BB Guns And Firecrackers

Growing up in the sixties in Crockett was great fun and the times were much simpler. There were no malls for kids to loiter in, any nearby arcades or amusement parks; not even a Wal-Mart. The BB gun was one of the absolute staples of entertainment, and off hand I can't think of a single one of my friends that didn't own at least one. We would practice shooting at tin cans and targets drawn on boxes, along with lots of things we weren't supposed to be shooting at. This would go on for hours on end. As a result we were all pretty fair shots. I'm pretty sure today East Texas would be overrun with killer birds if my friends and I hadn't spent so much time and energy thinning out the species with our BB guns when we were kids.

My first BB gun was given to me by my cousin, Paul Stringer. He was ten years older than me, and by the time I was old enough to be armed and dangerous, he had graduated to .22 rifles and shotguns. It was a fairly old Daisy air rifle, but I soon discovered it was superior to the newer models a lot of my friends had saved up their allowances to buy. Either by design or mistake at the factory, the spring mechanism in the barrel was twice as powerful as any other around. As a result, I could drop a bird from the top of a tree when my friend's shots would barely reach it. The cats in the neighborhood loved me.

One morning I was walking around the yard looking for dangerous fowls to kill in order to protect the innocent humans. I walked into our grocery store and got a Coke in order to give me strength and clear up my vision. After finishing my Coke and downing a Twinkie I was ready to hunt.

I made my way to the side of the store and sat down on a wooden Coke crate. A minute later two gray birds lit on a tree branch just above me. I cocked the rifle and shot one out of the tree in an instant. For some reason the second bird remained on the limb. I cocked the rifle once more and shot it. It fell to the ground next to the first one. I picked up the two birds and ran into the grocery store to show my mother. I wanted her to take a picture of me holding the two lifeless bodies. She always had a camera close by. I walked out by the tree and held up the two birds and she snapped a picture. About that time John Rials drove up. He said, "You might want to put those birds down. The game warden is across the street at the Gulf station. Those are dove you just shot, and it isn't dove season." They went into the garbage can immediately. We still have the picture somewhere.

Charlie Jackson and I spent countless hours shooting our BB guns. There were about two acres of woods behind his house where we played army, shot at everything imaginable and had loads of fun. We cut down small trees with our cheap machetes purchased at the local army surplus store and built forts. I'm sure the owner of the property appreciated our efforts to defend the acreage from Germans, Japanese and Santa Anna and his Mexican army. Our neighborhood was never successfully invaded while we were on duty.

I recall shooting a person with my BB gun only once. As a general rule we were safety conscious and would never intentionally shoot someone, with one exception on my part.

Charlie's mother had a home business as a seamstress, and later owned and operated a fabric and sewing shop downtown. At any given time she would have someone at the house during the day bringing her something to be repaired or placing an order. Most of the time Charlie and I were playing in his backyard or in the woods and never saw anyone.

One afternoon Mrs. Tunstall stopped by to see Mrs. Jackson about an order she wanted to place. Sonny Tunstall, her son, was with her. He was my age and we had been going to school together since kindergarten. Charlie and I were in his backyard shooting at cans when they arrived. Sonny came outside to see what we were doing while his mother was visiting with Mrs. Jackson.

At the time I still had the gun my cousin gave me that was much more powerful than anything my friends had. Charlie was in the midst of a personal BB gun crisis. His was just about worn out. I could shoot through the side of a tin can at a considerable distance, but he could hardly shoot through a sheet of cheap wet toilet paper a foot away.

Sonny arrived a few minutes before I had been told to be home for the day. The three of us walked to the front of the house as I was about to leave. Now, Sonny had taken a couple of turns shooting both guns and he knew Charlie's gun wouldn't kill a gnat, but he should have known I wouldn't take kindly to being shot at.

I mounted my bicycle and began riding down the street. I was ten yards down the road when I felt a sting in the middle of my back. I heard the pop of Charlie's gun an instant before, but it never occurred to me that someone would shoot in my direction. I stopped and looked back just in time to see Sonny taking aim and firing another shot. Before I could react I felt the sting as the BB hit me.

Even though I knew better, I decided to retaliate. I cocked my gun, turned and fired at Sonny before he realized what I was doing. I fired in his general direction, and I aimed well enough not to hit Charlie. As soon as my gun fired Sonny dropped Charlie's gun, his hands went to his face and he started screaming. I resumed my trip home with much haste.

About an hour later I was home watching television when my mother phoned me from our grocery store next door. Mr. Tunstall was there with Sonny and they were making some wild allegations about me shooting Sonny with my BB gun. She requested my presence immediately.

Reluctantly I trudged to the store to face the music. Sonny was standing by his dad with a "now you are in trouble" look on his face and a big red welt on his upper lip. Mother immediately asked me if I shot Sonny and why? I told my version about getting shot twice first. Apparently Sonny had left out that part when he told his dad. Mr. Tunstall was still mad that I shot Sonny, but he was glaring at Sonny for starting the whole mess. Mother dressed me down good about shooting at or near anyone while Mr. Tunstall was telling Sonny the same thing. I never shot at anyone again and never had any trouble with Sonny either.

Not long afterward my BB gun broke. It was impossible to purchase another one of equal quality. I saved my allowance and bought a new one with a scope and leather strap, but it was never as good as my first one. Eventually I was given the .22 rifle that had belonged to my dad, and the days of the BB gun were gone.

* * * * *

For as long as I can remember, my friends and I looked forward to the Fourth of July and New Year's Eve with great anticipation. The sale of fireworks was illegal in Texas except during the two weeks prior to those holidays. Today, there are lots of fireworks that are banned in Texas and other states. But when I was a kid, pretty much anything was available. The most powerful explosive around was the cherry bomb. I saw a few of them go off and it was awesome. By the time I was old enough to be allowed to buy them, they had been outlawed. Luckily a few people in Crockett were willing to cross the border into Louisiana and buy a few boxes of them. They would sell them to us at a huge profit, but the blast they produced was well worth the price.

When I was about twelve years old the fun really began. Charlie Jackson and John Harold Allen operated a firecracker stand in Crockett. The state law was and maybe still is that it is against the law to sell fireworks within the city limits of any town. That just means you have to drive to the edge of town, and along any major highway there will be one or more firecracker stands in a line starting about six inches from the city limit sign. Most towns have a city ordinance against setting off fireworks within the city limits. Having lived in several towns in two states I can testify it is an ordinance that is universally ignored.

The company that supplied the fireworks and the stands had two options available for the operators. The first option was to merely work at the stand for two weeks for a salary and small commission. The second option was to purchase the fireworks and keep all the profits while leasing the stand itself. More importantly from the kids prospective, there would always be a lot of fireworks left over after the holidays. They chose the second option. Charlie and John Harold made enough money the first time they operated a stand to each purchase a little Honda motorcycle and have a huge stash of fireworks to boot.

Since Charlie's mother operated a sewing business from home, we would go to my house when we engaged in bomb-making activities. Not that my mother would have condoned it, but she worked for an accountant and was gone during the day. We would clean up the evidence by the time she got home.

Our favorite bomb was made with a large plastic aspirin bottle. We would put a long piece of aluminum foil on the kitchen table to pour the gunpowder onto. For hours we would take razor blades and carefully slice open one firecracker at a time and scrape every last grain of powder into a pile in the middle of the foil. A single firecracker has very little powder, but after a few hundred it starts to accumulate. Every half hour the powder from the foil was emptied into the plastic bottle and tapped down in the bottom to compress it. It would take the better part of a day to fill and compress the bottle to the top, but we had an excellent charge when we finished.

Needless to say we had a pile of fuses when we finished. Charlie would carefully weave the small fuses together until we had a thick one. He always made it at least a foot long to give us time to run away before the explosion.

Next he would take a thin strip of aluminum foil and stretch it out on the table. A thin strip of paper would be placed in the middle and the foil folded over the paper, but remaining flat. This made it thicker and easier to compress and seal when placed in the bottle. The first inch of the fuse would then be rolled up in the strip of paper with a quarter of an inch sticking out the bottom to go down into the bottle. When the plug with the fuse was inserted tightly into the bottle, it would seal up like a cork, leaving the long length of fuse protruding from the top. He would then tape the plug tightly into the neck of the bottle and wrap tape around the bottle for even more compression. Our fingers would be bright silver from handling powder for so many hours.

I will never forget the first one we set off. It was the biggest one we ever made and decided to scale them down a bit afterward. We went to the woods behind Charlie's house and set it on the top of a flat stump. We had no idea how powerful the explosion was going to be. We placed it in a tin coffee can so it would be less likely to fall on the ground before going off and set the grass on fire. We wanted to watch the actual explosion, but thankfully we decided against it at the last minute.

Charlie steadied the can and I lit the fuse. A few yards behind us there was a hole we had dug a couple of years earlier when we were still playing army. It was about three feet deep and would offer excellent cover. We jumped into the hole and ducked down below the level of the surrounding ground. Thirty seconds later there was the loudest explosion either of us had ever heard in our lives. Even though our ears were ringing we were aware of the sound of pieces of debris hitting all around us.

When we looked up from our hole there was a thick cloud of smoke covering the area near the stump. There was no evidence the coffee can or the bomb had ever existed, other than the smoke. The stuff hitting around us had been microscopic slivers of the can after the bomb went off. If we had been stupid enough to look at it we would both be known for our Stevie Wonder imitations to this day.

Within a minute we became aware of people running outside of their houses to see what had blown up. We were in the small grove of trees and out of sight, but there were houses on all sides and lots of people were about to investigate. We ran down a small trail through the trees and didn't stop until we got to my house. Charlie's mother was running into the backyard as we were going the other way, but she never saw us.

We made several more over the next couple of years, but never as big as the first one. One incident stands out from the others.

For many years Crockett, like most small towns, had a large number of small, family owned grocery stores. We owned one while I was growing up. It was later leased to Max Petty and my mother took another job. Large chains with large inventories and lower prices slowly began to take their toll on the neighborhood stores. The small stores extended credit, which in the end contributed to their demise too.

One universal constant of the neighborhood grocery store was the metal Coca Cola sign out front. It was made of lightweight metal in two pieces, and was bolted together on the ends. The main part of the sign read "Drink Coca Cola." There was a small white piece bolted to the top with the name of the store printed on it. In front on our house was the sign for grocery store we had once owned which then read "Max Petty Grocery."

One afternoon Charlie and I hastily put together a small bomb and went searching for a place to put it. We were standing in my yard talking it over when at the same time we said, "Let's blow up Mr. Petty's sign!" Warped minds do in fact think alike.

The store was open at that moment and we knew Mr. Petty might take offense if his sign was destroyed while he was present, so we decided to wait until that night. My mother wasn't going to be home until late. She wouldn't see the humor in it.

After dark we placed the little bomb inside the edge of the sign and lit the fuse. We ran a few yards away and turned to watch. Since it was inside the metal sign we weren't worried about flying pieces of debris.

The noise it made was incredible! The hollow sign seemed to make the blast sound twice as loud as the small charge had been in the past. We had a couple of seconds to appreciate it, then we noticed the condition of the sign. The bolts had blown out of one entire edge and the main portion of the sign had split wide apart. The sign appeared to be totally destroyed. We knew there was a good possibility we would be considered the prime suspects.

A couple of neighbors came outside to see if a house or business in the area had exploded. Charlie and I ran behind my house and stayed for half an hour just to be safe. When we finally returned the sign looked worse than we originally thought. We pushed the two halves together, but we had no way to make them stay. Finally we found one hole on each side that hadn't had a bolt through it. The rest had been completely blown apart.

I knew there was some heavy gauge wire in our barn. We found a sturdy piece and put it through the remaining holes. We pushed both parts together and twisted the wire tightly with some pliers. It looked terrible, but it was the best we could do at the time. For some strange reason I was never even asked about it.

* * * * *

Paul Craycraft's dad was a partner in the Crockett Livestock Auction and they lived a few hundred yards from the complex. Between Paul's house and the auction barn was a small frame house that was occupied by the yard manager and his family. At the time the manager was Vernon Watson, who lived there with his wife and kids. Vernon was a tall, skinny black man with a great sense of humor. Paul and I loved to sit and talk with him and he kept us laughing all the time. Since a truckload of cattle could arrive at any moment, he had to remain at his house most of the time, day or night.

One New Year's Eve during my dangerous junior high years, I spent the night with Paul. We had a large supply of firecrackers, roman candles and bottle rockets. We went through the roman candles pretty quickly, then we started on the firecrackers. After a few minutes, we found ourselves at the barbed wire fence just behind Vernon's house. All the lights were on and the shades were open. We could see them walking around the house. The TV was on and the kids were sitting on the floor watching it. Such peace and serenity disturbed us greatly, so we each lit a string of Black Cat firecrackers and tossed them into the backyard.

It was a dark night with no moon, so we weren't going to be spotted easily. Needless to say Vernon's yard was under a cloud of smoke when the popping ceased. The entire family gathered at the windows looking out to see what was going on. We were glad to see Vernon was laughing. We took that as a sign that he wanted more. For the next hour we shot bottle rockets at his house. They went on the roof, bounced off the doors and the screens of the windows, and occasionally one would hit the propane tank and explode. At least Vernon could feel comfort in knowing his propane tank didn't have a leak. When we finally ran out of rockets Vernon came to the window and smiled. He was probably thinking "I should get a gun and shoot those little honkies," but he never acted like it bothered him in the least.

Paul and I immediately started thinking about July 4th. We decided we would buy a lot more bottle rockets and give Vernon and his family a huge Independence Day experience since they seemed to have enjoyed their New Year's Eve so much. A few weeks later Vernon quit his job and they moved out of the house. I think it was only a coincidence.

The new yard manager was a man named Booger Cook. He had more kids than Vernon, but unlike Vernon, he didn't care for Paul and I very much. We knew he would warm up to us when we unleashed the July 4th extravaganza in his backyard and on his house.

I wonder what kind of childhood incident he was involved in that resulted in him being saddled with the nickname "Booger" for the rest of his life? I guess it was no accident that he was never in a good mood. Paul and I probably reminded him of the little assholes that gave him the name in the first place.

We were well prepared when the evening of July 4th arrived. We had the distance worked out and knew where to launch the rockets from so they would explode almost on impact with the house. We also hadn't wasted our money on anything else and invested our entire savings on bottle rockets.

It was a hot July night and the Cook Manor had no air conditioning. The windows were wide open and fans were blowing air to the inside of the house. There was a fan just inside every window screen at the rear of the house, which was a bad move on Booger's part. Booger, Mrs. Booger, and all the little Boogerettes were gathered around the television enjoying a calm night together.

At 10 p.m. the attack began. We fired off several dozen rockets in the space of a couple of minutes, and most were right on target. The smoke was instantly pulled into the house and all the Boogers were running to the windows to see what was going on. We made Shock and Awe over Iraq sound like someone firing a cap pistol. Rockets were hitting the screens and more smoke was going into the house. Booger was yelling something at us, but we couldn't tell exactly what he was saying from all the explosions. We could see him run to the telephone and make a call. We were hoping he was calling some friends to tell them what a great fireworks show those nice kids next door were putting on for him and his family.

About thirty seconds later the show was over. Mrs. Craycraft was at the backdoor yelling at us to cut it out and come inside. Booger had ratted us out and put an end to our fun. That could not go unpunished!

In late August I was spending the night with Paul, and it was time for Booger to pay for being such a whiner when we tried to entertain him with our little show. We waited until dark, then, we went to work.

We got two thick paper grocery sacks and a shovel and sneaked out of the house and over to the auction barn. We were in search of some fresh cow manure, and at an auction barn there is an unlimited supply. We found a pen with some young calves in it that must have been having bowel trouble. The ground was covered with runny cow crap that was so fresh it was still smoking. In less than five minutes the doubled up sack was full. We were ready for some fun. I was in charge of manure transportation, and by the time we got to the shadows at the edge of Booger's front porch I was getting a little woozy from breathing all that methane.

The plan was to pull off a time-honored, age-old trick we had always heard about but never tried. Some kind of poop is put into a small paper sack and placed in front of someone's front door. The top of the sack is twisted together and set on fire. You knock on their door and then run away. If all goes according to plan the victim opens the door, then stomps out the flaming sack and gets crap all over him or her and great fun is had by all.

As usual, we went a little overboard. We had a huge grocery sack, and we had filled it almost to the top. We had left very little sack left to light, and it was obviously full of fresh manure. We were crouched in the dark only a couple of feet from Booger's front door when we realized our mistake. We were whispering to each other trying to decide what to do next.

Paul decided we should place the sack in front of the door and cut it in a few spots around the bottom. When Booger picked it up the sack would come apart at the bottom and fresh manure would run all over Booger and the porch. Then he would be sorry he crossed us!

I took out my knife and started cutting around the bottom. The sack was getting soaked through and was making a huge mess already. I had only stuck the knife through in a couple of spots when Booger opened the screen door to see what was going on. I'm sure he heard us whispering and shuffling around. My new knife was still in the sack when the door opened. In one quick motion I grabbed the top edge of the sack and tossed it in the direction of the door. Just as the screen door opened the sack landed and broke completely apart. Fresh manure splattered all over the porch and inside the living room. Paul and I ran away at a speed we never knew we were capable of. Mr. Craycraft was on the phone when we got back to the house. We denied everything. If Booger bothered to carefully examine the pile he at least got a very good pocketknife out of the deal.

* * * * *

That same week Stephen Satterwhite had come by the house with a few packs of firecrackers. We started lighting them and tossing them into a five gallon bucket. When we stood in front of the bucket we realized the sound of the blast was greatly magnified. It was something we felt the need to share with the neighbors. The Parkers next door were the lucky recipients.

We made our way to the back of the Parker house and stood within a foot of the big glass window of their sunroom. I held the bucket while Stephen tossed in several firecrackers. The bucket was pointed at the glass and the blast was vibrating it with each explosion. In a few seconds we could see Mrs. Parker coming through the house to investigate. We ran around to the front of the house just as she arrived at the back. Stephen held the bucket at the front door and I tossed in the firecrackers. After a few blasts Mrs. Parker was on her way to the front.

This was fun! We were getting to harass a nice neighbor and give an old lady some much needed exercise. We went to the back and set off a few more shots. When we were pretty sure Mrs. Parker was on her way to the back of the house we returned to the front. Stephen was holding the bucket and I had just lit a firecracker when she opened the door. She looked me right in the eye and said, "Jimmy Beasley, what do you think you are doing?"

"Just popping firecrackers," I said innocently.

I was still holding the firecracker I had just lit. It went off just after I spoke. The pain in my hand was terrible. My ears were ringing and I was seeing stars from the flash in my face. I yelled and ran back to my house as fast as I could. Stephen was right behind me, laughing as hard as he could. The pain went away in about half an hour. I had lost the urge to celebrate for the rest of the night.

* * * * *

The last great fireworks incident occurred on New Year's Eve when I was a junior in high school. A group of us were gathered at the Dairy Queen with nothing to do. At some point someone suggested we buy a bunch of bottle rockets and go shoot them at something. It sounded like a great plan.

Bruce Bennett's grandfather had a farm and ranch about five miles west of Crockett. Bruce suggested we go out there to shoot the fireworks. We piled into a couple of cars, and after a trip to the fireworks stand, we all gathered at the ranch.

After each of us fired a few rockets it began to sink in that we were getting a little too old to be thrilled by fireworks. Someone suggested we divide into two groups and shoot them at each other. What a great idea!

We spent the next hour shooting at each other and having a great time. Given the inaccuracy of a bottle rocket, nobody knew where any given shot would end up. I never got tagged, but John Mattox, always the unlucky one, got hit several times. We finally ran out of rockets, and for a few moments talked about driving back to town and buying some more. Reality finally set in and we faced the fact that we were a little too old be playing in a pasture on New Year's Eve. Miraculously we didn't start any fires in the dry field and burn up the western part of Houston County. That would have been a real sight!

Adventures With Wert Lawson

 From the time I moved to 118 East Houston Avenue when I was four years old, my next-door neighbors were the Lawsons. Wert Lawson Sr. and his wife Johnnie Lee owned and operated the Humble (later Exxon) service station on the corner next to their house. Wert Senior passed away soon after and I have very few memories of him. My grandmother and Johnnie Lee were close friends and I spent lots of time at her house.

The Lawson's only son, Wert Jr., was in the navy until I was about seven years old. When he got out of the navy, he returned home to run the service station. He married Esta Fay Harrelson of Lovelady and moved into the small two-story house behind the station.

Unfortunately for Wert, his house was located on the primary route Charlie Jackson and I used to travel between our houses. Charlie and I were always looking for something to do to pass the time, and passing Wert's house several times a day gave us a few ideas.

The Lawsons owned a two-acre pasture that extended behind both their house and mine. Shortly after Wert moved into the house, he bought a little bull and named him Snuffy. He planned to eventually take him to his farm, but at first he was more of a pet. He put him in the pasture behind his house. He would take Snuffy a bucket full of feed every afternoon along with some hay. Snuffy would come running when Wert shook the bucket as he approached the gate.

There were about twenty bales of hay along with the bin of feed in a shed behind the house. In a matter of weeks Snuffy began to put on a lot of weight and was growing into a big bull. When

Wert first got Snuffy, he would shove against the bull's head and play chase with him as if he were a puppy. It wasn't long before Snuffy was pushing Wert all over the pasture, and it was getting dangerous to play games with him.

One summer afternoon, Charlie and I were sitting at my kitchen table trying to think of something to do. We decided to make some darts. We got into my Mother's sewing box and removed all of the needles. Next we took a box of the long wooden kitchen matches and cut off the heads. Using a pair of pliers we shoved needles into the ends of the matches. To give them weight at the head we poured hot wax where the needle entered the wooden stick. Finally we took a razor blade and cut two slits in the other end and inserted a couple of pieces of thin cardboard for fins.

After a couple dozen darts had been assembled it was time for a test. We tossed a few into the side of our kitchen cabinets and they worked great. The sharp needles would stick into anything. Putting tiny holes into my Mother's cabinets became boring after a few minutes. As if it were a miracle, we both looked through the screen door and out into the pasture. At the same moment we looked at each other and said, "Let's try them on Snuffy!"

I grabbed a plastic mop bucket off the porch and tossed in a handful of rocks. Charlie followed close behind with a box full of homemade darts. Snuffy was watching with interest as

we approached the fence. When I started shaking the bucket and the rocks began to rattle he came running, sure he was about to have an afternoon snack. Up to that moment, all of his human contacts had been of a friendly nature, but that was about to change.

Charlie split up the darts and we walked a few steps to the side of Snuffy. Charlie fired a dart right into the hump on his back. He twitched a little, but it didn't seem to be causing him much discomfort. I threw three in rapid succession into his shoulder, and he began to take notice. He tossed his head back several times, but the darts were inches out of his reach. Charlie put a few into his other side and Snuffy was starting to get pissed. He was twitching his shoulders as hard as he could, but the needles were firmly embedded in his skin. He bucked a couple of times and snorted at us, then turned to run across the pasture. We threw the rest of our weapons cache before he was out of range. He bellowed a few times, then began to run circles in the pasture. Fearing Wert would soon investigate the commotion, we ran back to my house and hid.

We escaped in the nick of time. Just as we shut the screen door, Wert walked around the side of the barn with a bucket of feed. Snuffy was still jumping and bellowing, but he headed for the gate when he saw Wert with his food. Wert put the bucket on the ground and Snuffy started eating, all the while snorting and twitching. It was then Wert noticed twenty or more darts sticking out of him from his shoulders to his rump. He pulled them out one by one, and each time Snuffy would jump and bump into him. We were a hundred yards away, but I'm sure I heard my name mentioned in the context of "That little bastard!"

Growing up in the Church of Christ, I knew all about the evils of alcohol. One day, soon after the aerial attack on Snuffy, Charlie and I were snooping around in the little barn where the feed and hay were kept. Behind a stack of hay we found a six pak of beer. Of course we were shocked to think Wert would be so low as to drink beer! Wert's Mother lived next door to me and attended the same church, so I'm pretty sure the beer was being hidden from her. He must have picked up that nasty habit in the navy.

Now, Charlie was a Baptist and was as appalled as I was that a consumer of alcohol lived in our midst. It was our Christian duty to remove the temptation in order to start Wert down the path to the straight and narrow. We took the beer from the barn to a large pile of bricks in a field next to Snuffy's pasture. We shook each can until it felt like it was about to explode, then we would throw it onto the pile of bricks as hard as we could. It would spray beer in every direction and split the can wide open. We felt closer to heaven with each exploding can, knowing we were keeping a poor sinner away from the devil's brew.

After disposing of the beer, we returned to the barn to check for more items of sin, but we could find none. There was only a bin full of feed and a couple dozen bales of hay. Every few days Wert would pull a bale of hay from the top of the stack and carry it to the pasture. He would then cut the twine and break the bale into a few squares and toss them along the fence line for Snuffy to eat.

While we were poking around the barn, Charlie found an old razor blade. He had a brilliant idea to further punish Wert for his sins. He took the razor blade and cut the twine on each bale of hay. Every string was cut about ninety percent through, but just a few strands were left to hold it together. That evening we saw Wert go into the barn to get a bale of hay for Snuffy. A few seconds later we heard him cussing, so were figured he had pulled down a bale and it had fallen apart on his head. The next couple of bales he pulled down had him fighting mad. We were near enough to hear him yelling, and when his voice reached a homicidal pitch we ran like hell. I'm sure he wanted a beer pretty bad at that moment.

A couple weeks later Wert decided to take Snuffy to the farm. It was October and the days and nights were getting cooler. The grass was waist high to a sixth grader when Snuffy left. Wert told my mother he was going to mow the pasture the following spring and didn't plan to put animals out there again.

Our house was next door to the family grocery store, so all my life I wandered in and out of the store dozens of times a day. I would get a Coke from the old icebox six or seven times a day along with a piece of candy, and the thought of paying for them never crossed my mind. Those were the days of a three-cent deposit on glass soft drink bottles, but I never gave that any consideration either. I wonder how much money the family lost over the years due to my constant snacking. It is a miracle I didn't weigh three hundred pounds by the time I was in high school.

Shortly after Snuffy was taken away, I was standing on the back steps of my house drinking one of my many "free" Cokes. Sometimes I would muster up the energy to return the empty bottle to the store, but usually I just tossed it on the ground and my Mother would pick them up later and chew me out. That particular day when I finished the Coke I began to wonder if I could stand on the steps and throw the bottle into the pasture. I swung the bottle with all my might and it barely cleared the top wire and dropped into the weeds. I was impressed with my strength and accuracy. It became a great game, and I repeated it dozens of times over the next few months. By the time spring rolled around I couldn't toss a bottle into the field without hitting another one. I loved the sound of shattering glass.

The grass in the pasture was growing rapidly in the warm, wet spring weather. One Saturday morning I awoke to the sound of an engine running behind my house. I looked out my bedroom window to see what it was. Wert had just driven his tractor into the pasture. There was a large mower attached to the back of the tractor and Wert was starting his first sweep along the edge of the fence to mow the pasture. The mower was set low and was cutting the grass low to the ground. Suddenly I remembered my pile of glass bottles that were just over the fence in the tall grass behind my house. Should I run out and tell him? Hell No! I decided to watch the show and deny everything if confronted.

I watched as Wert approached the "mined" area. He had slowed down a little because the grass was a little thicker along our property line. I held my breath as the tractor passed over the glass. A second later there was a sound like a hundred windows breaking. Glass was flying in every direction! Miraculously Wert didn't get a scratch, but he killed the engine and hit the

ground running. After the blades stopped turning on the mower, he cautiously approached the disaster site to see what caused all the trouble. When he saw it was a pile of Coke bottles, he looked right at my house and started cussing. I didn't get it all, but "Worthless little son of a bitch" was quoted in there somewhere. He started the tractor and drove it back to the trailer and loaded it up. He never finished mowing that year. I felt so bad I went to the pasture and started picking up the broken glass. Unfortunately I got tired after about ten minutes and quit, but my intentions were good.

Four months later it was the middle of summer and as always it was hot, humid, and overall miserable. In those days not many people had air conditioners. Like most of our neighbors, we had an attic fan in the middle of the house. We ran it day and night during the summer with all the windows in the house open. The window screens kept the bugs out and let in the warm, moist air. In July and August the temperature would stay in the nineties well into the night. The attic fan wasn't great, but it was better than nothing. At that time we hadn't been exposed to air conditioning, so we didn't know life could be any different.

Wert's little two-story house had one bedroom on the second floor. I had been inside a couple of times with Wert's mother before he moved in. There was a large fan with long metal blades mounted on a platform outside of the bedroom window. The fan blew through the window screen directly onto the bed inside. During the summer months it was running at high speed every night.

One evening at about ten o'clock, Charlie and I were walking to my house from his, and naturally we cut across Wert's yard. It was a hot and muggy night as usual. As we crossed Wert's backyard, the light went out upstairs in his bedroom. The fan was humming outside the window. I don't remember which of us came up with the idea, but we decide to give Wert and Esta Fay a little surprise.

The pasture behind the house was in a low area and was wet most of the time. The ground was covered with crawfish mounds. The crawfish would burrow deep into the ground and push a large mound of dirt to the surface. When dry it would form a hard mass about the size of a softball. It would break apart into a fine white powder and make a huge mess. Charlie and I found a bucket and filled it full of the dirt clods. We walked to the back of Wert's house and positioned ourselves under the open back of the fan where the blades were exposed. We each tossed several large chunks of dirt into the back of the fan. The long metal blades broke them apart and blew them directly onto Wert's bed.

We only had about five seconds to stand under the fan and appreciate our deed. Wert started screaming and cussing, then we could hear him running down the stairs at top speed. We hauled ass to my house, but the back door was locked. We ran to the Parker's house on the other side of the grocery store. George Worsham, a friend of the Parkers, was sitting in his car listening to the radio. We ran to the car and begged George not to tell Wert where we were, then we dove under the car just before Wert rounded the corner.

Wert was madder than I had ever seen him. He was calling my name for some reason and making all kinds of threats. He asked George if he had seen me or Charlie. Thank goodness George said no. He cussed a little more and told George he was going to shoot our asses when he found us. As he walked away he appeared to be carrying a shotgun, but it was probably just our imaginations. We stayed under the car for about twenty minutes after he left, just to be safe. I ran home as fast as I could. George gave Charlie a ride home, being careful to drive the long way around the block so as not to pass Wert's house with Charlie in the car.

Needless to say Wert scared the crap out of us that night. Charlie and I went to great lengths to not go near Wert's house or the service station for the next month. It was inevitable that one of us would slip up, and as usual it was me. At noon one day I decided to walk to Charlie's house. Rather than walk the long way around the block I decided to chance passing Wert's door. He and Esta Fay were sitting just inside their doorway eating lunch. As I walked by I heard Esta Fay say, "There he is!"

Wert was out the door and had my by the shoulders before I had a chance to react. He lifted me off the ground and shook me as hard as he could. Note, there is a law against shaking babies, but the protection doesn't extend to little jackasses. He yelled and made all kinds of threats to me. I believed every one of them too. I may have even learned a couple of new words. I was dizzy and disoriented when he put me down. The fear of God had finally been implanted. I never bothered Wert again.

Wert was always nice to me for some reason.  He eventually built a house on his farm and moved out of town. Teresa and I lived in Wichita Falls our first year marriage, then we moved back to Crockett. Wert's little house was vacant, and we were looking for a place to rent. He rented it to us for a ridiculously low rate and would help us out with anything we needed. I have always felt bad about the crap we pulled on him and told him so a couple of times. He just smiled and said we were just "being kids." I'm not sure I could have been that understanding in his place. Wert, if you ever read this, I'M REALLY SORRY!

Halloween In Crockett

Halloween in the late fifties and early sixties was a different experience than it is today. When my two children were growing up in the eighties kids were encouraged to attend school sponsored parties rather than go door to door trick-or-treating, unless they went to the houses of people they knew personally. The day after Halloween brought stories of objects in candy, fruit and other treats found in the bags of little children. Many local clinics and hospitals offered to X-ray candy as a safety precaution, and they continue to do so now. In other words, it can't be as much fun as it was when I was a kid. Now that I'm in my fifties all of the Halloweens of my youth seem to blend together, but a couple of experiences stand out in my memory.

When I was in the third grade, I was with a group of kids from our church. In the group with me were David Douglas and Paul and Ray Craycraft. Betty Douglas, David’s mom, was driving us around, or rather easing down the streets slowly while we went from house to house. Crockett isn't a big town and we knew a lot of people. We didn't pass up a single house with a porch light on. The possibility of tainted treats never entered our minds at the time.

Most of the night had been rather routine. People didn't go all out with decorations, as is common today. Once in awhile there would be a jack-o-lantern sitting by a door, but we didn't encounter anything elaborate. That all changed when we started down Bell Avenue.

A local accountant named Harold Walker lived in a small frame house along our route. It had an attached carport that had been turned into a mini haunted house. From the street to the house was a row of cardboard headstones with jack-o-lanterns between each one to cast a pale light on the path. There was a red light bulb in the carport that gave the entire area a spooky look. Eerie music was coming from a hidden record player that enhanced the experience even more. It was enough to scare the crap out of an eight-year-old kid.

All the props in the yard and under the carport were nothing compared to Harold Walker himself. He was sitting on a chair and was wearing the most realistic looking Wolfman costume we had ever seen. It was the quality of the ones used in the movies. The head, the hands and the feet were large and hairy. On the floor in front of him was a large iron pot filled with candy and covered with a metal trash can lid. He was hunched over the pot with a hairy hand on the handle of the lid and staring at us as we slowly walked into the carport. He was growling and panting, the music was moaning and we were becoming more frightened by the second.

Somehow the other three had slinked back behind me as we approached Wolfman and the pot of candy. The closer we got the louder the growling became. He slowly rose to his feet and assumed a position as if to lunge at us at any moment. All four of us stopped and were about to chicken out and make a run for the car. He sensed we were a little too scared, so he lifted the lid and took a step backward. We breathed a little easier and moved toward the pot to get some candy. Paul, Ray and David were still behind me and had moved over to one side so they could see if I was going to be attacked and killed. I took a deep breath and reached for the pot.

Harold Walker had been silent for about five seconds, so the tension in the air had lessened somewhat. My hand was a foot away from the pot when he came alive. He sprang forward in my direction with a roar, slamming the trash can lid down onto the pot with a deafening crash. Paul, Ray and David froze in their tracks, not knowing what to do. I knew exactly what to do; run like hell! Luckily they weren't standing directly behind me or they would have been trampled.

The light was poor and I was out of my mind with fright, so I took the most direct route away from the house. Unfortunately, in the dead center of the most direct route, stood an iron support post. I was moving as fast as a frightened eight-year-old can go in the space of about ten feet. I hit the post dead center and was knocked flat on my back. I must have been out for a few seconds. When my head cleared, Harold Walker, minus the Wolfman mask, was standing over me with a frightened look on his face. I had a large knot on my head and my nose was bleeding. Mrs. Walker arrived with a rag containing some ice cubes to hold against my head and bring me around. Everything was a blur, but all I wanted to do was get away. I got to my feet with the help of everyone there. The place was well lit at that point. I started for the street as fast as I could stumble while the Walkers were asking me if I was okay? I think I mumbled, "I'm fine" as I left. Betty Douglas met me when I was halfway to the car. She offered to take me home, but I wanted to continue on my rounds. The other three came back to the car and brought my sack that I dropped in my haste to get away. Harold Walker had put more candy in it than I could have possibly received the rest of the night.

As we looked back he had returned to his seat in front of the iron pot of candy, but the lights were on and he wasn't wearing the costume. When I hit the pole he realized his show was a little bit too scary.

Six Halloweens later I was fourteen and too old to trick-or-treat without looking like an idiot. That summer, Texas had changed the law so kids had to be sixteen instead of fourteen in order to get their drivers license. My birthday was nineteen days past the limit. Most of my friends took driver’s education that summer and had their license when school started. I and a few others were left to walk or ride our bicycles to get around. I was depressed and embarrassed and had decided to just stay home and be a jerk to the little kids who stopped by for candy.

There was a knock at the door and I opened it, prepared to glare at a group of little goblins. It was Charlie Jackson and Eugene May. They were about to roam the streets in Charlie's pickup and wanted to know if I would join them. Of course I wanted to!

Eugene had a big bag of balloons. They planned to fill them with water and throw them at unsuspecting suckers around town. My mother was watching television and paid no attention as we went into the kitchen and started filling them up. Fifteen minutes later we had so many balloons full of water we had no way to get them out to the truck. Mother walked into the kitchen carrying a big plastic laundry basket. I was standing in front of a sink full of balloons and my first thought was "Oh crap, she caught us."

Mother handed me the plastic basket and said, "Here, put the balloons in this. I will fill up the rest while you throw these."

In those days we hadn't heard of alien abductions, so I didn't even suspect that she had been replaced by an android. We just stared at her for a second, said "Thanks!" and took off before she changed her mind.

Charlie and Eugene took turns driving while I remained in the back with all the balloons. On Halloween night the Crockett police actually put forth the appearance of being on duty. On the other three hundred sixty-four nights of the year they couldn't be found after dark, unless it was at one of the two or three places they could get a free cup of coffee. We had to be careful not to be caught tossing a water balloon at a passing car and be spotted by an officer. None of us were from families of the movers and shakers in town that were above the law in anything short of murder, so we had to be picky. We hit a few cars belonging to friends we recognized. We also circled the Dairy Queen and tossed a few at people we knew that were standing outside. In no time at all we were out of balloons.

We had been out for about an hour when we returned to my house. Mother had filled all the remaining balloons and put them it a big box. We filled the laundry basket and hit the streets again. The weather had turned cold and I was freezing in the back of the truck. The fun was wearing off quickly and it was also getting late. Most of the little kids had gone home and most of the older ones that were driving around earlier had disappeared as well. We were about to call it a night, but we needed to get rid of the balloons. Charlie circled the square and headed out the Houston highway toward the Dairy Queen. Eugene and I were randomly tossing balloons at street signs and parked cars. We were down to one balloon when Charlie said he was heading for my house. I was glad to hear it.

Charlie was driving down some side streets just to be safe. We stopped at a well-lit intersection when we heard someone call out to us. Jamie Easterly and Billy Langham stepped into the light. Someone else was with them, but I don't recall who. All three were wearing long coats and old hats and looked like they had just crawled out of a Goodwill donation box. We talked for a minute, but since it was getting colder by the minute we kept it short.

They were still standing under the streetlight when we drove away. I suddenly remembered the last water balloon in the basket. We were already driving away into the darkness, so they couldn't see me as I threw the balloon at the three of them. The balloon flew between Jamie and Billy and missed their heads by only inches. I was laughing when I could make out Jamie pulling something out of his pocket and throw in our direction as we sped away. We were well out of range, or so I thought. At this point I should add that Jamie went on to pitch in the major leagues for more than ten years, so he had considerable strength and accuracy. I was about to yell to Charlie and Eugene that I almost hit them when an egg hit me squarely on the forehead. I was a mess to put it mildly. Just before this happened Charlie had been going to pull over and let me into the warm cab of the pickup with him and Eugene. Now that I was covered with egg the plan changed. He and Eugene were looking back at me and laughing as I wiped egg out of my eyes. By the time we got to my house the gunk had frozen into my hair. Everyone had a big laugh about it, including me after I got cleaned up. We had a good story to tell, as well as a greater appreciation of my mother, or at least the being that had temporarily replaced her for the evening.

I Hate Snakes!

The title of this story says it all. The only good snake is a dead snake. When I say a dead snake, I mean a snake that is splattered all over the place from a shotgun blast or from being run over by a lawnmower. A snake that has been shot with a .22 and is not moving doesn't qualify. He might be playing possum and planning to bite your ass when you lean down to investigate. Note, I said when YOU lean down to investigate. That is something I would never do, even if the snake was in a dozen pieces scattered over a wide area.

I still have a vivid memory of my first encounter with a snake. My Uncle Cecil and Aunt Naomi had a dairy farm near Crockett. As a small boy I loved to spend time with them and be near all the animals. There were always several dogs and cats around, as well as a yard full of chickens. It was a great place to run and play.

Each morning they would get up at 4 a.m. to milk the cows. When I visited they would wake me up for breakfast at 8 a.m. when the morning milking was finished. After we ate my aunt would go to the chicken house and gather the eggs and I would tag along. On a couple of occasions she mentioned something about a chicken snake getting some eggs, but I never paid any attention at first. I was probably 4 or 5 years old and didn't pay much attention to anything I was told.

One morning my uncle had put a couple of calves in the corral and I wandered over to look at them. I was leaning over the bottom board petting a calf and he was licking my hand. I stepped back after a couple of minutes and stood up straight. On the board just above my head, now at eye level, was a four-foot-long chicken snake. I began screaming at the top of my lungs and everyone came running from the barn to see what was happening. I was too scared to do anything but scream as everyone yelled, "What's wrong?"

My uncle spotted the snake about the time he got to me. The snake hadn't moved an inch. My screaming probably had it in shock. Uncle Cecil grabbed a big stick and pushed it under the middle of the snake, then tossed it about 20 feet through the air and onto the sand driveway behind us. One of his workers ran up with a hoe and cut its head off while my aunt and uncle were trying to calm me down. They kept saying a chicken snake wasn't poisonous and couldn't really hurt me, but I screamed for several more minutes anyway. From that day on, every snake was a deadly cobra in my mind.

East Texas has a lot of copperheads, water moccasins and rattlesnakes, all of which are poisonous. After my encounter with the chicken snake I was always on the lookout for snakes of any kind when I was outside. As a small boy I would run screaming if I saw as much as a small grass snake. As I got older some of my idiot friends would actually catch grass snakes and play with them. I wouldn't go near one and would usually go home if someone caught a little snake.

When I was 12, my mother decided it was time to give me the .22 rifle my dad had for many years. It was probably a reward for never having successfully burned down the house. By then I was going to Mustang Prairie Ranch with John Rials on a regular basis. John would set up rows of tin cans for me to shoot. Eventually I became a pretty good shot with lots of practice.

The first live target I ever had was, appropriately, a snake. We were walking on top of the dam at a small stock pond. We were 10 feet above the water and there were several small cottonwood trees at the edge of the shoreline. I kept hearing something hitting the water under the trees. It was the sound of water moccasins dropping off of the lower branches into the water as we approached. My first instinct was to soil my underwear and run like hell, but John would have never let me live it down. Dozens of heads began to break the surface of the water as the snakes came up for air and started swimming to the center of the pond. I fired all fifteen rounds of my rifle at the fleeing snakes and never hit one. At least I felt, as Oprah would say, "empowered" with a firearm in my possession as I encountered the fleeing horde of deadly vipers. I was a little disturbed that I hadn't hit anything. That all changed later that year when I got my first shotgun.

John loved to hunt dove in the fall and thought it was time for me to accompany him. Mother gave me a 410 single-shot shotgun for my birthday in July, and John started training me to shoot it so I wouldn't be too dangerous when dove season started in September. The first place I wanted to go was back to the stock pond.

We quietly eased across the dam and positioned ourselves above the cottonwood branches. I peeked through the leaves and saw several water moccasins stretched out on the branches above the water. Along the shoreline there were at least 20 more coiled up in a pile in the cool mud. I took aim into the middle of the pile on the ground and fired. Parts of snakes went in every direction. After my shot the rest of the snakes were in the water in a split second. To my surprise, many more darted from the grass along the water's edge and into the pond. I reloaded and fired again as a few heads broke the surface. At a greater distance the shotgun pellets disperse quite a bit, but I finally hit one after a few more shots. The pile of bloody snake parts along the shore was one of the best sights I had ever seen.

By the next summer Charlie Jackson had his driver's license. On several occasions we took our shotguns and drove out to the stock pond. We would park a quarter of a mile away and walk slowly and quietly up onto the dam. Even though it had only been a couple of weeks since we were there last, it seemed as if more snakes were in the trees and on the ground than the time before. Charlie could fire five shots, so he accounted for many more kills than I did with my single shot. We felt like we were striking a blow for humanity each time we fired. On a couple of occasions we would come across a small grass snake slithering along as we walked down the trail. Charlie would say something about catching it and taking it home, just before I would blast it from three feet away. There would be very little evidence left that a snake had even been there. Charlie would whine and bitch at me about killing a poor little innocent grass snake. But I knew I was saving our lives and he was too stupid to realize it.

Summer visits to the stock pond became a ritual. When I was a sophomore in high school, Uncle Cecil let me use his single-shot 12-gauge shotgun. It delivered a greater punch than my little 410, and would kill a lot of snakes with one shot when fired from the proper angle.

Another friend of mine, Smitty Dean, had a farm about fifteen miles east of Crockett. We decided to go check out the stock ponds and see how many water moccasins we could slaughter on his property. There were no dams to walk across at his place, and the stock ponds were mostly a series of wide spots along a spring-fed stream that ran across the farm. The shore was lined with tall grass, which made me nervous. I didn't relish the idea of stepping on or near a snake. After an hour we hadn't seen anything. We were about to return to the car when Smitty suggested we fire into a clump of land in the middle of the stream. On the count of three we both fired into the tall grass.

Snakes that survived the blast began diving into the water, and we could see a bloody mass of snakes we'd killed. The snakes that escaped into the stream never surfaced where we could see them, so we never got off another shot. We decided we had done God's work for one day and began walking to the cabin where were going to spend the night.

It hadn't rained in weeks and the parched land was beginning to crack open from lack of moisture. It was late afternoon and the trees were casting long shadows across the trail. I was in the lead and Smitty was about five feet behind me. I was looking down at the trail as I walked, always guarding against snake attack. Suddenly I saw a long dark form in the grass about three feet to my right. I screamed, "SNAKE!" Half a second later I shot it in the head with a blast from the 12 gauge.

When a 12-gauge shotgun is fired into the dry earth at a distance of three feet, it produces a big cloud of dust and dirt, and Smitty and I were covered in it. Smitty almost had a heart attack when I yelled and fired at the ground so close to us. It took a minute or two for the dust to settle enough for us to see the ground. I was expecting to find the remains of a large deadly demon snake that had planned on killing both of us. Instead I had seen a large crack in the ground that looked long and dark due the late afternoon shadows. After our blood pressure returned to normal we had a good laugh, and I never lived that one down.

Years later when Teresa and I first married we went camping at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Reserve north of Lawton, Oklahoma. It is federal land and a snake is a protected species. They are of the opinion that a snake is a beautiful creature and can't be replaced. If you were to kill one they would lock you up, but if the snake killed you there'd just be one less tourist.

The reserve was built as a WPA project in the late twenties and early thirties. It encompasses two-thirds of the Wichita mountain range and is a beautiful place. The tallest mountain in the area is Mt. Scott, which has a paved road to the summit.

We were camping at the base of Mt. Scott in late September and were the only inhabitants of the camping area. The days were still warm, but it was rather cool at night and early in the morning. The snakes surely would be hibernating by then, or so I thought.

Early in the morning we decided to climb Mt. Scott. There was a trough of huge boulders extending from the summit to the base, which was the most popular avenue for climbers. There were lots of scrub oak trees and brushy areas scattered throughout the boulders as we made our way up the mountain.

Teresa knew of my fear of snakes, but she had never been with me during a snake encounter. We were newly married, and I was naturally going to be the great protector. Side by side we made our way up the mountain. We were passing a clump of brush about ten feet to our right when I heard a rustling sound. I looked over and there was a rattlesnake. He had probably been sunning himself on the rock and was in the process of getting out of sight as we approached. Wanting to warn my new bride of the danger I immediately yelled, "SNAKE!" At the same moment I yelled I was hauling ass up the mountain. By the time Teresa turned to look at me I was ten yards away and moving fast. She just started laughing at me. I realized how stupid I must look fleeing up the mountain at top speed. In my defense, I figured she had been warned of the impending danger and it was up to her to run like hell, as I was duty-bound to do. She has never let me forget it to this day. She now claims it was only a stick. I think she is losing her mind.

Teresa and I lived in Wichita Falls for the first year of our marriage. Being away from Crockett for a year made us homesick, so we decided to move back and hope for good jobs to magically appear where there had been none before. We moved into the house where I grew up. The backyard was in a low area and bordered a pasture that became a swamp after any moderate rain. That was the rainiest fall I ever remember in Crockett. It was much too wet to mow the grass, and by the time we had our first freeze the grass was out of control.

The following spring I faced the daunting task of cutting the thickest grass I’d ever seen. I gassed up the lawnmower and went to work. I pushed with all my might and the progress was minimal at best. By the time the first pass across the yard was finished I was completely exhausted. I was looking at the ground and straining hard when suddenly I felt something squish under my shoe. I had stepped into a pile of grass snakes the mower had just passed over without touching. I ran top speed for the house and grabbed my .22 rifle. When I returned to the yard all the snakes were still there. I began blasting away and the snakes headed into the tall grass. I killed a few, but most of them escaped. Not a single neighbor came to investigate the gunshots. After all, they had known me all my life and not much surprised them.

In the spring of each year the city of Waurika, Oklahoma has a rattlesnake roundup. This is an event that is common in West Texas and Oklahoma. It is always held in a carnival-like atmosphere, and in many small towns it is their biggest and most popular annual event. I, of course, had never been near one.

In April of 1984 we were living in Wichita Falls, Texas. My brother-in-law, Walter Husak, asked me to go with him up to the rattlesnake roundup in Waurika. My son Jamie was seven and my daughter Heather was five at the time. They were present when Walter asked me, and naturally they started begging to go. Not wanting to wimp out I said yes.

As we were walking to the courthouse square, we passed lots of vendors selling rattlesnake meat, skins, rattlers and various snake-related items. We passed one gentleman who was taking pictures of people holding a huge rattlesnake. The snake was very much alive and kept its neck pulled back as if to strike at any moment. It probably didn't have any fangs, and while pictures were being taken its mouth was most likely wired shut. At least that is what I kept telling myself as we walked by and there were shivers going up my spine.

In the main exhibition area there was a large area with a three-foot high plywood fence around it. Bags and boxes full of rattlesnakes were being dumped over the fence every couple of minutes. There were thousands of them. They were taken to another area a few at a time for processing. First, the snake was held over a bucket and the head was cut off. Next the rattles were cut off. The snake was then suspended by the tail and the skin was peeled off. Finally the body was cut into sections and the meat was packaged. At each stage of processing people were standing by the tables buying various parts of the snake. Needless to say I was shaking like a leaf, but the kids were loving it. They even got to pet a boa constrictor someone was passing around. After a few minutes I was ready to leave this viper hell and get back to Wichita Falls.

As we were leaving, we again passed the man taking pictures of people holding the rattlesnake. As a joke I asked the kids if they wanted to have their picture taken. Jamie looked at me like I was crazy and said, "No!" Heather jumped up and down and gleefully said, "Yes, please!"

I knew if I backed out she might whine all the way home, so I paid the four dollars and got in line. Every thirty seconds I would ask, "Are you sure?" She was sure each time.

She was small for a five-year-old, so when the man put the snake in her hand it looked like she was holding something from a horror movie. The snake looked like it was ready to strike, and it also looked rather pissed off at the entire proceedings. Looking back now he was probably bored and drugged senseless. As Heather got a firm grip on the snake and the man lined up the shot, his wife said, "Oh, she looks like she is going to cry! Daddy, come get in the shot with your little girl."

My first instinct was to say, "Like hell I will!" I decided that wouldn't be the fatherly thing to do, so I summoned all my courage and put my hand on her shoulder to comfort her. Of course I did it at arm's length and was nowhere in the picture except for my hand. Just as the camera clicked Heather began to think through what she was doing and was about to break down and cry. The shot captured a look of sheer terror on her face. The second the picture was snapped the snake was taken from her and she didn't even sob. We were handed the Polaroid snapshot and hustled aside to make room for some other deranged sucker. Heather loved the picture and could hardly wait to get back to Wichita Falls to show her mother and her grandparents. None of them saw any humor in it at all. They all fussed at me about subjecting that poor child to such treatment. I tried to point out my comforting hand on her shoulder but it didn't help the situation.

I've had very few snake sightings since that time. A few years ago while living in East Texas, Teresa found she had been walking back and forth past a poisonous copperhead all afternoon while going in and out of the well house. She was in the well house when she noticed, so she jumped over it. She called me to pick up some ammunition at Wal Mart on the way home so we could kill it. She handles snake encounters better than me. Snakes are why God invented shotguns.

The Pilgrimage To Colorado

On two separate occasions, once when I was in elementary school and once in junior high, we vacationed in Colorado. We visited Colorado Springs and drove up Pikes Peak, visited Cripple Creek and Victor and drove the Phantom Canyon road down to Cañon City and the Royal Gorge. We stayed in the People's Republic of Boulder and spent a day in Rocky Mountain National Park. I was impressed with the mountains and the mild temperatures in July and August and always wanted to go back again when I was old enough to do it on my on.

In the summer of 1972 Paul Craycraft and I convinced our parents that we were trustworthy and mature enough to take trip to Colorado. While at school in the spring we had talked about going to the mountains. It brought back fond memories of many years past. We had driven to Vicksburg, Mississippi to the Civil War battleground over spring break and had made it back without incident, our parents reluctantly agreed to let us go. Our initial plan was to go to Colorado Springs and spend two or three days, then return home. We assured everyone we would stay in a nice, safe motel each night and not do anything stupid.

Somewhere between the time we gave the parents our assurances and when we left a week later, we decided to camp out each night and drive to Canada. We thought it prudent not to pass on these minor changes to our parents if we still wanted to go. We loaded up my 1971 Ford Pinto with spare clothes, food and camping gear and hit the road early on a Monday morning in August.

Paul and I plan every detail whenever we start to do anything, as people who know us are aware. When we crossed Loop 304 and headed north out of Crockett, we decided we should consult a map and decide the best route to take - of course, we had to stop at a gas station and buy a map. We hadn't thought about needing one until then. We drove north toward Dallas while we plotted which direction to go. As I merged onto Interstate 45 I almost slammed into a dead dog, which had swollen to the size of a large pig. I swerved in the nick of time. We looked at each other and burst out laughing. Crockett people are easily amused.

I recalled spending the night in Dodge City, Kansas, on my first trip to Colorado. We had visited the old townsite, which had been turned into a tourist trap for suckers. I was a little kid at the time and thought it was great. I told Paul, "Let's go through Dodge City, Kansas. It is great!"

We spent about an hour in Dodge City. Paul had the decency not to point out that we had wasted many hours driving across vast plains of nothing to reach a tourist trap that wouldn't normally impress anyone with half a brain, even if they were from East Texas. We headed west toward Colorado in the middle of the afternoon. There were seemingly hundreds of feedlots along the highway that stretched for many miles, so we enjoyed the aroma of fresh manure for two or three hours straight.

Eastern Colorado is more or less like Kansas, which is miles of nothing. Most of the land makes West Texas look absolutely tropical. By the time we were close enough to the front range of the Rockies it was too dark to see the mountains. We rolled into Colorado Springs about ten o'clock at night.

I currently live in Colorado Springs. It is a town of 375,000 residents and has as many motels as it does Chinese buffets, which is a hell of a lot. In 1972, however, it was a town of around 70,000 with a limited number of places to stay, especially during the height of the tourist season. Every motel we passed had a "No Vacancy" sign lit up.

This is a totally unrelated side note, but in Colorado they don't put the population of the town on the city limit sign. When entering Colorado Springs you will be informed the elevation is 6,035 feet above sea level, as if anybody gives a damn!

We drove around for an hour and had no luck at all. We were running low on gas, so we stopped at a Sinclair station on the edge of Manitou Springs. Locals today claim it is the devil worshipping capital of the United States (Manitou Springs, not the Sinclair station), but we didn't know it at the time.

After pumping the gas I went inside to pay and asked if there were any motels nearby that might have some rooms available. The attendant looked vaguely familiar. He said there wasn't a chance we would find a room, but they had a little park just behind the station. We were welcome to toss out our sleeping bags and pass the night there. He said there were three or four other people back there already.

At first we said we might take him up on the offer. We parked the car around back and started to unload our sleeping bags. Paul looked around and said, "There isn't anyone else back here." We jumped back in the Pinto and hit the road. Many years later I rented a video tape, and damn if the Sinclair attendant wasn't in it! I'm pretty sure he was the operator of the little gas station and store in "Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

We pulled into Denver after midnight and were worn out. We found a Travel Lodge and got a room. We slept until mid-morning, then, hit the road refreshed. At least we could finally see the mountains.

In the 1970s Coors beer was only distributed within a 600-mile radius of Golden, Colorado. That meant it was only available in Texas in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and farther north. Perhaps is was the mystique of the John Denver perpetuated hype of the state of Colorado, or the thought of beer being better if it was brewed with "pure Rocky Mountain spring water" as the commercials claimed, but Coors beer was a highly sought-after commodity in any area where it wasn't readily available. Paul and I had made it part of our mission to buy some on our trip.

We had discussed at length the possibility of walking into a store and buying some without getting ID'd. We looked sufficiently scruffy that some minimum wage worker at a convenience store might let us slide. On our way out of Denver we stopped at a little place that sold beer and gas. We didn't need any gas after filling up at the station run by the mass murderer in Manitou Springs, but we needed an excuse to be in the store other than to just buy beer. We sat at the gas pump for several long, agonizing minutes trying to work up the courage to go in for the beer. We tried to determine which of us looked more like a twenty-one-year-old hippie rather than a nineteen-year-old hippie. We finally decided to go inside together.

We exited the car all puckered up with our stomachs churning and our courage beginning to fail. We immediately found ourselves facing a sign that read "Attention, we will not sell alcohol to anyone under 18 years old." Damn! We were legal there and had wasted all that angst over nothing. The purchase was anti-climactic after that. We bought our first legal six-pack, and over the next three days we consumed two beers each. Not enough to impress Otis on "The Andy Griffith Show," but we felt like studs. We were going to take the other two cans back to impress our friends in Texas, but in the end we were scared our parents would find them so we threw them out. But it did mark our first legal alcohol purchase and made us feel more manly.

The early part of the day was spent driving through Rocky Mountain National Park. Trail Ridge Road runs across the top of the park, and the scenery is some of the finest in the world. We ate lunch at a picnic area above timberline as we looked down into the alpine valleys that were dotted with lakes and streams. We talked about how difficult it was going to be to describe such beauty to our friends and family back in Texas, especially since neither of us had remembered to bring a camera. We left the park via the west entrance and headed north to Wyoming.

North of Laramie, Wyoming we connected back up with US Highway 287; the very highway we left Crockett on early Monday morning. It traverses some beautiful and sparsely populated country through the center of Wyoming. The highway runs from Alaska to Florida and is heavily traveled through Texas. We pulled into a roadside park in Wyoming to eat supper and sat and talked for an hour. During the entire hour, not one car passed in either direction.

About dark we drove through Lander, Wyoming. The Pinto had half a tank of gas, and there were several little towns dotting the map from Lander to the south entrance of Yellowstone National Park. We saw no need to fill the tank. From that point on we noticed that the "towns" we were passing through were intersections of some ranch roads with US 287, and the sign, when there was one, was the only evidence that towns even existed. The gas gauge was dropping and we were getting nervous.

We entered Dubose, Wyoming just after ten o'clock. It is an actual town, albeit a small one. It is a supply center for some of the area ranches as well as a tourist town. It also shuts down completely at nine o’clock.

A deputy sheriff was parked near an intersection, so we asked him if there were any gas stations open. He said there weren't, but if we would follow him he would open one up for us. We followed him to a small station on the edge of town. He couldn't get to the cash to make change, so we had to buy an exact amount. We gave him $10, which in 1972 would completely fill up my Pinto. Just before he turned on the power to the pump a motorcycle went roaring by. The deputy slammed the door to the station and said, "I'll be right back!" He turned on his siren and started chasing the motorcyclist into the mountains. Thirty minutes later he returned. We got our gas, thanked him, and went on our way.

We hadn't had the opportunity to use any of our camping gear before getting to Wyoming. After leaving Dubose, we headed in the general direction of Grand Teton National Park. Almost two hours later we came to a campground. We drove around until we found an empty site. We got out our sleeping bags and put them on the ground. Due to the late hour we didn't want to put up the tent and risk waking anyone up.

One thing I should mention about our camping gear: It was well suited to camping in East Texas when it is ninety degrees at midnight, but not that good in northern Wyoming when it is in the forties. We were both freezing our asses off! About twenty minutes was all Paul could take. He said, "Screw this, I'm freezing," and we packed up and hit the road. (By the way Paul, Joe Brannen says you borrowed his sleeping bag for the trip and he still hasn't gotten it back.)

At daybreak on Wednesday morning, we drove through the south entrance of Yellowstone National Park. We had been awake for twenty hours and were pretty tired. It was cold and foggy when a moose appeared in the middle of the road through the mist. I stopped a couple of feet short of him and put skidmarks in my shorts as well as on the road. He slowly walked into the trees and we continued on. I hadn't driven more than a mile when a huge porcupine crossed in front of the car and was nearly flattened. I was wide awake after that.

We continued north and drove along the shore of Yellowstone Lake and past Yellowstone Lake Lodge. It is a place of incredible beauty with wildlife around every corner. We arrived at the campground at Tower Falls around the middle of the morning. Normally it is hard to get a campsite inside the park, but people were packing up and leaving for the day, so we found one easily. We put up the tent for the first time since we left and unpacked some of our gear. Even though we had been up for just over twenty-four hours we were getting our second wind. It was time to see the park.

We drove the loop through the park and took in the scenery. There is too much to see at Yellowstone to even begin to describe. The park headquarters is located at the site of Old Faithful Geyser, which erupts every ninety minutes. We got there ten minutes after an eruption, so we had some time to kill before the next one. We went to the store near the lodge and looked around. We knew there was a fair chance we might freeze to death that night given the temperature rating of our equipment, so we pooled our money and bought a tent heater. It was actually a single burner Coleman stove mounted on a lantern base with a little detachable shield to cover the flames. People with good sense might realize there was a good possibility they would die from the fumes if it were left burning all night in a tent. We didn't believe in that kind of nonsense, and besides, it would be an easier way to go out than freezing. (Paul, I have the heater in my garage if you ever need to use it.)

Old Faithful is much more impressive on a post card than it is in real life. After seeing the eruption we continued our tour of the park. Late in the afternoon we got to our campsite at Tower Falls. We had very little food left in our ice chest, so we drove over to the lodge, gas station and grocery store nearby.

I was wearing a t-shirt with the logo "SFA" over the pocket. In Yellowstone National Park I didn't figure there were many people who would know what it stood for. As soon as we walked into the store a girl behind the counter asked, "Do you go to Stephen F. Austin?"

We told her we did and she asked where we were from? We told her we were from Crockett, and she asked if we knew Smitty Dean and Debbie Porth, both of whom are from Crockett. It turned out she attended Austin College in Sherman, Texas and knew both of them. It is indeed a small world.

We returned to the campsite with some sandwich meat, chips and cokes. Our plans to build a fire and cook changed when the girl at the store told us how the smell of cooking might attract bears to our tent. We ate our sandwiches, then locked all the food in the car. We wanted to at least build a campfire, but those forest rangers are a bunch of selfish liberal bastards. They have signs posted that prohibit the gathering of firewood, but you are invited to buy some at the store. Buy wood! They could just kiss our asses! We fired up the tent heater and went to bed. Luckily my tent was a piece of crap and allowed the carbon monoxide to escape quite easily and we survived the night.

At daybreak Thursday morning we packed up and decided it was time to head for Canada. We were in Montana in less than an hour, and after looking at the map we figured to be in Canada by early afternoon. Wrong!

I can't speak for their condition today, but the Montana highways in 1972 were bad. They were rough, windy and narrow. By late afternoon we had made it to Great Falls and were worn out. There was a pretty good highway that went north from Great Falls and into Canada, but we decided to take a smaller road into the southern entrance of Glacier National Park. We arrived at the Canadian border about seven o’clock.

There was a border checkpoint where the park road crossed into Canada. The officer stopped us and asked if he could search the car. I said "sure," and opened the doors and the trunk. We had so much crap packed into the Pinto he just looked through the door, then back at us and said, "Looks fine to me." We visited with him for about an hour. His outpost was a lonely one and he was happy to have someone to talk to. We had never talked to a real live Canadian before, so we were excited as well.

We located a campground that had plenty of empty sites, dropped off our gear, then went to a nearby grocery store. We bought a package of wieners, some buns and a can of chili. It was getting cold by the time we got the tent set up, so we took the shield off the tent heater and used the burner to cook the wieners and the chili. After a good warm meal it occurred to us that all the local bears must by now be on their way to our tent for some supper. The ranger had specifically warned us about bears in the campground. In about ten minutes we had the tent down and packed into the car. We had been in Canada for two hours, so it was time to head back to the USA.

We knew the road we came in on closed at nine p.m., so we would have to find another way across the border. After looking at the map we found it was only thirty miles to Cardston, and there was a major highway going south into Montana from there. It took longer than expected to reach Cardston because of the dark mountain roads, so we pulled through town about eleven thirty p.m. We made it to the border crossing at midnight.

It was strange to see a line of cars sitting at the closed gate at midnight. Then we noticed a large sign saying the border closed at ten p.m. and would open at six a.m. We had no choice but to sit in the Pinto and wait for six hours. When you sit in a Pinto all night you don't get any sleep no matter how tired you are. About three o’clock a VW van came screeching to a halt beside us. The doors flew open and several wasted hippies appeared through a haze of smoke. They were laughing and having a great time. They all fell over onto the wet and cold grass beside the road and passed out. When the border opened up at six o'clock we had been up for twenty-four hours and were feeling terrible. The officers at the American checkpoint took one look at us and just waived us through. I guess they thought if we were smugglers we must not be very successful ones.

The better part of the day Friday was spent driving across Montana. We headed for the southeastern corner so we could get back on Interstate 25 in Wyoming and have a faster route back to Colorado and then on to Texas. We did take a few minutes to visit the Little Big Horn Battleground, the site of Custer's Last Stand. Late in the afternoon finally made it to Sheridan, Wyoming and the interstate.

Paul was driving and we had both been awake for thirty-six hours. We needed to get something to eat, so we found a restaurant just south of Sheridan. One of my most vivid memories of the entire trip was when I got out if the car and noticed a horrible stench. I looked at Paul and said, "Something smells like crap!" He agreed, and we sniffed the inside of the car, then we looked at each other and realized it was us! We hadn't changed clothes or cleaned up in any manner at all since Tuesday morning. It was no surprise when the waitress sat us at a table on the other side of the restaurant from the rest of the customers.

We took Interstate 25 south across Wyoming and entered Colorado after midnight. To this day I don't know how we made the trip home alive. We would take turns driving and were both too tired to think straight. As we passed through Denver a car full of drunks tried to run us off the road. At least it scared us enough to wake us up for a few more hours.

After daylight we finally crossed into Texas at the little town of Texline. My first thought was, "Thank God, we are nearly home." I looked at the map and started adding up the miles from Texline to Crockett. We were still nearly 700 miles from home. I was depressed!

We pulled into Crockett at six p.m. on Saturday. We had been awake since six a.m. Thursday and had driven from Canada to Crockett stopping only for gas and meals. When I walked into the house, the first thing I heard was "What is that smell?"