I was a pretty good kid growing up. I tried to stick to the straight and narrow. Oh sure, I did learn to smoke when I was four and then I let my cousins Jamie and Donnie teach Glenn and me how to pee off the roof when I was six, but other than that I kept it pretty calm...although the peeing incident reminds me of how my cousin Mike and I used to write our names on the side of the house by....you know. Mike had fits trying to dot that "i". But, all in all, we were good kids. It amazes me to look back on those early years and remember how much trouble I seemed to stay in.
I had it okay before my brother Glenn came along. If you remember your Bible stories I was Ishmael and Glenn was Isaac. He could do no wrong and was without question the heir apparent. When things got broken it was usually Glenn who broke it and me who got blamed for it. I did learn early in life that being the reporter on the street was not a glamorous job. Daddy would come home and ask, "Who broke this?" I would calmly answer, "Glenn did it!" After a while the story got old I guess. One afternoon when he came home from work he found the gate torn down. It wasn't a great gate. In fact, whoever built it must have spent a good fifteen minutes putting it together but it did keep our dog, Lady, in the backyard. The way Daddy discovered the broken gate was having Lady greet him in the street out front of our house. As he was putting the gate back together he asked no one in particular, "Who in the world could have done so much damage to this gate?" I assumed he wanted an answer so I told him...."Glenn did it". And he had! I saw him do it! I reckon I should have kept it to myself. Daddy turned around from his work and yelled at me, "I guess you don't ever do anything wrong, do you? I guess you are Mr. Perfect and sit back and watch Glenn do everything!" I guess I shouldn't have answered "yes" because it made him even more mad. To be fair, I hadn't ever told him about the smoking.
After this affectionate conversation between father and son, I decided to keep my mouth shut. The three of us used to spend the fall evenings raking up oak leaves into a huge pile and on Friday nights we would have a bonfire to get rid of them. Great times! Even greater were the Saturday mornings when Glenn and I would sneak out to play in the pile of ashes. We would ride our imaginary horses "over the ash of the battlefield" or wrestle in the ashes like the cowboys on TV who always got in fights around the campfire. One Saturday morning we were playing around and Glenn found the hammer our dad had been missing. Unfortunately, he found it in the ash from the fire the night before. I have heard that hickory makes a wonderful handle but I have to say it burns up just like any other wood. The hammerhead was left but we didn't think this was going to please Daddy a lot. Glenn told me to take it. I said, "No way. You found it. You take it." Glenn 'playfully' threw it at me and hit me right between the eyes. A knot the size of a walnut rose up on my forehead and I went screaming into the house. Daddy asked what happened...I told him I got hit by a hammer. He asked who hit me. My brain was fuzzy from the hit but still working. I remembered the earlier conversation so I told him I did it myself. He looked at me like I was an idiot and asked how in the world I hit myself in the head with a hammer. I was a fast learner but a terrible liar. I told him I threw it up in the air and tried to catch it. He stared at me for a few seconds then said, "You're an idiot".
Another accident revolving around those leaf ashes actually wasn't Glenn's fault. It was all my fault but darn it, he didn't have to laugh so hard. One morning he pointed out some smoke rising from the ashes. We were surprised because Daddy was always good at soaking the embers down to nothing the night before. Instead of reporting the small situation to headquarters, I told Glenn I would take care of it. Just like all my cowboy heroes, I stomped down on the smoky spot at which time my foot sank a foot deep in ash and down to the live coals. A small ember fell into my shoe and I let the whole neighborhood know I was on fire. Everywhere I jumped the ember went with me. I jumped and hollered all over that backyard until Glenn stopped laughing long enough to tackle me and help me get my shoe off. I had a huge burned spot on my sock but not too much damage to my skin. I would survive. I took both socks off and threw them in the trash can. I suggested to Glenn we keep that story as our little secret.
There are more examples of the equality of early life in our household. I won't tell the story of the Playboy magazine smuggled into the house by Glenn when we were teenagers. Suffice to say that after an hour or two of brutal questioning, Glenn confessed because he could tell I was about to get it...and I didn't even get to see the stupid magazine.
Saturday, August 11, 2018
Saturday, July 28, 2018
Innocence Lost...
I may have mentioned before that I loved baseball when I was a kid. I played baseball, watched baseball and even dreamed about baseball. I slept with my ball glove securely squeezed against my chest like and odd-looking teddy bear. Every spring brought another season of baseball my way.
When I was eleven I was about at my peak as a ball player. It's a shame the major leagues don't scout the sandlot games going on all over the nation every spring and summer. They could pick up some real talent if they would. I would gladly have dropped out of the fifth grade to play with the Yankees.
This particular year I was blissfully ignorant of everything going on around me except baseball. On a particularly beautiful spring Saturday, a bunch of us gathered at West Hurst Elementary for the game of the century. This was one season before my talent for first base was recognized so I was stuck in right field. I did not care. I was in the game. During the first inning the losers we were playing scored three runs before we got them out. Our turn to bat was going by quickly as out number one came on a first base line drive and the next a pop up to the pitcher. Then a couple of guys managed to get on base and it was my turn to bat.
My turn at bat wasn't one for the record books for two reasons. First if all, I was not a powerhouse hitter. I might get a piece of the ball but typically I didn't cause the outfield to work up much of a sweat. There were two outs, two on base, and I needed to bring somebody home. The pressure was, or maybe I should say, could have been immense. It wasn't though because of the second reason my turn at bat wasn't good. While waiting for my turn at bat I made the mistake of listening to my friend Kelly tell me the facts of life. I did not know where babies came from before the second half of the first inning. Amazingly, I didn't know where they came from after Kelly's facts were told either. He evidently had the procedure of conception confused with something he saw on Twilight Zone and my mind was still trying to get a grasp of the whole thing as I walked to the plate.
I slowly walked to home plate and got ready. The first ball came sizzling at me as I wondered, "Why would a man and woman even want to do that?" I was brought out of my daze by the loud yell, "STEEERIKE"! I thought I better pay attention and forget about that story Kelly told....but.."STEEERIKE TWO"! Oh man, I was in serious trouble....but not as much trouble as that baby is in when he tries to slide down that...."STEEERIKE THREE! YER OUTTTT!"
No one on my team seemed to care that I stood at home and never moved as three perfect pitches came my way. They simply gathered up their gloves and headed back out field with some "whoops" and "let's get 'em". I don't remember much about the game after that. I don't even remember if we won or lost. I couldn't get my mind off what Kelly told me. I couldn't stop thinking that I came from a...and my mama caught me as she....with my dad in hot pursuit. I probably should have done one, or both of two things. I should have run like a rabbit when Kelly started talking but since I didn't, I should have gone straight to my dad and told him what Kelly said. He might have explained things to me but I doubt it. He probably would have said Kelly was an idiot and left it at that. I didn't do either of those things. I pondered the story over and over in my mind throughout the spring and into the summer. I finally got back to the business of baseball but life wasn't as innocent and I wasn't blissfully unaware anymore.
I eventually figured it all out for myself over time...and the comfort of knowing the story of the stork helped. I'm glad I worked it all out on my own because my dad put off having "the talk" with me until the night of my marriage to Debbie. During the reception he walked up to me and asked, "Is their anything you need to know?" I said 'no' and he seemed pleased. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and enjoyed the rest of the reception.
When I was eleven I was about at my peak as a ball player. It's a shame the major leagues don't scout the sandlot games going on all over the nation every spring and summer. They could pick up some real talent if they would. I would gladly have dropped out of the fifth grade to play with the Yankees.
This particular year I was blissfully ignorant of everything going on around me except baseball. On a particularly beautiful spring Saturday, a bunch of us gathered at West Hurst Elementary for the game of the century. This was one season before my talent for first base was recognized so I was stuck in right field. I did not care. I was in the game. During the first inning the losers we were playing scored three runs before we got them out. Our turn to bat was going by quickly as out number one came on a first base line drive and the next a pop up to the pitcher. Then a couple of guys managed to get on base and it was my turn to bat.
My turn at bat wasn't one for the record books for two reasons. First if all, I was not a powerhouse hitter. I might get a piece of the ball but typically I didn't cause the outfield to work up much of a sweat. There were two outs, two on base, and I needed to bring somebody home. The pressure was, or maybe I should say, could have been immense. It wasn't though because of the second reason my turn at bat wasn't good. While waiting for my turn at bat I made the mistake of listening to my friend Kelly tell me the facts of life. I did not know where babies came from before the second half of the first inning. Amazingly, I didn't know where they came from after Kelly's facts were told either. He evidently had the procedure of conception confused with something he saw on Twilight Zone and my mind was still trying to get a grasp of the whole thing as I walked to the plate.
I slowly walked to home plate and got ready. The first ball came sizzling at me as I wondered, "Why would a man and woman even want to do that?" I was brought out of my daze by the loud yell, "STEEERIKE"! I thought I better pay attention and forget about that story Kelly told....but.."STEEERIKE TWO"! Oh man, I was in serious trouble....but not as much trouble as that baby is in when he tries to slide down that...."STEEERIKE THREE! YER OUTTTT!"
No one on my team seemed to care that I stood at home and never moved as three perfect pitches came my way. They simply gathered up their gloves and headed back out field with some "whoops" and "let's get 'em". I don't remember much about the game after that. I don't even remember if we won or lost. I couldn't get my mind off what Kelly told me. I couldn't stop thinking that I came from a...and my mama caught me as she....with my dad in hot pursuit. I probably should have done one, or both of two things. I should have run like a rabbit when Kelly started talking but since I didn't, I should have gone straight to my dad and told him what Kelly said. He might have explained things to me but I doubt it. He probably would have said Kelly was an idiot and left it at that. I didn't do either of those things. I pondered the story over and over in my mind throughout the spring and into the summer. I finally got back to the business of baseball but life wasn't as innocent and I wasn't blissfully unaware anymore.
I eventually figured it all out for myself over time...and the comfort of knowing the story of the stork helped. I'm glad I worked it all out on my own because my dad put off having "the talk" with me until the night of my marriage to Debbie. During the reception he walked up to me and asked, "Is their anything you need to know?" I said 'no' and he seemed pleased. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and enjoyed the rest of the reception.
Monday, July 23, 2018
My Earliest Memories of going to the Movies, Part Two by Mike Cooper
Following is part two of Mike's story. I promised I would post it yesterday but I forgot. I also promised the story would be delivered in three parts but I managed to get the balance on today's entry....therefore there is only two parts. Don't try to sue me. We have lawyers in the family.
When we went to Llano to visit, we would go to the movies at the Lantex Theater. I remember seeing such theatrical greats as:
“Cinderella”
“The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold”
“Andy Hardy Comes Home”
“The Plague of the Zombies” – I didn’t see all of this one.
“Man’s Favorite Sport”
Roy Hallmark took me to see “The Plague of the Zombies”. This was one of the English Hammer Productions horror films about zombies. We were visiting Uncle Bill and Aunt Adelaide during the Llano Rodeo as we did every year for a while. Uncle Bill had made souse. I’m not 100% sure what souse is, but I think it is head cheese is meat from the head of a pig pickled with vinegar. Mom insisted that I try it and I did eat some. Later Roy took me to the Lantex Theater in his Ford Falcon station wagon. Roy and I sat together until he saw some girls he went to school with and left me sitting alone. The movie started. There was a scene of a foggy, spooky 18th century English village funeral. The pallbearers are carrying a coffin and one of the men slips and they all drop the coffin and the lid comes off giving the audience a close up of a green dead guy’s face. Later in the movie a young English lady decides it’s a good idea to take a short cut through the spooky old English cemetery. She starts feeling that someone is following her so she begins to panic and run. She approaches this big spooky headstone. Suddenly the dead green guy from the coffin scene jumps from behind the headstone. The hair on my head stood up on end, I got hot and broke out in a cold sweat. I went to the lobby water fountain and the next thing I remember was Roy picking me up from the lobby floor and then carrying me to his car. On the way back to Uncle Bill’s and Aunt Adelaide’s I proceeded to throw up all over the inside of Roy’s Falcon. I don’t think I was actually scared, I think that souse just didn’t agree with my tummy. Roy never took me anywhere in his Falcon again for some reason.
The last movie I remember seeing at the Lantex Theater was “Man’s Favorite Sport” with Rock Hudson. It was a sixties romantic comedy. I remember Aunt Adelaide saw it also and her movie review was that it was a dirty movie too indecent to be shown or something to that effect. In the movie Rock is chasing Paula Prentiss. Turns out Rock was really acting.
I did see another movie with Roy, I guess enough time had passed that he forgot the zombie movie fiasco. I guess mom was having one of her family get-togethers? Roy, Sissy, Evelyn and I went to see Steve McQueen in “Nevada Smith” at the, as you probably guessed, the Cowtown Drive In. The Cowtown was on the intersection of highways 183 (River Oaks Boulevard) and 199 (Jacksboro Highway). It had a giant mural of a longhorn steer on a hill with a B-36 flying over it. When the B-36 became obsolete and Convair was building B-58’s, the mural was updated with a B-58 flying over the longhorn. The Cowtown burned down one night. I remember hearing an AM radio disc jockey reporting the event. He said that Debbie Reynolds gave a blazing performance in “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” last night at the Cowtown Drive In Theater as the Cowtown burned to the ground. Anyway back to the story.
The summer Jamey Wardlow lived with us, while he was working for Uncle Frog, there was a movie excursion to the Cowtown. It was Alfred, Jamey, Gary, Ronny and me. We saw the Clint Eastwood / Lee Van Cleef movie “For a Few Dollars More”. This wasn’t mom approved “Walt Disney” fare. Instead it was full of bloodshed, fights and the basic premise was Lee Van Cleef being after the bad guy some Italian actor was playing who had assaulted his sister before she shot herself. I think it embarrassed Jamey that Gary and Ronny were with us since they were so young.
Alfred took us to the movies when he lived with us and he lived in Fort Worth. He took us to see “Cat Ballou” at the Cowtown (I loved the Cowtown). This is the only Jane Fonda movie that is not only good, it’s actually great. Alfred took us to Houston once; we visited our Davis relatives there, went to an Astros game at the Astrodome and saw the Cinerama movie “Grand Prix” at an actual Cinerama equipped theater. It was amazing. You actually leaned in your seats when the GP cars cornered, you couldn’t help yourself. I had a 1964 Corvair that I drove to high school (and UTA, later to General Dynamics). The car had dual glass pack mufflers. The guy we got it from gave us another dual exhaust manifold with glass packs which he said were too loud for the street. When we got home from Houston I swapped the exhaust out to the louder setup so my Corvair would sound more like the GP cars. It wasn’t loud enough, so I came up with a process. I would come home from school, remove the mufflers completely driving around the neighborhood racking the exhaust pretending to be Phil Hill or Dan Gurney until it got close to time for daddy to come home from work. I would then reinstall the quieter exhaust setup. I did this for a few weeks until I realized it was too much work.
When I was very young I would get up early on Saturday mornings before daybreak, sneak into the den, turn on the Wards Airline TV set and watch “Rocky Jones, Space Ranger”. That was my favorite show up there with “The Lone Ranger” and “The Adventures of Robin Hood”. In my memory those shows were so realistic, but there was one episode I never watched completely through because it was too scary. It was the episode where a robot went around crushing people. The victims couldn’t run away because the robot had some kind of magnetic field that would suck the victim into the robot’s people crushing arms. It was as scary as the time the movie “King Kong” came on our black and white 14” Airline screen and I crawled under the couch and hid. I have slowly redeemed my manhood by watching the endings of these movies that scared me: “King Kong”, the robot episode of “Rocky Jones, Space Ranger” and “The Plague of
the Zombies”. A restored version of “King Kong” was re-released in 1970 and I saw it on a date with Nancy. She didn’t really want to see it and she still pretends that it wasn’t good, but it was great. In my defense, I did see “Love Story” with her and she pretended that it was good, when we all know it wasn’t. My next vindication was at Halloween time a few years ago. Turner Classic Movies had a horror film marathon and one of the films they showed on TV was the “Plague of the Zombies”. It turns out that if you watch this movie past the point that I passed out, it gets extremely stupid and laughable. The green guy jumping out from behind the headstone was the last scary scene in the movie. I only had one more scary show to watch to completely vindicate myself, “The Rocky Jones” episode. Last week Nancy went to play Canasta with a church ladies group and I was home alone. Through the miracle of the Al Gore invented internet, I was able to figure out the title of the episode that frightened me so much. It was “Out of this World”. I discovered that I could watch any Rocky Jones episode that I wanted via YouTube. “Out of this World” consisted of three half hour episodes. I watched episode one, no scary robot. I watched episode two, again no terrifying robot. It had to be in the final episode. I remembered the extremely realistic robot, the elaborate sets and the complex terrifying action scenes. I watched the episode. The robot looked like a child made his own robot outfit for Halloween, it was filmed on a small soundstage with cheap cheesy sets and the terrifying crushing attacks were nothing more than hugs. It wasn’t anything like I remembered, but I now feel vindicated, I faced my fears.
Except I don’t watch vampire movies or any movies with blood. These
movies make me queasy ever since I saw a movie on TV where the invisible man, either Claude Raines or Vincent Price transfuses the blood from some guy so he could become visible again. After seeing that I couldn’t sleep without my feet being covered because I was afraid Vincent Price might stick a needle in my foot and take my blood.
Saturday, July 21, 2018
My Earliest Memories of Going to The Movies...by Mike Cooper
I've invited others to send stories about their memories. I had about decided no one had anything to say but this week I received a story from my cousin Mike Cooper. Mike has the unique talent of remembering every tiny little speck of his long, and I really mean LONG, history. It's spooky really. I've had to stop him on more than one occasion when he would start, "I remember a funny story about the moment of birth....". Thankfully I've always been able to stop him in time. I hope you enjoy his personal walk down memory lane.
My earliest memories of going to the movies were of “Song of the South” and “Giant”. Quick research through Wikipedia indicates that these movie trips would have been in 1956. In my memory, I thought they were earlier because I have no memory of Gary and Ronny being with my parents and me. In my vague memories we were going to a theater in downtown Fort Worth to see “Song of the South” and I remember walking at night on the sidewalks of Fort Worth with mom and dad. I also remember mom and dad taking me with them to the Cowtown Drive In to see the movie “Giant”. I was bored pretty quickly and I remember curling up in the floorboard of their 1941 Pontiac Opera Coupe and failing asleep at my mother’s feet. The movie Giant was re-released sometime after I was old enough to drive. I thought what a great movie it must be and went to the Cowtown Drive In again, this time as the driver, to see it. That movie is extremely boring. I had to leave before I curled up and fell asleep again.
As Kids, my mom only let us see Walt Disney movies. We saw almost every Disney movie released while we were kids. Usually at the Bowie Theater which is now a bank on Camp Bowie and sometimes at the Ridglea Theater which has been restored on Camp Bowie. “Pollyanna” was the first movie that moved me emotionally. I dreamed about that movie. When I ask my grandsons if they would like to see this movie they make all kinds to disgusting sounds to indicate how much they did not want to see a “girls” movie. I quit asking because I don’t want to completely lose whatever street credit I might have. When I see in celebrity birthdays that it is Hayley Mills birthday I always note it to Nancy. This seems to irritate her a little bit. I mentioned at work once that it was Hayley Mills birthday and my friend at work said I think you have the “Hayley Mills crush” like he said his brother had. He said his brother kept him informed of Hayley’s birthdays, “thank you very much”. By the way, Hayley Mills' double performance in “The Parent Trap” should have won her two Oscars for two best performances.
Sometimes there would be group outings to a Disney movie with Bruce Walker, Russell and Glenn Mihills, Gary, Ronny and I. We all saw “Babes in Toyland” together. I remember Rusty and I thought we were too old for this movie. I still had years of Disney movies to see, but I never saw another one I didn’t like. I was so sad when our kids got too old to see Disney movies with us. I miss going to Disney movies.
Daddy didn’t go to the movies with us much. I remember seeing five movies with him.
“Song of the South”
“Giant” – I didn’t actually see this, but I was present.
“Night Passage”
“That Darn Cat”
“Pink Cadillac”
Mom had a bunch of ladies over one night. I don’t remember if it was church ladies, River Oaks Garden Club, North Fort Worth Women’s Club or the PTA. Daddy took us to the Cowtown Drive In to see Jimmy Stewart, Audie Murphy and Dan Duryea in “Night Passage”. I think this is the best movie Audie Murphy made and one of the few movies that Jimmy Stewart plays the accordion and sings in. To this day, every time this movie is on TV I watch it because it is the one movie daddy took my brothers and me by himself. This had to be about 1957. The next time we went to the movies with daddy was to see Disney’s “That Darn Cat”. Mom wanted to have a family outing to the movies. This was about 1965. The next and last time I went to a movie with daddy was when we took him to see the Clint Eastwood movie “Pink Cadillac” after mom passed away. This was a terrible movie and a good excuse to never see a movie again.
I hope you are enjoying this....part two will post tomorrow!!
Monday, July 2, 2018
Nicknames....
I wanted to title this something else but I was afraid it would give away the ending. You know how authors are. They keep you hanging as long as possible...so I'll try to do the same. Who knows, maybe someday I'll be an author too.
How many of you out there have had a nickname sometime during your life? Show of hands? Really? I thought there would have been more. I've had a few.
The subject of nicknames came up last week when I was visiting with a couple of old friends. One of the guys I remember as being called "Butch" by his late wife so when I walked up I said, "Hi Butch". The second guy looked surprised and said, "Hey, when I was growing up my nickname was Butch! I really blew him away when I admitted my nickname as a child was also Butch. Talk about three goobers standing around slapping each other on the back and saying "Butch" over and over. Someone said we should start "The Butch Society". After a moment though we decided that was a terrible idea.
I struggled with my early nickname because I was anything but a "Butch" kind of guy. Skinny and pale along with clothes that were always too large or two small made me a candidate for several other nicknames other than the one my dad assigned me. I think he must have had higher expectations for me. It wasn't until we moved to New Mexico during the sixth grade that daddy gave up on the nickname for me. Several families from my dad's company were transferred the same time we were and one of the men was a good friend of my dad's. His name was Jim. Jim came out early like my dad had done and started to work before his family moved out. Jim was a big, muscular, crew-cut wearing, macho type of guy. We had him over for dinner one night and my dad introduced us. "This is my wife Blanch, my oldest daughter Cindy, my oldest son Butch...." That's as far as he got because Jim couldn't stop laughing. He tried to not laugh but laugh he did. It went like this: "Butch? Did you say Butch? Har Har...oh I'm sorry....nice to meet you Butch...snicker snicker snicker." I never heard that name again.
In fairness, my dad did try to come up with a more appropriate name for me but eventually gave up and called me 'Rusty', which is what the rest of the world already called me. I'm glad he settled on that because I did not want to be called "Grandma Moses", "Whistle Breeches", or "Slug". Rusty was just fine.
I tried to convince the world my name was Russell when we moved back to Texas. I thought Rusty sounded a bit immature. I was pretty successful at school because nobody remembered me. Most of my relatives still call me Rusty and that's okay. I kind of like it now. 'Russell' didn't work for me for long because in 1963 I got a new nickname that stuck until I graduated from high school.
In 1962 an artist named David Rose came out with a song that became really popular. It was called "The Stripper". If you don't remember it go to YouTube and type in "David Rose - The Stripper". You'll like it. I loved it and so did most of my friends. By the fall of 1963 we were all trying to learn how to play it on our horns (we are band people don't you know). One of the guys played trombone which is the lead for the song. During a lunch break one day a few of us were hanging around the band hall and he started playing it. Hey, it was just us guys in there so I started acting like I was the stripper. Boy oh boy, I have no idea where my inhibitions went. It wouldn't have been so bad had the band director not been sitting in his office watching. Eventually he started clapping and all desire to mime a stripper was gone. Everyone laughed and one of them said, "Way to go Gypsy Rose". From that day on I was "Gypsy". On the night before graduation some of us were going out and a car load of guys came by to pick me up. They drove up, laid down on the horn and yelled, "HEY GYPSY, COME ON". I took off out the door as fast as I could with my dad following behind wanting to know "What's this Gypsy thing they're calling you"? He had to drop his paper and get up out of the chair before he could chase me so he didn't catch me before we took off. He never asked about it later. I guess he wasn't that interested.
If you ever decide to give someone a nickname please be selective and use a name fitting the personality. Try to avoid the following unless they truly express the personality of the individual.
Don't use these:
How many of you out there have had a nickname sometime during your life? Show of hands? Really? I thought there would have been more. I've had a few.
The subject of nicknames came up last week when I was visiting with a couple of old friends. One of the guys I remember as being called "Butch" by his late wife so when I walked up I said, "Hi Butch". The second guy looked surprised and said, "Hey, when I was growing up my nickname was Butch! I really blew him away when I admitted my nickname as a child was also Butch. Talk about three goobers standing around slapping each other on the back and saying "Butch" over and over. Someone said we should start "The Butch Society". After a moment though we decided that was a terrible idea.
I struggled with my early nickname because I was anything but a "Butch" kind of guy. Skinny and pale along with clothes that were always too large or two small made me a candidate for several other nicknames other than the one my dad assigned me. I think he must have had higher expectations for me. It wasn't until we moved to New Mexico during the sixth grade that daddy gave up on the nickname for me. Several families from my dad's company were transferred the same time we were and one of the men was a good friend of my dad's. His name was Jim. Jim came out early like my dad had done and started to work before his family moved out. Jim was a big, muscular, crew-cut wearing, macho type of guy. We had him over for dinner one night and my dad introduced us. "This is my wife Blanch, my oldest daughter Cindy, my oldest son Butch...." That's as far as he got because Jim couldn't stop laughing. He tried to not laugh but laugh he did. It went like this: "Butch? Did you say Butch? Har Har...oh I'm sorry....nice to meet you Butch...snicker snicker snicker." I never heard that name again.
In fairness, my dad did try to come up with a more appropriate name for me but eventually gave up and called me 'Rusty', which is what the rest of the world already called me. I'm glad he settled on that because I did not want to be called "Grandma Moses", "Whistle Breeches", or "Slug". Rusty was just fine.
I tried to convince the world my name was Russell when we moved back to Texas. I thought Rusty sounded a bit immature. I was pretty successful at school because nobody remembered me. Most of my relatives still call me Rusty and that's okay. I kind of like it now. 'Russell' didn't work for me for long because in 1963 I got a new nickname that stuck until I graduated from high school.
In 1962 an artist named David Rose came out with a song that became really popular. It was called "The Stripper". If you don't remember it go to YouTube and type in "David Rose - The Stripper". You'll like it. I loved it and so did most of my friends. By the fall of 1963 we were all trying to learn how to play it on our horns (we are band people don't you know). One of the guys played trombone which is the lead for the song. During a lunch break one day a few of us were hanging around the band hall and he started playing it. Hey, it was just us guys in there so I started acting like I was the stripper. Boy oh boy, I have no idea where my inhibitions went. It wouldn't have been so bad had the band director not been sitting in his office watching. Eventually he started clapping and all desire to mime a stripper was gone. Everyone laughed and one of them said, "Way to go Gypsy Rose". From that day on I was "Gypsy". On the night before graduation some of us were going out and a car load of guys came by to pick me up. They drove up, laid down on the horn and yelled, "HEY GYPSY, COME ON". I took off out the door as fast as I could with my dad following behind wanting to know "What's this Gypsy thing they're calling you"? He had to drop his paper and get up out of the chair before he could chase me so he didn't catch me before we took off. He never asked about it later. I guess he wasn't that interested.
If you ever decide to give someone a nickname please be selective and use a name fitting the personality. Try to avoid the following unless they truly express the personality of the individual.
Don't use these:
- Grandma Moses
- Whistle Breeches
- Slug
- Windy
- Glob
- Dunderhead
- Molasses
- Lardball
- Fencepost
- Phartbuster
- GYPSY
I'm sure there are more but I've never been called any others.....not that I was called all of these...no no no
Tuesday, June 26, 2018
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.
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.
Tuesday, June 5, 2018
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.
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.
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