking.

I came to know Elizabeth when we were teens.  She lived in a small Texas town only four miles from where I grew up.  It might as well have been in another galaxy.  There was no mixing of the students from her community with those from mine.  A fierce rivalry existed between the towns especially the athletic teams.  Bad blood existed and proliferated.

The students of both communities attended school in ancient, condemned facilities with no help in sight.  The depression died hard in these parts and the World War II boom was winding down.  It was back to cows, cotton, and watermelons and there wasn’t much cash money in either.  Then God became disgusted with those delapidated old relics and gave the area a nudge.   A tornado decimated Elizabeth’s school in the spring of 1949 and damaged it beyond repair.  An area oil and cattle baron experienced a fit of generosity and provide the funds for a new school.  It all happened in a flash and the lives of many people, including Elizabeth’s and mine, would never be the same.

Students from both warring camps were thrown together in the fall of 1949 with little warning.  All secondary students attended my old High School during that first year as the new facility began to materialize midway between the two towns.  Countless new students walked the halls of my school and the excitement level was high.  Girls were the primary theme of conversation and Elizabeth quickly became a major topic.  Since I was such a minor player in the consolidation process, early reaction on my part to this marvel of genetic combination was just one of awe.  It was later that our lives became forever intertwined and the frailties of both this strange girl and I became so apparent.

During those early days of the consolidated school, I was in a maturation process.  I grew quickly my sophomore year and went from a short skinny kid burdened with health problems to a fierce athletic competitor.  Those rites of passage moved me toward Elizabeth but the time was still too early.  She hardly knew that I existed.  I started dating during those months but it was with other, less queenly creatures. Also, my prowling friends and I became fixtures at the neighboring towns following the theory that the grass in always greener and the girls a bit more compliant in the next town.  Our goals were limited.  We figured that 999 out of 1,000 we were going to strike out but that we would score sooner or later.  The odds were amazingly  accurate.
                       

It’s hard to remember when I first got the idea of dating Elizabeth.  I didn’t have any classes with her.  She had grown up with most the boys from her town and she enjoyed platonic relationships with some of them.  But she was no one’s girlfriend and that puzzled me.  She was also one of the girls that the older guys dated but they didn’t seem to come back after a date or two.  She was still unattached when our junior year began in 1950. 

One of my close friends was something of a ladies man.  He had wavy, albeit somewhat oily hair, a missing tooth in front, and a nice Plymouth car by the standards of those days, so he could get girls. While there were a few heavy dating couples on campus, for the most part the small town girls of that time kept their pants on.  The big topic of conversation after a date was centered around getting a kiss or maybe even copping a feel.  The latter was all too rare.  So “Frosty,” as he was called, started dating Elizabeth. 

Frosty and I went back a long way so I got a blow by blow description after each date.  It seems he was putting pressure on Elizabeth to cross the line and she was confused.  So she did what any normal girl would have done in such a situation.  She went to her pastor and asked him if it was all right to have sex with Frosty.  Naturally the minister advised against it.  Still, I couldn’t understand why Frosty just decided to stop seeing her.  However, that left the door open for me and I was getting braver all the time.

I finally got up the courage to ask Elizabeth for a date.  Please understand that not only was I dealing with the fears and challenges of this new psychological era in my life, but I was dealing with reality factors as well.  I needed a car for a date.  I was from a poor foster home and the family transportation was a 1939 Chevrolet that was on its last legs.  This was not a rolled and pleated rod with twin pipes.  This was a 12-year-old monster with faded maroon paint, badly damaged fenders, and a top speed of 75 mph.  It looked bad, ran bad, and even smelled bad.  It was to gain a place in automotive immortality in the coming months.  As I recall, Elizabeth was the only girl that I ever dated in the “Bomb.”

Youthful infatuation will always be more mental than reality.  That’s the way Mother Nature planned it.  I was completely enchanted with Elizabeth and due partially to my new campus status as a jock, we became an item.  The relationship consisted of brief encounters between classes in the hall, going to movies, and enjoying the usual parking time afterwards.  While the parking time was quite normal for those days, there were limits as to how far the necking went, and I did not ask her to consult with her minister.  I hardly noticed that our time together was never interrupted by conversation. We had no formal arrangement and did not date that often. Money for dates was a factor and for some reason I began to spend more time chasing around with my friends and less time with Elizabeth without realizing it. However, one fateful night in the spring of 1952, I decided to drive by her house just for grins.

Elizabeth lived on a farm.  I knew the way but not the quality of the roads and I always drove the “Bomb” to the limits of her capability.  I rounded a turn on a dirt farm road at a high rate of speed and the unthinkable transpired.  I flipped the car and it ended up laying on its side in a ditch.  When I first crawled out the side window, I was in a state of bewilderment.  I had no choice but to trudge miles back to town and seek help.  I prayed that Elizabeth would not be out and about that night.  My prayers went unanswered.

I don’t know how far it was to town but about halfway there, who should pass but one of the older guys from my home town.  Seated beside him was Elizabeth.  They didn’t even slow down.  I finally made it to town and hooked up with some local guys.  They drove me back and pulled the car over. I was off in a cloud of anger and total embarrassment. 

The damage to the car was slight but I didn’t want to explain to my family.  When I got home, I parked the car and let nature take its course.  The next day my foster parents drove to a neighboring town. When they returned, I pointed out that someone must have hit the car while they were shopping.  They got out and took a look at the dents. To my amazement, they bought the story hook, line, and sinker.

Elizabeth started dating Charlie, the older guy, that summer, and I found true love with a blond haired sweetheart from Tulsa who was visiting in Elizabeth’s town.  She was a relative of the local physician.

Charlie and I had some history.  He was a bit nuts.  He was four or five years older than me, and once while we were growing up, he became angry with me and proceeded to throw me, fully clothed, into a muddy ditch.  While we never had a confrontation over Elizabeth, I didn’t like the guy and by that time I was as big as him and perhaps a bit meaner.

I don’t remember what happened to Charley the following winter, but Elizabeth and I drifted back together for a few dates.  Then finally I came to the same realization that Frosty had months ago.  Elizabeth had the face of a movie star, the body of a woman, and the mind of a child. I do not recall any time when we had anything that approached a meaningful dialogue.  She wanted to converse and even struggled to do so but could make no contribution to the activity.  She was as boring as she was beautiful.

Because she came from a poor family, there was no question of college for Elizabeth after graduation.  She and Charlie entered into a tragic marriage. Elizabeth proved unable to bear children and her frustration manifested itself through health problems.  The first time I saw her at a class reunion about five years after graduation, she had wasted away.  I was visiting relatives in the local hospital in later years and Elizabeth was a patient.  She sent word for me to visit and we spent a few minutes together until I could no longer bear to see her struggle to converse.  Even then her smile was still radiant.  Soon after, Charlie moved on and left her to sink or swim.  She eventually married another man, had a ready made family, and it is well-known that he treats her with kindness and affection.

I have seen Elizabeth several times during the 44 years since we graduated from High School but only at class reunions.  During the early reunions she gravitated to me, smiled a lot, and tried hard to make conversation.  During the last reunion, she made no such attempt. 

Today the exquisite Elizabeth is a faded flower like a blossom pressed between the pages of a book.  While the petals are faded and dry, there is a hint of color suggesting what once was reality. Her eyes still tell the story of who she was.  How she looks now has no impact on my memories of her.  While our lives took divergent paths, the young Elizabeth will never fade from the deep recesses of my mind.  Her gift from God will last as long as I do if only in memory.  

When I learned of her impending fate, I called her. We spoke of our day. She admitted that she had had a bad day, but that I had made it better.

She passed peacefully and with dignity. I attended her memorial.

Alaska

After the moving van arrived to transport our luggage to the airport, the flight from DFW to Seattle was uneventful.  The return trip was anything but.

We were bused to the ship and when we arrived, my jaw dropped and did not come up for at least an hour.  That boat was large.  The Dawn Princess was nothing short of a floating luxury hotel.  It was about 300 feet long, 13+ stories high, and was built in 1997.  Everything sparkled.  We had 2,000 fellow passengers most of whom were over 75, weighed over 270 lbs., and many wheeled themselves around in power wheelchairs.  We were served by 900 staff most of whom were from third world countries.  Our waiters were from the Phillippines, the head waiter from Italy, and our stateroom stewardess was from Rumania.  The Princess line is out of London and had an English crew.

The English know how to feed.  There was a large cafeteria dining room open 24 hours and stocked with gourmet food of every description due to the plethora of cultures represented by the passengers.  We usually at breakfast and lunch there.  We had a five course epicurean dinner each night with several options.  It was served in yet another large dining room.  I had beef Wellington, baked Alaska, and escargot on the last night.  I decided before the cruise that I was going to watch what I ate and I did.  I ate mostly protein, avoided sweets, and gained only 10 pounds.   I cannot speak for the others.   

The highlight of my trip was spending about 10 minutes, one on one, with Libby Riddles just before her lecture.  She was the first woman to win the Iditarod Sled Dog Race in 1985.  She lives near Nome and trains sled dogs.  She is not bad looking, articulate, and fun to talk to.

The highlight of Donald Ray’s trip was the basketball shooting contest.  We went trudging up to the court at the last minute.  I managed to throw up a couple of practice shots but Don did not.  There was several hard bellies and one girl in the contest.  I was next to last to shoot and Don was last. The contest consisted of shooting 3 free throws.  By the time it got around to me, two dudes had made 2 shots.  I missed the first, the second, and shot a hook for the third.  It also went wide.  Donald Ray walked up to the line and sank three.  He won the gold.  I retained the gin rummy belt.

Most of the actual sailing was at night while we were asleep.  We stopped at several small towns on the way up including Juneau.  These stops consisted of shopping expeditions for the girls.  Don and I would fool around for a while then go back to the ship and take a nap or play gin.

The first few days were cold and rainy.  Don and I went to the top of a mountain and found sleet.  The four of us went on a train ride up the trail where the gold seekers carried their supplies to the Canadian border for the trip down the Skagway River to Dawson.  Each had to transport one ton of supplies up the mountain.  Thousands of animals and people died in the process.  After the strong completed the job, they built flimsy boats and attempted to travel the 500 miles to Dawson during which many more bit the dust. About ten people got rich.  The train ride was spectacular.

As we neared glacier country, the sun came out.  We first visited Glacier Bay and saw some nice glaciers. I was underwhelmed. The snow-covered mountains reached down to the sea and were tall and sharp peaked.  Having lived in Colorado and having spent a lot of time in the Rockies, I must say they are nothing compared to the Alaskan ranges.  It’s not that they are so tall, though Mt. McKinley is one of them, it’s just that they are so well-formed and the sea is usually a part of the mix.

Next we went to College Fjord where we found a series of spectacular glaciers.  The largest, of course, was Harvard Glacier which was about three miles wide and about 300 feet above the sea.  It was a beautiful day and the Captain took this gigantic vessel to within a stone’s throw of the glacier.  While we were there, passengers were stacked five deep at the rail for the entire time. I was running around doing video and taking snaps.  Several small pieces of the glacier broke off and fell into the sea.  Then a thunderous crack sounded and a 150 feet high portion of the glacier wall broke loose and crashed into the sea.  The harbor seals, who were lazing on ice burgs, did not even blink.  I heard but did not see.  Nancy saw.  The Park Ranger, who was narrating the stop, said that it was the largest calve she has ever seen released from the glacier. (Calve-technical term for big piece of ice.) 

There were several whale sightings but not by us while at sea.  We saw porpoise and harbor seals.  No eagles.  No bears. 

After we reached Seward, which is the port for Anchorage, we were cast asunder after rising at 5:00 a.m., and leaving the ship at 7:30. p.m.  We boarded a bus for Anchorage and witnessed more spectacular vistas.  The road was beside the bay and we saw several Beluga Whales which are small, white creatures.  We saw Dall Sheep on the side of the cliffs souring over us. 

We languished in Anchorage until the middle of the afternoon at which time we fled to the airport to watch Monday Night Football.  It started at 5:00 p.m.  We found the only TV at the airport tuned to the game and watched most of it. 

The flight home was a nightmare for all of us.  We were split up and I ended up with the worst deal.  I sat in the middle seat between a bad tempered bitch from NJ and a black former Sergeant Major who was going to Houston for heart surgery.  He slept the entire time in the window seat with his headphones on full blast.  I could hear every note.  After we touched down in Houston, yes Houston, the SM spoke his first words during the entire trip and managed to tell me his life story by the time we reached the terminal.  I figure at least 10% of his story was the truth. 

The seats were the most narrow and had the least leg room of any in my extensive flying history.  I am old.  My legs will ache if chilled and they ached for five hours on the flight to Houston.  I squirmed for five hours and slept not a wink.  We arrived at about 6:30 a.m., changed planes, and headed for DFW.  When we arrived, we got our luggage and then I went to get the Aerostar.  I grabbed a bus to the parking lot and went to get my car.  About 30 minutes later I concluded that my memory of where I had parked the car was flawed.  I walked and walked.  I looked and looked.  Finally, I called out the Calvary to help me find the car and then went out on my own again.  I decided to go the place that I would have most likely not left the car.  I walked no more than 20 yards when I spotted the van.  Yes, I was held in low esteem by my traveling companions when I finally made it back to the terminal.

We drove home, got the Dawson’s on the road, went to get our baby, and fought sleep until about 9:00 p.m., after which we slept for 11 hours.

As far as enjoying the trip, one must understand that people are different.  My traveling companions are all visual people.  I am tactile/kinesthetic.  I prefer doing rather than seeing.  However, I would give the experience a nine out of ten.  Some passengers make the cruise an annual trek.  I would not care to do that.  I need to get back to the Arc d’Triumph or Vitsnow or Pebble Beach.

The scenery, food, service, and comfort was outstanding.  I recommend the trip.

                                                                                                                                             
The Class of '53

There was nothing commonplace about the members of the class of 1953.  We were a special group and reunions are not held so much in commemoration of the graduation event but more as a celebration of the journey that preceded that day.  A few of us spent the better part of 12 years sharing our lives on a daily basis.  Such relationships are not easily forgotten nor should they be.  They become ever more precious as the years pass.  A few of us started school together in the fall of 1941 and remained together for the entire journey.  This is our story.

When we gathered together for the first time in September of 1941, our primary emotion was excitement and our primary concern was about who was going to care for us.  Who would replace our parents as the source of our comfort?  In our case, her name was Gladys Martin and she was near the end of a long and illustrious teaching career.  Under the tutelage of Mrs. Martin, we came to learn that there was more to school than recess and that our personal comfort was no longer the center of the universe. 

Mrs. Martin taught first grade at the grade school in Naples in 1941 and there was only one such class.  She was a slight, dark haired lady who had already taught most of the parents and relatives of the members of our new class.  Her house was located just next door to the school.  It would be an understatement to say that her sense of humor was limited.  However, she was scrupulously fair and we prospered under her care. 

Mrs. Martin guided us through that hellish year that saw the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, that saw the world engulfed in war, and that saw us snatched from the security of our homes and hurled into the cauldron of social interaction that would mold our very being. Our world consisted of bells, homework, brushing teeth, pungent restrooms, fickle water fountains, reciting, ciphering, reading, cutting and pasting, curbing our childish ways, and as the days grew cool, matters of warmth. During the winter months, we listened to the hiss of the ancient steam heating system that seemed to keep the temperature either freezing cold or near equatorial as the condensation ran down the windows and made strange patterns. 

Much was happening in our world other than warfare.  In 1941 Glen Miller’s Chattanooga Choo Choo topped the charts, Arsenic and Old Lace was the hit of Broadway, Citizen Kane won the Oscar, and The Maltese Falcon with Humphrey Bogart was a big hit as well.  Penicillin came into use, F. Scott Fitzgerald penned The Last Tycoon, Joe Dimaggio hit in 56 straight games, Whirlaway won the triple crown, and the class of 1953 began school.  This was no ordinary year. 

Before we matriculated, the allied powers introduced the atomic bomb to modern warfare, overran the forces of evil, and the greatest war came to an end.  Many Naples residents came home from the services and began their postwar lives in our midst.  The cold war between the Soviet Union and the USA began and proliferated.  The “Police Action” in Korea began and ended in stalemate and frustration. 

The city fathers funded a hospital in Naples and several doctors came to practice.  I recall the Naples student days of one such physician. He was James Leeves, M. D. and he graduated from Naples High School.

Twelve years of academics, literature, theater, movies, and social interactions made impressions on our psyche.  Some presentations were Porgy and Bess, Bambi, Casablanca, Oklahoma, My Friend Flicka, National Velvet, and Mrs. Minerva just to name a few.  As we moved through the grades following the war, football suits, basketball uniforms, and band uniforms were dusted off and put back into use.  Near the end of our run, we received a taste of the future world as we watched snowy figures on television for the first time and the power of radio was forever altered.  While only a few members of the class had telephones, any suggestion of something as extraordinary as the Internet would not have registered in our wildest dreams. 

The quality of our school building was deplorable.  The newer school, which was an ancient relic itself, was the high school.  The grade school was the really old one. The building had been condemned for years but in a rural Texas town, where the depression was still a fact of life, there was just no money for anything better.  We didn’t know that our school was a wreck.  We didn’t know that we had few books and little in the way of school supplies.  We had pencils, crayons, a Big Chief tablet, an imaginative teacher, and the will to learn.  For some of us, the time spent at school was the best part of our lives.  I was one of those.

Like most students making their way through school, we clicked with some teachers and didn’t click with others.  I was never a teacher’s favorite in any sense of the word but I managed peaceful coexistence with most.  The only teacher whoever used any sort of violence on my person was a grade school teacher named Louise Davis.  She was never my teacher but I was frightened to death of the woman.  I was always on my best behavior when she was around.  One day I was walking up the stairs to my fifth grade room not daring to even make a peep. When I drew abreast of her at the top of the stairs, she smacked me hard in the face.  She didn’t tell me why and I never ask. 

I must say that Exa Tolbert in fourth grade and Pete Adams in the eighth grade were my favorites in grade school.  Leonard Prewitt, the high school principal, was my favorite in high school.  He taught chemistry.  Mr. O. E. Miller, the agriculture teacher, was also a favorite.  Who could forget Miller chasing students Jack Coker and Richard Cole through the streets of Naples as they all fired BB guns at each other. That is an unlikely scenario at the turn of the millenium. 

Most of my classmates in 1941 made an indelible imprint on my memory. The boys in our class were especially fortunate.  The reason being that not only did we have good teachers to show us the way, but we had a crop of really super girls to keep us in line as well.  These girls set very high standards for us boys and those gifts carried over into our adult lives.  They were terrific young ladies and grew into exceptional women.  Even though some are mothers and even grandmothers by this time, I would be most uncomfortable watching an episode of my favorite TV show, NYPD BLUE, in their presence. 

The boys were just as great.  They were intelligent, athletic, and talented.  Most went on to successful careers which must have surprised many of our teachers.  We were not the most disciplined group ever to come along so we left a string of frustrated but impressed teachers behind as we moved along.

Several boys made the entire journey from first grade to graduation.  Jack Harvey joined the class a few weeks after school began in 1941 and became the All-American Boy in more ways than one.  Jack was tall, handsome, and very bright.  He was a dominant football player and a good all around athlete.  He was always ready to answer any challenge that came along.  He retired after a long and successful career as a teacher and principal in public education.

Tommy Walls started and finished with the class. Tommy was an exceptional scholar, musician, and was awarded all state band.  Tommy is another who has chosen not to attend class reunions.  Maybe he will return to this one.

Bobby Presley would be known as, pound for pound, the toughest kid in the class.  He lived on a working farm, woke up early to milk the cows before school, and he had chores after school as well.  Bobby was a fierce football player at the weight of 150 pounds and played fullback and linebacker.  He is also one of the best people I have known.  We spent many wonderful days riding our bikes over country roads and enjoying the fruits of nature.

Coy Moreland got off to a slow start.  He was not the best reader or the fastest runner, but when the race was over, he broke the tape first.  I remember Coy blossoming academically in the ninth grade though it probably happened before that.  Coach Bill Bishop was our very creative history teacher and he developed a teaching system that allowed him to teach without being present.  He designed the class so that each student developed as many questions as possible over the current chapter.  The student who found the most questions asked his/her questions to the other class members.  Coy was always the one who asked the questions.  The rest of us answered the questions. It is amazing how much we learned under Coach Bishop’s system.  Coy also spoke algebra, which was a foreign tongue to many of us.  Don’t ask me where he learned to type, but Coy was a whiz at that as well and always represented the school in typing contests.  He became the most gifted academic male member of the class and took these skills onto Texas A & M and to a successful career.   

Randall Raines went the distance.  He was another of those smiling people.  Randall was very good-natured and his family of business people were active in providing summer jobs for many of our classmates.  Randall had a horses as well, and if my memory serves, it was a paint.  I recall that it was a very pretty horse and Randall rode in all the parades. 

Billy Joe Hampton became a real life hero in the jungles of Viet Nam and was the only member of our class to experience combat.  After graduation, he joined the army and flew helicopters.  He started in the first grade and graduated with the group.  He was also one of those really likeable people who will always be a friend.

Since I had never had a playmate before starting to school in Naples, when first grade began, I quickly teamed up with a tall, rather pale boy in stripped overalls named Donald Dawson.  Our association and friendship has lasted 57 years to date. Don lived out of town but we played during recess at school.  It was a pleasant surprise some weeks after school began to find that Don had moved into a house in town across the street from me and so we not only hung out together at school but continued our play until darkness fell on those warm inviting days.

One classmate in first grade made an intense impression that lasted for decades.  She was a perky young lady fashioned after the movie starlet Shirley Temple.  During the early years, grades were everything and she was just about perfect.  She never missed an answer and she delivered her answers with great charm even though her smile lacked a few teeth.  One of the most important aspects of this student was her footwear.  She had the most delightful high top boots that had a small pocket for a knife.  I was green with envy.  But alas, after only a few months in our midst, she moved away and I never saw her again.  Her name was Shirley McCoy. 

My recollections of the student who would arguably become the best athlete of our class was one of concern. I remember him on the first day of school in a yellow one piece cotton garment called a playsuit.  He did not like his playsuit and he did not like the idea of his mother leaving him alone at school.  It took a couple of days for things to settle down for this young man.  As I recall the future quarterback of our football team, Billy Williams, didn’t wear the playsuits anymore.  

We were to lose another of our class members that year.  Don Nance moved away for a few months and later returned to rejoin the class.  However, before he left he performed a dastardly deed at my expense that is still a sore spot in my memory.  I lived near Don and there were ample tall weeds in the neighborhood.  The weeds were great for hiding.  I was sitting in my front yard nursing a large boil on my knee.  I thought I heard something land near me but payed little attention.  I heard several more sounds around me, then I experienced a sharp pain on my knee. I looked up and spotted Don Nance dashing away brandishing his BB gun.  I immediately deduced that I had been shot directly on my boil with Don Nance’s BB gun.  I vowed to get even.  The next morning I marched up to Mrs. Martin’s desk and informed her of the event.  Mrs. Martin first explained that she was not the local police but then she queried Don about his part in the matter and he responded with great eloquence.  “It must have been my twin cousin.”  What could she say?  The matter was dropped.  I have not forgotten and I still plan to get even. 

Some great characters were members of this class for their names if for no other reason.  Two such students were  “Sunshine” Franklin and “Sambo” Jones. Sunshine was a freckled, white haired child who struggled with academics but was a bit ahead of the rest of us in many other ways.  With the exception of A. J. Wells, he was the only class member to climb to the top of the city water tower.  That was no small feat for a six-year-old.  He taught us all how to obtain ice cream and soft drinks after entering the school building after hours.  He taught us how to torment girls and he was always the first to hear the latest little moron joke.  Sunshine never made it through school and, eventually, he joined the air force. He was, however, never malicious and whatever he did, he did with a smile on his freckled face.  He became a plumber in Dallas, fathered several children, and eventually died in an automobile accident at a relatively young age.  I just know that somewhere there is a white-haired youngster making his way up a water tower with a huge grin on his face. .    

Sambo was physically and mentally a clone of Sunshine.  The primary difference was that he has this cute paint pony that he rode everywhere at a full gallop.  He had no saddle and his steed was not swift but nothing deterred him from his appointed rounds.  There were affluent kids in our class. There were other kids who were not wealthy but didn’t have to worry about food and shelter and there were poor kids in our class.  Sunshine and Sambo were poor kids.  Sambo dropped out along the way and much to my surprise, I ran into him at a service station in Houston in 1958. We had a nice reunion.

Paulette Coker Smith was pretty and smart from the very beginning. She became the salutatorian of our graduating class.  Her determination, beauty, and charm were legendary and she has changed little.  Paulette served as the social chairperson for our group and her delightful parents, Chester and Willie Lee Coker, made important contributions to our young lives. Many other parents of our classmates made our lives pleasant as well.  The Finks, the Hamptons, and the Higgins were examples.

Geneva Higgins was pretty and just about the nicest person I have ever known.  She always smiled and never had an unflattering thing to say about anyone.  Her parents were always ready to pitch in for our escapades as well.  She will be sorely missed at this reunion.

Glenda Brock began the journey in our class but moved away later to graduate from another school.  She was and is a great beauty.  She was a central player in the great Halloween Queen race that occurred during a later grade. 

The Halloween Carnival was a big event at the Naples Elementary School.  Each year, the girls would vie for the title of Halloween Queen, which was usually a high school girl, and each class would sent a representative.  In the beginning, students would bring their pennies and cast their votes for their favorite girl.  Then one year things got out of hand.  Three of our girls decided that they wanted to be Halloween Queen.  They were Paulette Coker, Glenda Brock, and Ouida Hampton.  The battle was joined.  Each day, the girls would bring a few votes from home to go along with the votes cast by classmates.  The numbers of votes brought from home got larger and larger as the pennies became dollars.  The leader one day was Ouida, the next day it was Glenda, and the next day it was Paulette.  Finally, on the last day, a large contribution was made in the name of Glenda Brock and she became the Halloween Queen.  So that year, our class had three representatives which were the Queen and two representatives.  Needless to say, the annual money raising activities for the year were over and the Halloween Carnival was never better.   

Several of our most illustrious girls came on board in later years.  The class “mother,” Shirley Fink Tenbrook, joined us in the second grade during Mrs. Watson’s class and has been the class’s most ardent supporter since graduation.  Ouida Hampton came on board in Mrs. Rice’s third grade.  She was so pretty and so smart that it took months before I could breathe normally in her presence.  Ouida became the class valedictorian.

Obviously, I can't remember every student who joined and departed our class over a period of 12 years.  One was Forest Babb, a great friend, who moved to Naples in the sixth grade and stayed through the 11th.  Forest was smart and tough.  He was a good athlete and made a fine police officer where he retired as a detective sergeant in the Dallas Police Department after 30 years.  He lived next door to me and we shared many adventures during those years including staying home from school a few times and playing marbles.  I can still taste his mother’s chicken stew.

Another legendary figure was Charles Wayne Raney who joined us for the fourth grade.  Charles was from Shreveport and he played a major, if somewhat negative, role in our development.  He taught us to swear, to never cry, and he taught us about girls.  He was a nice looking blond kid and the girls loved him.  Charles Wayne was sorely missed when he moved back to Shreveport by the boys and girls as well.  

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention two kids who were not in our class but gravitated to our group.  They were the Brown kids, Ann and Buddy.  Ann was one year behind us and Buddy was one year ahead of us.  Their father was the local physician for a while during the middle years.  Ann was a Tomboy and Buddy had just about everything in the way of material things that we all wished for.  He had boxing gloves and would stage the bouts.  Ann liked to try to box with the boys but she always cried when she lost which was every time.  Buddy had a beautiful red Cushman Scooter.  He had a pony to ride.  He had a sleigh to ride down hospital hill on the one day it snowed.  He had every kind of ball, glove, and bat known to man.  Toward the end, he had a Jeep to drive.  Buddy and Ann moved to Commerce but our paths would cross in later years. 

One of the more interesting characters during the ninth grade was Bobby “Scooter” Wilkes.  He was a small boy with a slight speech impediment due to a cleft pallet.  He was very popular because he had a motorized bike and he possessed a great sense of humor.  Like Charles Wayne Raney from the fourth grade, Scooter came from Shreveport.  His stepfather was the local lab tech in the Naples Hospital. 

Much to the shock of the community and his friends, Scooter shot his stepfather who was alleged to have been in the act of abusing Scooter’s mother.  The injury was not fatal and no charges were filed but Scooter soon moved back to Shreveport and we all lost a good albeit dangerous friend.

Franklin Hampton joined us during the early years and was also a star of Coach Bill Bishop’s World History class.  He made his mark by challenging Coy Moreland for the most questions and actually beat him on a few occasions.  Frank became a close friend and made the personal history books by providing a car and a chauffeur for my first car date.  I never had another date with the girl but Frank went out with her for years afterwards.  But that is another story.

Dane Shaw lasted about halfway through to graduation until he moved away.  He was a good athlete and his family was very much into baseball.  The Shaw family generated the weekend games with neighboring communities over the years and when Dane moved away, he was missed.  He played a central role in the great “popcycle swipe” escapade in fourth grade.  It is of interest to note that Dane became very successful financially.  He was a highly respected landowner and business man in Naples when he passed.

Bobby Ray Brock was sort of in and out of our class.  He was not attuned to academics and as soon as he was old enough, he was pulled out of school each year to work in the Hampton sawmill to help feed his family.  Bob was a dominant athlete and spent many years in the USAF as an athlete.  He could do it all.  He was able to play our senior year with the class and we fielded a solid football team in 1952.   Bob was a big contributor to a team that defeated Linden, New Boston, Hooks, Daingerfield, Hughes Springs, and DeKalb among others.  However, Bob found his niche with the Texas Highway Department and is still a high level administrator with that organization.  He was another of our classmates who was self made and successful.

Now for the great “popcycle” escapade.  President Roosevelt died in Warm Springs, Georgia on April 12, 1945.  We were in the fourth grade and had known no other president.  We had listened to his magnificent speeches not knowing that we would never hear the equal again.  However, not much challenged the affairs of creative kids of our age on a sunny Saturday and we were off on an adventure that day.  Sunshine Franklin had found a way to enter the grade school building on weekends.  A window was left unlocked and inside were ice cream, popcycles, and ice cold soft drinks for the taking.  We had done the deed before but did not anticipate that events would turn out differently on that fateful day. 

The gang consisted of myself, Sunshine, Dane Shaw, Donald Dawson, A. J. Wells, and Oneil Smith, a third grader.  We headed for the school after the Saturday afternoon movie and entered the building through the window.  We quickly gobbled up a couple of ice cream sticks, grabbed soft drinks, and was out of the building in just a few minutes.  We were headed down the hill behind the school when a couple of horse riders approached.  The gang members panicked and began to throw soft drink bottles into the weeds.  The riders, who happened to be a couple of high school students, Thomas Harvey and Bobby Godsey, quickly figured out where we got the bottles and why we were throwing them away.  Our goose was cooked.  It didn’t help that Bobby Godsey was the constable’s son.

I ran home and tried to hide.  Before the day was out, Constable Godsey came to my door and asked to see my Aunt.  My heart sank.  The two of them carried on a conversation, of which I was not privy, and the die was cast.  After the lawman left, my Aunt laid it out for me.  I was to go and see Superintendent Wommack on Monday, I was to pay for the stolen goods, and if I ever broke the law again, I would be taken from my home and put in “Reform School.”  She got no argument from me.

I had a history with Superintendent Wommack.  He had cared for one of my sisters for a short time after my mother died.  As we exchanged pleasantries the next Monday morning, he went into great detail as to how disappointed my sister would be with my actions.  Since I didn’t live with my sisters, I was more concerned about was whether or not I was going to get paddled.  Because Mr. Wommack was a kind man, I did not get paddled nor did any of the other members of the gang except for one.  A. J. Wells was paddled.  The honor of our superiors was not perfect even in those days.

Almost from the first day of our school journey the playground was important.  We established ourselves through games and acts of leadership and this class had plenty of leaders.  During the early years, recess was built around two rather high swings, a metal contraption for climbing, a seesaw, and a two level bar.  Of course, the first graders could only reach the lowest level of the bar for a couple of chinups.  The girls pretty much went their way and the boys went their way.  The boys would find stones that resembled a handgun and run and shoot like the cowboys we saw each Saturday at the Inez Theater.  Daredevil A. J. Wells once swung so high that he went over the top and fell.  Fortunately, he was not badly injured.

As the years passed, our playground activities evolved.  In the fourth grade, softball was introduced by Mrs. Tolbert and we loved it.  We played in a small space behind the buildings and in order to hit a home run to center field or right field, one had to hit it over the gym.  Jack Harvey and A. J. Wells were capable of doing that on a regular basis.  Not being a long ball hitter, I had to hit to left field so that the ball would run down the hill.  We use large stones for bases and they never needed replacing.

Somewhere along the way, Jack Coker, who was four years ahead of us, became the playground director before school.  This was not an official title but an true one nevertheless.  One of the games directed by Jack was a sort of tumbling thing where four guys crouched in a group and the rest of use turned a somersault over the group.  Another fun game was the belt line.  Two lines of boys formed and as someone ran through the line, the boys would hit them with their belts as hard as possible.  If a person was not brave enough to run through the line, they could not participate.  Some ran through more than once demonstrating tremendous bravery or gross stupidity. 

As we grew older and high school athletics became a part of our lives, we began to play the seasonal sport such as football in football season or basketball in basketball season.  Our gym was supposed to be locked but there was always a way in.  The school personnel didn’t seem to mind that we got in during the weekend and played games.   Such a foray into the gym one Saturday cost me a broken arm but that was life in the big city.

The members of the class of 1953 did not spend all of their time in school.  Naples was such a wonderful place to grow up in the 1940's as was most small Texas towns.  The social center of life in Naples was Saturday night.  Not that many people had cars in those days and Saturday was when supplies for the entire week were purchased in the town stores and transported home.  Semi-taxi services were common where a pickup truck served to transport groceries home for a fee or this same pickup might transport a cow to market for someone who had no vehicle. 

Saturday usually started for me early in the morning when I listened to some of my favorite radio programs such as “Let’s Pretend.”  Then at about 1:00 p.m., the Inez theater opened and we were treated to a cowboy movie for the outrageous price of $.09.  If it was a good week, we might spend another $.05 for popcorn.  The movie consisted of a comedy-Donald Duck was a favorite, a short subject-usually the three stooges, Movie Tone News-usually war news, and the feature movie staring Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, or any one of a large group of fast drawing cowboy heros who often took time out for a song.  We never saw the movie just once.  We stayed for the second showing and this was not always easy since the theater did not have a restroom.  Finally, we would leave the darkened theater and after our eyes became accustomed to the light, we would start up the street leaping up and touching signs.  The jumping up and touching signs was a rite of passage.  The first sign any of us could touch was Mrs. Tabb’s variety store.  The last one we could touch was Heard’s dry goods.  After a person could touch Heard’s sign, the game was just about over.

After a hamburger or an evening meal to recharge our batteries, we headed back to town.  The early evening was spent chasing each other around the alleyways playing fox and hound or shooting off fireworks.  Of course, Sunshine Franklin would be the one to put a cherry bomb in the city restroom and blow up the commode. 

The town did not shut down easily on Saturday.  The soda fountains finally closed well after midnight.  The “midnight” show began about 11:00 p.m., and let out about 1:00 a.m.  Many of us did not attend the midnight show until we were older.  A completely different movie was shown Sunday and it usually was the best of the week.  Add in church on Sunday and a 1940's Naples weekend was quite an affair.  It was better than all the TV and video games in the world.

Coffee Grounds

I could smell the newness of my unwashed overalls that bright September morning in 1940. They were striped blue and white with a loop for a hammer on the right leg. Mama held tightly to my hand guiding me around the puddles left from last night’s rain. "Now Bud, pay attention to me. You look both ways before you cross that highway. If there ain’t no cars coming, you run for dear life. You’re too little to go to school anyway. Pay attention to me Bud?"

I nodded while gazing ahead at the white frame building with the bell tower in front. The school sat only about two hundred yards down the sandy road from our own house. The only obstacle between the two was Texas State highway 67, which curved in front of the Old Union community school a few miles east of Mt. Pleasant in northeast Texas. The speed limit was 35 mph in 1940 and traffic on the road was rare. The possibility of danger was mostly a product of Mama’s hyperactive nervous system.

How she had come to be my Mama was still confusing. She was my Daddy’s sister. She descended on my biological mother’s funeral like a marauding hawk with the focused intention of substituting me for an infant son she lost some thirty years previously. An irresistible force, she issued instructions, and left the graveyard with my two older sisters and me, brooking arguments from no one. Mama was not one to let circumstances stand in the way of an achievable goal, which was to have a son to discuss at family gatherings. The only family member ever to manage Mama was Grandpa Jim and he thought her decision to take us little orphans to live with her was a fine idea. That freed up our Daddy to take care of him.

I suppose including the girls early on was for show. After about four months, Mama’s Christian charity waned to the extent that she shipped both sisters off to live with other folks.

Sometimes, being without a mother during the depression years had its down side. Our father, Poor Marvin, was busy caring for Ed, an epileptic brother, and his aging father, Jim. That consisted mostly of farming about 40 acres, feeding the mules, sitting on the porch, and making the biscuits. Actually, Grandpa made the biscuits.  

I worshiped the memory of my sisters Lynn and Dorothy. My most prized possession was a snapshot of them that I kept hidden in my cigar box. I was not cognizant of their whereabouts at that time, but that mattered little. I had only to get out the photograph to refresh my memory.

I remained with one family after mother died. Relatives and friends of the family passed my younger sister, Dorothy, around for about a year then she landed in Grandpa Jim’s house along with Poor Marvin, demented Edward, and a host of chinch bugs. Lynn, the oldest, stayed for a time with a school superintendent and his wife. They wanted to adopt her but she would have none of it. Finally, Old Jim made a final contribution to our lives. He arranged for both Dorothy and Lynn to live with a couple of good Christian schoolteachers who lived a few miles away in Marietta. Their lives improved immeasurably from that point. We were never to experience a shared household again.

As for myself the early years passed uneventfully. Soon I was six and it was time to take a major step toward my future. I was not delighted at the prospect of going to school that first day. The most troublesome aspect being that I had a name problem. Mama called me Bud. Her thirty three-year-old daughter, Ellie, called me Buddy. Uncle Dud was Mama’s husband. He was the resident caretaker for two miles of Sulphur River railroad bridge on the Cottonbelt Railroad. He provided the money for the car and the vagabond lifestyle preferred by Mama. When he was home for the occasional weekend, he referred to me as Buck. With all of that, Mama had informed me that when the teacher asked my name, I was to say Earl. All of my other relatives called me Earl Wayne. I didn’t know who I was.

On the other hand, I was anticipating one major reward for going to school. I would learn to read. I would be able to read the Sunday funnies to myself. It never ceased to amaze me how busy everyone became on Sunday morning when the paper arrived. Having no pride where Mandrake the Magician was concerned, I would trudge from person to person, beseeching, imploring, and stooping to any degradation. I could get the main story line from the pictures but I just had to know what Mandrake was saying to Lothar. In most instances, I never found out. I practiced Mandrake’s hand action for hours but I could never get anything to disappear no matter how hard I tried.

From the time we left home on the short walk to school that first day, Mama chattered nonstop. There was not a car in sight when we reached the highway. "Look both ways," Mama shouted. She dashed for the other side of the highway and dragged me along. My apprehension grew. The students whom I could see on the school yard appeared large and surly. Unaffected, Mama charged up the front stairs with me in tow and barreled down the hall to one of the rooms at the back of the four room building.

She went straight to a woman who appeared to be an authority figure. That person turned out to be my new teacher and she was in the process of comforting another first day scholar. The student was teary eyed and twice a big as me. He refused to turn loose of his mother’s hand. Mama, not one to stand on formality, moved between the teacher and the problem child and stated with some firmness, "This is Earl Stubbs. He is going to be in the primer. He is little and sickly. Don’t let him sit in the wind. When school is out, take him across the highway." She turned to me with final instructions. " Now Bud, you behave yourself." The teacher almost managed to keep her mouth closed as she stared at Mama’s departing figure. However, she quickly regained her composure and directed me to a seat on the front row. For me, formal education began.

Fortunately, only the first half of the school day was lost in misguided effort. After teacher established normal first day logistics, she gave instructions for study. Most students knew what to do. They whipped out books and writing instruments and applied them to the task at hand. I could find nothing that faintly resembled the school supplies of my neighbors. So it went until about noon at which point I discovered that the room held not one but three grades.

After a lunch made memorable by a scarlet mush of tomatoes and grits and due to my inability to eat even one bite, I was summoned by the teacher. She inquired as to whether or not I knew the alphabet. I proudly responded in the affirmative. Surprisingly, she picked me up and placed me on her lap. Then she chose a small thin book and opened it. She would point to a word, spell it, and pronounce it. After repeating the process with all the words in the first line, she ask me to try. I did so and she appeared pleased with my effort. After a few pages she requested that I try to progress on my own. Without realizing it, I achieved the first step toward solving the mystery of the Sunday funnies.

Later in the day an event brought me to the attention of the rest of the student body. It concerned the large iron school bell that stood in front of the building. Acutely aware of the activities of the other students, I noticed that after the bell was sounded signaling the end of morning recess everyone made a mad dash to line up in front of the steps. After observing the same phenomenon again at lunch, I concluded that both the bell ringer and the first in line acquired some sort of status among the students. By the time the afternoon recess was just about half over, I formulated a plan by which I could ring the bell and also be first in line. I sidled up to the tower, grasp the rope, and tugged with all my limited might. The bell started to ring. I quickly abandoned the rope and lined up in front of the steps. The other students lined behind me without a question. About the time everyone was ready to march into the school, out walked a tall, spare man with a stern countenance. He was intently peering at a old pocket watch. He approached the group and began making inquiries.

Soon fingers pointed in my direction and the tall man extended his hand to me. I took it and he led me aside. We proceeded to have a rather one sided conversation regarding the ringing of the school bell. I was feeling very cooperative at the time, so I promised not to repeat my error in judgement. The principal appeared relieved that my first day at school was a learning experience and he smiled as he walked away.

Later in the afternoon that cursed bell finally rang out signaling the end of the school day. My teacher took me by the hand and marched me to the edge of the highway. Mama was perched on the other side looking frantic. Along came a dilapidated model A Ford, gasping for every chug. We watched it pass. Then the three of us went through the exaggerated ritual of looking first one way, then the other. As the roadway was obviously clear, my teacher turned loose my hand and I sprinted across the asphalt strip. Without acknowledging my teacher, Mama grasp my hand and charged away filling the warm afternoon with invective.

Soon we reached the white frame house that was our most current home. There had been several others. Mama had a way of justifying the moves. Usually, we would stay in a new situation only long enough for her to become bored with the neighbors and local scenery at which point her health would began to falter. Than a move for the sake of her health was in the immediate future.

On this day, however, Mama and I entered the house by the kitchen door and found Ella Mae, or Ellie as she was known in the family, sitting at the table nursing the ever present cup of coffee. She was dressed, as was her pattern, in a faded print dress that was almost in shreds. It was not as if she didn’t own better clothing. Her mode of dress was one of many ploys intended to extract sympathy. The fact that her repugnant appearance just might earn disgust never occurred to Ellie. She had only just uttered her favorite dictum which was, "I’ll stomp more hell out of her in a minute than she can gather up in a week. Buddy, how did you like school? Mama, I’m going to town to find that bitch."

I mumbled an answer, laid down my books, and went looking for my untrustworthy air rifle. Not to be denied, Ellie shouted from the kitchen, "Buddy, I’m all tore up. Come and read these coffee grounds. I saw a bird at the window awhile ago and I’m scared something bad is going to happen." There was no escaping my responsibility as the reader of coffee grounds so I slouched back into the kitchen. I intended to make this fast.

I was convinced that the coffee cup was an extension of Ellie’s anatomy. Her current mode of existence consisted of discussing her here today, gone tomorrow husband Johnny while preparing, drinking, or staring at black coffee of the vilest sort. In addition, she kept up a constant dialogue with Mama who in turn carried on her own monologue about some other subject. It made for lively conversation.

Johnny was no real problem for me except that he was just another family member who would not read me the Sunday funnies. I always knew where I stood with him. I did not exist. Actually I preferred him to worrisome Ellie who would whine to any warm body within earshot, age not withstanding. After thirteen years of a marital joke, Johnny discovered honky tonks, spirits, and hussies in that order and he was making up for lost time.

A few months earlier when we lived in town and Johnny could find a bar with little effort, the home situation became more untenable. One day after Ellie tore off her dress because Johnny wouldn’t buy her a new one, he informed the ladies that he would find other lodgings. For the first few days the only course of action was raging overt indignation and threats from Ellie and Mama. Finally, they both realized that Johnny was not there to hear them. Then they chose a more compromising approach at which point simpering servility became the order of the day together with forays into town looking for Johnny’s elusive Plymouth. About a week later, much to my surprise, Johnny returned. Unfortunately, I made the gross error of mentioning that I had sought and probably received divine assistance in securing his return. After that I became the resident ear of God and chief coffee ground reader. My services in both areas were to be frequently requested because this was not to be Johnny’s last venture outside the bosom of his family.

Ellie drained the cup and flipped it over. She turned it three times in the gritty saucer making a most frightful noise. After she stopped, it was necessary to wait three silent minutes for the spirits to do their work. While waiting I practiced sighting my rifle. Lord only knows I needed the practice. Finally, the cup was turned over and slid over to me. To be honest I never had the faintest notion about what I was supposed to see in the coffee grounds. Usually, I came up with something inoffensive such as travel or money. This time, since I was a bit miffed, I chose to be more creative. I gazed into the cup for a long moment. Ellie, unable to control her curiosity, ask, "What do you see, Buddy?"

I looked up from the cup with a grave look on my face and squeezed a solitary tear from the corner of my eye. "Somebody is going to be sick," I proclaimed. Mama looked profound and uttered somberly, "Bud knows stuff." I could immediately tell that Mama was not altogether displeased. Surviving the rigors of illness was a most welcome topic of conversation at the family gatherings and Mama had been disgustingly healthy for years. Although Mama had been trying to die since the age of 30 from various aches and pains, she had gradually lost status at the family gatherings. She had not been able to command real respect since her hysterectomy of some 20 years before. Let’s face it. "This old neuralgy is killing me" could only take you so far in those discussions.

"Poor Marvin," as my absentee Daddy was called, had enormous status in the family due to the fact that he had survived the 1918 flue, a "busted" appendix, and had lost his dearly beloved wife. In fact, after his epileptic brother Ed and Grandpa Jim passed on, Marvin got down in his back and was rescued from the farm by Mama who made these kinds of decisions for the family. He lived with us for a bit while he was between careers. Since he showed no interest in wrestling with me, I had little further use for him until I needed a car some years later. On the few occasions when I failed to get money from Mama, Ellie, or Uncle Dud and asked him for some, he would point out that he had "signed the papers" turning me over to Mama. At that time, I wasn’t too interested in who owned who but I was interested in the money.

Ellie was not so easily pacified. She was much more interested in information regarding the evil women who constantly tempted Johnny away from his happy home. When she began to grumble for some action, I gazed at the coffee grounds and threw her a bone. "Somebody is going to move far away." I figured it was going to be us since we had been at the same place for over six months. Ellie interpreted this revelation to mean that either Johnny was going to depart permanently or that she and Johnny were going to go it "on our own." We all knew that Mama would never allow the latter to happen. Both Ellie and Mama were totally unsuited for life without the other.

After lengthy interpretation and discussion of the reading, I was allowed to depart. As I left, I could hear the spirited dialogue. It consisted of Ellie using Mama as a nonresponding sounding board regarding Ellie’s problems and solutions to those problems. By the same token Mama bounced sage wisdom off Ellie who never heard a word she said.

I moved through the screen door out into the later afternoon sunlight a
nd headed for the sandy lane. Fortunately, those who had cleared the land that bordered the road left tall native elm trees along the right-of-way. They were ancient sentinels that provided home and shelter for a variety of winged creatures and squirrels. The huge trees were so thick that branches from trees on the west side grew to intermingle with branches on the east side forming a barrier to the sun. Even on the brightest day the lane was dark and gloomy due to the tunnel of elms. Farther to the north the ruts disappeared over a rise. My vivid imagination formulated a variety of dire circumstances that loomed just over the rise so I was never brave enough to really take a look.

I was certain that the birds had come to accept the fact that I was completely harmless. Undaunted I launched missile after missile after those feathered brutes only to be subjected to their chirping scorn. After a time highlighted only by my total lack of success, Mama began to call. The birds ceased chirping in fear. I started my saunter back toward the house hurling insults at my adversaries. When I reached the house and entered the back door, Mama set me to work on my numbers.

I was up to eight when supper was announced. A glance confirmed my suspicions that there was absolutely nothing on the table that I could abide. Nevertheless, we began. Mama and Ellie could have conversations that lasted for days with one discussing one subject and the other embroiled in something else entirely. On this occasion Ellie entertained with alternate crying jags and cursing fits. Mama, never one to let a full mouth stand in the way of oratory, offered advice as to what she would do if she were in Ellie’s place. Poor Ellie had no doubt as to what Mama would do. Mama had been doing it to Uncle Dud for thirty-five years. What Ellie did not know was what she was going to do. As for myself, no one appeared to care that boiled turnips would not go down my throat.

Nothing much changed for the next few months. Johnny would come around and stay for a few days until the two women would abandon the olive branch and launch a counteroffensive. Then he would disappear again. I tried the divine assistance game a few times, but there was so much coming and going that I really couldn’t tell if it was working or not. I figured that even if it was, I couldn’t expect to keep getting all of that personal attention forever. It was difficult to determine whether Ellie carried on more when he was gone or when he was home. I really didn’t care much anymore. By this time, with the exception of the occasional word, I was able to read the funnies to myself.

School had become a matter of routine. I would do a few arithmetic assignments during the morning or listen to the older kids recite. Usually after lunch when everyone else was busy, my teacher would sit me on her lap and I would read in one of those little books. Eventually, she informed me that I would move up a grade after Christmas. I was learning to appreciate my time at school, not so much for what I did there, but due to the fact that it was time away from the emotional roller coaster of home.

The wind was heavy with moisture that sullen afternoon in December. I no longer required assistance to cross the highway and Mama had long since ceased coming to meet me. I hurried down the road as the wind bit through my thin trousers. As I neared the house, I noticed a strange car in the drive. Johnny was laughing and talking to someone through the window of the car. I stopped when I saw Ellie come out of the house waving Johnny’s old .38 pistol. As usual, she was cursing a blue streak. She pointed the gun toward the car and began pulling the trigger. It made a dull thumping sound.

Whoever was driving immediately began to back out of the drive. I managed to move out of the way. Then the car roared away. I could hear people yelling. Ellie dropped the gun, fell to the ground, and began to sob. Johnny picked up the gun and just stared at it. Then he got in his car and charged off leaving a trail of exhaust and the odor of gasoline. Ellie struggled to her feet, sobbing, and calling for Mama.

I never saw Johnny again. Nothing much was said about the incident. Ellie expected the law to visit but they never came. We soon left the Old Union community and moved back to Mt. Pleasant. My school experience in 1940 ceased for the remainder of that year and I started all over again in Naples in 1941. That fact was to cost me a minimum of two years of added school. 1941 was the year that Texas went from 11 grades to 12 and I lost the Christmas promotion.

Mama lived to be 87. She and Ellie never separated. Ellie became a talented, widely respected nurse. Soon after Mama’s death, Ellie contracted cancer and succumbed to the disease eight years later. I watched her battle the ravages of the battle from the beginning to the end and during this time, she exhibited incredible courage and determination. She cared for herself, her dog, and her cat, with little outside help, even when she was a paraplegic.

The gun used in the shooting adorns my wall. It is in a shadow box and makes an interesting commemorative piece devoid of its unsavory history.

The Great Doorbell Caper

It was about eleven on a Sunday evening.  I was enjoying the computer when the doorbell rang.  I rose from my roll top desk, trudged to the front door, and turned on the outside light.  I opened the door and found the door stoop empty.  Hmmm, I thought, as I peered around the front yard and saw no one.  Slightly bewildered, I closed the door and resumed my place at action central. 

Just as I was about to improve on Einstein’s Theory of Relativity or read another email joke, I forget which, the doorbell interrupted my intense concentration. Somewhat irritated, I rose; walked back to the door with a quickened pace, flipped on the porch light, and opened the walnut stained door.  By this time, I was prepared to share my thoughts with the person on the other side, but there was no one there.

Then, I recalled that my grandchildren had just visited.  Because of their presence, neighborhood younsters had trooped in and out of our house all weekend.  It is possible, I thought, that some of the neighborhood kids believed that the twin girls were still at our house, and they were just being kids.  Not to worry, I thought.  I left the outside light on to discourage them and went back to work.

After five minutes or so, the doorbell rang. I hurried to the door, but saw no one through the peephole. Partly from irritation and partly for fun, I hid behind a drape and peeked out for about ten minutes, hoping to catch the little rascals and scare the daylights out of them.  However, no one showed, so I gave up and went back to my desk.

Not more than three minutes passed, and the doorbell rang once again.  I just sat there ignoring it.  It rang again. At this point, my patience and general good nature departed.  I was angry as a hornet. I could visualize the doorbell ringing for the duration of the night, so I decided to call the cops.

The dispatcher listened to my complaint and promised to send a patrol officer to my domicile in short order.  I went back to my computer and after about fifteen minutes, my doorbell rang. I went to the door and found a patrol officer there. He was a nice young man, who sympathized with my plight. We agreed that neighborhood kids were the likely perpetrators, so he promised to hide out, catch them, and give them a lecture. “Wonderful,” I said.

By this time, it was past my bedtime, so I signed off and went to bed, determined not to answer another doorbell for that entire night. Apparently, the mystery doorbell ringer went to sleep as well, since we were not disturbed.

The next day, I sat down at my computer, and after a few minutes, the doorbell rang. I went to answer and found no one there. “Please, not in the middle of the day,” I whispered to myself.  After questioning my sanity for a few seconds, I went back to my computer and started to work.  The doorbell rang again. Then, from the far reaches of my shriveled brain, a light flickered, went out, and then flared to radiance. 

This was before pop-up advertisement inhibitors.  I used a cable provider, and one of the ads that popped up on a regular basis was about the prices of homes in the Metroplex. When I touched the ad with my cursor to delete it, a doorbell would ring.  The sound came through my speakers and sounded exactly like my own doorbell.  That explained why my wife, Nancy, could never hear my mystery doorbell.

Oops, I thought. I wonder how much hard time I will get for filing a false police report. Will I survive in Huntsville Prison without ever taking a shower?

A Matter of Honor

Dr. James S. Leeves and I go back a few years. My immediate family members called me Buddy but they are all gone.  He is the only person left on the planet who calls me Buddy, and the sound of it coming from him is always comforting.  

My first recollection of Jimmy Leeves was in the summer after my first year in the Naples School in 1942.  His brother Jerry was still attending Naples High School and their parents operated a local pharmacy.  I recall that Mr. and Mrs. Leeves were pleasant people, and I especially recall the smile of Mrs. Leeves when one entered the store.  Jimmy, as he was called at the time, was a quiet, pleasant young man with a whimsical smile.  To say that he was thin would be an understatement. 

Jimmy came and went for the next few years as he matriculated from college and medical school.  Then in the late 1940's the Naples Hospital was built and two young physicians joined its staff.   One was Dr. Charles Wise.  The other was Dr. James Leeves.  It would be another decade or so before the latter’s patients stopped calling him Jimmy and started calling him Dr. Leeves.

My connection with the hospital was personal.  My mother died in 1936 when I was 23 months old and I went to live with my Aunt Ella and uncle Dudley and their daughter Ella Mae Barker.  Ella Mae or “Ellie” as she was known, became a nurse at the Naples Hospital and spent the bulk of her working life there.  When she was off duty, she would usually recap the entire shift that she had just worked so the family was well versed on personnel, patients, and events at the hospital.  At home she always referred to Dr. Leeves as Jimmy and his associate as Dr. Wise.  When she had a serious problem, she always took it to Jimmy. 

Ellie had a pattern.  When she grew tired of working or became frustrated and needed some time to regroup, she would contrive a problem or blow a simple matter out of proportion and leave the hospital in a huff.  Then after she was home for a while with her mother, she would go see Dr. Leeves and beg for her job back.  He always took her back.  That’s just the way it was. 

My first need for Dr. Leeves’ professional service occurred in the early spring of 1950.  It was not unusual for us to break into the school gym on a Sunday and play a little basketball.  The term “breaking in” is used loosely in this context because the door was always unlocked and basketballs were always out for us to use and everyone in town knew we were there.  Besides, there was not much in that old tin relic that we could hurt.  One Sunday I was barreling down the gym floor when I tripped and caught myself with my hands on the floor.  A playmate was running along side and accidentally kicked my left arm as it supported my weight.  The arm was really painful so I stopped playing and went home.  When I arrived I showed my arm to my Aunt Ella and Ellie.  It appeared that the bone was moving but I couldn’t be sure.  Their diagnosis was a wrist sprain and treatment consisted of a piece of tape around my arm.  I was on the B basketball team as a ninth grader so I went right back to basketball practice the next day. 

About a month later I was building a rabbit hutch for an FFA project.  I needed to get over a fence for some reason and I never crawled when I could jump.  Unfortunately, my toe caught in the top strand of wire and I landed on my hands.  The left arm started giving me some trouble again and this time there was no doubt that the bone was moving.  We went to Dr. Leeves and after he took x-rays he commented, “Buddy, considering the new bone growth, I suspect that your arm has been broken for about a month.”  A month sounded about right.

1950 was not to be my year.  Later in the summer I was swimming across Glass Club Lake when I experienced some abdominal discomfort.  Later in the week as the discomfort increased, I went to avail myself of the medical expertise of Dr. Leeves.  He checked me out and gave me some antibiotics.  I could tell he was not happy about the situation.  After a few more days it became clear that something was seriously wrong.  Dr. Leeves pointed out that my stomach was “distended” which means that it was getting bigger.  Surgery was scheduled and performed by Dr. Wise and Dr. Leeves.  A spinal block was used for anesthesia because Dr. Leeves had discovered when he set the bone in my arm that the general anesthetics of the day were not for me.  While I was not in pain during the procedure, I swear that I felt every snip of the scissors.  It was found that I had an abscess in my abdomen about the size of a quart fruit jar.  It was removed and I began the lengthy journey back to good health. 

Dr. Leeves continued to provide my medical needs for the rest of my tenure in Naples, mostly in the form of athletic injuries.  There were sprained ankles, hip pointers, and such.  I was not the toughest kid in town.  In 1953 I moved away and eventually found myself in the pharmaceutical industry.  I actually called on Dr. Leeves as a sales rep once and gave him the details of my products. 

Our paths crossed again in 1970 though inadvertently.  I contracted viral pericarditis, which is inflammation of the heart lining.  My first symptoms were chest pains and I went to the emergency room.  When I got there I was placed on a bed and hooked up to a heart monitor.  Having watched BEN CASEY and DR. KILDARE, I knew all about heart monitors.  As long as the blip was going you were okay.  When the line went flat, your goose was cooked.  Anyway, I was lying there and the line went flat.  For some reason I was very calm.  I just looked at the monitor and waited for my life to fade away.  I waited and waited.  “Boy, this sure takes a long time,” I thought.  After about five minutes a young attendant came into the room, noticed the monitor, and proceeded to slap it rather forcefully with his hand.  It immediately started blipping again.  “This thing is always doing that,” he said and left again.  Strangely enough I didn’t faint.

Later I wrote to Don Nance chronicling the incident about the monitor and he in turn showed the letter to Dr. Leeves who took it to a medical meeting and read it to some doctors.  The consensus was that someone with a weird sense of humor like mine probably would not die of a heart attack.  So far that is holding true.   

The incident that defined Dr. Leeves in my eyes occurred in April 25, 1982.  My beloved natural cousin and foster sister, Ellae Mae Barker, lost her long and terrible battle with cancer.  I was called to Naples earlier and was staying in her apartment when she passed.  Someone called from the hospital but the phone was in another room and when it rang during the wee hours of the morning, I did not hear it.  Later I did hear a knock on the door.  It was Dr. Leeves.  He was concerned that I did not answer the phone so he came by to check.  Having spent 25 years in the medical field and having known virtually thousands of physicians, I must admit to having become jaded in my attitude toward them. I asked myself how many doctors would have gone to the trouble that Dr. Leeves went to?  How many would have shown concern to that extent for a former patient that he had not treated for almost 30 years?  Not many I wager.  That act transcended the normal doctor/patient relationship and moved into the area of being a good neighbor.  Dr. Leeves is not just a good doctor, he is a good neighbor.

I often wondered how many special concerns Dr. Leeves has shown other people during the more than 50 years he has cared for area residents.  It occurred to me that perhaps someone ought to record some of those anecdotes that so clearly illustrate the kind of human Dr. James Leeves really is.  But then reality set in.  There would not be that many writers or that much paper.  The process would be endless.  I can only say that in my mind Dr. Leeves is an exceptional man whose contributions to the area have been so numerous and so consistent as to appear commonplace.  We cannot take this man for granted.  I sincerely hope that other area residents will take the time to voice your appreciation for this man who has meant so much to us all. I say this knowing full well that he will kill me the next time he sees me.    

A couple of years ago, Dr. Leeves saw a need and acted on it as is his pattern.  He noticed that there are times when neither the school district nor families can always provide for the needs of your children.  He noticed that other communities were forming endowment funds to provide for these special needs.  Because he felt that a vacuum of need existed for local kids, he created the Pewitt C.I.S.D. Endowment Fund. The fund is now up and active. 

The Fan’s Revenge

As you know, there are some occurrences during our lives that have no real importance but when one experiences them, it’s like dragging fingernails across a chalkboard. 

We had this bedroom fan.  It came with the house, and we have lived here seventeen years, so the old fan had been around the block a few times.  It made noise, which is where the chalkboard analogy came in, and we ran it nightly year round.  Last Friday, I had a brainstorm.  Why not put the nice quite fan from my office in the bedroom?   We could buy a new fan for my office.  "Go for it Big Guy," says Nancy, the resident heiress. 

I go to HD, buy the fan, bring it home, and take it out of the box.  That was the highpoint of the weekend.  I spent the next two days putting up fans, taking down fans, moving fans, and wiring fans.  The new fan worked great in my office.  The former office fan worked great in the bedroom.  However, young Nancy, as she is prone to do, discovered an imperfection in the arrangement.  The bedroom fan had no light fixture.  “No problema,” say I.   I went back to HD and purchased a light kit.  It was at this point matters began to get ugly.

I attached the light fixture, wired it carefully, and turned it on.  The fan started going ninety mph.  The lights were so bright; it was like looking into the sun.  Then the bulbs started exploding.  “Aha.” say I!  “I had best turn off the fixture.”  A couple more trial runs resulted in more blown bulbs.  I confessed to Nancy that I may have to return the former office fan to the office and put the new fan in the bedroom.  She was unsympathetic, and I figure that if I were to have any lunch, I would need to prepare it myself. 

Undaunted, I put the new fan in the bedroom, turn it on, and, Voila, bulbs start exploding and the fan went nuts.  I cut it off only to discover that my bathroom lights were kaput along with the outside nightlights.  I still find it strange that Nancy's bathroom lights are burning in a perfectly normal fashion.  I laid my finger alongside my nose and thought…hmmm.

After flipping switches, turning dimmer switches, wiring, rewiring, and pulling chains, I finally reached an agreement with the bedroom fan for the night.   You don’t bother me and I won’t bother you.  Then, a perfectly logical solution occurred to me.  I decided not to call the electrician until the next morning. 

Don't ask how much it cost, but both fans now work properly.  The lights all work properly.  There is still one small glitch, however.  This evening when I went into the bedroom, the lights in the bedroom, my bathroom, and outside all went out.  I flipped the breaker switch a couple of times and they all came back on.  It appears I am not finished with the electrician.  The brutal consequence of this adventure is I don’t sleep very well with all of that silence in the bedroom.  I wonder what happened to our old fan.

Fish are Jumpin’

The first time I noticed Jean and Johnny was in front of the Inez Theater in Naples, Texas, on a Saturday night. Those two elfin creatures were both about five-years-old and had the run of the block. Johnny, with light blond hair and perfect features, came from a family of beautiful people that included one of my classmates. His grandpa owned the bank and half the land of north Morris County.  

Jean’s daddy was rich as well and her Mama good-looking. Her mother and Johnny’s mom were best friends. Jean’s grandmother ran the movie theater, and the young matrons always spent Saturday night together, hence, the foundation for a platonic relationship formed between Jean and Johnny that spanned decades .

During the subsequent years, Johnny moved away and Jean disappeared into the maze of growing up in Daingerfield, a town twelve miles to the south. As the years passed, the word began drifting north that something special was underway. Jean did what girl children do. She became a woman, and she did it early and very well.

The male population of the area resembled a smorgasbord to Jean. She liked boys, and she liked variety. It soon became evident that boys didn’t pick Jean. She picked boys. Troy, a Naples boy, became the first anointed. He was a handsome young musician with a wonderful voice who could make a guitar fill the air with beauty. Unfortunately, he soon made an error in judgment. He took Jean to Shreveport to the Louisiana Hayride where she became attracted to a young entertainer from Memphis. After one of his performances, Jean went backstage, anointed him, and they became an item. When in the area, Elvis would drive over to Daingerfield and pick her up for a ride in his lavender convertible. Jean later reviewed Elvis as being a quiet young man who spent a lot of time looking at himself in the rear view mirror.

Jean needed more contact than she was getting from Elvis, so she deleted Troy, Elvis, and latched on to Norris. He was a young athlete with a Grecian profile and biceps the size of my thighs. In addition, he was the middleweight boxing champion of the area. Unfortunately, for Norris, he became quite possessive, so Jean soon lost interest. She returned rings and letter jackets and moved on. Norris lost by a knockout.

Joe came next. He was a witty high school dropout who had joined the Air Force. He drove a light blue Ford convertible that caught Jean’s eye. Joe had visions of hooking up with Jean and becoming one of the county blue bloods, but at the time, there was nothing to indicate that he would eventually graduate magna cum laude from Columbia with a degree in mathematics. However, Joe committed the unpardonable sin with regard to Jean. His duties at his Air Force Base in Louisiana forced him to spend most of his time on the base. Jean did not enjoy solitude or writing letters.

Joe had a best friend. His name was Wayne. Even though Wayne was a couple of years older, they were intellectual equals, and both lived for the droll exchange. Often, when Wayne was home from college and Joe from the military, Joe invited Wayne along on his dates with Jean. Without either young man knowing, Jean switched her allegiance.

While Wayne was at school and Joe at work, Jean would stop by and visit with Wayne’s stepmother. Then she began stopping by when Wayne was home. Innocent conversations ensued. Later, Joe informed Wayne that Jean would be attending a twirling school at his college during the summer. He asked Wayne to look out for Jean while she was there. After all, if you can’t depend on your best friend, whom can you depend on? Wayne intended to do just that.

After her arrival on campus, Jean’s first move was to inform Wayne that she and Joe were splitting up, and that she wanted to have some fun. Wayne’s honorable intentions crumbled in the wake of Jean’s overpowering persona, so he got her a date with his roommate, Nick. After the date, Nick informed Wayne that he was not who Jean wanted to date. She wanted to date Wayne.

In defense of Wayne, let me state unequivocally that not a red-blooded male existed on this planet who could look Jean in the eye and say no. Wayne was no different, so a clandestine affair between the two began and lasted for months and in one case, for years.

The relationship with Joe remained as before. The three of them even went out together, much to the discomfort of Wayne. When he was home and Joe was not, Wayne and Jean spent time together. She even arranged to go to Wayne’s campus for visits.

Of course, the word began to get around. Joe discovered that he had lost his one true love, his place at the table of Morris County high society, and his best friend all at the same time. Finally, he confronted Wayne, and as one would expect, Wayne lied like a dog. Joe kept asking, and Wayne kept lying. Then, everyone went his or her separate ways. Joe and Wayne were not friends anymore. Joe completed his enlistment and went away to the University of Texas. He eventually became the Insurance Commissioner for the State of Texas. Wayne married his own soul mate and made a life. Troy became the fire chief in Dallas. Norris never left his hometown. Jean set forth on a tragic life.

Johnny came back into the picture. He stood by his childhood friend during her darkest hours. She often cried on his shoulder. She had lost her own true love and could not find another. As one would expect, Jean’s promiscuous ways caught up with her. She became pregnant, delivered a son, and abandoned the baby to her mother. The dysfunctional son grew up without his mother and eventually succumbed to the rejection by taking his own life. Jean married a university professor and produced more children with him. Her lifestyle centered around drugs and alcohol, and they caused her to lose them all.

Johnny suffered his own tragedies. While he achieved success in the business world due to his prodigious intellect, his brother succumbed to depression and committed suicide.

Johnny and I became close friends about fifteen years ago, and he filled me in on the genesis of both he and Jean with regard to their family heritage. He loved Jean as a brother might. He described the last time he saw her. The ravages of drug and alcohol abuse had taken its toll. She didn’t recognize him.

Johnny also shared with me the name of Jean’s lost love. The recipient of that dubious honor had no idea then or later … Earl Wayne Stubbs

Football

My lifelong love affair with football began in the fall of 1939 when I attended my first game.  Great discussions among my family members pertaining to the possible inclement weather began long before the game between the Mt. Pleasant Tigers and the Pittsburg Pirates actually began.  However, excitement won out over anxiety and we proceeded to the old fair grounds in Mt. Pleasant for the contest. 

I actually didn’t see much football that first game.  I recall the vivid black and gold colors and the muddy players.  The oohs and ahhs of the crowd was of interest but as the air grew heavier and the mist began to fall, my foster mother bundled me up in a quilt and sat me down among a forest of giant people.   Soon the rain increased in intensity, and we all trudged back to the parking lot, got into our 1937 Plymouth, and proceeded home.  Years past before I attended my next football game.

With the horror and fear of World War II past, area schools began the pursuit of athletic normalcy.  They hired coaches, and pulled football togs out of storage, dusted them off, and found carefree young men eager for the thrill of athletic combat.  I was living in Naples at the time and the first coach was a man named Freeman.  A bear of a man, he always started and ended each practice by booming towering punts from one end of the practice field to the other.  

My crowd attended practices faithfully because some of our sandlot playmates were now on the varsity.  Ronnie Merrill was one.  I will always retain a mental picture of 14-year-old Jack Coker during those first practices with his baggy pants dragging the ground and his strapless helmet moving around his head.  However, when the ball was snapped, he flung his tiny but compact body into whomever was in front of him with such ferocity that he ended up playing on the line at a little over 100 pounds.  Jack was destined to become one of the best athletes in the history of Naples High School. 

We attended the home games and some of the away games.  Allen Wren, a local merchant, supplied transportation in the back of his pickup.  During frigid conditions, he provided a tarpaulin for our added comfort, and we all huddled under it as we journeyed to Daingerfield, Hughes Springs, New Boston, or any location for the games.  The trips back and forth were almost as memorable as the games themselves.  This arrangement lasted for years.

Fans, starved for heroes, found them during those early years. I saw Charles Buchannon run the kickoff back for a touchdown during a game.  I didn’t see John Wright run one back against James Bowie, but I heard the story countless times the next Saturday from those who witnessed the feat. 

   

The Buffaloes fielded a less than auspicious team that first year, and Coach Freeman only lasted the one season.  Ironically, the Farmersville ISD hired him, and he coached my future brother-in-law and some of my future friends. He didn’t last long their either.

The next coach at Naples was Bill Bishop.  An introverted man, he was vulnerable to the frailties of health and human nature. An idealist, he was ill equipped to manage raucous young men.  Coach Bishop would never use two words when one would do.  He would explain a play, and then have his team practice it until it was second nature.  Fortunately, the members of his team were of good quality, and his last team before the consolidation was of high caliber.  His basketball teams were exceptionally good, and the Buffaloes won the consolation prize at the Doctor Pepper Tournament in Dallas where schools of all sizes competed together. 

Coach Bishop was my World History teacher.  He developed a system whereby he never had to be in the classroom.  On Monday, each student would take the assigned chapter and derive as many questions as possible from that source.  Coach Bishop allowed the student with the most questions to spend the week asking them to classmates. That was usually Coy Moreland or Frank Hampton.  That same student would concoct a Friday test from the list of questions, and the rest of us would take the test.  Coach Bishop would come in each day, call the roll, stare at the class for a bit with his rather bulbous eyes, and then leave to smoke.  He always dressed well in a gray suit and a Stetson hat. 

My favorite play from Coach Bishop’s teams was called razzle dazzle right.  James Day, the right end, was a rangy lad of about 6' 4".  Jack Coker, the all district quarterback, would take the ball from center, toss a short pass to James Day and then the fun began.  James would stop dead in his tracks and flip the ball back to trailing right halfback, Ronnie Merrill, who in turn lateraled the ball back to another trailing back, Junior Duncan. Junior was big, tough, and snail slow.  By that time he got the ball, the entire defensive team had congregated for the tackle. While the play may not have ever made a yard, it was a joy to behold.

Coach Bishop’s final team was 1949. The most exciting thing about the Naples football team of that year was the new uniforms.  This was the first time the school district could afford to spend such money on equipment since the late 1930's.  Handsome new plastic helmets topped off the green and gold attire.  How could a team not win with such uniforms?

 The year also marked the first time I ever saw a college level game.  It could not have been a better one.  Kids my age were very much into sports magazines and Saturday radio games with announcer Kern Tips.  We experienced football on a national level for the first time.  Our heroes were Doak Walker and Kyle Rote of SMU, Clyde Smackover Scott of Arkansas,  Choo Choo Justice of North Carolina,  Johnny Lujack and Leon Hart of Notre Dame,  Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis of Army to name a few. 

Members of the local FFA Chapter made an annual trip to the Texas State Fair.  My first trip as a freshman came in 1949. My pocket contained a veritable fortune in the form of a ten-dollar bill.  I had never seen so much money.  However, before we reached Dallas, about half of it would be in the pocket of senior Jack Coker in exchange for a ticket to the SMU Mustangs and Rice Owls football game that very day.  In the backfield for SMU was none other than the Doaker himself. Tobin Rote, at quarterback led the opposing Rice Owls.  It never occurred to any of us that SMU could actually lose such a game.

We strained our eyes from the high end zone seats, and they riveted on Doak.  He made a few darting runs but was slightly overshadowed by his teammate Kyle Rote.  Finally, trainers carried the Doaker from the field … a victim of injury.  Meanwhile, Tobin Rote led the Rice Owls up and down the field with his pinpoint passes.  Rice won the game, and Doak Walker proved vulnerable to human frailties. However, that game burned itself indelibly into my memory as a milestone of football lore.

My love of football did not diminish over the decades. New heroes emerged at all levels. The Pewitt Brahmas make us all proud, year after year. Our universities churned out Heisman Trophy winners and national champions. Our Cowboys capture Lombardi Trophies. I watch, read, and enjoy.

A Personal Opinion

The names are changed to protect the accountable.

Nathan Conrad Floyd died for the second time today at about 1:30 p.m..  He pointed to this event his entire life much like the rest of us, but he implemented decisions during recent years that assured a rapid conclusion to his essentially worthless existence.  He was 65.

Nathan joined our class in 1941 sometime after school began.  He was not academic by nature, had no physical skills, and we ignored him in general during the early years.  That would change. 

Nathan’s families were ordinary people.  His father took early retirement for health reasons during the 50's and, ironically, made the arrangements for Nathan’s funeral next Sunday.  They were very poor people who aspired to something better.  That ambition did not include fame and fortune but rather decent furniture and a nice house.  It was their affection for cars that built the foundation for Nathan’s advancing up the social ladder. 

As we began to involve ourselves with the gentler sex, the fact that Nathan had wheels endeared him to those of us who did not.  Nathan’s dad owned a nice 1950 Ford and the crew began to keep the road between Naples, Mt. Pleasant, and Daingerfield warm with our nightly tours.  The standard procedure was for all to chip in a quarter and that would provide enough fuel for our appointed rounds.  Nathan drove me on my first car date.  He didn’t have a date.  He just drove.  I never dated the girl again but he did for years to come.  She ended up breaking his heart, shattering his self-esteem, and likely ruining his life.  He was able to see her for the last time at our reunion in 1998.

Nathan has an ability to get jobs.  He ran a paper route.  He worked or rather avoided work at a local grocery store.  He always got a job during the watermelon and pickle seasons.  He always had money but circumstances were tight in his house and he often had to chip in on the car payment in order to keep the Ford going.  After we matriculated, Nathan went to Dallas and immediately found employment working for State Farm Insurance in some office capacity.  He spent several years there and the time was highlighted by his purchase of his own 1950 Ford, a lot of nice clothes, and failure to get promoted.  I fear that he carried his work avoidance techniques from the grocery to the insurance business. 

Nathan couldn’t do many things well.  His only foray into athletics was during his senior year.  He came out for football with the rest of us and made every practice during the season.  For some reason, the coach chose not to allow him to play a single down.  Nathan could type decently. He drove a car very well.  He enjoyed racing especially drag racing and was good at it.  There was a 35 mph curve between Naples and Daingerfield.  At the bottom of the curve was a bridge.  Nathan felt compelled to drive the curve at 70 mph each time we made the trip and, obviously, he never missed though a few times we went across the bridge sideways.

Nathan found a great girl in a neighboring town.  She was a local blue blood with a brilliant mind and sterling character.  I served as best man at their wedding.  Nathan’s contribution was to pass out during the middle of the ceremony.  That proved to be the highlight of the marriage. She bore two children and supported Nathan’s family financially while becoming highly successful in the corporate world. She was instrumental in a local conglomerate offering me a wonderful opportunity in 1974.  Unfortunately, I had just taken a job with a new British pharmaceutical company, and I wanted to give it a shot. 

Nathan joined the National Guard to avoid the draft.  He really seemed to enjoy the time with the Guard and, as fate would have it, the army called him up and sent him off to Europe.  He drove a tank and had a gay old time.  In retrospect, the army would have served Nathan well for a career. 

After his discharge, he began taking college courses and pursued his degree at North Texas with effort.  He fell a bit short.  His job at State Farm disappeared, and he became an “Independent Insurance Agent” (IIA) which in laymen’s terms means that he could cheat his friends and relatives with impunity.  As with many IIA’s, Nathan discovered an emerging social conscious.  He joined the Jaycees and spent the bulk of his time doing such work as arranging dirty movie shows complete with mobile homes complete with hookers.  I suppose it was following that line of work that provided the opportunity for Nathan to become a small time pimp.  He was also involved with pit bull fighting during this time when he wasn’t kiting checks from one bank account to another.

Of course, since he was an old friend and I wanted to help out, I purchased my auto insurance from Nathan.  So did several other friends and many relatives and acquaintances from our hometown.  There was just one hitch.  He pocketed the premiums and neglected to provide coverage.  We bought a new 1965 Chevrolet, and Nancy proceeded to wreck it.  This was her only accident during more than 40 years of driving.  When we called Nathan, he informed us that he would take care of it.  His pattern was to use some sort of emergency coverage to manage losses.  Whatever, the method, it worked.  We bought our insurance from another source in the future.

Nathan and Connie produced two children.  One was a clone of his father and the other of her mother.  After decades of failing to provide for his family, Nathan found himself on the outside looking in.  He decided that the insurance game was not for him and sold pharmaceuticals until he got fired.  That took less than a year.  Next he sold wiring harnesses for boats with some degree of success.  As a result of the latter job, he secured a management position for a small harness manufacturing operation in Florida.  While there, he lived like trash and began drinking heavily.  This was the beginning of the end.  It took about 15 years for him to kill himself. 

Nathan lived on the manufacturing site.  He slept outside in a tiny trailer about 8 feet long.  There was a shower in the building together with cooking facilities.  That was typical of Nathan’s choices.  He trained one of his employees to do most of the work.  The employee offered to do the work for less than Nathan and his employers took her up on it.  Nathan became redundant.

 It was during one of my trips to Florida and dinner with Nathan, that I came to realize that his personal habits, ignored by his youthful friends, were working against his adult endeavors.  For instance, Nathan ate with his fingers.  He didn’t just take a bite of dry food on occasion.  He ate just about everything at every meal with his fingers.  He did things his way and was not about to allow convention or society to influence his preferences.  I will wonder how many time his idiosyncrasies caused him to pay a terrible price.

It was about this time that Nathan stopped returning my calls.  I didn’t hear from him for about five years. I may be slow on the uptake and loyal to a fault, but I got the message. I wanted nothing more to do with him.  He kicked around for a few more years until he had a stroke in1996.  He was admitted to the VA Hospital in Shrevesport and proceeded to die.  Modern medical technology brought him back.  He never fully recovered or regained a desirable quality of life.   

The last time I saw Nathan was at a class reunion several years ago.  He was in a wheelchair and weighed about 300 pounds.  In my diplomatic way, I told him he needed to lose about 125 pounds.  He said that eating was the only form of enjoyment he had left.  Since he was an insulin dependent diabetic, there was nothing more to say.  He simply ate and drank himself to death.  He had no will to live, and who could blame him.

Nathan and I spent countless hours together.  I lost his friendship many years ago, but I will miss him nonetheless.

Handyman

I am not the greatest talent around the house.  I try hard but am challenged where piped water, wires, and machines are concerned.  To make matters more cloudy, I have always had an interest in such things.  A couple of years ago, my home AC stopped after I changed the filter.  My son’s father-in-law is a mechanical engineer and he offered to come over and take a look.  We went up into the attic, turned on the light, and looked around.  There was an electrical switch on one of the joists.  He asked the purpose of the switch and I admitted ignorance.  He flipped the switch and the AC came on.  What can I say?

I am not a morning person.  Nancy and I are keeping grandkids this week and after breakfast, I stumbled into my office and attempted to turn on the ceiling fan.  As fate would have it, the little metal string broke off inside the switch as it was designed to do after a certain period of time.  Having all of these dependent types under my wing, I proceeded to puff out my chest, comfort them, and tell them that I would take care of everything.  Nancy suggested that I look at the fan manual and find out what I needed.  I refrained from using harsh language and headed for Home Depot South. 

Home Depot is the holy grail of hardware in my neighborhood.  There are two within striking distance.  In fact, on the way to HD South, I decided to check the mileage.  It was exactly four miles.  I quickly found the resident ceiling fan man and explained in my halting manner what had happened to my fan.  Without saying a word, he wheeled, went down the aisle, picked up a switch, and handed it to me.  I said thanks and left.

I drove the four miles back home and proceeded to examine the fan housing and the item I had just purchased at HD South.  It was only then that I noticed that the switch I had purchased was only a single speed.  My fan had three speeds.  Now most people would have been frustrated and a bit miffed but I have been down this repair road before. 

I had some other errands to run near Home Depot North so I decided to make the exchange there and just for fun, check the mileage.  It was exactly four miles.  Not 3.9 miles.  It was four miles. I went back to the fan section of the store and found a young lady who offered to help.  I explained my problem and she wheeled down the aisle, picked up a switch, and handed it to me.  It was a three speed switch.  I thanked her, made the exchange, and went back home to make the repair. 

When I got home I examined the item and noticed that it was a three speed, three wire switch.  I really hated to look but I did.  Yep.  My switch was a three speed, five wire switch.  By this time I was feeling disgruntled.  Fortunately, it was time for lunch and Nancy had a bar-b-que coupon so I had time to deal with my pain.  After lunch we drove by HD South and I once again found the silent salesman in the fan section.  He didn’t appear to recognize me.  It could have been because of the red bandana tied over my nose and mouth. 

He found the three speed, five wire switch and told me that he was going to save me some time and effort.  This switch required wires that were pre-soldered and that he just happened to have some pre-soldered wires.  By this time, I would have taken advice from Mortimer Snerd, so I made the additional purchase. 

I went home and once again faced the monster.  I carefully read everything I could find on the fan, carefully marked each wire, drew a diagram of the switch and drew in the correct wire according to color and position on the old switch.  As I removed the wires from the old switch, I noticed that the wires were already pre-soldered.  I fumed for a moment then installed the new switch.  To check my work, I went to the garage and flipped on the breaker switch.  Lo and behold, the fan worked.  It now has two speeds.  Too fast and too slow.  Now don’t ask me what happened to speed number three.  However, I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I will adjust to the speeds of the fan.  I am just happy that I was able to get all of those wires back into the fan housing.

To prove my point, earlier in the summer, the AC compressor in our car went out.  The sound of the dying compressor bearing is unique.  The rattling sort of comes and goes and always stops when the AC is turned off.  We have never had car AC problems before.  Fortunately, the problem was under warrantee and we were spared the $1,200 bill. 

A couple of weeks ago, the worst happened.  My van began making the same noise.  When I got back home, I did what most men do when there is car trouble.  I lifted the hood and took a look.  The only thing I could see was that my oil sump cover was missing.  I figured that it had worked its way off and was laying by the side of the road somewhere.  Just to be sure and because I am a shrewd guy where cars are concerned, I turned off the AC and the noise stopped.  That was the deciding factor.  I was looking a $1,200 repair bill in the face.  

Since I had golf to play at the time, I reminded myself to buy a new oil cap soonest.  Did that happen?  My memory is not the best these days so the missing oil cover joined the thousands of other things that I forget in some dark recess of my shrinking brain.  

However, the AC problem did not go away.  The noise came and went every time I drove the van.  Nancy has a niece who is married to a auto mechanic who just happens to have a mastesr degree in theology and is a Baptist preacher.  I can never decide which of his vocationss is his sideline.  At any rate, we took the car to him and asked him to repair the AC.  The next day he called us to pick up the car.  His shop is between Dallas and Ft. Worth and we were in the midst of watching grandson #1 run in a track meet.  We arranged to pick up the van after hours and asked him the amount of the bill so we could mail it to him.  He said there was no charge.  I asked why.  He said all they did was put the oil sump cover back in its place and the rattling stopped. 

Fighting the good fight and losing.

The Gremlins of Lake Fork

Two distant cousins arrived at my small lake house just after noon on a warm day in March. One cousin, Rick, was from the paternal side of my family, and Gerald was a progeny of my mother’s family. They had much in common, but had never met.

Each man had sired sons of exceptional athletic ability and sterling character. Drew, Rick’s son, played left field for the Cleveland Indians. Robbie, Gerald’s son, played minor league baseball for several years in the Toronto Blue Jays organization. When he tired of the baseball grind and low pay, he became the quarterback for the Arkansas Razorbacks.

My well-conceived plan was to bring those two friends and relatives together at my peaceful lakeside venue, provide the necessary comforts, and listen to what transpired. Reality transcended my expectations. The two tall men took to each other immediately and story after story filled the small enclosure. We took time out to eat and sleep, but the remainder of the next 24 hours flew by with Rick and Gerald reliving their talented son’s similar journeys.

However, this tale is not about two proud fathers reflecting about the exploits of their sons. This is about sleep deprivation, bitter cold, and ravenous wild creatures.

I had spent little time with either cousin, but I invited them to spend the night since they both stated a desire to visit my lake house. However, it is one thing for grown men to sit around and chat. It is quite another for them to share sleeping quarters. I wanted us all to be comfortable. So, I planned outside the box to arrange the sleeping accommodations in the limited space.

The property will comfortably sleep two couples and a fifth person under the right circumstances. If the guests are not couples, the game changes. The small bedroom would take care of one guest. The other guest could use the pullout sofa bed. That left me.

I had a new, high-tech blowup mattress with an electric motor that kept the air pressure constant. I had already tried it inside, and it was relatively comfortable. The weather was mild, so I did not check the forecast. I had brought two old sleeping bags from home and zipped them together to form a nice comforter. I would sleep on the deck and hope I did not get too warm.

When I ran out of gas about midnight, we settled the sleeping arrangements. Rick said with humor, as I made my way outside, “You couldn’t get me to sleep out there with all of those animals.” We all chuckled and said goodnight.

As I arranged the primitive covers for my bed, I noticed that a sharp breeze blew in from the north, and it had a bite to it. However, I felt comfortable at the time. Back in the day, we often slept outside on Boy Scout trips during freezing conditions. So, I got in bed and curled up for a good snooze.

About 45 minutes later, I noted the absence of sleep. The northern breeze skipped across the lake and grew colder. Adding to my discomfort, cold air had forged a passageway between the zippers of my sleeping bags. Not only was I not sleeping, but my weathered old body’s temperature dropped by the minute. I had to do something.

Even though I knew it would disturb Gerald in the bedroom, I went crashing in, retrieved my heaviest coat, and a blanket. This should get the job done, I thought.

After donning the coat and blocking the wind with the blanket, I tried again. Actually, I believe I may have dozed off for a few minutes, but it didn’t last. Even with my added blanket and heavy coat, the Norther was winning.

As the clock moved toward 1 a.m., I began to hear strange noises. My first thought was Rick’s comment about the animals. Surely not.

I refused to move since that always caused Jack Frost to poke and prod. I considered the possibilities beginning with the worst-case scenario. What could it be? Snakes? Nope. They are hibernating. Raccoon? Don’t they eat mussels and such? Could be. Coyotes? They could be raiding trashcans. Opossum? Armadillo? Cougar? No chance of that … is there?

The noise grew louder than my state of consciousness could ignore, so I decided to take a quick peek. I rose and was shocked to observe either a large raccoon or a small jaguar attempting to get birdseed from one of the multitude of birdfeeders on the property. I must have made a noise, since the intruder descended down the tree trunk and scampered toward the deck and me seeking shelter under the house.

After a short deliberation, I made a command decision. My new guest could take possession of the deck. I would find shelter elsewhere.

The only remaining option was sleeping in my car for the remainder of the night. Since I had stored my clothing in the bedroom, I stumbled back inside, scaring the bejeebers out of Gerald, and retrieved my clothes and car keys. The clock was ticking and my lack of sleep was making a dent in my reservoir of good humor.

However, I got in the car, leaned the seat back as far as it would go, and turned on the heater. After gaining some semblance of warmth, I shut off the motor and dozed off … for thirty or forty minutes. Then, old man winter returned with a vengeance. The clock showed 4 a.m. and ticking. My average sized car seat shrank and grew bumps that appeared to change positions on a regular basis. Finding any degree of comfort grew more illusive by the minute.

I made a new plan. If I could survive until 5 a.m., I would drive down the road two miles to Alba and get a cup of hot coffee. That might, just might, save my life.

Sure enough, at 5 a.m., I abandoned any further attempt to sleep and drove to Alba. When I entered the all-night establishment, a bright-eyed lady behind the counter asked with exuberance, “How are you doing this morning?”

I nailed her with my steely blues and answered, “Don’t even ask.”

She smiled and said, “Got that tee shirt. How about some hot coffee?” 

Nine Eleven

I clearly recall December 7, 1941.  I was seven-years-old at the time and knew enough about the situation to feel a measure of fear.  The result of that Day that will live in Infamy was a lingering conflict that touched the lives of everyone for the rest of their lives.  The continuing impact of September 11, 2001 is virtually crashing into our existence, just as it did the WTC, the Pentagon, and the Pennsylvania field.

The best way I can bring the reality of 9-11 into focus is to transplant the event to downtown Dallas.  Imagine how it would affect the Metroplex. Imagine how many people that we know personally would now be at the bottom of that pile of death.  The events of 9-11-01 forever altered my TV image of the people of Manhattan.

It is as if the foundation of our lives is a house of cards.  Playing the game, we gave our savings to fledgling companies in order to reap profits unheard of in our history.  We thought nothing of placing our lives in the hands of airlines to deliver us to all points on the globe.  We gave up the security of lifelong benefits to enjoy a higher current income from our employer.  We bought enormous houses, luxury cars, and spent large sums on our abundant leisure time.  We lived the good life.  Now conditions may change.

I, for one, never really thought about the consequences of a successful terrorist strike.  I knew that lives would be lost but they would be someone else’s life.  I knew that I would be concerned, but that we would just send out a few cruise missiles and take care of the matter.  Our physical or financial world wouldn’t be affected all that much.

How has Osama bin Laden’s brainchild affected me?  My golfing vacation in Canada ended at the Dorval airport in Montreal on 9-11-01. After dealing with the shock and trying for four days to find a way home, Nancy and I were able to fly to Toronto and drive out of Canada.  Of course, the rental car price quadrupled.  No matter that tens of thousands of travelers were at the mercy of events, the American carriers would not honor the Canadian Airlines tickets that we had already paid for.  We ended up using round trip frequent flyer tickets to get back to DFW. Anyone need a couple of tickets from DFW to Detroit?  Me neither. 

During the days and weeks that followed and along with other investors, I watched my life savings disappear each day as the markets tumbled. After losing for eighteen months before the event, another seventeen percent disappeared after the 11th.   The sell off of large numbers of stocks by individuals triggered computer generated selloffs by the big mutual funds, and the bad situation increased exponentially. Nancy and I worked hard to secure our golden years but it appears that our efforts were in vain. 

Air travel, one of the hubs of our economy, is under the gun.  The automotive industry will suffer because most buyers will choose to wait another year to purchase a new car. Many simply won’t have a job to make the payments.  Most people will curtail their leisure activities, and that industry will suffer.  Spending will drop so the demand for goods and services will decline.  Companies will have no market for their projects and no need for many of their employees.  Food and shelter will become important.  The sports craze that has exploded over our nation for decades will decline.

I grew up in a small East Texas town that was still suffering from the Great Depression when WWII broke out in 1941.  The war years bought relative prosperity to the region.  Not so today.  We just finished the golden age.  This war will cost enormous personal sacrifice on the part of our armed forces, sacrifice on the part of you and me, and vast sums of money.    

Periodically, we find ourselves in a state of war.  Some were justified. Some were politicians wars designed to promote a political party.  The war in 1941 saved the economy and the nation.  This one will save the country as well. 

War has changed.  There may not be clashes of large armies in the field.  The weapons are stolen commercial airplanes, vials of bacteria, cylinders of chemicals, and the wills of the participants.  This is the most patriotic USA I have witnessed since 1941, so the will is there, at least at present.  I suspect that these issues will not be resolved quickly.  We will need to maintain our resolve even as conditions get worse.  We will need to recognize and meet our enemies on whatever field is required. 

This is truly a world war.  This is a religious war.  We are not only defending the Christian religion but are defending the right to practice all religions including the right to be a Muslim in this country. 

I attended a Protestant church service last Sunday.  It was the first time I had ever heard the Star Spangled Banner sung in church.  It was a very patriotic service and everything went well until the minister referred to the Muslim religion as being a cult.  How shortsighted.  How unfair. That is like assigning the Oklahoma City bombing to all white Anglo Saxon Protestants. 

Yes, conditions have changed.  We cannot even imagine the challenge ahead.  However, we are a smart people.  We are problem solvers and Osama bin Laden is simply another problem, just as Adolph Hitler and General Togo were problems.  I get the impression from countries around the world that all fear the sleeping giant.  I hear very little rhetoric from our current enemies.  It is not a good time to prod the giant.  When the giant wakes up, he is grouchy.     

*****   

Note: In May of 2011, a team of Navy Seals raided the home of Osama Bin Laden and killed him.

At the end of 2014, the end of the war is nowhere in sight.

The Corporate World—An Opinion

This is in response to a paper by a sociology professor at a local college. He happens to be a close friend and tennis buddy as well.

One does not have to look far to find a topic for discussion regarding this paper. The title, The Corporate World: Good or Bad?, is a far as one needs to go.  The opinion here is that the question is a poor one and has no answer.  An analogy is whether or not water is a solid or a liquid.  Water can be both depending on the temperature.  The corporate world provides both positive and negative results and one must weigh the two against one another to decide if the present system is good for the people and the country.

A simple way to argue the matter would be to imagine the country without corporations.  I cannot say that people were not more satisfied with their lot 100 years ago living in an agrarian society.  Maybe they were.  I do suggest that the standard of living is improved.  Health care is improved.  Longevity has increased.  Education is better.  Leisure time activities are available to more people.

There are several examples of societies that chose not to allow corporations to exist and operated production through government agencies.  The aim was to make sure everyone shared equally in the bounty and that everyone was represented in decision making.  Unfortunately, the Soviet Union, East Germany, Austria, China, Viet Nam, and the many other countries who admired the works of Karl Marx and the teachings of Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, and Ho, to name a few, found that such a system could not compete in the world market.  Who can say whether or not the citizens of those countries were happy with their lot but most seemed to welcome change if and when it came about.  To see a more glaring example, one might compare Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China.

Corporations are dynamic.  They change from day to day according to conditions.  They were not, nor will they ever be, formed to provide jobs for citizens.  The only reason corporations ever hire anyone is so that person can provide a service for the corporation that results in profit.  Corporations are capitalized by the value of their stock.  If investors like something about a corporations, they will invest real money in it’s shares.  If the investor is unhappy with the performance of the corporation, they will sell the stock and the value of the company will decrease.  It is important that the managers of companies show investors that the company is doing well.  One of the ways to improve the profit picture is to run a lean-mean company.  That means that no personnel works for the company that are not essential to the bottom line of profit.  Such a system can result in laying off important personnel and production can decrease.  However, any corporate manager would be wise to follow such a philosophy to a large degree.

Suppose a large corporation employed many people but was operating at a loss of $500M each year.  Let’s say that the CEO was paid $1,000,000 each year for losing all that company money.  The corporate board would  likely replace that CEO with another.  If the new CEO turned the company around and showed a profit of $500M, wouldn’t that person be worth a salary of 15M?  I think so. It that person was paid the same salary as a parking lot attendant, he or she would likely look elsewhere for employment.  My experience is that most top execs are incompetent and do not make a difference; therefore,  a good one is worth a lot.


Usually, the most important expenses  for any company are personnel ones including salary and any benefits.  Since the corporate world is dynamic, one cannot assume that a company that is successful this year will be successful next year.  If market share and subsequently revenue is lost, there are several ways to manage the profit picture.  Management can increase the price of the product or service to make up the difference.  However,  higher prices make it more difficult to get business so that might not be a good way to solve the problem.  One can rely on marketing ploys but such an approach depends on the marketing expertise and budget of the company.

Usually, when sales fall off, production must fall off.  If production is decreased, there is less need for personnel.  My son, the CEO, is in the midst of such a situation.  One of the companies he runs is a fiber optic cable laying company.  They agreed to lay some cable near Houston for Time Warner.  They were doing well but Time Warner shut down that operation and moved them to another area where the soil was shallow.  They could not operate at a profit because of the bedrock.  Then in November, Time Warner shut down the operation until the new year.  Mark, my son, could not bring himself to lay off the workers so he kept them on half salary.  The financial losses were extensive.  Now that the new year is here, Time Warner decided that they will not renew operation until the next quarter.  Mark could very well lose his job over being such a nice guy and, frankly, he deserves to do so.  I refer back to my previous statement.  The purpose of corporations is not to provide jobs.  The purpose is to make profit for the investors.

The marriage between politicians, labor unions,  corporations, and special interest groups is a fact of life.  No, the homeless person on the streets does not have much influence on the way we run the country.  In fact, neither you nor I have much influence.  I do not doubt that the chasm between the rich and poor is widening.  In fact, a million dollars is not that much money today.  I often think about how a person on social security manages to live.  I am sure it is not easy.

Corporations rise and fall.  While Montgomery Wards fails, Microsoft succeeds.  There will be a day when Microsoft is buried by a new idea.  It will most certainly fail if the company officials keep employees that they do not need.

Some companies buy and sell other companies through corporate raiding.  Companies are not owned by the managers, the board of directors, or the employees.  They are owned by the stockholders.  If the majority of stockholders choose to sell their shares for a profit to a corporate raider, they are pleased with the result.  Few stockholders would care if the company is disbanded, it’s employees put out of work, and it’s assets sold for profit.  On the other hand, some corporations buy a poor company, spend some money on it, and make it a profitable asset.  That happens more often than not.

I am concerned about the elderly, those unable to earn a living, and those unable to get work.  As humans, we must make adjustments during our lives.  I know of many good workers who do a certain kind of work in a certain part of the country and they will not adjust their thinking and skills to find work.  A friend in Giddings was terminated from a bank.  He was offered several jobs in Austin but refused to move.  Finally, after about three years, he managed to get a low paying banking job in Giddings.  He was unemployed for three years.


Many people who are unemployed do not look for jobs.  They may be older and not seriously considered for jobs.  They may be psychotic, unhealthy, or handicapped in some way.  They just may not choose to work.  You know my story.  I was downsized from my company of 18 years simply because other companies were doing it, I had enemies, and I was 57.  There were many other reasons but mostly of a conspiratorial nature and not for lack of competence.  (Don’t laugh.)  There are many really bad people in positions of power in corporations just as they are in the field of education, government, churches, and probably the Red Cross.

If a person wishes to earn more money than the poverty level, they must prepare themselves well and produce when they get the opportunity.  I believe that a segment of the population wishes to spend their days at leisure without regard to earning a living.  I believe that a segment of the population is not, for a variety of reason, capable of earning a living and I do not wish them to go without care.  I do not feel that such people need the best of everything.

I believe that the liberal thinking in this country is designed to make “From each according to his ability.  To each according to his needs.” a reality.  The chosen method is through tax relief for those at the poverty level.  If the ploy succeeds, the successful will provide the work and money for the downtrodden who will live well without working.  Of course, the conservatives would be delighted if they had to pay no taxes at all.

Advertising goes back to the corporations.  The most expensive method is through TV.  Because so much money is made by the TV companies, they can hire teams or leagues to provide entertainment for their patrons.  Since the teams get so much money from the networks, they can pay large salaries for people to hit balls and slap pucks. Supply and demand.  Joe Blow can make the big bucks if he can hit balls and slap pucks.

For AMOCO, AT&T, Citicorp, Du Pont, GE, GM, and IBM to make only $25M in profit for one year is like you living on a dollar a month.  The capitalization of these companies is in the trillions.

I would disagree that most business people are honest and hard working.  I would say the same for all walks of life but there are many people out there doing great work.  As I walk my dog in the neighborhood each day, I keep an eye on the large scale construction of a new golf course at Sherrill Park.  There is a bulldozer operator who just really works hard the entire time.  He is very skilled and very fast.  If all construction people produced work as he does, we might be buying a new car for about half of what it costs today.      


Those of us who care about people should do what we can to help them.  However, I do not believe that all children can be educated to the point of societal production.  I do not believe that we should all earn the same income.  We are different and some people work harder and more skillfully than others.  Without corporations in the US, this country would most assuredly not exist.

The Great Lumberyard Fight

It is unfortunate but fighting among boys was not uncommon while growing up in Northeast Texas. One of the things you knew about your schoolmates was whether or not you could whip them. Since I couldn’t whip very many people, I was challenged only once and declined the offer. In retrospect, I guess I should have gone ahead and taken my whipping but the challenger was a good friend and I really didn’t want to win or lose to him.

There was almost no fighting at school in those days. If a disagreement became serious, the combatants would arrange to meet at the old deserted courthouse after school with an audience. Sometimes, I believe the fights were more for entertainment than for blood since they usually didn’t last long. A bloody lip and a little sniffling was the customary result.                      

Challenges were typically made by people who knew they could beat-up the guy they challenged. The winner was always a forgone conclusion, and the process was most often according to script. The winner would throw a few punches, and finally one would land. The loser would hit the ground and began to wail. At this point, I headed for home glad that it wasn’t me doing the wailing.

There was one instance when two hefty lads of similar size and reputation got into an argument at school and agreed to meet after school to settle the matter. Both of these guys were tough, and it promised to be a battle royal. We could hardly wait until school was out. We marched en masse down to the courthouse for the bout. There were few preliminaries. Both boys took their stance and the fight began. Except that there was no fight. It was all a big farce. Both boys began to dance around throwing fluffy punches that didn’t land. It only took a few seconds for us to know that we had been had. They had planned the whole thing, and we bit, hook, line, and sinker.

Without question though, the Bobby Mize and James Ed Alexander showdown was the best I ever saw. It was a real battle and between two evenly matched opponents. You can have your Joe Lewis versus Billy Conn, your Sugar Ray Robinson verses Jake LaMotta, and even your Thrilla in Manilla. I’ll put the Mize versus Alexander lumberyard brawl up against any of them. Even today, it would be worth the price of admission.

It was right after World War II had played out its violent and tragic end. People from all over the world were leaving the armed forces, moving around, and starting new lives. Naples, my hometown in Northeast Texas, would grow to the massive size of over 1,300 souls during this time. Veterans came home, joined their families, and carved out a slice of the Naples pie for themselves. One such family to move to Naples was the Mize family. It was a rather large family by Naples standards and consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Mize, three sons, one of whom was Bobby Mize, and Betty, a member of my class. This was an interesting family because their primary avocation at the time was fighting.

My reference to fighting is a bit misleading. They were interested in boxing primarily, but occasionally fist fighting was okay as well. Goodness knows where we got our information but we understood that Mr. Mize was a former professional boxer. The older boys were also Golden Gloves trained boxers though I am not aware if they still pursued the sport at that point. Even Betty knew a bit about fighting. Once on the playground I teased her a bit too much, and she responded with a hard, straight left to the point of my nose. I didn’t tease Betty again.

Bobby was about fourteen or fifteen at the time and possessed all of the boxing knowledge passed down from his father and older brothers to go with an aggressive disposition. In addition to his knowledge of boxing, Bobby possessed a superb physique. He had broad heavy shoulders, massive biceps, a deep chest that narrowed down to slim hips, and strong legs. Bobby was built for fighting and trained for fighting. It was only natural that when he moved to town, he would look up the toughest kid in town and give him a go. That was James Ed Alexander.

James Ed had none of Bobby’s training and exhibited none of his desire for fighting. He was just a raw-boned kid with none of the muscle definition of Bobby. James Ed, and no one called him James or Ed, was just a good athlete and a friendly person. It was common to speak to people around town in those days, and James Ed always spoke to me even though he was several years older. No one knew if he could fight or not, but he was a big kid with a rangy body. His build was nothing like that of Bobby Mize, but since he was as tall as Bobby, he was a marked man. Bobby needed a sparing partner and he elected James Ed.

Fights in Naples between the younger set were held in one of two places. If the bout was an after school affair by grade school kids, the abandoned courthouse was the venue. If it was a rare, more serious affair between high schoolers, it was often held in the lumberyard next door to the Inez Theater. This was one of the latter.

Don’t ask me what preempted the challenge. When the guys I hung out with noticed the drama unfolding, the two combatants were standing in the lumber yard discussing the rules of engagement. The primary discussion was whether or not rings would be allowed. Bobby suggested that rings be removed, and much to my surprise, James Ed indicated that he didn’t really care if rings were on or off. So rings were allowed, at least at first.

I liked James Ed and didn’t know Bobby very well. My impression at the time was that Bobby looked just about unbeatable and that a good friend of mine was going to get himself worked over pretty good. I maintained that opinion until the fight was well under way.

The boys squared off and the fighting personalities of both boys became apparent. The skill and training of Bobby Mize was demonstrated in his basic stance and pugilistic affectations. Bobby was a snorter. He bounced up and down feinting with both hands, and snorted loudly through his nose. James Ed, whose posture was a bit stooped naturally, just put up his hands and waited. He didn’t have to wait long. Bobby moved in and threw a series of quick punches that would have knocked most people’s head off. To everyone’s surprise including Bobby’s, James Ed blocked several punches with his hands and moved his head to avoid the others. Incredibly, not a blow landed. However, it did not deter Bobby and he proceeded to initiate several other forays with pretty much the same results. He landed a few punches but they were glancing blows for the most part and not that effective. James Ed was content to stay in his crouch and counter. After a bit, Bobby’s rushes became less demonstrative and his snorts evolved into heavy breathing. James Ed did some evolving on his own. He began to throw a few more punches and they were landing.

The bout slowly emerged into a ballet of sorts with both boys throwing and receiving punches. Bobby would initiate a series of punches and James Ed would counterpunch with hard straight lefts and rights. He was, however, not using up as much energy as Bobby and the latter’s flurries became less frequent. Those powerful arms began to sag and those legs began to weaken and after a time, Bobby could barely lift his fists.

James Ed initiated his offense by well-placed left jabs that began to take a toll on Bobby’s face. Then James Ed slipped a punch and delivered a hard right hand that surprised Bobby and all the members of the lumberyard audience. Bobby momentarily stopped the fight after finding that his face was cut and requested that rings be removed. James Ed complied but for all intents and purposes the momentum belonged to him. He moved forward and began using the hard left jab to keep Bobby worried and then he would bring the straight right and by this time, Bobby knew he was in trouble. Finally, James Ed threw a hard right to Bobby’s jaw that put him on the ground. He didn’t get up. The fight was over.

No one knew it, least of all James Ed, but he was an extremely talented boxer. His slender body belied a powerful punch and hand quickness that would earn him a USN fleet championship in later years.

Bobby Mize didn’t give up or stop fighting. He became a valued member of Naples High School athletics, especially the boxing team, and we were always glad to see him fighting for our school. When Bobby fought, one way or the other, somebody got knocked out.

It is ironic that Bobby Mize and James Ed Alexander became the best of friends. They served as teammates on the athletic fields of Naples High School and served their country on the same ship during the Korean Conflict.

James Ed also boxed for the school and, to my knowledge, never lost a bout. He enjoyed great success as a Navy boxer and eventually we ended up at East Texas State Teachers College in the 50’s as schoolmates once again. We picked up our friendship in college and enjoyed some great times. I can remember one incident when James Ed was asleep in his room at the Paragon House in Commerce and some guys came in at 2:00 A.M. and dumped three crates of vegetables into his bed but that’s another story.