When I Grow Up I Want To Be....

I don't know anyone who started out life without a dream. We all dream of doing great and wonderful things in our lives. My youngest son dreamed of being a medical doctor and thankfully his dream came true. My oldest son dreamed of being an English teacher and thankfully he became a CPA. Debbie dreamed of being a wife and mother and thankfully for the boys and me, her dream came true. In my earliest years I dreamed of being a singing cowboy and thankfully for everyone concerned, I became a business manager instead. Some you win....some you lose.

Although my dream was very real and obtainable, I was still wearing shorts with my cowboy boots and roaming the streets of River Oaks when it became apparent I would never be a cowboy and I most assuredly would never sing and play the guitar. Oh sure, I could sing. As long as you wanted to hear the ballad of Dave Crockett I was your man. If you wanted to hear someone play the guitar I was not the guy to do it. I tried and I tried but the ability to play this beautiful instrument escaped me. I gave up music for a planned career in the major leagues.

I played, watched, studied, and dreamed about baseball. I slept with my ball glove wrapped in my arms. I loved it but it didn't take too many years of strikeouts and missed grounders for me to realize the major leagues weren't in my future. What to do? What to do?

My dreams became less a plan for the future and more a fantasy of what could have been....only eleven years old and already telling myself, "I coulda been a contender!". My sister Cindy was going into seventh grade which was then the first year of junior high. She signed up for band over PE or any other activity. I thought, "Poor old Cindy. She has to be in the band. Poor, poor Cindy." I told her how sorry I was about the whole thing and she stung me with these words: "Daddy said I had to be in the band and he said ALL of his kids would be in the band because we needed to learn to read and play music." I was shocked! But, at least I now had a new dream. Even if I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket and I could never master the guitar, at least I would be making music. AND, I knew exactly what I was going to play!

About this time we moved to Roswell, New Mexico and I started junior high out there. Per parental instruction, I reported to the band hall during registration to begin my musical career. I took the aptitude test and amazingly scored "higher than anyone had ever scored" according to the band director. He was so proud of me. He told me I could play any musical instrument I wanted! I knew exactly how to answer. "I want to play the drums!" His answer was quick and to the point. "We already have enough drummers. You're going to play the cornet." Standing up for my rights as a musical genius I answered right back, "Yes sir! What's a cornet sir?"

Over the next few days I found out a cornet was the lesser known, and lesser loved cousin to the trumpet. I asked the director if I could play the trumpet instead because I at least knew what it looked like. He said "sure" but when he wrote out the note to my parents he said "cornet or trumpet, your choice". That cinched it for me. The cornet was cheaper than the trumpet so my musical career was determined by the few dollars difference.

I have to admit I was pretty proud when my dad brought that cornet home. It was new and shiny and I quickly became attached to it. No, I didn't sleep with it wrapped in my arms but I was kind of attached. I took it to school that first day and didn't even get to take it out of the case. The director thought we should learn how to read music before learning to play our instruments. YAWN!!

Finally the day came when he told us to open our cases and warm up our instruments. I assumed correctly that meant we should blow into them. Some of the kids rubbed theirs.....idiots. That first blow into my cornet was less than memorable. All that came out was air. That sly old dog hadn't told us how to actually make sounds with our instruments and sat on his stool smiling like he was so darn smart. Then he tapped his little baton on his stand and started going through each section of instruments. When he got to the cornets he told us to remove our mouthpieces and make sounds like a duck. He had to be kidding but we were kids. A grownup says to sound like a duck and by golly we're going to sound like ducks. After a second or two us musical geniuses figured out we had to buzz our lips to sound duck-like. Soon the whole section was quacking off. He then told us to put the mouthpieces back on our horns and repeat the process. Oh my goodness, I've never heard anything worse than ten novice cornet players tooting out various notes for the first time. We had a lot of work to do.

Keep in mind I was still playing baseball and reluctant to give up my dream. However, playing a musical instrument required a lot of practice so I didn't get to go out to play ball as often as I wished. I practiced and practiced...sometimes for seconds at a time until the band director told me I better start learning to play that cornet or he was going to do something terrible like switching me to a reed instrument. What in the world? Where did he come up with this stuff? Anyway, he scared me with the threat and I found myself spending an hour a day after school blowing noises out of that cornet for all I was worth. After a while I noticed the noise had become notes. Instead of air I was playing clear notes...not always in key but definitely clear notes. This inspired me to play louder and louder as I learned scales and technique. I also regularly entertained the neighbors with little whimsies like "Mary Had A Little Lamb" and "Pop Goes The Weasel".

One Saturday afternoon while the family was outside enjoying life, I was in my room going through my repertoire. Suddenly my bedroom door flew open and my dad, with an uncomfortable crazed look in his eye, scanned the room, grabbed a sock laying on the floor, and shoved it right up the bell of my shiny cornet. From that day on my practice included the use of a sweat sock. 

I admit I was a terrible cornet player but I loved every minute of it. Being in the band throughout junior high and high school gave me some of the best memories I have. A recent fifty year reunion brought a small group of band members together again. It was great to visit and recall former glory days. Some of the group still played their instruments and performed! I would have liked to have done that but it wasn't to be. One evening when my boys were still living at home we started talking about music. I mentioned I could play the cornet. The boys wanted to see it so I got it out of the back of the closet and tried to remember everything I had known. I went through a few scales, played a poor rendition of "The Lonely Bull" by Herb Alpert, and decided to wow them with my crowning accomplishment....the ability to hold high "C" for more than a minute without wavering in and out of tune. After a few stabs at getting all the way up to high "C" I finally hit it. Five seconds into the demonstration my son Cody walked up, gently took the horn from me and said, "Dad, I'm sorry but you look like you are about to have a heart attack. Don't do this ever again." Such was the end of my musical career. The cornet is now an ornament on one of Cody's bookshelves.

Don't feel sad for me though. They will have to pry my banjo out of my cold, dead fingers.

Driving

Sometimes it's hard to remember what it's like to wake up in the morning rested and painless. Old age does take its toll on the mind and body. I try really hard to remember being a kid. There was so much of life ahead and so much excitement nearly every day. I'm glad I didn't grow up in a world regulated by safety conscious zealots. Can you imagine riding down the street on a bike in 1959 with a foam helmet on your head? You would be laughed out of the county.

How about the times you got to "drive" the family car by sitting in your dad's lap and steering that big old hunk of metal down a two lane blacktop? The first time I actually drove the car was on a summer day when I was ten years old. I remember driving down Pine Street in the 1955 Pontiac Star Chief. I felt so grown up. I wanted to make sure all my friends saw me so I kept looking both ways for them as I slowly cruised down the street. That is probably the reason I ran over curbs on both sides of the street and failed to notice the stop sign that had been there forever. I didn't get to drive again until I was fourteen.

My love for the automobile grew steadily throughout the years. I wanted a car almost as much as I wanted a girlfriend. My dad was determined to deny me both. Some old boy I knew had been given a 1950 Cadillac fastback when we were in our early teens. I think his grandpa gave it to him knowing it was never going to run again. It sat in his driveway so long his mom told him it had to go. He offered it to me for $50. I was so excited I thought about nothing else. In my mind I restored that old car over and over again...a different color each time. The hurdle, aside from accumulating $50, was getting my dad to "okay" the purchase. I practiced my sales pitch over and over until I felt I had every argument covered. Finally, on a Sunday afternoon, right after lunch, I gathered up all my courage and asked. He was sitting in the living room reading the paper. I sat down on the couch and shook and sweat for a spell until the words finally came out, "Can I buy a car for $50?" I nearly fell over with his response. Instead of the expected "no way" he asked, "what kind of car" My spirits were soaring because of the dialogue. I told him it was a very nice 1950 Cadillac. He thought about it for a bit and finally said he didn't think it was a good idea. Then he added these magical words, "If you really want a car to mess around with let's find you an old Chevy to fix up". The mixture of disappointment and excitement made me dizzy. Sounded like I was getting a car!!

I think we did look at a Chevy or two but my early excitement soon turned to frustration as I figured out my dad was avoiding the headaches of an old car by "playing like" we were actually going to buy something for me to tinker with. That old Chevy never materialized.

Cindy and I went to Belton for a couple of weeks one summer after all this. Our aunt Dovie was in bad shape with cancer. Cindy went down to help her and I went down to have fun and overeat with my cousins, Jamie and Donnie. Our parents picked us up on a Sunday afternoon and we got back to our neighborhood late that evening. I clearly remember turning the corner to see a 1953 Studebaker Champion two door hardtop sitting in the driveway. All the excitement I've enjoyed my entire life is paled to what I felt that moment. If I could have jumped out of the Pontiac we were riding in I would have beat everyone to the house. We had a spare car!!! The best part of the whole situation was my dad bought it for Cindy and me "to learn to drive in". It was a three speed on the floor with a CLUTCH. There was no way Cindy would ever learn to drive that car! It was MINE!!

I got a key to the Studebaker on a key chain with my initials for my 16th birthday. Life had never been better. I still have that key and key chain. I wish I still had the car. It's in good hands though. My brother inherited it, fully restored, and it is stored in one of his garages. He drives it in parades occasionally. Hey, I wasn't slighted on inheritance day.....I got four cemetery plots!!!

The Summer of 1954

I was only three during most of the summer of '54 so my memories are vague. I turned four in August of that year and shortly before that time my memories became a photo album. I can leaf through it any time I want. It was during this time that we got new neighbors next door. The old neighbors are in my vague and fuzzy memories but I do remember a little girl about Cindy's age and a boy about the same age as me. Evidently we were pretty good friends because I Cindy and I both cried on moving day. The next family only had one son. He was about a year older than me in physical age but around twenty-one in street smarts. His name was Mark.

I was scared of Mark and didn't rush right over to meet him. In fact, I do remember hiding in the house and watching him from a window. Since growing up in my mama's mind included spending time in the great outdoors she eventually pushed me out from my little fortress and made me play. Mark wasted no time in coming over to introduce himself. It went something like this:

Mark: Hi! My name's Mark. What's your's.
Me: Rusty
Mark: That's a stupid name.
Me: Uh huh...
Mark: Where does your daddy work?
Me: Convair
Mark: That's a sissy job. My dad works at Swift during the day and boxes at night.
Me: What does he box?
Mark: He fights! Boy, you really are stupid.
Me: Nuh uh!
Mark: Let me show you how he fights. (At this point he goes into a boxer stance, dances around me like an idiot, and takes a swing at me. I did not expect this!)
Me: WHAAAAA, mama, this boy hit me......(all the time holding my hand over my eye and running for the house.)

Of course this awakened the mama bear hiding in my mother and she raced out the door "to give that young man a good piece of my mind". He had taken off by the time she got out there so she had no outlet for her anger. She came back in and yelled at me for a while. It was her studied opinion that I needed to grow up and defend myself. I needed to not be so scared of everything and everyone. I guess she was right. I was about to turn four! According to her I had already run from a tarantula, a "big bird", and a spooky man walking down the street who turned out to be my uncle Wayne. She told me she expected me to "whip" that boy next time he bothered me. And so it was.....my mission was to whip Mark next time I saw him.

The next day I was out in my backyard playing my Roy Rogers guitar and singing to my girlfriend, Terry, who lived down the street. Mark came over and proceeded to ridicule my guitar playing....something I've heard for a lifetime now. I put the guitar down and told him, "My mama told me to whip you!" He said, "Well all right Rusteee, come on and try to whup me!" He then posed in his boxer stance again, which was surprising to me because I had never done that before I got whipped. I grabbed him by the collar and gave him a spanking like he had probably never seen before. He finally broke free, laughing and ran off. I figured I had taught him a lesson he wouldn't soon forget. I went inside to tell mama and she said she had watched the whole thing from the kitchen window. She just shook her head and wandered off. She probably went to the bathroom, locked the door, and smoked one of daddy's cigarettes like she was prone to do when we were little.

Later in the day I heard Mark hollering at me from the driveway. He wanted me to come out. I figured I was gonna have to whip him again. Instead he told me he was sorry for picking on me. He didn't realize I was a "retard*" and he would like to help me learn a few things. I had a new friend. Wish I knew what he meant by * (a word that was socially acceptable back in the early 50's). Throughout all of August and into September Mark taught me lots of new things like, how to fight! He and I rumbled several times over the coming months. He taught me how to sneak out of the yard without being seen and touring the neighborhood. He taught me how to cool off on a hot day by waiting for Mrs. Maddox to hang out her laundry and then run through the sheets with both arms spread out. That was a cool thing. I would still like to do that. He taught me how to throw rocks at hub caps on passing cars. This training included not throwing at passing police cars, especially if you still threw like a girl and sometimes hit the windshield. The policeman was very nice about the whole thing but daddy spanked me anyway. Mark also gave me my first math lesson...

On September 1st, Pete the Python escaped from the Fort Worth Zoo. I didn't know this because I didn't get to stay up late enough for the news and would have ignored it even if I hadn't been sent to bed. Mark did get to stay up that late and whether or not he listened or his mom told him about it doesn't really matter. Mark made sure to tell me about it the next day.

Mark met me in the driveway early the next morning and told me about Pete. He said, "Pete the Python escaped from the zoo last night". I asked what a python was. He told me it was a huge snake. I don't like snakes now and I really didn't like snakes then so I was already spooked. He said the news guy told parents to keep their children inside because Pete was a man-eater weighing nearly 500 pounds and measured six yards long. I was trembling by this point but I held my ground. I asked Mark what six yards looked like. He said, "You're kidding me right? You don't know how long six yards is?". I told him no. He grabbed me by the arm and led me out to the front of the house. Then he pointed to his house and said, "First you see my yard. Now look at your yard. The next yard is Mrs. Maddox' yard. The yard after that is the Studebaker driver's yard. Then we have the old people's yard and then the yard after that. THAT is six yards!" That scared me so much I got dizzy. I probably would have passed out right there where I was standing had I not already started my mad dash to the house. I stayed in the house for at least two days after that even though Mark stood in my driveway and begged me to come out. No 500 pound snake that long was gonna eat me. It could go ahead and eat Mark.

Later on, mama explained to me that Pete only weighed 150 pounds and she showed me with a tape measure what six yards really looked like. That was still one big, stinking snake. I figured they caught Pete after a couple of days or maybe he died so I ventured back outside and Mark and I roamed the neighborhood and threw rocks at hub caps until we moved to a bigger house that winter. I was spooked awfully bad when mama mentioned at breakfast one morning that they had finally caught old Pete on October 4th.

It Wasn't My Fault...

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.

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.

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.

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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!!