Cindy

My older sister Cindy was born in South Dakota. The rest of us tried real hard to not hold that against her but for some reason every time the conversation came around to "where are you from?" we had to laugh at Cindy. Of course it was a good-natured, "we love you laugh" but it was still a laugh. All the rest of us were born in good old Fort Worth, Texas. Cindy had the misfortune of being born during the short time my parents were trying to make a living in South Dakota. She was born in a little prairie town called New Underwood. I would hate to visit Old Underwood because the New and Improved Underwood wasn't much to see. As a side note I should say New Underwood was also my dad's hometown. It was the nearest town to the farm where he was raised.

Cindy doesn't appear to have any unfavorable characteristics from being a northern girl. She speaks with the typical lovely Texas accent we all know and love....y'all know whut I'm talkin' about, raight? She doesn't have that rosy complexion from spending too much time in the cold north wind. And most important, I have never heard her use the words, "you guys" when "y'all" would be more appropriate. What makes her different is that she isn't a native Texan. She may have lived here for all of her life, less the three months she lived in South Dakota, but that doesn't allow her to call herself a native Texan. She's a.....whatever it is they call themselves in South Dakota. She just happens to live in Texas now. The rest of us are born and bred Texans. She is just a bred Texan. There is a difference, bless her northern heart.

The situation being what it was back then was sad for Cindy. Everyone else in class at West Hurst Elementary would say, "Fort Worth, Texas" when asked where they were born. Poor old Cindy would have to say, "New Underwood, South Dakota". That just naturally put up a barrier between her and the normal people. If teachers were allowed to cuss in class back then they would have responded with, "Where the hail is that?" Of course this was back in the good old days when we recited the "Pledge of Allegiance" followed by a school prayer every day and cussing was not an acceptable practice. They would smile at Cindy and say, "that's nice" while their brains were asking, "where the hail is that?"

Luckily for Cindy there was one girl in our little town of Hurst, a suburb of Fort Worth, who also wasn't from Texas. Her dad was in the Air Force and they had moved so many times she didn't have a clue where she was from. The last place her family had lived was Turkey. Whenever the locals started giving Cindy a hard time for being from someplace as foreign as South Dakota, Kathy would let them know she was from Turkey...the country, not the small town in Texas known as the home of Bob Wills, king of Western Swing. She knew how to take the kidding pretty well. I guess all that moving into and out of different environments make for tough skin. Cindy's heart was broken in two when Kathy's family got transferred again. This time instead of going to some for off place like Turkey, the country not the small town in Texas, home of Bob Wills, they were transferred to Roswell, New Mexico....(I had never heard of it at the time). Cindy hated to lose Kathy's friendship. We had no idea that about a year and a half after Kathy's family left for Roswell, we would be doing the same thing.

As the ironies of life would have it, my dad was offered the chance to move his family to the town of Roswell, New Mexico to help install the much needed missile silos so necessary in the fight of the Cold War. He and mama made a trip out there and bought a house from looking at blueprints. Dad moved on out and started to work while we stayed behind and waited for our house to be finished. We wiled away our hours watching TV, playing cowboys and Indians, and staying up late. The ironies and surprises began to pile up against us when we finally made that move to Roswell. All of a sudden all of us were 'foreigners' in a strange land....all of us except Cindy. Now the honor of being a true Texan didn't matter at all. And to make things even more favorable for Cindy, the house my parents had built was TWO DOORS down from Kathy and her parents. Cindy came into her own when we lived out there. We loved living in New Mexico but no one loved it as much as Cindy.

When we moved back to Texas it seems like half the country had moved in while we were gone. It didn't mean so much to be a native anymore. Things weren't the same. There were a lot of foreigners living in our little town. Some as far away as Oklahoma, Kansas, and even New York. Those from New York won't ever be Texans of course but they've stayed anyway. Cindy fits right in now.

Fishing

Have you ever watched someone fish? I'm really sorry for you if you answered "yes" to that question. Maybe you should consider getting a life or something. Fishing is bad enough by itself. Watching someone fish has to be on the top ten list of most boring things to do.

When I was thirteen I decided I had been severely deprived and mistreated by my dad because I had never gone on a fishing trip. I bemoaned my situation to my old pal Harry, and found out he went fishing with his dad at least once a month. Friend that he was, he asked his dad if I could tag along on the next trip. I was so excited I went straight to Gibson's Discount Store and spent every penny I had on new fishing equipment. One dollar and fifty cents bought a cane pole, 100 yards of line, a small package of hooks, and one bobber.

Harry and his dad pulled up on a beautiful Saturday morning in a 1951 Willys Aero. Harry had been kind enough to paint his dad's Willys with dark green house paint. Harry's dad was so cool. Harry had done that as a surprise for his dad and the guy not only didn't kill Harry, he actually continued to drive the old wreck.

Harry's mom had packed us a fine lunch to take along. I felt I had died and gone to heaven. Life was so good that day I nearly teared up. We reached the Brazos River in a short time and got our gear ready for a day of satisfying fishing. Harry's dad wandered up river to practice his casting. He said he would move away from us so he wouldn't disturb our fishing. What a swell guy! Harry and I tossed our lines in the water as soon as we got those lines untangled. I guess in just under two hours we were ready to fish. You might make a note when leaving for your fishing trip to not throw two cane poles with lines, hooks, and bobbers attached into the trunk of your 1951 Willys.

Our lines were just settling into the water when my bobber disappeared. I figured I must have bought a defective one since it wouldn't float. A few seconds later my pole was nearly pulled from my hands. I had something on the line that must have been as big as a small shark. I fought that fish until Harry was tired of yelling out instructions to me. I couldn't get the thing out of the water to save my life. When my bobber disintegrated from all the thrashing around Harry dropped his pole and ran over to help. We gave that line a jerk and the scariest thing I've ever seen came up out of the water. It was a two foot long alligator gar. Not only was it firmly attached to my hook, it was about as mad as I was excited. Unfortunately, neither Harry or I had ever seen an alligator gar so we tensed up pretty quick....especially when that monster landed right between us on the bank. I dropped my pole and ran screaming up the bank toward Mineral Wells. Harry made his way the other direction and stopped screaming about Waco. Since I was headed north toward Mineral Wells I was the one to pass Harry's dad. I must have given him a brief description of the monster that tried to attack and eat Harry and me as I ran past because he dropped his gear and ran to see for himself. When I finally realized there was no way I could run forever I slowed down and made my way back to find Harry's dad releasing that ugly old thing from my line. Harry came wandering up a few minutes later with "Hey dad, what's up?" as if he wasn't afraid at all.

Since my bobber was broken and Harry was afraid he might catch that gar himself, our fishing was over for the day. We ate lunch, skipped rocks on the water, and watched Harry's dad fish. I will never ever do two things again: 1) fish, and 2) watch someone else fish.