No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

A couple of months ago we moved from an upstairs apartment to a downstairs unit.  Even after having both knees replaced a couple of years ago, Teresa still has a lot of problems.  Walking up and down the stairs each day was a burden she didn't need.  It eliminated a lot of travel and we love it.  A side effect was inheriting a new crop of neighbors.

We now live near the end of a long hallway on the south end of the complex.  All doors open into the hall, halfway down is a covered link that connects our building to the office, post office and pool area.
Each day I check the mail and in most cases never encounter anyone going or coming.

There is a man who lives in an apartment on the first floor near the link whom I've only seen a few times in the past year.  He is disabled and is confined to a wheelchair most of the time.  He has only one leg, and although he has an artificial one, I've only seen him wearing it a couple of times.  I'd spoken to him each time we passed in the hall and he usually just said hello and gave me a brochure from the church he attends. 

Last month, on a rainy Wednesday things changed.  He was standing outside the door to the link in the rain with two small grocery bags in his hands.  Entry to the building requires a keycard, and he was frantically looking for his.  I rushed over and opened the door for him.  He stepped into the dry hallway and thanked me. 

As I continued my journey to the post office boxes I heard him ask, "Could you do something else for me?"

"Sure," I said, "what do you need?"

He said, "I'm going to take these bags to my apartment.  I have some more in my truck, but I'm too tired to go back out in the rain to get them.  Would you get them for me and bring them to my apartment?"

"Be glad to," I said.  He handed me the keys to his truck and headed for his apartment.

I ran to his truck through the pouring rain and retrieved the other bags.  I delivered them to his apartment and asked, "Is there anything else I can help you with?" 

"Yes, there is," he said.  "I have a five drawer cabinet and a computer desk in the back of the truck I need brought in.  Will you do it for me?"

"I'll be right back," I replied.

Well, the five drawer cabinet was in a big box and weighed almost as much as me.  I was whipped when I finally got it to the apartment.

"The computer desk is a lot lighter, but it also needs to be assembled," he said.

I should have seen it coming,  but I was trying to be helpful.  A few minutes later I put the box containing the computer desk on the floor and started for the door.

"One more thing," he asked.  "Will you come back tomorrow and put both of these together for me and haul all the older stuff out to the dumpster?"

I'm sure I had a stunned look on my face, but only mumbled, "Uh, sure."

I didn't really want to, but he needed help and it would only be this one time.  Ha!

He said he took a lot of medications and didn't get up until early afternoon.  I told him that was fine since we had a lot of things to do the next morning anyway.

At seven a.m. there was a loud knock on the door.  It was him.  I opened the door and said, "Good morning."

"I couldn't sleep," he said.  "Are you ready to get started?"

"No, we have an entire morning full of chores to get done.  I will try to be at your apartment around one o'clock."

He shrugged and rolled away.

I had other things to do, but also knew it would be a daunting task for him to do alone.  At two p.m. I knocked on his door and he let me in.

I decided to assemble the five drawer chest first.  After it the computer desk should be a breeze.  I couldn't believe how many parts there were to a piece of Chinese furniture with the appearance of a giant jigsaw puzzle.

There were racks and cabinets throughout the living room and bedroom.  I wasn't sure why he needed another one, but it was none of my business.  All the work had to be done on the floor, which brings me to the carpet.

The carpet was nastier than words can describe.  He had a nice vacuum cleaner in the kitchen, but apparently he didn't want to risk burning it up by running over the carpet.  My feet felt like they were going stick with each step on the carpet, and getting down on my knees or sitting down to put pieces together sent chills up my spine.  I felt like the need for a tetanus shot after the first five minutes.  The smell was even worse.  I soon found out why.

There is no smoking allowed in our complex.  He had disabled the smoke alarms, and most of the day was spent chain smoking with a towel placed along the bottom of the door to hide the odor from the outside.  My eyes and lungs were burning.

As soon as I started he went to his room and turned up his stereo full blast.  This was just before the predicted rapture, so he was mostly listening to Amazing Grace over and over, and singing along at the top of his voice.  Every ten minutes or so he would come back to the living room and tell me the rapture was going to come the following Saturday.  I was tempted to ask him why he needed more furniture if he would be gone in a week, but I didn't.

Pretty soon I adjusted to the poisonous atmosphere and was making progress.  He entered the room once again with a fanny pack in his lap.  I looked up in time to see him pull out a .45 caliber pistol, which almost made me soil his carpet ever further.

"Look what I have!" he said.  "If you ever need any help down the hall,  you just call me.  I'll be right there."

He took three clips from his bag to show me how prepared he was, then he got a look of horror on his face.

"Oh no!  I'm missing two clips!  I hope none of my sorry buddies came to to steal my medications and took the clips!  Can you go to my truck and see if you can find them?"

Of course I jumped at the opportunity to get the hell out of there and get some fresh air.  I opened the passenger door of his truck and there were two fully loaded clips on the seat.  I took them inside and gave them to him.  It settled him down considerably.  He returned to his room.

A little later he asked me to come to his room and meet his fiance whom he was talking to online.  I struggled to my feet and went in for an introduction.  The connection was bad and I said hello as instructed.  After a couple of minutes I excused myself and went back to work.

He came in a few minutes later and told me about his fiance.  She is a twenty-five year old living in the Philippines.  According to him she is going to come to the U.S. when he can come up with enough money.  In the meantime she has all his credit card numbers and pin numbers so she can buy bibles.  He held up his hand and showed me a huge scar.

"See this!  My first wife tried to kill me with a butcher knife."

By late afternoon I had almost completed the chest.  I said I would finish it up and put the computer desk together the following day.

He handed me one of his key cards to his door and said, "I will probably sleep late, so just let yourself in and finish."

I said, "No thanks.  I will wait until you are up."  There was no way in hell I would walk into his apartment and have him wake up and blast me with his pistol.  I went home.

As soon as I walked through the door Teresa said, "Oh my God, you stink!  Get out of those clothes and take a shower now!"  Crawling around on that skanky carpet had taken a toll on my clothes.

The next afternoon I finished the cabinet and was about to nail the particle board sheet on the back. 

"What is that thing?" he asked.

"It is the standard board that comes with all of these things."

"No, I won't use that flimsy thing.  Take the legs off of my dining table and nail the top onto the back of the cabinet."

"Sure!" I said.  Later I found out he rented a furnished apartment and the table I took apart wasn't his.

I then turned my attention to the computer desk.  Unfortunately he had decided to start working on it the night before.  He had studs and screws in the wrong places.  To secure them he covered each one with a generous amount of Gorilla glue.  It took me an hour to scrape off all the glue and start over.  I was finished in fifteen minutes.

Did I mention that on several occasions friends of his would wander in to visit with him and watch me work at the same time.  They were all much younger and more capable of doing the tasks at hand.  I had felt at first that he didn't have anyone around to help.  At that point I felt a little bit used. 

On the way out the door he handed me a bottle of sparkling water from his refrigerator and said, "I'm going to give you this for helping me.  You and your wife can drink it."

When I got home I put the bottle on the counter and told Teresa it was our payment.  It had a slimey feel to it.  She frowned and said, "I hope you don't plan on drinking that!"

"No way in hell!" I said.  I picked it up to toss it out.  It stuck to the counter.

A couple of weeks later he caught me walking down the hall.  "Come see what I bought," he said.

I steeped into his apartment and saw a big canvas bag.  It contained a frame, shelves and a canvas camping closet.  I knew what was coming next.

"This is a good project for you.  Can you put it together for me?"

I said yes and began putting it together.  It took about twenty minutes.  He went to his bedroom to get some catalogs so he could show me some more things he had on order.  I had a feeling they were going to involve my help when he got them.  I quickly sent Teresa a text saying "Call me now.  Tell me to come home!"

Her call came just as he rolled back into the living room.  I told him I had to go and hauled ass out the door.

Since I have been made the unpaid Minister of Special Construction Projects, and he seems to have a lot of friends capable of standing around watching me work, I decided it was time to pay better attention and not be caught out in the open.  I started going the long way around to check the mail and doing the laundry upstairs.  I was successful until last Wednesday night.

We went out to eat after work and got home a little after nine p.m.  The neighbor is rarely out that late.  Just to be safe I took the long way to the mailbox, but getting overconfident and cocky I decided to go directly down the hall on the return trip.  I made a right turn and there I was, face to face with my nemesis, Rolling Thunder.

He smiled and said, "Jimmy!  I've been looking for you.  Let me show you what I just bought!"

We were at the door of his apartment, so I stepped in to take a look like the wimp I am.  There was a section of steel shelving assembled, probably incorrectly, and a pile of pieces on the floor.  That could only mean trouble for me.

"I've got a project for you!" he said.  "I need the other half put together, then the old shelves taken out of the closet and these put in.  I just bought a two wheel dolly off the internet so it will be easier when you take stuff out to the dumpster for me."

I mumbled something about needing to go and I would talk to him later.

Early Thursday morning there was a loud knocking at the door.  I had a pretty good idea who it was.  I went into the other room and Teresa opened the door.  Sure enough it was Rolling Thunder.  He had been asleep and heard someone knocking on his door.  He naturally assumed it was me wanting to get an early start on the latest construction project.  She told him I was busy.  He left.

All day I never left the apartment without her checking the hallway first.  We went out to eat that evening.  We entered the building from the side entrance to the hall so we wouldn't be readily visible.  A woman and her kids were coming from the pool and we talked to them for a minute.  From the corner of my eye I saw movement in the hall.  I whispered to Teresa, "Is it him?"

"Yes," she said.

"Do you want to go riding around for awhile?" I asked.

"Let's go!"

We left for an hour and all was clear upon our return.

Now I feel I'm being stalked by Rolling Thunder.  I peak around every corner.  I need to get a mirror to cut down on the chance of getting caught while checking the hall.  I just came from Goodwill where I picked up a disguise.  I have a pith helmet, sunglasses, checkered shorts, army boots, long black socks and a pink boa to wear around my neck.  So far I haven't been caught.  I did get an offer to be in the over forty production of Rocky Horror Picture Show at a local theater, but I can't dance, can't sing, and I'm only thirty-nine.

Fun Times at Lake O' the Pines

 My Uncle Elmo Ray and his wife, Hope, lived in Northeast Texas for most of my life. My first memories of them were at their house in Daingerfield. It was three hours from Crockett and mother and I would drive up for a visit two or three times a year. Their next-door neighbor at the time was Marvin Watson. He was the Postmaster General under President Lyndon Johnson. When I told my friends that my uncle lived next door to a prominent national figure, you guessed it, they didn't give a damn.

When I was in junior high school Uncle Moe and Aunt Hope moved eight miles south to Lone Star, Texas, which is the location of Lone Star Steel. It is a huge steel mill; far and away the largest employer in the area. Uncle Moe worked there as a welder. He rented a waterfront house on Lone Star Lake. Lone Star Lake surrounded the mill on three sides and was the biggest lake I had seen.

The lake was actually full of all kinds of deposits from the mill and nasty as hell, but at the time I didn't realize it. When I visited, I would fish off the pier in Uncle Moe and Aunt Hope's backyard. I was a big believer in eating what I caught, as long as someone else would clean it for me. Looking back, it is a good thing I never caught anything out of Lone Star Lake. I would have insisted on having it for a meal, and God only knows what kind of chemicals would have been released into my system.

Once I insisted on going swimming in the lake while we were there for a visit. I had a new yellow swimsuit and couldn't wait to get into the water. Mother and Aunt Hope drove me around to the local city park where there was a swimming area roped off, complete with a sandy beach. I swam happily for an hour until I was told it was time to go. When I got back to the house and took off the suit I noticed it was no longer yellow. It was covered with some kind of dark, greasy substance from the lake water. My skin felt like it had been rubbed down with dirty water mixed with used motor oil. I lost the urge to ever go into the water at Lone Star Lake again, or fish in it for that matter.

A few months later Uncle Moe called my mother and said they had moved from the house on Lone Star Lake. They were renting another house in town while their new house on Lake O' the Pines was being built. Soon afterward we drove up for a weekend visit.

Lake O' the Pines adjoins Lone Star Lake via a small body of shallow water full of stumps, trees, alligators and mosquitoes. It is a lake of more than eighteen thousand surface acres of water and is one of the most beautiful bodies of water in East Texas. Along the shore there are miles of rolling hills and thick forests. It was originally constructed to control the flooding at Caddo Lake on the Texas-Louisiana border. It was built by the Army Corp of Engineers and is still controlled by them to this day. Due to their strict regulations there were neither many commercial developments along the shore, nor many houses either. Uncle Moe and Aunt Hope drove us over to see their new house and I saw the lake for the first time. I thought it was one of the prettiest places I had ever seen.

It was cold and windy at the time, but Uncle Moe asked if we wanted to go fishing. I liked to fish in warm weather, but I wasn't too keen on the idea of freezing to death sitting on a pier in January. He took us to the Big Cypress Marina and showed us what he had in mind. It was a large floating building about twenty yards from shore. The entire center of the inside was open to the water. There were heaters blowing warm air, a snack bar and chairs along the railing next to the water. That was my kind of fishing!

We stayed there for several hours and I had a blast. I didn't catch a thing, but I drank enough Coke and ate enough candy bars to put pimples on a cue ball and had a sugar rush to keep me wide awake. I never wanted to leave. A few months later a tornado came through and removed the floating paradise from the face of the earth.

The house at the lake was completed in the spring and I couldn't wait to go see it. It was a quarter of a mile from the house to the shore, and the lake was visible through the tall pine trees. There were very few houses in the area at the time, but Uncle Moe had purchased two lots to keep a buffer zone in case the neighborhood ever started to fill up. The lots were covered with pine trees.

Being a welder, Uncle Moe was always building something out of steel. He had a couple of large steel tables and a big barbeque pit next to the house. It was the perfect place to sit and relax and enjoy the scent of pine trees and the breeze off of the lake. I thought it was truly heaven on earth. From that time on we made several trips a year to the lake to visit.

The following April we went for a visit the week school was out for spring break. My Uncle Hardy and Aunt Elouise had driven from Odessa to spend a few days. There aren't many places to fish in West Texas, so Uncle Hardy was eager to get on the water as soon as they arrived. He and Uncle Moe asked me to go with them and I said yes. It was decided that we would camp out at Johnson Creek campground, which was a mile from the house. It sounded like a good idea at the time.

They decided to set out lines in the trees in the middle of the lake and check them every few hours. The wind picked up and the temperature dropped as soon as we got on the water. Uncle Hardy and Uncle Moe could probably sit on a frozen lake and fish through the ice all day long wearing shorts and tee shirts, but I am very cold natured. I was sure I was going die before they finished. They checked the lines every couple of hours throughout the night, and each time they came back with a few fish. I refused to go out again, preferring to sit by the fire and drink coffee. Until that night I had never cared very much for coffee. When I did drink some it was heavily loaded with milk and sugar. My uncles only drank it black, but they had a pot full all night long. I was so cold I didn't care, as long as it was warm. By the time we went home the next morning I had been converted to a black coffee drinker and still am to this day.

Three months later, mother and I were back at the lake for July Fourth weekend. John and Dawn Rials and the Douglas family came up from Crockett a couple of days after we arrived. Uncle Moe rented a houseboat big enough for us to all spend the day on the water. It was actually a large flat platform deck on Styrofoam pontoons with a small enclosed toilet.

One thing about the toilet should be noted. Today it would drive the environmentalists crazier than they already are. The toilet was simply a chute that opened directly into the water below the deck. Everything discharged dropped into the lake. When we were diving off of the top of the covered area and swimming around the edge of the deck we tried not to think about what was being deposited into the lake from houseboats all over the lake at any given moment.

When the holiday weekend was over and everyone else returned home, I stayed. I wanted to spend some more time at the lake, so mother agreed to leave me for a week. She was to come back for me the following weekend.

Uncle Moe and Aunt Hope both worked, so I spent the day at the house alone. There was a small miniature golf course a short distance away, so I used up a lot of time and money playing round after round. I would then walk to the little drive-in for a Coke or some ice cream to cool off. There was a neighborhood swimming pool that I had all to myself. When Uncle Moe got home he would take me down to the lake to fish off of the pier. I dreamed of the day when I could drive around the lake and see the sights.

Uncle Moe and Aunt Hope had a daughter, Connie. She was several years older than me and was attending college at East Texas State University in Commerce during the first years they lived at the lake. She was rarely home when I was visiting. When she was home she always made it a point to entertain me and show me a lot of attention. I'm sure I was a pain in the ass, but she never seemed to mind. The summer before I was a freshman in high school Connie spent part of the summer home at the lake. She had just bought a brand new Pontiac GTO. What a ride!

Charlie Jackson and I spent a week at the lake that summer. Mother took us one weekend and came back for us the next. I didn't have my driver's license yet, but Charlie had his. It is hard to believe, and she must have gone temporarily insane, but Connie gave us full use of the GTO on several occasions that week. Uncle Moe replenished the gasoline when we would burn it up. Together Charlie and I probably didn't have enough cash on us to put in a quarter of a tank of gas. The GTO had a high performance engine and a four-barrel carburetor. When Charlie put the pedal to the metal on a straight stretch of road, we would be shoved back against our seats from the force of the acceleration. We could almost see the gas gauge drop as the speed increased. Ninety percent of the roads around the lake go up and down hills and around sharp curves, so we didn't have many opportunities to endanger ourselves. I'm sure Connie was glad when we went home.

Before mother left we were sitting around the kitchen table catching up on the latest happenings. Mother mentioned that Charlie and I had been to a few baseball games at the Astrodome. Connie asked if we ever tried to get any autographs? We told her no, and I think we might have had a little hint of a smartass tone when we said it. Later that day Connie mentioned that one of the neighbors was an actor and spent about six months of the year in California. He was a regular on the TV series "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea." His name was Ralph Odom. We asked her several questions about him and began showing some interest. Just before mother left for Crockett Connie came in with a couple of sheets of paper, one for me and one for Charlie. She said, "I've just been to Ralph Odom's house and he sent these for you." Each piece of paper had a note addressed personally that thanked us by name for being loyal fans, and was signed, Best Wishes, Ralph Odom.

We both thought it was great! We thanked Connie and asked if she could take us to his house and introduce us. She said he left for California immediately after signing the autographs and wouldn't be back for a long time. We showed them to lots of people over the next few months. Mother finally told me that Connie had gone in the other room and written them herself while Charlie and I were out running around. She had suckered us pretty good.

One of Connie's good friends at the lake was Steve Rutledge. He and Connie had attended school together in Daingerfield. Steve's father was a doctor in Daingerfield and had a house on the lake. Steve and his sister Rosalyn spent a good portion of each summer at the lake house. I had been there with Connie on several occasions over the years. Steve brought Rosalyn and her friend Cathy to the house to introduce them to us so we would know someone close to our own age. I had met them one other time the previous year, but I'm pretty sure neither of them remembered me. As a joke Connie told them Charlie and I played football for Plano High School. It meant nothing to us, but Rosalyn and Cathy both glared at us with contempt. Connie then told us that Plano had knocked Daingerfield out of the state football playoffs the previous year and anyone from there wouldn't be welcomed. Connie and Steve had a good laugh, but Rosalyn and Cathy still seemed to view us with suspicion.

Charlie and I climbed into the GTO for another spin around the neighborhood. Steve was about to take the girls back to the lake house, but he pulled Rosalyn aside and said something to her. Connie said later Steve was telling Rosalyn to invite the two of us to the lake house later. As Rosalyn approached the driver's side window Charlie was playing with a small pen he had just found in the console. There was some kind of trigger device on the side. He pulled back on the small lever and let it go. It was a tear gas pen and it was loaded. It blasted through the open window just as Rosalyn was about to bend down to give us an invitation. The blast startled her and she jumped back. The tear gas charge was a small one, but the sound of it going off scared all of us. The invitation was never delivered. We drove away while Rosalyn and Cathy left with Steve, never to cross paths with us again. I looked back just in time to see the look in Connie's eyes. It was a scary sight. A couple of days later my mother hauled our sorry asses' home.

That fall Uncle Moe began work on a houseboat. He was working for a steel company in Longview, so he was able to obtain the materials at cost. While most of the houseboats on the lake were kept afloat by Styrofoam blocks, Uncle Moe decided to roll two huge steel pontoons and build up from there. After only a few weeks it started taking on the appearance of a small naval destroyer. Neighbors were driving by and staring. I'm sure bets were being taken on the odds that it would float or sink. In April it was finished. Mother and I were invited to the great launch, but at the last minute something came up. We called that night to see how it went. It hadn't gone well.

Uncle Moe had contracted a man from Hamp's Ramp, the closest marina, to haul the monster craft down to the water. It attracted a lot of attention as the trailer moved slowly down the ramp and into the waves. More people gathered as the craft moved off of the rollers and began to slide under the waves. Perhaps they thought they were witnessing the launch of the first submarine on or under Lake O' the Pines. Two tow trucks were summoned to pull it out of the water and back onto the trailer. The following month Styrofoam blocks were installed between the steel pontoons and it was safe to sail. For several years afterward I would make a couple of trips to the lake each summer and spend as much time as possible out on the houseboat.

Connie married George Stephens and moved to Longview. They more or less took charge of the houseboat over the next few years. Aunt Hope hated to go out on the water and Uncle Moe used it less and less. The challenge of building it had been his greatest enjoyment. From early spring to late fall Connie and George could be found on the lake entertaining their friends on the houseboat.

One summer during my high school years, mother and I went to the lake for a long weekend. I invited Bruce Bennett to come along with us. It was the hottest part of August, so we were ready to go out on the water and cool off. George and a friend of his from Longview were loading down the massive ice chest on the deck with several cases of beer when Bruce and I arrived at the marina. Connie had decided it was too hot, and everyone else had concurred. That left the four of us to hit the open water.

George sat on the deck in a lawn chair and was in charge of steering the boat, with his buddy sitting beside him and navigating. Bruce and I sat on the roof so we could spot any pretty girls in passing boats. There was no breeze at all and we were roasting in the sun. The only thing that broke the monotony was George calling to me every few minutes saying, "Jim! Bring us a couple more beers please!"

The more beer the captain and first mate consumed, the more concerned we became for our safety and the safety of everyone else on the lake that might wander into our path. Once in awhile when it appeared we were about to plow into some trees or a pier, I would quickly climb down the ladder and casually mention it to George. He would squint real hard at whatever was in front of us and make a quick adjustment. While I was nearby he would have me fetch a couple of beers. By the end of the day George and his friend appeared to be on the verge of alcohol-induced delirium while Bruce and I were sunburned to the point of needing medical attention. That was the last weekend I ever spent on the houseboat.

Thirty years somehow slipped by. Uncle Moe and Aunt Hope sold their house at the lake and moved to Hallsville. Uncle Moe passed away. Connie divorced and wound up in Fort Worth. After living in Colorado for years I got a job in Longview. We moved to Lake O' the Pines and bought a house on the water. The lake was as beautiful as I remembered, but nothing else was the same. The little drive-in I once walked to for a milkshake is now a beauty shop. Several of the new resorts of the late sixties and early seventies had fallen down, literally. There had been a development that was being promoted by the actor, Dale Robertson. He was well known for the western series on television, "Wells Fargo." On Farm Road 729, near the entrance to Deer Cove Resort stood the official US post office at "Dale Robertson, Texas." It now is nothing more than a barn. The old sense of awe of Lake O' the Pines was gone.

One night I was sitting at the computer writing and dreaming of getting something published. This led to some websites offering tips to aspiring writers. The very first one that popped up was the homepage of Rosalyn Alsobrook. I started reading her biography and I couldn't believe my eyes! Rosalyn, the pretty girl Charlie had almost shot in the face with a tear gas pen is a famous and successful author. It gave me the inspiration to keep writing.

Teresa and I moved back to Colorado to be near our kids and grandkids. I often think of my summers at the lake and how perfect things seemed thirty years ago.

John Mattox and the Big Date

 Crockett is a typical small Texas town where football is king. When the season is over there isn't much to do on Friday night except drive around the square, talk about girls and stop at the Dairy Queen once an hour to get another Coke and talk to other people who have nothing to do either.

John Mattox and I were both trainers for the football team throughout our years in high school. The term "trainer" was used mostly to try to give us a little bit of self-esteem. It was pretty much a thankless job and we put in long hours. We washed the uniforms, took care of the equipment and cleaned and mopped the locker room and offices. We were always the first ones there and the last ones to leave. "Training" never entered into the job description. On Saturday mornings when the football players were at the local barbershop talking about the game of the previous night with all the old ex-players from years past, John and I were at the field house washing dirty uniforms from the night before and preparing things for practice on Monday. When the season was over I couldn't wait to get back on the streets on Friday night and drive around. John just couldn't get enough, so he was the trainer for the basketball team too.

It was early December and basketball season was underway. The Bulldogs had a couple of home games in a row. Eugene May, Charlie Jackson and I decided to go to the game on Tuesday night for lack of anything else to do. The crowd was small since it was a school night, and we were sitting near some girls trying to strike up a conversation. One of the girls was Debbie Williams from Pennington, Texas, which is about fifteen miles from Crockett. She was sitting with two other girls from the Pennington area. We heard her say she would like to attend the game to be played Friday night, but she didn't have a ride home. The other girls weren't going to be able to attend. Debbie was a sweet and pretty girl and everyone liked her. All the Pennington girls left shortly afterward and we never talked to them.

When the game was over we stayed around for a few minutes and visited with John. He had seen us sitting in the stands, so he asked us what we said to the girls. We told him we really didn't talk to them at all. He mentioned what a nice girl Debbie Williams was and how he wished he had the guts to ask her out. We told him she wanted to go to the upcoming game but didn't have a ride home. We suggested he offer her a ride after the game and maybe things might develop from there. He said he was afraid she might say no, but we kept encouraging him, and he finally said he would do it.

Never ones to pass up a chance to make someone's life a living hell, we started thinking about what we could do to John if he went through with his plan. We couldn't let him have a nice time without interfering. A scheme quickly developed.

We cornered John at school the next day, planning to pressure him into offering Debbie a ride home before he chickened out. Surprisingly, he had already asked her and she gratefully accepted. He was in hog heaven. We moved on to phase two.

Several times over the next couple of days, we got together with John and told him that he was a complete chickenshit if he didn't take her parking on the way to her house. He balked at the suggestion, so we resorted to offering him money. We each came up with five dollars - fifteen dollars was a lot of money to run around on at the time. John began to get suspicious and asked why we wanted him to take her parking so bad. We said it was because we wanted him to have a good time. He actually believed it. We also promised we wouldn't interfere in any manner, and he believed that also. We should have sold him a bridge while we had him going.

Ten miles out on the road to Pennington was the little community of Shady Grove. There was an old country church just off the highway, but there were no houses close by. Across the highway from the church, a small dirt road went through the trees for a couple of miles before it came to a dead end in a heavily wooded area. Eugene and I had been down it several times because some friends of ours had a deer lease at the end of the road. There was only one way in and out, which fit into our plan perfectly.

We knew John's first excuse would be that he didn't know where to take her. We suggested the dirt road and told him it was right on the way to Debbie's house. He then asked how we would know if he really did it. We told him to get out of his car and write his name in the dirt by the gate going into the deer lease. Eugene said he was going to drive out there just before dark on Friday to be sure John didn't sneak out there and write his name prior to the date.

Friday night the three of us went to the basketball game. John was a little nervous, because for some reason he thought we might follow him. We made sure he saw us leave immediately after the game. Since he was the trainer, he had to stay around for half an hour to be sure everyone was gone and lock up the gym. That gave us a few minutes to get ready.

It was cold and windy when we left the school in Eugene's pickup. There was a small grocery store nearby. We planned to buy four dozen eggs for our night of fun, but the store closed at 9 p.m., and we missed it by about five minutes. We had to dash across town to a little convenience store and pay twice the normal price for them, but at least we were finally armed and ready. We were a couple of miles down the Pennington highway when Eugene realized he had forgotten to buy any gasoline. His truck was a gas hog and it was running on fumes, so we had to return to town.

With all the unplanned delays we were running nearly an hour behind schedule. We drove top speed to Pennington, hoping to catch John before he got to Debbie's house. We never saw another vehicle for fifteen miles, but the porch light was on at Debbie's house. We hoped she and John might have gotten a late start and could still be in town. We headed for Crockett to see if we could find them. We had to do something with the four cartons of eggs in the seat.

As we passed through Shady Grove, it seemed like a good idea to drive down the dirt road just to cover all the possibilities. It was likely John had already taken Debbie home and nobody turned off the light. We had pretty much given up on the idea of finding them. As we rounded the final turn before the road ended at the gate into the lease, our headlights caught sight of John's car. John was squatting down and writing in the dirt with a stick. He looked frightened when our lights hit him, but then he recognized the truck. He started waving and laughing, and was about to walk over to us when an egg missed his ear by about an inch. He yelled "Oh shit!" and jumped back into his car. We thought he was blocked in, but he hit the gas and flew right by us. By the time we turned around and began pursuit he was long gone and we were choking on his dust. When we got back to the highway we could see his lights and he was heading for Pennington in a flash.

We drove across the highway and parked near the old church. There was no moon that night so it was very dark. We still had forty-seven eggs to do something with. It was getting late and John would surely be coming back soon. Not wanting to accidentally egg a strange car and run the risk of getting shot, it was decided that Eugene would walk down the road in the direction of Pennington and try to spot John on his return trip. He went about fifty yards away and stood a short distance from the pavement. Charlie and I had the eggs in front of us and were ready to attack.

Fifteen minutes went by and all was quiet. Not a single car had passed. To break the monotony, Charlie decided to give Eugene a little scare. Bear in mind that it was black dark and we couldn't see a thing. Charlie turned in the general direction Eugene had walked and threw an egg into the night. Two seconds later we heard "You bastards!" It had been a direct hit. At least we would have one story to tell if we missed John.

Eugene was making threats when a pair of headlights came into view. Charlie and I got ready. As the car passed Eugene he yelled, "It's him!" We drew back to throw when we heard "No! Wait!" John drove by us while we stood there undecided. We were tempted to toss the rest of the eggs in the Eugene's direction.

We piled into the pickup and took off in hopes of catching up with John. We drove up behind him about five miles down the road. There was a big spotlight in the truck with a large red blinking light on one end. I turned it on and placed it on the dash. Charlie blinked the headlights a couple of times and John began slowing down, thinking he was being pulled over by a state trooper. While we were slowing down, Eugene climbed through the window and into the bed of the truck. I passed the four cartons of eggs back to him.

John began to pull off of the road, still not realizing it was us so close on his bumper. Charlie drove around him and came to a rolling stop. John recognized us and started to get out of his car. He was grinning like a jackass eating briars. It was obvious he had enjoyed his date. Eugene started firing eggs onto the windshield just as John opened his door. John shut the door and hit the gas in hopes of getting around us quickly. Charlie was way ahead of him and bolted forward at the same time. The sudden lurch threw Eugene off his feet and into the tailgate of the pickup. The eggs he was holding broke when he hit the bed and he was a mess. He got up quickly and continued tossing eggs onto the car. After about thirty seconds the windshield of the car was a mass of mushy egg goo. John turned on the wipers and it only made it worse. He rolled down his window and hung his head out to keep from running off the road. Each time the wipers went to the drivers side he would get a bunch of egg in the face. He was forced to stop the car to keep from having a wreck.

Eugene was out of eggs, so we pulled off the road in front of John. He jumped out of his car and started running in our direction. We looked carefully for a gun or a club just in case he planned to retaliate. Surprisingly he was laughing! He was thanking us for making the bet with him! We couldn't believe our ears.

It seems John told Debbie all about the bet as soon as she got in his car. She was all for helping him get his money. The basketball coach had let John leave immediately after the game. He and Debbie had gone by the Dairy Queen for a Coke, then headed for Pennington. They were already out of town before we bought the eggs. John found the road with no trouble and drove to the end. He and Debbie sat and talked for a few minutes, then kissed for a few minutes. After that he felt indebted to us no matter what else came to pass. Getting his car egged was a small price to pay as far as he was concerned. He kept saying, "Damn! I've discovered women!"

After being thanked for a few minutes, we reminded John what egg would do to the paint job of his car if it didn't get washed off pretty soon. The car belonged to his dad, who wouldn't be nearly as appreciative of our efforts as John was. We helped John wash the goo off his windshield and told him to meet us at the carwash. We pulled away and John was following.

Charlie was still driving the pickup, me in the middle, and Eugene by the door. John no doubt was starting to worry about the possible damage to the car, so he decided to pass us and get to the car wash asap. At that moment Eugene found one last egg in the seat we all somehow had missed. As John drew even with the pickup Eugene decided to throw the egg across the cab and out the window. Clearly he hadn't given it a lot of thought, and Charlie had no advance notice. The egg splattered against the window and all over Charlie, who was pissed off to say the least.

“May, dammit! What in the hell are you doing?” he yelled.

Eugene started laughing and said, “I guess I forgot the window was up.”

Charlie was fuming and Eugene and I were laughing.

We caught up with John at the car wash. He'd just finished one cycle and the car was still a mess. We paid for two more washes and it finally did the trick.

John was in a great mood. He thanked us again before we all went home. It was a night of fun, adventure, and a good story to tell for the five dollar investment.

Football Adventures

 When a boy grows up in Texas, he is exposed to the sport of football from the time he can walk. After he is walking and talking, the first two toys he usually receives are a gun and a football. I don't remember that far back, but I'm pretty sure it was the same with me. In my hometown, the dream of every little boy is to one day to be a star player for the Crockett Bulldogs.

Most little boys are playing tackle football without any pads by the time they are in the first grade. There is a game of football going on during recess at every elementary school in the state. In large towns, they had organized pee wee teams for kids in the fourth and fifth grades, but Crockett was too small for such programs. It wasn't until the sixth grade that a boy could go out for the football team. Like most of my friends, I could hardly wait.

For several years prior to entering the sixth grade, I suffered from asthma, and it wasn't until my freshman year in high school that I was getting over the problems. It didn't help any that I was allergic to just about every tree and variety of grass in East Texas, as well as a lot of common foods. Mother took me to a specialist in Tyler and he put me on a series of injections to combat my multiple allergies. Our general practitioner in Crockett, Dr. Goolsby, always told my mother I would probably grow out of it, and I eventually did. God only knows what kind of drugs I would have been given if I had grown up in the nineties. More than likely I would have no natural immunity to anything.

I had two things working against me when I went out for the sixth-grade football team. The first was the fact that I still suffered somewhat from the asthma and got winded easily. The second thing was I was already known as "the boy with asthma," which sealed my fate as far as ever being taken seriously as an athlete for the rest of my life in Crockett. Once you got a label with the coaches in Crockett it was yours forever, good or bad. The kids on the team were the same ones I grew up playing sports with and I could hold my own with them all, but I had a hard time even being allowed to practice at any position, much less get any serious consideration. I spent my time on the sidelines watching friends I played football with on the weekends start every game. The only attention at least half of the "unannointed" players such as myself got was to be told to get back on the bench by the coaches if we ventured to close to the sidelines to view the action. The starters got to stand between us and the field, so we had trouble even watching the game. At the end of the season I realized my place in the caste system of the coaching staff and decided it would be pointless to bother with it in the seventh grade.

The fact that I was doomed to never make the team in no way affected my love for the game or support for the high school team. As far back as I can remember I attended every home game and a lot of the away games of the Bulldogs. The entire town was focused on them each fall. It remains so today all over the state; especially in small towns where Friday night football is the main source of entertainment for the community. Local legends are created each year and are forever remembered.

The summer before my freshman year, John Mattox asked me if I was interested in being one of the trainers for the football team. He was a year older than me and had already committed to the job. The appeal of being a part of the team was too much to pass up, so I told him yes. We went on vacation in late August and I missed the first week of summer practices, but I reported for duty as soon as we got back to town. Charlie Christian had also joined up to become the third trainer, so we were fully staffed when I arrived.

Until my first day on the job, I never had a clue what the trainers actually did. Over the years I had seen the kids walking the sidelines during the games performing a variety of duties, most visibly taking water bottles to the huddle during time outs. It didn't appear to be that taxing and it looked like fun. I would get to go to all the games for free and travel with the team. What more could I want?

It was soon apparent the fun and excitement of the game made up about two percent of the job, with the remaining ninety-eight percent being hard, sweaty, stinky and for the most part thankless work. We got there before the players and made sure all the equipment was ready when practice began. Each player was issued all the equipment and uniform parts needed for practice, yet half of them would be missing something on a daily basis. When practice started and the players were on the field, we had to sweep and mop the entire field house. Unpaid janitors was a better description than trainer.  It would be the equivalent of training monkeys  not to crap in their hands and throw it at one another.  In other words, we didn't train anyone, ever.  For at least half of the season, the game field would be irrigated daily. In addition to everything else, we would have to take apart the long water pipes every half hour and move them over about twenty feet and put them back together. After turning the water back on, we would rush back to another job we had been in the middle of and try to complete it before we had to move the pipes again.

The practice uniforms were washed once a week, on Thursday evening. By then they were soaked with four days of sweat. The stench cannot be described by the written word. There were many times John and I were on the verge of hurling when we were taking the uniforms from the baskets and loading them into the large washing machines. Charlie Christian always seemed to be missing in action when any of the dirty work was being performed.

Each Thursday night there would be a junior varsity game while we were doing the laundry, so one of us had to serve as the sideline trainer while the other two worked in the field house. Needless to say, we spent more hours there than anyone else, including the coaches. John and I each had a key since we were the first ones in the door and the last ones out. On Saturday mornings we were at the field house early to wash the game uniforms from the night before. We would spend four or five hours working while the players were at the barber shop or the Dairy Queen telling tales of their heroics.

The Crockett Bulldogs went through the sixties with a winning record each year, or at least all the seasons I am aware of. When I was in junior high school, Monte Jack Driskell became the head coach. He spent several years as the head coach in Groveton, Texas, which is about twenty-five miles from Crockett. The population of Groveton is much less than Crockett, and in most cases they were unable to compete, successfully, head to head with us. During the years Coach Driskell spent in Groveton his teams gave several superior Crockett teams all they could handle. This no doubt led to him getting the job in Crockett when it came open.

When my first season as manager got underway in the fall of nineteen sixty-seven, the expectations were high. Texas Football Magazine had us ranked fifth in the state before play began. Everyone was cocky and confident. Our first game was at home against Navasota. They kicked our ass and injured two of our starters and shocked everyone into reality. They beat us by one point, but we considered it an ass kicking.

Win or lose, our workload never changed. Since none of us had any previous experience as equipment managers and trainers, we were just wandering around the first few weeks trying not to screw things up. We were holding our own, mostly due to blind luck.

The second week we traveled twenty-five miles to Elkhart. It was a very small town that in most cases we would have beaten 60-0 and cleared the bench by the third quarter. We beat them 15-6, which to us was an embarrassment.

As equipment managers, we were responsible for everything that was transported to an out-of-town game. We had extras of everything. The Elkhart game was our first test and we didn't make any big errors. Just before we left Coach Driskell came to us and said the Bulldogs were going to be wearing the home blue jerseys for the game. It seemed the Elkhart managers had left their jerseys in the dryer too long after their first game and burned them up, so they needed to borrow our white jerseys for the game. John and I just looked at each other and said nothing. We had almost done the same thing on several occasions and could have easily turned ours into cinders. A coach from Elkhart had driven down earlier in the day and picked them up.

On Saturday morning John and I were at the field house washing all the game uniforms, including the white jerseys that had been worn the night before by the Elkhart Elks.

We had only washed game uniforms one other time, and the jerseys and pants had all been dark blue. We didn't know squat about washing clothes, but we did realize that it wouldn't be smart to bleach them. The second week we had a load of white jerseys to deal with at the same time. The next week we were traveling to Gladewater, so we had to wash the white jerseys right away. The home jerseys could wait a couple of days. We promptly threw the blue pants in the two machines along with the white jerseys, filled them with scalding hot water and went out to move the sprinklers. The machines weren't on any kind of timer, so they would run until we stopped them. The same was true of the dryer. After moving the sprinklers we locked the field house and walked over to Corbitt's Grocery for some junk food. The white jerseys and blue pants spent about an hour swishing in the hot water before we returned. When we removed them from the machine something was definitely different. The jerseys that went in white were now baby blue. We were panicked.

With five home games and five away games during the regular season each set of jerseys would get washed at least five times; more if the team made the playoffs. John and I washed the white jerseys five more times that afternoon, and we bleached the hell out of every load. They were still heavily tinted. We came back on Sunday afternoon and washed and bleached them several more times. They were starting to look better after going through two years worth of washings in two days. We decided we had done all we could without turning them into white bath towels with blue numbers. We tried to convince ourselves all was well and nobody would ever know.

The following Friday night we were in Gladewater. The lighting was poor in their dressing room, so for the time being nobody noticed anything. Once the players took the field for warm ups it was a different story. Players were starting to ask one another if their jersey looked strange. Gladewater had just installed new lights in the stadium that cast a blue hue on everything. Coach Driskell called John over and asked him if the jerseys looked blue to him. John immediately blamed it on the lights. Coach Driskell was too focused on game preparation to press the issue. A lot of the players were asking us what in the hell we had done to their jerseys. They weren't buying the stadium lighting theory. Gladewater beat us 19-13 in a heated game, so the jersey problem wasn't talked about again. We were traveling again the next week, so another five or six more long wash and bleach cycles and nobody ever knew the difference. We admitted it the next season.

We only had one more mishap that season. The next Friday we traveled to Marlin. John and I were determined to have everything run smoothly after the issue with the white jerseys. We packed even more supplies than usual. One of the items that was always a big priority was the medicine kit. It was a huge case containing all of our first aid supplies and athletic tape as well as repair parts for helmets, shoes and other accessories. We paid special attention to it at all times.

Marlin was nearly one hundred miles away, so the team bus left a couple of hours earlier than it normally would. The medicine kit was packed and ready to load into the team station wagon that Charlie Christian was to drive behind the team bus. John and I both told Charlie to be sure it wasn’t forgotten..

We stopped at a restaurant when we first got to Marlin to drink a Coke and rest from the long bus ride. As soon as the bus rolled to a stop someone asked John for an aspirin. As the team was walking into the restaurant John was digging through the car looking for the medicine kit. It wasn't there. He yelled for me and we began searching the bus without success. We found Charlie and asked him where it was. He said, "I thought one of you were going to get it."

Coach Driskell was very focused on game day and didn't like any distractions or problems of any kind. He was sitting in a booth going over the game plan when John walked up to him looking sheepish and guilty. Coach Driskell looked up and asked if there was a problem. John said, "We left the medicine kit in Crockett."

Coach Driskell looked like he could kill both of us. His only statement was, "Well no shit!" Charlie had conveniently disappeared. He kept his cool and told one of the assistant coaches to ask the Marlin coach for some supplies when we got to the stadium. After Marlin beat us 15-13 and our backup quarterback had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance, the medicine kit incident was forgotten.

The season ended with the Bulldogs winning district and bi-district before getting pounded by Kountze in the regional championship game. John and I spent more hours at the field house and worked harder than any of the previous equipment managers had done, so Coach Driskell decided we were worth our salt.

The next season we knew our jobs and had everything under control. It was also one of those seasons we would never forget. The Bulldogs went 9-1. We had won nine straight going into the final home game. We played Lufkin Dunbar High School for the district championship. They were 9-0 as well. We lost the game and our season was over. Coach Driskell was so devastated he didn't come back to school for a week.

When the last game was over each season, the players would clean out their lockers and were free to finally go home after school or otherwise spend their free time elsewhere. The coaches would be required to start actually paying attention to their duties as school teachers. John and I would spend another three or four weeks at the field house after school taking inventory, cleaning, washing and getting things ready for the next season.

My third year as equipment manager brought about a lot of changes. After many years of having two separate school districts, the Crockett school system was finally integrated. Ralph Bunche High School had the newer and bigger building, so our high school was done away with and we all moved out to the new facility. Neither student body wanted the change, so nobody but the federal judge in Tyler was happy about it. Whenever a decision was made, at least half the students opposed it. The name of the high school became Davy Crockett High School, so the Ralph Bunche students were pissed off. Coach Driskell was named head coach and athletic director. Coach Andrew Hopkins was the former head coach of the Ralph Bunche Lions and became the assistant head coach of the Crockett Bulldogs. It virtually guaranteed that each time our team took the field, at least half the students were actively supporting the other team. It was a tense situation.

When the focus is supposed to be on winning football games, all the distractions didn't help. Someone was always bitching about something and the family atmosphere of old was no longer there. While the school itself was having a lot of problems with fighting, our coaches at least kept that under control. Unlike the politically correct lawyer-driven atmosphere today, the situation was dealt with quickly. Any small infraction that occurred in the normal heat of practice went largely ignored, but a major fight wasn't. Coach Driskell or one of the assistant coaches would take the offenders in the office and paddle the crap out of them. It didn't take many sessions like that to settle things down.

In those days it was normal for every male to carry a pocket knife of some kind on his person at all times. After the schools integrated, it became an object of concern among the coaches and faculty members. No weapons were ever used in an altercation that I know of, but verbal threats of violence were thrown around liberally. Coach Driskell told everyone a couple of times to stop bringing knives to school, and having them at the field house would not be tolerated. Given the tension in the air on a daily basis, I chose to ignore the request, as I figured everyone else would. Before practice one afternoon, Coach Driskell walked into the dressing room with the other coaches and searched each locker after the players were dressed in their practice uniforms. Unbelievably not a single knife was found on anyone. John and I were in the laundry room and didn't know about the search.

The players took the field before John and I left the laundry room. We were sweeping and mopping the office when Coach Driskell and Coach Hampton walked in. Partly as a joke Coach Hampton said, "We forgot to search the managers for weapons." I looked like a deer in headlights. Coach Driskell said, "Boys, empty those pockets."

I owned an impressive collection of knives. That particular day I had the biggest one in my pocket. I slowly pulled it out and placed it one the desk. Since we had all been warned a couple of times before, I was pretty sure there were going to be some official consequences attached to any infraction. The look on the faces of both coaches was priceless. I was probably the last person they expected to find armed and dangerous.

Coach Driskell looked me right in the eye and I started to cower. He picked up the huge pocket knife and said, "How do you write with a pen this size? Take this thing home and don't ever bring it back." I think my knees may have buckled just a little bit. He probably knew how hard it would be to find anyone else who worked as hard as John and I did. People that dumb and gullible are hard to find. I swore to myself I wouldn't do anything to attract attention to myself again. I was wrong.

About fifty feet behind the field house was a fifty-five-gallon barrel we used to burn trash. When it filled up with ashes, the maintenance men would haul it away and bring us an empty one. Every couple of days, we filled it with paper from the trash cans as well as wood scraps and cardboard. That combination resulted in a very hot fire. Early in the season when the weather was hot, everyone would go out of their way to avoid the barrel. As the weather turned colder later in the year, things changed. We usually started the fire at the end of practice when the players were leaving. It would be dark, cold and humid. After getting it started, John and I would walk back out to the barrel and toss in more trash from time to time. The sight of one of us going out to the barrel went unnoticed by everyone.

One evening it was particularly cold when I lit the fire. The barrel had been replaced the week before, so it was relatively ash free. A wooden stand had broken in the office and Coach Driskell told me to burn it. I had a lot of cardboard stuffed into the barrel as well as some paper. In other words, it was going to be a big fire. I love fire. I made sure it was going good and went back inside. A few minutes later I looked outside to check on it. It was roaring by then. John found a couple of cardboard boxes and took them out to the can.

The next time I checked, a small crowd of players had gathered around the fire. It was getting colder and the heat was a welcome relief. It was too hot for them to get closer than four or five feet. As luck would have it, I was holding a large can of Tuff Skin. It was an aerosol substance used to spray on an ankle or knee before applying athletic tape. It was about ninety-percent alcohol and very flammable. It was a new can and it was completely full. The nozzle was broken when I took it out of the case, and I was about to throw it in the box that contained items that wouldn't burn in the barrel. The crowd around the barrel gave me another idea.

I told John my plan, and naturally he said, "I'll bet you a Coke you won't do that." Bruce Bennett walked up about that time and dared me. It was time to act.

John and I both had taken something to the fire several times since I first started it, so nobody even noticed when I walked up with a couple pieces of cardboard. In the center of it was the aerosol bomb. I tossed it into the middle of the barrel and walked away. I had just enough time to get back to the door and join Bruce and John. There were six or seven players with their backs to the barrel taking in the warmth of the fire. Just after I turned around there was a tremendous explosion. I had no idea the can would have that much power. It blew fire and trash twenty feet into the air in the shape of a mushroom cloud. Kids were yelling, cussing and hauling ass in all directions. It had clearly scared them all. A couple had some small cinders in their hair. Players close by put out the little hair fires. People had been too shocked and stunned to even think about what might have caused it. John, Bruce and I stomped out some of the small patches of burning grass.

Word of the blast reached Coach Driskell after a few minutes. He rounded the corner and saw we had things under control. He did ask what happened, but when he saw the look of guilt on my face, I think he decided he didn't really want to know the answer.

In spite of all the trouble, we ended up playing for the district championship the last game of the season. We again faced Lufkin Dunbar. They beat us convincingly, but we were closer to being a team than at the start of the season.

My fourth year I was sort of on my own. John had graduated and was at Texas A&M. Smitty Dean had been a manager with us the previous year, but he elected to spend his senior year at a private academy in San Marcus, Texas. For some stupid reason, he wanted to finish with a real education. Crockett had been placed in a new district with bigger schools from the Houston area, so we weren't given a chance. As usual we played the final game for the district championship. Like the previous two years, we lost.

At the athletic banquet my senior year, Coach Driskell presented me with my fourth letter for being equipment manager. He had me stand and told me how much he appreciated all the hard work and the long hours I had put in. I almost cried. I suddenly felt the four years had all been worth it. A lot of the players told me the same thing after the ceremony. Maybe I had been one of the Crockett Bulldogs after all.

John Harold and the Cats

 John Harold Allen was and still is one the nicest and most easygoing people I will ever know. He is over six feet tall with a stocky build. To look at him one would never think he would be afraid of any man or domesticated animal. Wrong! When I think of a snake it sends shivers up and down my spine. John Harold would get the same feeling when he encountered the sneakiest and most worthless of any species: the cat. As a result the rest of his "good friends" never passed on an opportunity to arrange a meeting between John Harold and an unsuspecting cat.

During our sophomore year at Stephen F. Austin Paul and I shared a trailer while John Harold, Eugene and Charlie rented one in another trailer park a few miles away. We saw them almost daily and stopped by their trailer several times a week. With the three of them under one roof something was always going on.

I remember driving up one day to discover Eugene and Charlie laughing uncontrollably. John Harold was cussing and threatening them. The evening before Eugene had grabbed a neighborhood cat that happened to be strolling by and took it inside the trailer. Naturally John Harold was disturbed when Eugene walked through the door holding a cat. Eugene stroked the cat and said he had found them a new pet. John Harold told him there was no way in hell they were going to have a cat. Eugene kept it up for half an hour just to irritate him. He would take the cat to the door like he was going to put it out, only to change his mind and bring it back inside. John Harold was getting more nervous and upset by the second. Eugene finally put the cat out, but he said he might go get it again after John Harold went to bed. John Harold finally went to bed with Eugene and Charlie threatening to go get the cat.

Early the next morning Charlie got the water hose from behind the trailer and brought it inside. He managed to push one end under the couch where John Harold slept without waking him up. It was a two bedroom tornado magnet, so John Harold slept on the couch, which was at least a foot too short. He took the other end of the hose down the hall and into his bedroom. He began making weird cat noises into the end of the hose. The noises coming from under John Harold's bed were strange to say the least. It took a couple of minutes for him to wake up. Charlie and Eugene weren't sure what his reaction would be. Eugene was in the hallway trying to sneak a peak. About the time he was close enough to see into the bedroom the door flew open and John Harold came running out at top speed with a wild look on his face. Eugene jumped back and avoided a collision. John Harold continued his escape and went out the  door and into the yard. Eugene followed him out, asking him what was wrong.

John Harold was still wild eyed and shaking. He yelled, "May, I'm going to kill you! That damn cat is having kittens under my bed!"

Charlie came to the door and asked what was going on. John Harold told him about the cat having kittens under the couch. Charlie asked John Harold to show him, but John Harold refused to go back in there until the cat and the kittens were thrown out. After a few minutes they finally coaxed him back in the trailer. Only then did John Harold notice the water hose running through the door and under the couch. He glared at them and made a few threats, then returned to his room.

The following fall Paul transferred to Texas A&M. Eugene, Charlie, John Harold and I rented an apartment together within easy walking distance of the campus. There were two bedrooms. John Harold and I shared a room. After living with Eugene and Charlie for two semesters he didn't want to room with either of them.

For the first three or four weeks John Harold caught a break. We were all busy getting used to our classes, and with our varying schedules we didn't see one another much except at night. The apartment manager and his wife lived in the apartment below us, so for a little while we tried to take it easy and not get off on the wrong foot with them.

When we first moved in we went down the street to Krogers for some groceries. The store was located at the bottom of a hill and we were parked at the top of the lot. We bought our usual supply of Mission Cola and TV dinners. We unloaded our stash into Eugene's car and then argued over who would take the cart back down the hill to the store. The cart corrals were all near the front of the building. As we were discussing it, the cart started rolling down the hill on its own. There were no cars in the immediate path. We watched as it sped down the hill, hoping to see it crash into the side of the store. Three-quarters of the way it took a turn to the right and headed straight for the one car in the immediate vicinity. Just as the cart slammed squarely into the driver's door we jumped into our car and sped away.

Misson Cola was so cheap it became one of the staples of our diet. We had a large bare wall in the dining room of the apartment. Immediately after moving in someone decided to start stacking the empty cans along the base of the wall in the dining room. We all followed suit, and in no time there was an impressive tin-can wall starting to form. We all started drinking more colas just to have more cans to put on the wall. Before we had been there a month the wall was completely covered with cans. We began to notice people stopping outside of our window and staring at our can tin-can mountain.

One evening after the wall had been filled up the apartment manager came to our door to complain about noise. That particular night we had no idea what he was whining about. We hadn't been playing music and the television wasn't on. Eugene answered the door, and for some reason he was in a bad mood. The manager started to bitch when Eugene cut him off and told him we weren't doing a thing, and he had better leave us alone. The manager noticed the wall of cans and asked him what it was. Eugene said, "It's a bunch of tin cans! What in the hell does it look like?" The manager nervously walked away.

A few minutes later we filled the oven with a variety of TV dinners for supper. Shortly afterward smoke began to pour from the oven and fill the apartment. John Harold had forgotten to take his dinner out of the cardboard box and it was on fire. It was pulled out of the oven and the flames extinguished. Things then returned to normal.

When the dinners were done we all cracked open a can of Mission Cola and sat around the table to eat. John Harold was sitting in front of the wall of cans. After a few minutes he yawned and stretched his arms above his head and backward. He accidentally dislodged one can and it hit the floor beside his chair. We all looked up to see what would happen next. Slowly at first, one can after another began to fall from the top of the stack near the ceiling and crash to the floor. After a minute they began to fall more rapidly, then finally they fell in large groups. The last thirty seconds produced some loud crashes.

Ten seconds after the last can hit the floor the apartment manager was banging on our door. Eugene opened it and glared at him. He looked past Eugene and saw the rest of us sitting at the table eating supper with tin cans piled all around us. Before he could get out a complaint Eugene got in his face and asked, "Didn't we give you our phone number?"

As Eugene crowded him even more he said, "Yes, I have it."

Eugene scowled and said, "If you have anything to say to us you can use the phone. I don't want to see you up here!"

The manager slinked out the door and down the stairs. He never complained to us again.

John Harold probably thought his days of feline torment were over. Charlie and Eugene seemed to be too busy to bother him, and I never liked cats either. That all changed one night when I returned from the library.

I opened the door and saw Charlie carrying a large cat down the hall toward the room I shared with John Harold. He looked back in shock until he saw it was me. He had been walking across the parking lot when he spotted a cat. He grabbed it and was about to toss it in our bedroom. I wasn't crazy about having a strange cat in my room, but knowing it would freak out John Harold made it worth it.

Eugene got home about that time. We all sat down and waited for John Harold to return. The cat was roaming around the room and would occasionally scratch on the door and meow loudly. It was getting more upset by the minute. I hoped it wouldn't crap on anything; especially anything of mine.

John Harold walked in with an armload of books. We were all watching as he walked down the hall. The door to the bedroom was normally left open, so when he found it closed he looked back suspiciously. "There better not be a cat in here!" he said.

When he opened the door the frightened the cat screamed and flew by him. John Harold yelled and jumped straight up in the air. Luckily Charlie had opened the front door a couple of seconds before John Harold opened the bedroom door. The cat sped past us and out the door. It almost didn't make the turn on the balcony.

John Harold came stomping out and he was as mad as a hornet. I didn't say a word as he started in on Eugene and Charlie. Since we roomed together I didn't want him to know I knew anything about it.

With a final threat he went back to his car to bring in some groceries. Eugene walked to the door as John Harold went down the stairs. I heard Eugene say, "I can't believe it!" Then he came back inside carrying another cat!

Since John Harold was still mad, Eugene didn't want to risk getting his ass kicked. He asked me to get John Harold to go with me to Shipley's Doughnuts while he decided what to do with the cat. I met John Harold in the parking lot and said I was going to get some doughnuts. John Harold would never turn down an invitation to the doughnut shop. I didn't know what the plan was, but I knew it would be a good one.

John Harold and I spent the next hour at Shipley’s eating doughnuts and listening to the jukebox. He spent quite a bit of the time bitching about Eugene and Charlie starting up with the cats again and what he ought to do to them. He had been up since early that morning and was ready to get back to the apartment and go to bed.

I was a little hesitant to open the door when we arrived at the apartment, but things seemed to be pretty much back to normal. Charlie and Eugene were watching tv and didn't even look up when we walked in. John Harold said he was going to bed. He went into our room and shut the door. Five minutes later he was snoring.

As soon as he shut the door I asked, "What did you do with the cat?"

Eugene said, "I put the cat out half an hour ago. Let John Harold sleep about an hour and then we will scare the shit out of him." He wouldn't give me more details.

We finished watching the Cowboys and Redskins on Monday Night Football. Eugene reached under the couch and pulled out an eight-track tape. He and Charlie started laughing and finally let me in on the joke.

John Harold had a state-of-the-art eight-track tape player and recorder set up in our room. He had speakers positioned in all four corners, and when the volume was very much above the lowest setting it would produce enough sound to bring the apartment manager running and possibly the police. It would record better than anything the rest of us had, and the sound quality was excellent.

As soon as we had left for the doughnut shop Eugene brought the second cat into the apartment. When the cat realized it was in a confined area and couldn't escape it became very vocal. That gave him an idea.

While Eugene was on cat control duty Charlie found a blank tape and put in John Harold's eight-track. He hooked up the dual microphones and put them under the sheets on John Harold's bed. He then called for Eugene and the pissed off and frightened cat.

Eugene brought the cat into the room and tossed him under the top sheet on the bed. Quickly they tucked in the sheet all the way around the bed to trap the cat. Charlie hit the RECORD button on the eight-track. The cat was in the middle of the bed with very little room to move, and the two microphones were right next to him. Eugene and Charlie then began to shake the mattress violently and the cat began to scream. This continued for three or four minutes until they stopped for fear of the cat ripping the sheets apart and attacking them, or even worse, crapping on the bed. They turned off the recorder, wrapped the cat up in the sheet and took it to the alley behind the apartments and set it free. The cat left the neighborhood and was never seen again by any of us.

After John Harold was snoring loud enough to shake the walls, it was time to act. Charlie crawled into the bedroom on his stomach and made his way to the tape player. Quietly he inserted the tape, turned on the system and cranked up the volume. The first minute or so was blank to give him time to get out of the room before the commotion began.

We stood outside of the door and waited. All of us were back about three feet in case John Harold came charging through the door, so he wouldn't run over us or knock the hell out of us. In a matter of moments the tape started playing.

They had tried to tell me what an eerie and crazed sound the cat had made, but it was something that had to be heard to be fully appreciated. I can't imagine a more painful and anguished sound if they had put the cat's balls in a vise and started slowly clamping down on them. To someone with a deathly fear of cats it was sheer terror.

We heard John Harold's feet hit the floor about five seconds after the tape started. He was banging into things in the dark and we heard several serious crashes. He finally found the light switch. He turned the light on with one hand and grabbed a baseball bat with the other. Only then did he realize the screaming and moaning was coming from the tape player. He grabbed the tape from the slot and threw it against the wall as hard as he could. We turned and ran into the living room and took positions near the door in case we had to leave the apartment quickly.

John Harold never came out of the room, but he yelled several threats to Charlie and Eugene. He didn't find out until several days later that the cat had been under his sheets for several minutes. If he had known that at the time there would have been a fight. Just to be safe I decided to sleep on the couch that night.

This happened in the fall of 1973. Thirty years later I was living in Tyler, Texas. One morning I drove down to Crockett and stopped by John Harold's shop and visited with him for a few minutes. I hadn't seen him in years and he hadn't changed much. Naturally the subject of cats came up within the first five minutes, and I asked if he was still bothered by them?

He said, "Actually I have twenty-five cats in the barn to keep the mice under control. As long as they stay back there everything is fine. If they ever come up to the house I will shoot them." Same old John Harold.

Jesse Strange, Country Star

 From my earliest memory until I was in high school, I can remember the Strange family living in our neighborhood. Mr. Strange worked for a prominent lawyer named Earl Porter Adams. The Adams family lived in a huge house just down the street from us. Mr. and Mrs. Adams were well up in years and needed help keeping up their house and property. They had several acres of land. Even though they lived in town, they had a large garden and several large pens full of chickens, which wasn't uncommon in the fifties and sixties in a small East Texas town.

The Stranges lived in a small house about two hundred yards behind the Adams home. There was a dirt lane that ran from the street to their cottage. Two-thirds of the way the road was wide enough for a car to drive down, but the last third narrowed to no more than four feet across. Mr. Strange couldn't drive and didn't own a car, so it didn't matter. The family bought its groceries at our store, and on many occasions my mother would load up the groceries and drive the entire family most of the way back to their house. She would stop where the lane narrowed and they would walk the rest of the way home. I rode with her several times.

Mr. and Mrs. Strange had two sons, Jesse and Curtis. Jesse was seven years older than me and Curtis was probably ten years my senior. Jesse attended school until he was a freshman in high school and I don't recall if Curtis ever went.

Even as a little kid I can remember Curtis sitting next to a drainage ditch across the street from my house. He would have a cane fishing pole and some line tied to it. If you asked him what he was doing, his answer was always "fishing for terrapins." He occasionally would venture down some of the small creeks and ditches and fish near other peoples houses, which in most cases wasn't welcomed. Curtis was probably harmless for the most part, but one could never be sure. Charlie Jackson's dad ran him off from their house on more than one occasion when he was fishing in their yard. As far as I know Curtis never caught anything. The fact that there was rarely any water where he fished might have been a contributing factor. He probably would have messed on himself if he ever did get anything on a line.

When we were little kids, Charlie and I would get Curtis in my backyard and try to play football with him. He had no idea how to play football. We would end up getting him to hold the ball, and then we would get a running start and try to tackle him. Curtis was much bigger than the two of us together and was in no danger of being injured. We were lucky he never got tired of the game and beat the hell out of us. One time one of us caught him from behind unexpectedly. He spun around and yelled. He had a wild look in his eye and scared us pretty badly. That was our last football game with Curtis.

My mother was reading my stories not long ago and she told me I was mistaken about the worst beating of my life coming after I set the pasture on fire. She said, "I guess you were too little to remember the day you walked to town with Jesse Strange." I don't recall it at all. She told me the story.

When I was five years old I stayed with my grandparents next door to the grocery store while my mother worked. I would be allowed to walk over to the store for a Coke and to visit with my mother. One of my grandparents would watch me walk next door, then my mother would supervise my return trip.

I was at the store one morning when Jesse Strange came in for a Coke. (All soft drinks are "Coke" to Texans, in case you didn't know.) Jesse was about twelve years old at the time, which to me was an adult. I asked him where he was going and he said he was going to town. I went inside and asked my mother if I could walk to town with Jesse Strange. You know what the answer to that question was. Being the obedient, angelic son I was, I walked right out the door and joined Jesse on his trip to town. Mother had told me to go back to the house, and most of the time that is what I would have done. She got a phone call before she got to the door to watch me, so for the moment she thought I was on the way home.

It was a mile from the store to downtown Crockett, so it didn't take very long for us to make the trip. Mother checked on my whereabouts when she got caught up in the store and found I wasn't at the house. My grandfather watched the store while she drove to town.

A block off of the courthouse square was Polk's Department Store. Mother found me standing next to Jesse Strange in front of Polk’s taking in the sights. She pulled in a parking place and jumped out of the car. She grabbed me by the arm and proceeded to give me a horrific ass whipping in front of the good citizens of downtown Crockett. Nowadays some do-gooder would have called the cops on her. In those days, when they observed me standing on the corner with Jesse Strange it was a miracle some local rancher didn't come up and offer her the use of a cattle prod just to be sure I got the point.

As the years went by I would see one or all of the Strange family on almost a daily basis. Usually they were all walking in a straight line. Mr. Strange would be at the front of the pack, followed by Mrs. Strange, then Jesse, then Curtis.

My grandfather had one of the first television sets in the neighborhood. It was a huge black and white set. The closest television station to Crockett was KTRE in Lufkin, fifty miles to the east. With all the hills and trees in the area, the reception wasn't great. He put up a telephone pole with a directional antenna, so on occasion if the weather was bad enough we could pick up the Tyler station too.

Each Friday night the entire Strange family would come to our house to watch television. An elderly couple from across the street, Callie and Jesse Graham, would also be there. The Gillette Friday Night Fights was the big highlight. This was a weekly ritual up until my grandfather died when I was about ten. My mother wasn't that comfortable with the practice, so she put an end to it after my grandfather passed away and my grandmother moved in with my aunt and uncle. At that point I didn't see any of the Stranges quite as much. By then I was busy being a little asshole around the neighborhood with Charlie Jackson.

A few years later Charlie and I were standing around in my backyard one hot summer night, no doubt plotting some mischief. We kept hearing some freakish-sounding music coming from somewhere, but we couldn't quite place the source. The sound seemed to be coming from the direction of the Strange house, which we could see across the pasture and up the hill. The porch light was on, but at that distance we couldn't see anyone. With nothing else to do, we decided to investigate.

We walked up East Houston Avenue, past the Adams house. By the time we reached the dirt lane that lead to the Strange property, it was apparent the noise was coming from there.

There were trees and shrubs along each side of the lane, so even with the full moon that night we were able to walk to where the trail opened up into their front yard without being seen. We stayed in the shadows and watched and listened.

Jesse Strange was standing on the front porch under a dim bulb. He had an old guitar strapped around his neck and he was twanging on the strings and belting out "Your Cheating Heart," or at least one verse of it. Charlie and I didn't know what kind of reception we would get if we just walked up to the house. The entire family knew both of us very well, but it was in the dark of the night and we were hiding in the bushes at their house. We decided to stay in the shadows for awhile and listen to the show.

Jesse was pretending to put on a stage show. He would talk to the audience between songs. He would tell jokes and advertise for various businesses in town. He knew a little bit of a lot of country songs. Surprisingly he didn't sound that bad, all things considered. They didn't have a television set, but they had a radio that was tuned to the local station, KIVY. It was your typical small town station. It played mostly old time traditional country music, so we knew where Jesse got his material. In most cases he had one verse down pat, and he would just repeat it over and over. The guitar was out of tune by a mile and was short a couple of strings, but it didn't sound that far removed from some traditional country musicians we heard on a daily basis.

A couple of years earlier my mother had given me a cassette tape recorder for Christmas. The first cassette recorders were thick, bulky rectangular beasts. They didn't have microphones built in, but they were on a three-foot-long cord and plugged into the side of the unit. They were powered by several "C" batteries that never seemed to last very long. After a few minutes we both agreed this was an event we needed to have on tape. It appeared the show was going to go on for awhile, so we retreated back down the trail and ran to my house to get my recorder.

When we returned Jesse was in the middle of a joke. I wish I could remember what it was. It was so stupid we had to stop and listen to the whole thing before continuing on to their house.

Mr. and Mrs. Strange were sitting in chairs just off of the porch and out of the light. We hadn't noticed them before. Curtis was in the house and would occasionally peek around the door. Jesse stopped the show when he saw us coming into the yard. We had wondered if he would keep up the performance with us there.

We immediately told him how much we enjoyed the show and asked him to continue. He was hesitant, but we figured he would eventually come around. We then asked if he would keep the show going if we went back down the lane and listened from the shadows, and he finally agreed to do it.

I then asked him if we could leave the tape recorder on the porch and record the show. He wasn't exactly sure what a tape recorder did. Charlie and I both spoke into it and played it back for him. He was amazed and seemed to be excited at the idea of being on tape. Apparently none of the family had seen a tape recorded before. It was as if we had arrived with the head of a unicorn. We had to demonstrate it several times. Curtis almost ran when we played it back the first time. He was convinced there was a little man inside the box that was talking to him. Of course Charlie and I told him that in fact there was a little man in the box talking to him. The entire family seemed to be satisfied with the explanation. We put it down on the porch/stage by Jesse and walked back to the bushes at the end of the yard. The show resumed.

The first cassettes would record for thirty minutes on each side. Jesse must have kept it up for at least another hour. We were getting a little bored standing out in the bushes. We finally decided we needed to be closer to get the full effect of the production. Using the bushes that lined the yard on both sides as cover, Charlie and I made our way past the house, then we walked up to the edge of the porch opposite where Mr. and Mrs. Strange were seated. Nobody had seen us at all. We stood within five feet of Jesse for the last part of his show.

Jesse almost jumped off the porch when he finally saw us. He decided the show was over at that point. I rewound the tape and played it back for him. He was obviously pleased. Curtis stared at the recorder from a distance and made a couple of comments about the little man singing. It must have been around eleven o'clock when we left that night.

The Jesse Strange country extravaganza continued for several more weeks. Charlie and I took a few friends with us on several occasions, but Jesse wouldn't allow anyone else to come right up to the stage except for us. We played the tape for so many people it finally wore out. Stephen Satterwhite and I made a few trips up the lane with my recorder as well.

Just behind the Strange house was a cul-de-sac at the end of Mimosa Lane. The owners of the development built a ten-foot privacy fence just behind the little cottage/Opry Stage to totally isolate it from the neighbors. The fence was built long before the music production began. We wondered how the people living just beyond the fence were enjoying the nightly performances. It turned out they weren't nearly as appreciative as Charlie and I were. A few of them got together and went to Mr. Adams and asked him to put an end to it. Jesse was without an outlet to express his talents, so he went back to walking the streets and being an ordinary person again. I wish I still had that tape.