The highlight of my high school years was easily my senior basketball season. We had a good team and I was elected co-captain. Our two stars were Ricky Hall and Jay Worley. Both had started as juniors, both made all-district as seniors, and both got scholarships to TCU.
Jay, a 6'2" guard, was a great shooter. He had a really pretty shot and wanted to shoot every time down the court. As good as he was on offense and as much as he cared about offense, he was the direct opposite on defense. It's not that he couldn't play defense, he just didn't want to. In my opinion, he was also a selfish player. He wanted to be the leading scorer and wouldn't pass you the ball if you might outscore him. The exception was Hall, he had to pass the ball to Hall. I think Jay averaged 17-18 points a game and had a high game of 31 points. Jay got a scholarship to TCU but was gone after one year. I heard he flunked out.
Ricky Hall was a 6'3" forward. He hustled, played hard defense, and worked to get rebounds and shots around the basket. He also averaged 17-18 points a game and was right around that number game in and game out. There were no big fluctuations. Ricky also got a scholarship to TCU , played a lot, and was a 2-year starter.
Kim Riddle was a 6"4" center. He was a really good defensive guy and rebounder. Offensively, he was weak and probably averaged only 5-6 points a game. I think he got a scholarship to Tarleton State and played there 4 years.
John Groody was a 6'3" forward. He was a red-headed, goofy guy. "Goofy", not meaning dumb or anything derogatory, but goofy as in funny, crazy, silly, etc. He was a big wrestling fan and would mimic the fake punches and stuff. He was a good shooter, defender, etc., just a good all around player. He played a couple of years at McClennan Junior College and then, I think, went to school at A&M. I know he was a big Aggie fan. He probably averaged about 8-10 points a game.
I filled out the starting lineup at guard. When we did the height measurements I stood in at a little over 5'11" but the guys wanted everyone to be at least 6'. Groody, who was measuring me, told me to stretch and I stood up just a litle taller until I reach 5'11 1/2". When I hit 5'11 1/2" he said that rounds to 6'0" and that is what was put in as the official height and on the scorecards. I averaged 10 points a game. Actually, it was 9.5 but that rounds to 10 and 10 sounds better. I had 2 games where I scored 17.
Typically, we only played a 6-man rotation with the sixth guy being a 6'4" sophomore who could play any position. I can't remember his name but he was a good player and a good guy. Coach Howerton always called him "Sophomore" and he averaged about 4 points a game. I usually played the entire game unless we subbed at the end because we were well ahead.
We played Nolan in the first game of the season in our gym. Even though they were a private school they were about the same enrollment size as we and the game was close, although we were clearly the better team. At halftime it was tied or a 2-point game. I had played rather tentatively in the first half. David O'Dell was the senior team manager when I was a sophomore and he was now at Texas Tech on scholarship as the trainer/manager for their basketball team. He was at the game and came into the locker room at half. He pulled me aside and told me that I needed to make this my team and that I needed to step it up. In short, he gave me a really good pep talk and gave me some additional confidence. Early in the second half I scored my first basket. I drove the middle of the lane, did a 180 in the air at the basket, and put it a reverse layup from the left side. It was a really pretty shot. From then on we controlled the game and won by about 10.
A few games later we went to Arlington Sam Houston to play a game. If we hadn't moved to the country I would have gone to Sam. I went to elementary school with a lot of their players and still knew them from church and other functions. A lot of their fans also knew me. Before the game I was talking to a bunch of girls. There was one girl, Carolyn, who always seemed so tall in elementary school. In 6th grade she seemed a foot taller than me. Now, I was almost a foot taller than her. She hadn't grown an inch since 6th grade. I also remember that we had to dress in the girl's locker room. We beat Sam by 6 points and I scored 8. Phil Kevil told me we were "lucky" and that they'd beat us when we played again at our gym. Every time we saw each other at church he'd again talk about us being lucky and how they'd beat us the next time we played.
The next time we played, Kay Ellen, Jean, and Greg were supposed to come to the game. I wanted them to see me play but, when it came game time, Jean and Greg backed out. I left class early that day because I was running 102 fever but I was still going to play. I remember washing our yellow 1965 Mustang before I went by to pick up Kay Ellen and then using my hankerchief to wipe off some of the wet spots. When I put it back in my pocket it I could feel the wetness through my pants. I was a little embarrassed to pick up Kay Ellen, afraid the wet spot might show in the back of my pants. Anyway, I brought her to the game, got her up in the stands, and I think a couple of my girl friends from school sat with her. Also at the game were our Training Union teachers, a young couple who had recently moved to Arlington. Ken was a former Marine and his wife was the daughter of the President of East Texas Baptist College. Ken was later the coach of our 18 & under fastpitch softball team. That's another story.
I had a great game. I didn't miss a shot from the field all night. In the first half I had the ball on a 1 on 2 fastbreak. As I came to the top of the key I slowed down, turned to the side a little and dribbled the ball a little behind me, and prepared to back out and wait for the offense to set up. However, I saw the two defenders relax and separate like they were going to pick up their normal defensive assignment. When they did, that left a seam down the middle of the lane. I quickly drove the lane and put in a layup. I scored a couple of goals in the first half and at halftime we were leading by 6 or 8. Sam's coach was mad so our coach let him have our locker room for halftime and we went to a classroom just outside of the gym. Coach teased me about bringing a girl to the game and said I need to do it more often if it meant I was going to play like that.
In the second half we continued to lead, although they did get close at one point. Worley was shooting every time down the court and wouldn't pass me the ball even though I hadn't missed a shot all night. Worley ended up scoring 31 points but also took over 30 shots from the field in addition to some free throws. Down the stretch, when we had to have a score, I was the guy to do it or Hall's defender had to come help on me and I passed to him for the basket. On one play, Phil Kevil was guarding me. I drove the from beyond the top of the key to the free throw line, stopped quickly and shot a jumper that went in and got fouled. With the free throw we were up 6 or 7. I scored 17 points in the game and we won by 6 or 8. After the game Phil said, "You guys just beat us. You have a better team." Years later I was talking to Owen Barnett, a guard and the star of Sam's team along with Bill Ford their center. He said, "Ford and I could match Hall and Worley, but we had no answer for you. You were the difference in the games." That was almost 35 years after we'd played and he could remember it too, just like it was yesterday. The Star-Telegram listed Worley's 31 points but said nothing about my 17.
One other game stands out in our non-district schedule. It was against Castleberry at their gym. We were a much better team than Castleberry but Coach Howerton wanted us to change the way we were running our 1-3-1 defense. I was on the top of the zone, Riddle in the middle, Hall and Worley on the wings, and Groody on the baseline. I was extremely active on the top covering more ground, especially pressuring the wings, than the coach wanted. He wanted Hall and Worley to step up more aggressively on the wings. In retrospect, I think he knew he had no one to sub for me who could cover the same ground defensively, so I had to play the whole game. In the first quarter I stopped at the edge of the lane extended where the coach had told me to stop and relied on Hall and Worley to pick up the man on the wing. They were making every shot and were killing us. Coach called time out out, yelled at us to play better defense, and they still killed us. At the end of the first quarter they had scored 25 points or so and we were behind by 10. Coach Howerton was livid. "You guys won't listen to me! I'm not going to talk to you! You figure it out!" and sat down. I pulled the guys together and said we were going back to our old way of playing the 1-3-1. I was going to come further out on the wings and help with the defensive pressure. At halftime we had erased their 10 point lead and had a 10 point lead of our own. In the lockerroom Coach Howerton said, "Y'all are doing pretty good on your own, so I'm not going to say anything" and he left. We won the game 96-60 something. We would have scored 100 but I missed two layups on open fast breaks.
That's enough for this post. Next post will be tournament time and you'll get to hear, again, about my last second heroics and some not so heroic moments.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Junior year basketball - part 2
I remembered a couple of other interesting things and I wanted to talk about our annual Spring EHHS basketball championship series.
First, two items from the season. We went to Abilene to play in a tournament in early December. North Side High School was playing in it as well and we all went on the same school bus and stayed in the same motel. The motel was a typical "It'll Do Motel", not even a Holiday Inn caliber. After our first game and dinner we went back to the hotel to spend the night. I'm not sure where they came from or how the guys met them, but two local girls came to the hotel and were hanging out with the two teams. The seniors got one girl to go in a room with them and they visited for several hours. Jay Worley and a guy who played quarterback for North Side and was on the basketball team took the other girl into a room by themselves. They played strip poker with her, cheated, and of course she ended up with no clothes before long. They left the window shades open so anyone outside could see. The really funny thing was the next day at North Side's game. The coach called for the quarterbackto go in but he was on the end of the bench sound asleep, although he was in a sitting position. The coach said, "Nevermind, let him sleep."
For the last game of the season we played Paschal at TCU's Daniel Myer Coliseum. Whoever won the game would win the district championship. Ricky Hall was a junior forward for EHHS and was really good even though he was only 6'3". He had a little jump hook shot that he started at his waist, but the defenders could never block it because they were shielded from the ball by his body. In practice prior to the game, for some reason, I was guarding Hall. I figured out when he was going to take that shot and was quick enough to dart around him and block the shot between his waist and his shoulder. I did it 2 or 3 times in a row. He got really mad at me when I blocked it again, pushed me, and said, "No one that would normally guard me can do that, so quit!" I sometimes felt that it affected him because he wasn't as confident with the shot in the championship game and we lost. Hall was our leading scorer as a senior, made all-district, and played for TCU, 2 years as a starter.
The Spring EHHS World Basketball Championship was an annual event where the coach would divide that year's sophs and juniors onto two teams and they would play each other a 7-game series for the championship. Jay Worley, a 6'2" guard and really good shooter, and Ricky Hall had both started as juniors. They were put on a team together with John Tandy, a 6'4" center who lettered as a junior, my brother Gary, and some of the top players from the JV. On my team was John Groody, a 6'3" forward and Kim Riddle, a 6'4" center. Both of them had lettered along with me as juniors. We also got Allen Stanford, a 6'3" forward/center, Jimmy Swanson, a 6'2" guard, and some JV guys. So, on one side you had 3 lettermen, 2 of whom had been starters, and some other players versus a team with 3 lettermen, none who played all that much, and some other guys. On paper the Hall/Worley team should have won, but we beat them 4 games to 2.
I vividly remember one play during the series. They got the ball on a steal or something and went downcourt on a fastbreak. The ball was passed over to Gary on the baseline about 10 feet from the basket and he shot. I had been running down the court trying to get on defense and was still 10-15 feet away from Gary when the ball was passed to him. When he shot I was still 3 or 4 feet away but coming down a line that would eventually put me between him and the basket. I took a running leap and, with the ball 3 or 4 feet out of his hands on its way to the basket, swatted the ball out of mid-air and out of bounds. Coach Howerton went crazy, "Oh, little brother stuffed you!" he yelled at Gary. "Oh my! What a block" and so on. It was the kind of play you would have expected from a big, tall, athletic shot blocker but not from a 5'10" guard. I really got up in the air. The ball was around 10 feet or over in height when I swatted it with my entire palm. It was a great block!
First, two items from the season. We went to Abilene to play in a tournament in early December. North Side High School was playing in it as well and we all went on the same school bus and stayed in the same motel. The motel was a typical "It'll Do Motel", not even a Holiday Inn caliber. After our first game and dinner we went back to the hotel to spend the night. I'm not sure where they came from or how the guys met them, but two local girls came to the hotel and were hanging out with the two teams. The seniors got one girl to go in a room with them and they visited for several hours. Jay Worley and a guy who played quarterback for North Side and was on the basketball team took the other girl into a room by themselves. They played strip poker with her, cheated, and of course she ended up with no clothes before long. They left the window shades open so anyone outside could see. The really funny thing was the next day at North Side's game. The coach called for the quarterbackto go in but he was on the end of the bench sound asleep, although he was in a sitting position. The coach said, "Nevermind, let him sleep."
For the last game of the season we played Paschal at TCU's Daniel Myer Coliseum. Whoever won the game would win the district championship. Ricky Hall was a junior forward for EHHS and was really good even though he was only 6'3". He had a little jump hook shot that he started at his waist, but the defenders could never block it because they were shielded from the ball by his body. In practice prior to the game, for some reason, I was guarding Hall. I figured out when he was going to take that shot and was quick enough to dart around him and block the shot between his waist and his shoulder. I did it 2 or 3 times in a row. He got really mad at me when I blocked it again, pushed me, and said, "No one that would normally guard me can do that, so quit!" I sometimes felt that it affected him because he wasn't as confident with the shot in the championship game and we lost. Hall was our leading scorer as a senior, made all-district, and played for TCU, 2 years as a starter.
The Spring EHHS World Basketball Championship was an annual event where the coach would divide that year's sophs and juniors onto two teams and they would play each other a 7-game series for the championship. Jay Worley, a 6'2" guard and really good shooter, and Ricky Hall had both started as juniors. They were put on a team together with John Tandy, a 6'4" center who lettered as a junior, my brother Gary, and some of the top players from the JV. On my team was John Groody, a 6'3" forward and Kim Riddle, a 6'4" center. Both of them had lettered along with me as juniors. We also got Allen Stanford, a 6'3" forward/center, Jimmy Swanson, a 6'2" guard, and some JV guys. So, on one side you had 3 lettermen, 2 of whom had been starters, and some other players versus a team with 3 lettermen, none who played all that much, and some other guys. On paper the Hall/Worley team should have won, but we beat them 4 games to 2.
I vividly remember one play during the series. They got the ball on a steal or something and went downcourt on a fastbreak. The ball was passed over to Gary on the baseline about 10 feet from the basket and he shot. I had been running down the court trying to get on defense and was still 10-15 feet away from Gary when the ball was passed to him. When he shot I was still 3 or 4 feet away but coming down a line that would eventually put me between him and the basket. I took a running leap and, with the ball 3 or 4 feet out of his hands on its way to the basket, swatted the ball out of mid-air and out of bounds. Coach Howerton went crazy, "Oh, little brother stuffed you!" he yelled at Gary. "Oh my! What a block" and so on. It was the kind of play you would have expected from a big, tall, athletic shot blocker but not from a 5'10" guard. I really got up in the air. The ball was around 10 feet or over in height when I swatted it with my entire palm. It was a great block!
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Floating down the Brazos
When I was in 8th grade Don Roe came to our church as the Minister of Music. His son Johnny was a year younger than me but 2 years behind me in school. Don invited me to take a float trip down the Brazos with them.
I think we spent two nights out on the river, so I got out of school early on Thursday and was out all day on Friday. Don and Johnny picked me up at the drugstore at the corner of Handley Drive and Lancaster (Hwy 80/Division) and we drove somewhere near Glen Rose for our trip down the river.
It was really fun floating down the river. Somehow we put the boat in the river upstream and someone took the car and boat trailer several miles down the road to a park where we were supposed to come out. Occasionally we fished while we floated down the river and we talked and we just hung out. Of course, Don was always singing. Since we didn't get on the river until fairly late in the day on Thursday, we didn't go very far when we stopped before sundown to build our camp.
Johnny and I gathered wood for an open fire and Don made something for us to eat. I have no idea what we ate. I remember finding a trot line that someone had put out just above the rapids. There were a couple of fish on it and the guy came by sometime that evening and took them off.
The next day was fairly uneventful until Don saw a school of gar coming down the river behind the boat. We quickly pulled the boat over onto the bank, again just above some rapids. Gar have alligator type mouths with rows of sharp teeth. I guess they can be dangerous. After we got out of the boat Don loaded his shotgun and started shooting the gar as they came by where we were standing. Sometimes the concussion of the shot would stun some of the fish and they'd wash up on shore by the rapids. Johnny and I were then supposed to take big rocks and crush their skulls. It was really kinda exciting.
The other thing I'll never forget is what Don did while we were floating down the river. He pulled his pants down, hung his rear over the back of the boat, and proceeded to take a dump. A few seconds later these little brown logs came floating down by the me in the river at the front of the boat. Gross!
We floated a long way and were on the river all day but we weren't anywhere near our take out point. It was getting dark so we floated until we came to a place where there was a house. We pulled over to shore there to find out how much further the park was. It was still a long way away. By the road we were only going a few miles, but the way the river twisted and turned we would have had to have gone 5 or 10 times that much further. The guy helped us pull the boat out of the water and carry it to a place where we could load it onto the trailer. Then he took Don to get the truck and trailer from the park. After we loaded up and drove home it was pretty late and we had church the next morning.
I had a good time. I was also pleased years later when Don told me why I was invited. He said he'd learned that to build a good youth choir you had to recruit the leaders. Even as an 8th grader he recognized me as a leader of my grade and a future leader of the entire youth group, so he wanted to get me to know and like him.
There are lots of Don Roe stories. He was quite a character, but I'll always thank him for teaching me to enjoy singing and I know he always had a heart for the Lord.
I think we spent two nights out on the river, so I got out of school early on Thursday and was out all day on Friday. Don and Johnny picked me up at the drugstore at the corner of Handley Drive and Lancaster (Hwy 80/Division) and we drove somewhere near Glen Rose for our trip down the river.
It was really fun floating down the river. Somehow we put the boat in the river upstream and someone took the car and boat trailer several miles down the road to a park where we were supposed to come out. Occasionally we fished while we floated down the river and we talked and we just hung out. Of course, Don was always singing. Since we didn't get on the river until fairly late in the day on Thursday, we didn't go very far when we stopped before sundown to build our camp.
Johnny and I gathered wood for an open fire and Don made something for us to eat. I have no idea what we ate. I remember finding a trot line that someone had put out just above the rapids. There were a couple of fish on it and the guy came by sometime that evening and took them off.
The next day was fairly uneventful until Don saw a school of gar coming down the river behind the boat. We quickly pulled the boat over onto the bank, again just above some rapids. Gar have alligator type mouths with rows of sharp teeth. I guess they can be dangerous. After we got out of the boat Don loaded his shotgun and started shooting the gar as they came by where we were standing. Sometimes the concussion of the shot would stun some of the fish and they'd wash up on shore by the rapids. Johnny and I were then supposed to take big rocks and crush their skulls. It was really kinda exciting.
The other thing I'll never forget is what Don did while we were floating down the river. He pulled his pants down, hung his rear over the back of the boat, and proceeded to take a dump. A few seconds later these little brown logs came floating down by the me in the river at the front of the boat. Gross!
We floated a long way and were on the river all day but we weren't anywhere near our take out point. It was getting dark so we floated until we came to a place where there was a house. We pulled over to shore there to find out how much further the park was. It was still a long way away. By the road we were only going a few miles, but the way the river twisted and turned we would have had to have gone 5 or 10 times that much further. The guy helped us pull the boat out of the water and carry it to a place where we could load it onto the trailer. Then he took Don to get the truck and trailer from the park. After we loaded up and drove home it was pretty late and we had church the next morning.
I had a good time. I was also pleased years later when Don told me why I was invited. He said he'd learned that to build a good youth choir you had to recruit the leaders. Even as an 8th grader he recognized me as a leader of my grade and a future leader of the entire youth group, so he wanted to get me to know and like him.
There are lots of Don Roe stories. He was quite a character, but I'll always thank him for teaching me to enjoy singing and I know he always had a heart for the Lord.
Basketball - Junior year
I began my sophomore year at 5'2" and grew to 5'7" by the end of the year. When my junior year started I was up to 5'9" and still growing. When we had our one school pep rally of the year at the start of the basketball season, Coach Howerton announced me as "the most improved player on the team." I had gone from almost cut from the B-Team as a sophomore to a member of the varsity as a junior.
Memories of the season include the first game in which I played. We played Richland at their gym. They ran a full court press the entire game and beat us by about 8 points. With 10 seconds to go in the game the second one of our guards fouled out. Coach put me in and simply said, "get through the rest of the game without a turnover." After the made free throw they were still running the press. I tossed the ball into Dwight, the other second team guard, and he quickly passed the ball back to me. I quickly passed the ball up to someone at half court, ran past the half court line, and got the ball back. The clock ran out and I hadn't turned the ball over. Coach said, "good game." In the scorebook the 10 seconds went down as a full quarter played. I ended up playing enough throughout the year to letter.
The highlight of my junior year was the Fort Worth Optimist Tournament. It was Fall 1966 and, while intergration was already taking place, there was still a Texas high school Negro league and the regular UIL league. I.M. Terrell and Dunbar were the two Fort Worth schools that were still all black and played in the Negro league. Every other school in Fort Worth was intergrated except Eastern Hills. We were the last all white high school.
I.M. Terrell was the defending state Negro champions and went on to win the league in the 66-67 school year, its final year in existence. Terrell was invited to play in the Optimist tournament. It would be the first time an all white high school played an all black high school in Fort Worth athletics. There would be about 2,000 people in Public Schools Gym, now the Billingsley Field House, with 1,000 whites in the lower portion of the stands around the court and 1,000 blacks in the upper portion of the stands ringing the court.
I.M. Terrell had a great team! If you couldn't dunk, you couldn't be on the team. Every player could dunk the basketball. The coaches told us not to watch their warm ups because they didn't want us to get psyched out. I wasn't going to get to play anyway, so I watched them. As they came out to the dressing room hallway onto the court the upper portion of the stands started this hissing sound, "sssssss". The players ran single file like a big black snake completely around the court. All the time the "ssssss" was going on. The first 4 or 5 guys carried basketballs in their hands as they were running. When they completed the lap around the court they dribbled to the basket. Reaching the basket, they jumped and dunked the basketball. "Whoomp!" went the upper section of the gym as each player dunked the ball. After everyone had dunked the ball a guard dribbled to the basket followed by one of the post men. The guard flipped the basketball up on the blackboard and the trailing post man jumped up, grabbed it in mid-air, and slammed it home with a resounding dunk to an even louder "Whoomp!" from the crowd. It was incredible! They then went about the normal warmup routines still ocassionally dunking the basketball, and each time they dunked the crowd went "Whoomp!"
It was a close, well played game with neither team getting more than a couple of points ahead of the other. In the middle of the 3rd quarter they stole the ball at around the top of key on their defensive end. David Payne, a senior 6'2" guard who played 4 years at UTA, grabbed the ball, dribbled to mid court, and flipped the ball high toward the basket and Sherman Evans who was running full speed down the court on the break. Evans was 6'4" senior, muscled like crazy, and had a 90' vertical leap. (So, I'm exaggerating a little, but he could really jump!) The ball was actually thrown over the backboard. At that end of the gym there was about a 15-foot walkway between the stands and the court. Evans leaped out parallel to the ground and batted the ball back over the backboard where Lee Shaw, a junior 6'3" forward leaped, grabbed the ball in mid-air, and slammed it home to a tremendous "Whoomp!" from the upper portions of the stands! It was absolutely astounding! It was the most athletic sequence I have ever seen in a basketball game. That play took a 3 point lead to 5 and the game was never in doubt after that. They probably won by 10 or 12. That played simply crushed us.
Terrell lost the championship game to Paschal, but not before an empty whiskey or gin bottle had been tossed from the upper reaches of the gym onto the court, splattering glass all over the court and cutting the scorekeeper. Terrell didn't like to lose, and when they got behind you could expect the crowd to get raucous and throw stuff on the court. Later that year they had a riot when they were playing Dunbar and bricks were added to the bottles raining down on the court.
That tournament was easily the highlight of my junior season even though I didn't play. I played in a few games, enough to letter but nothing memorable. I do remember our post season/ off season inter-team championship, but that's another story.
Memories of the season include the first game in which I played. We played Richland at their gym. They ran a full court press the entire game and beat us by about 8 points. With 10 seconds to go in the game the second one of our guards fouled out. Coach put me in and simply said, "get through the rest of the game without a turnover." After the made free throw they were still running the press. I tossed the ball into Dwight, the other second team guard, and he quickly passed the ball back to me. I quickly passed the ball up to someone at half court, ran past the half court line, and got the ball back. The clock ran out and I hadn't turned the ball over. Coach said, "good game." In the scorebook the 10 seconds went down as a full quarter played. I ended up playing enough throughout the year to letter.
The highlight of my junior year was the Fort Worth Optimist Tournament. It was Fall 1966 and, while intergration was already taking place, there was still a Texas high school Negro league and the regular UIL league. I.M. Terrell and Dunbar were the two Fort Worth schools that were still all black and played in the Negro league. Every other school in Fort Worth was intergrated except Eastern Hills. We were the last all white high school.
I.M. Terrell was the defending state Negro champions and went on to win the league in the 66-67 school year, its final year in existence. Terrell was invited to play in the Optimist tournament. It would be the first time an all white high school played an all black high school in Fort Worth athletics. There would be about 2,000 people in Public Schools Gym, now the Billingsley Field House, with 1,000 whites in the lower portion of the stands around the court and 1,000 blacks in the upper portion of the stands ringing the court.
I.M. Terrell had a great team! If you couldn't dunk, you couldn't be on the team. Every player could dunk the basketball. The coaches told us not to watch their warm ups because they didn't want us to get psyched out. I wasn't going to get to play anyway, so I watched them. As they came out to the dressing room hallway onto the court the upper portion of the stands started this hissing sound, "sssssss". The players ran single file like a big black snake completely around the court. All the time the "ssssss" was going on. The first 4 or 5 guys carried basketballs in their hands as they were running. When they completed the lap around the court they dribbled to the basket. Reaching the basket, they jumped and dunked the basketball. "Whoomp!" went the upper section of the gym as each player dunked the ball. After everyone had dunked the ball a guard dribbled to the basket followed by one of the post men. The guard flipped the basketball up on the blackboard and the trailing post man jumped up, grabbed it in mid-air, and slammed it home with a resounding dunk to an even louder "Whoomp!" from the crowd. It was incredible! They then went about the normal warmup routines still ocassionally dunking the basketball, and each time they dunked the crowd went "Whoomp!"
It was a close, well played game with neither team getting more than a couple of points ahead of the other. In the middle of the 3rd quarter they stole the ball at around the top of key on their defensive end. David Payne, a senior 6'2" guard who played 4 years at UTA, grabbed the ball, dribbled to mid court, and flipped the ball high toward the basket and Sherman Evans who was running full speed down the court on the break. Evans was 6'4" senior, muscled like crazy, and had a 90' vertical leap. (So, I'm exaggerating a little, but he could really jump!) The ball was actually thrown over the backboard. At that end of the gym there was about a 15-foot walkway between the stands and the court. Evans leaped out parallel to the ground and batted the ball back over the backboard where Lee Shaw, a junior 6'3" forward leaped, grabbed the ball in mid-air, and slammed it home to a tremendous "Whoomp!" from the upper portions of the stands! It was absolutely astounding! It was the most athletic sequence I have ever seen in a basketball game. That play took a 3 point lead to 5 and the game was never in doubt after that. They probably won by 10 or 12. That played simply crushed us.
Terrell lost the championship game to Paschal, but not before an empty whiskey or gin bottle had been tossed from the upper reaches of the gym onto the court, splattering glass all over the court and cutting the scorekeeper. Terrell didn't like to lose, and when they got behind you could expect the crowd to get raucous and throw stuff on the court. Later that year they had a riot when they were playing Dunbar and bricks were added to the bottles raining down on the court.
That tournament was easily the highlight of my junior season even though I didn't play. I played in a few games, enough to letter but nothing memorable. I do remember our post season/ off season inter-team championship, but that's another story.
Monday, July 16, 2007
10th Grade basketball
I entered 10th grade at Eastern Hills High School as a 5' 2" 14-year old. Not only was I very small, I was younger than my classmates. By age, I should have been in the 9th grade. Unlike today, 10th grade was the first year we were actually in the high school building.
Meadowbrook and Handley junior highs fed EHHS and, if you recall from my earlier stories, Handley had beaten Meadowbrook for the 9th grade championship. That meant there would be a lot of competition for the basketball team. We didn't have a 10th grade team, just a varsity and a B-team or JV.
At 5' 2" I was very small but I was very fast and a good ball handler and defender. I thought I was pretty good. Little did I know how close I came to getting cut as a sophmore.
We practiced with the varsity. So you can get an idea of my relative size, this was the starting lineup for our varsity.
Wayne Nash, center, 7'0" senior (They listed him as 6'11" in the program to keep the expectations and hype down)
David Wolliman, forward, 6'8" senior
John Heatherly, forward 6'4" junior (Ralph Hill a 6'5" senior was in the starter here until be broke his foot and football was over bringing Heatherly in)
David Hannebutt, guard, 6'2" junior
Jerry Miller, guard, 6' senior
Tommy Thompson, guard 5'10" senior
Jimmy Aycock, guard, 5'11" senior
Other guys were Danny Harris a 6'3" senior guard
Dwight Smith a 5'10" junior guard
Phillip Berry a 6'4" junior center
and some other juniors and seniors.
As far as 10th graders my competition at guard was Jay Worley 6'1" (he was a "star", scored a lot of points but wouldn't play defense, and was given a varsity jersey as a 10th grader but chose to play on the B-team), Charlie Cook 6'0", Jimmy Swanson 6'2", and my brother Gary 5'9". Gary was playing football so he wasn't around the first part of basketball practice. When football was over the starting QB, a junior, decided he wanted to play basketball, too. He'd been the starting point guard at Handley in the 9th grade but didn't play in 10th grade. That bumped me back a little more. In addition, there were a couple of other juniors trying out as guards.
As I've said before, I thought I was pretty good. I was fast and I could play defense. Most importantly, I hustled all the time. We would run wind sprints at the end of practice and I'd win almost every time. That would remain true throughout my high school career. I remember in practice that I would particularly make Danny Harris look silly. I would steal the ball frequently on his dribble and deflect his passes like crazy. Coach Howerton would yell at him and tell him, "You're a foot taller than he is and you can't get the ball past him?" Danny was a great guy but sometimes it seemed I had his number.
I really didn't play that much in the games, so I have no memories of them. I also kept the scorebook for the varsity games. I learned later that the only reason Coach Howerton didn't cut me was that I hustled so hard and had such a great attitude. Even though I was small I could hold my own in practice and worked the varsity guys hard. Maybe I'd grow, so he kept me that 10th grade year. I'm sure glad he did and I did grow. I was 5'7" by the end of the 10th grade and ready for my junior season.
Meadowbrook and Handley junior highs fed EHHS and, if you recall from my earlier stories, Handley had beaten Meadowbrook for the 9th grade championship. That meant there would be a lot of competition for the basketball team. We didn't have a 10th grade team, just a varsity and a B-team or JV.
At 5' 2" I was very small but I was very fast and a good ball handler and defender. I thought I was pretty good. Little did I know how close I came to getting cut as a sophmore.
We practiced with the varsity. So you can get an idea of my relative size, this was the starting lineup for our varsity.
Wayne Nash, center, 7'0" senior (They listed him as 6'11" in the program to keep the expectations and hype down)
David Wolliman, forward, 6'8" senior
John Heatherly, forward 6'4" junior (Ralph Hill a 6'5" senior was in the starter here until be broke his foot and football was over bringing Heatherly in)
David Hannebutt, guard, 6'2" junior
Jerry Miller, guard, 6' senior
Tommy Thompson, guard 5'10" senior
Jimmy Aycock, guard, 5'11" senior
Other guys were Danny Harris a 6'3" senior guard
Dwight Smith a 5'10" junior guard
Phillip Berry a 6'4" junior center
and some other juniors and seniors.
As far as 10th graders my competition at guard was Jay Worley 6'1" (he was a "star", scored a lot of points but wouldn't play defense, and was given a varsity jersey as a 10th grader but chose to play on the B-team), Charlie Cook 6'0", Jimmy Swanson 6'2", and my brother Gary 5'9". Gary was playing football so he wasn't around the first part of basketball practice. When football was over the starting QB, a junior, decided he wanted to play basketball, too. He'd been the starting point guard at Handley in the 9th grade but didn't play in 10th grade. That bumped me back a little more. In addition, there were a couple of other juniors trying out as guards.
As I've said before, I thought I was pretty good. I was fast and I could play defense. Most importantly, I hustled all the time. We would run wind sprints at the end of practice and I'd win almost every time. That would remain true throughout my high school career. I remember in practice that I would particularly make Danny Harris look silly. I would steal the ball frequently on his dribble and deflect his passes like crazy. Coach Howerton would yell at him and tell him, "You're a foot taller than he is and you can't get the ball past him?" Danny was a great guy but sometimes it seemed I had his number.
I really didn't play that much in the games, so I have no memories of them. I also kept the scorebook for the varsity games. I learned later that the only reason Coach Howerton didn't cut me was that I hustled so hard and had such a great attitude. Even though I was small I could hold my own in practice and worked the varsity guys hard. Maybe I'd grow, so he kept me that 10th grade year. I'm sure glad he did and I did grow. I was 5'7" by the end of the 10th grade and ready for my junior season.
Friday, June 29, 2007
Summer in Sudan part 2 - On the Farm
While we had fun in town, the real fun was going out to Uncle Blackie and Aunt Elsie's farm with my cousins Van and Patsy.
Their farm was several miles outside of town. After traveling several miles of "paved" roads the last turn was onto a sandy dirt road that was a real mess when it rained. The paved roads were of a tar and gravel composition and weren't really that good. When Pleaston View Drive in Arlington got paved it was the same tar and gravel composition. They owned 640 acres and there were several more sections, a section is a 640 acre plot, that belonged to the Seymour family that they sometimes farmed or that we could go hunting on.
Before they built a new house on the paved road when we were much older, they had a small house surrounded by a few trees. As you know, there aren't too many trees in West Texas and when you find two or three together you usually find a house. So their house was very typical. We always went into the door on the backside of the house away from the road. I don't know if there was even a door on the road side. When you came to their house you pulled off the road and into the chicken yard between the house and the barns and other out buildings. When you went in the door you were in the litchen. There was a bedroom to the left of the kitchen and a large living room when you went straight on through the kitchen. Off the living room was one or two other bedrooms, or maybe it was just another bedroom and the bathroom. Anyway, it was a small house.
The water came from a well and a windmill kept water pumped into a holding tank from which the livestock was watered. The well house was a thick walled stucco building and inside was a that was kept very cool by the stucco walls where they kept a lot of canned goods. I always thought that it was really neat how cool it was in that room even when it was 100 degrees or so outside.
To the west of the house about 100 feet was the main barn. It was larger than the house and held the sheltered portion of the hog pen, the cattle stalls, and the hay loft above the stalls. South of the house was the hen house and between the barn and the hen house was the well house. The area by the barn was fenced with a combination of wood planks running horizontally and hog wire. Where that fence stopped a single strand of electric wire fence ran around the well house and hen house and on around to the road. There was a wire fence that ran all along the road except where the house and driveway around the house were. The land to the west of the barn was an area for the cattle to graze. South and east of the house were the garden and usually a field planted in maize. I suppose they could have had cotton in there sometimes, but I remember maize. On the rest of the 640 acres there were large cotton fields and maize fields. Sporadically, there were grazing areas that were not tilled.
That's the physical layout of the farm and the site for our adventures.
The chickens ran all over the area between the house and the hen house. They had lots of chickens. We'd gather fresh eggs from the hen house every morning and every evening. At lunch, if we were going to have gried chicken, we got to go out and pick our chicken. We select one and go catch it. Sometimes we had to select another one more easily caught. After we caught it we had to kill it and clean it. I don't rember a whole lot about that process but we were shown how to do it and did it. Aunt Elsie always said I was really good at snapping the chicken's neck and killing it. Gary was always too squimish and couldn't get a good, quick break. I remember Van catching one and chopping its head off with a hatchet. You've heard the expression "running around like a chicken with its head cut off"? Well, I've seen it! That chicken ran around in circles all the time spurting blood. Finally, it quit and died. I guess Aunt Elsie always gutted it and plucked the feathers. I don't really remember doing that. Anyway, Elsie's chicken was always great, and, for Gary, we always had mashed potatoes. He loved Aunt Elsie's mashed potatoes.
Any leftovers that weren't fit to save were thron to the hogs. They really like the leftovers and would really go at it eating them. I didn't liek the hogs much. They stunk, they were big, and I was warned they could hurt you. When they ran out of bacon or ham they'd load a hog into the pickup truck, tie it in securely, and take it to the butcher shop in town. A few days later there was fresh bacon, pork chops, pork loin, ham, and sausage.
We helped feed and milk the cows, too. Milking a cow isn't as easy as it might appear. You had to tie their head up so they wouldn't reach around and bite you and you had to be careful they didn't kick you with their hind leg. If you knew what you were doing the cows didn't give you much trouble. Obviously, I didn't or at least didn't do it well. The normal way to make a fist is bring all your fingers together at the same time or may even bring your little finger, then ring finger, and on up first. You don't get any milk that way. You have squeeze the teat with your index finger first and then then middle finger and on down to squeeze the milk out while kind of puuling down on the whole teat. When you have both hands going right you can get alternating steady streams going and get the cow milked in good time. Perhaps the cows didn't like us because we were also known to direct the stream at someone standing nearby and have milk fights that way.
They also had ducks that swam in the stock tank and nested in the barn. They didn't eat the duck eggs. They let them accumulate until a duck sat on them for the 28 days or so required and hatched them. One day when Buddy and Travis were there with us we had a brilliant idea. We gathered up a bunch of the duck eggs and went up into the hay loft. There, we moved some of the remaining hay bales around and made a couple of forts, divided up teams, and had an egg fight! Since a lot of these eggs were ones that a duck had been sitting on for days and maybe weeks, these were rotten eggs and boy did they stink! I think we quit when Patsy got hit a by a couple of rotten eggs and went to the house to clean up. When Aunt Elsie found out what we were doing she was livid. She wanted the new ducklings and she didn't want a stinking barn. She yelled at us but we didn't get a spanking or any other punishment that I recall.
Picking cotton is tough. While they had a tractor that had an automatic picker on it, they also hired migrant workers who were paid by the sack for what they hand picked. I tried it for about 30 minutes one day. It was hot. It was hard to get the bole to lets loss of the plant. And, you just didn't get much cotton in the bag for all that work. Van and I fixed that. We crawled up into the trailer that the cotton picker attachment was dumping its cotton into and filled up our bags from that spout! That was much easier picking!
The best tortillas I ever had was from one of those migrant worker kitchens. One evening Van and I were walking back from one of the fields a long way from the house. The workers had already quit for the day and they were staying in one of the old one room houses on one of the adjacent properties. They gotto stay rent free in one of those shacks as part of their pay. As we were walking by we saw that they were cooking dinner. Vam asked them if they had anything we could eat. Thye brought us each a fresh flour tortilla. Up until that time I had never had a flour tortilla. I had only had thin corn tortillas. This flour tortilla was was as big as a pancake, hot out of the skillet. We put a little butter on it and ate it. Boy was it good! Maybe it was just because I was so hungry. Maybe it was because it was the first time I'd ever had a flour tortilla. I don't know. I only know it was good and I remember it to this day.
Well, this has been long enough; but, quickly let me tell one more story. One reason I gave you the layout of the farm was for this story. we were playing baseball over in the maize field. There was enough room between the field and the electric fence by the hen house. The ball was hit and I went back to catch it. Did you know how hard it is to catch a fly ball when you're getting zapped by an electric fence! It was quite a surprise and I dropped the ball. I don't like electric fences. They won't hurt you but they sure scare the beejeezus out of you.
I loved summers in Sudan.
Their farm was several miles outside of town. After traveling several miles of "paved" roads the last turn was onto a sandy dirt road that was a real mess when it rained. The paved roads were of a tar and gravel composition and weren't really that good. When Pleaston View Drive in Arlington got paved it was the same tar and gravel composition. They owned 640 acres and there were several more sections, a section is a 640 acre plot, that belonged to the Seymour family that they sometimes farmed or that we could go hunting on.
Before they built a new house on the paved road when we were much older, they had a small house surrounded by a few trees. As you know, there aren't too many trees in West Texas and when you find two or three together you usually find a house. So their house was very typical. We always went into the door on the backside of the house away from the road. I don't know if there was even a door on the road side. When you came to their house you pulled off the road and into the chicken yard between the house and the barns and other out buildings. When you went in the door you were in the litchen. There was a bedroom to the left of the kitchen and a large living room when you went straight on through the kitchen. Off the living room was one or two other bedrooms, or maybe it was just another bedroom and the bathroom. Anyway, it was a small house.
The water came from a well and a windmill kept water pumped into a holding tank from which the livestock was watered. The well house was a thick walled stucco building and inside was a that was kept very cool by the stucco walls where they kept a lot of canned goods. I always thought that it was really neat how cool it was in that room even when it was 100 degrees or so outside.
To the west of the house about 100 feet was the main barn. It was larger than the house and held the sheltered portion of the hog pen, the cattle stalls, and the hay loft above the stalls. South of the house was the hen house and between the barn and the hen house was the well house. The area by the barn was fenced with a combination of wood planks running horizontally and hog wire. Where that fence stopped a single strand of electric wire fence ran around the well house and hen house and on around to the road. There was a wire fence that ran all along the road except where the house and driveway around the house were. The land to the west of the barn was an area for the cattle to graze. South and east of the house were the garden and usually a field planted in maize. I suppose they could have had cotton in there sometimes, but I remember maize. On the rest of the 640 acres there were large cotton fields and maize fields. Sporadically, there were grazing areas that were not tilled.
That's the physical layout of the farm and the site for our adventures.
The chickens ran all over the area between the house and the hen house. They had lots of chickens. We'd gather fresh eggs from the hen house every morning and every evening. At lunch, if we were going to have gried chicken, we got to go out and pick our chicken. We select one and go catch it. Sometimes we had to select another one more easily caught. After we caught it we had to kill it and clean it. I don't rember a whole lot about that process but we were shown how to do it and did it. Aunt Elsie always said I was really good at snapping the chicken's neck and killing it. Gary was always too squimish and couldn't get a good, quick break. I remember Van catching one and chopping its head off with a hatchet. You've heard the expression "running around like a chicken with its head cut off"? Well, I've seen it! That chicken ran around in circles all the time spurting blood. Finally, it quit and died. I guess Aunt Elsie always gutted it and plucked the feathers. I don't really remember doing that. Anyway, Elsie's chicken was always great, and, for Gary, we always had mashed potatoes. He loved Aunt Elsie's mashed potatoes.
Any leftovers that weren't fit to save were thron to the hogs. They really like the leftovers and would really go at it eating them. I didn't liek the hogs much. They stunk, they were big, and I was warned they could hurt you. When they ran out of bacon or ham they'd load a hog into the pickup truck, tie it in securely, and take it to the butcher shop in town. A few days later there was fresh bacon, pork chops, pork loin, ham, and sausage.
We helped feed and milk the cows, too. Milking a cow isn't as easy as it might appear. You had to tie their head up so they wouldn't reach around and bite you and you had to be careful they didn't kick you with their hind leg. If you knew what you were doing the cows didn't give you much trouble. Obviously, I didn't or at least didn't do it well. The normal way to make a fist is bring all your fingers together at the same time or may even bring your little finger, then ring finger, and on up first. You don't get any milk that way. You have squeeze the teat with your index finger first and then then middle finger and on down to squeeze the milk out while kind of puuling down on the whole teat. When you have both hands going right you can get alternating steady streams going and get the cow milked in good time. Perhaps the cows didn't like us because we were also known to direct the stream at someone standing nearby and have milk fights that way.
They also had ducks that swam in the stock tank and nested in the barn. They didn't eat the duck eggs. They let them accumulate until a duck sat on them for the 28 days or so required and hatched them. One day when Buddy and Travis were there with us we had a brilliant idea. We gathered up a bunch of the duck eggs and went up into the hay loft. There, we moved some of the remaining hay bales around and made a couple of forts, divided up teams, and had an egg fight! Since a lot of these eggs were ones that a duck had been sitting on for days and maybe weeks, these were rotten eggs and boy did they stink! I think we quit when Patsy got hit a by a couple of rotten eggs and went to the house to clean up. When Aunt Elsie found out what we were doing she was livid. She wanted the new ducklings and she didn't want a stinking barn. She yelled at us but we didn't get a spanking or any other punishment that I recall.
Picking cotton is tough. While they had a tractor that had an automatic picker on it, they also hired migrant workers who were paid by the sack for what they hand picked. I tried it for about 30 minutes one day. It was hot. It was hard to get the bole to lets loss of the plant. And, you just didn't get much cotton in the bag for all that work. Van and I fixed that. We crawled up into the trailer that the cotton picker attachment was dumping its cotton into and filled up our bags from that spout! That was much easier picking!
The best tortillas I ever had was from one of those migrant worker kitchens. One evening Van and I were walking back from one of the fields a long way from the house. The workers had already quit for the day and they were staying in one of the old one room houses on one of the adjacent properties. They gotto stay rent free in one of those shacks as part of their pay. As we were walking by we saw that they were cooking dinner. Vam asked them if they had anything we could eat. Thye brought us each a fresh flour tortilla. Up until that time I had never had a flour tortilla. I had only had thin corn tortillas. This flour tortilla was was as big as a pancake, hot out of the skillet. We put a little butter on it and ate it. Boy was it good! Maybe it was just because I was so hungry. Maybe it was because it was the first time I'd ever had a flour tortilla. I don't know. I only know it was good and I remember it to this day.
Well, this has been long enough; but, quickly let me tell one more story. One reason I gave you the layout of the farm was for this story. we were playing baseball over in the maize field. There was enough room between the field and the electric fence by the hen house. The ball was hit and I went back to catch it. Did you know how hard it is to catch a fly ball when you're getting zapped by an electric fence! It was quite a surprise and I dropped the ball. I don't like electric fences. They won't hurt you but they sure scare the beejeezus out of you.
I loved summers in Sudan.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Summer in Sudan, part 1 - In Town
As kids growing up my brother and I would spend at least 2 weeks every summer in Sudan. We split time between Granny's house in town and Aunt Elsie's and Blackie's farm south of town. We had a great time and many memories. I'll try to relate some of them here.
First, getting there and home was often an adventure. Many times we'd ride the bus. Mom would take us to the bus station in downtown Fort Worth, the bus driver would put our suitcase in the storage bin under the bus, and we'd get on for the almost all day ride to Sudan. I don't remember ever getting off the bus on the way. I guess we didn't have to change buses and we took a sack lunch. Anyway, the bus driver would stop the bus by the side of the road when we got to Sudan and let us off. We'd cross the highway to where Granny was waiting. On the trip back we had to wait outside by the road and flag down the bus driver to get on for the return trip.
Staying with Granny was always fun, even though she had no air conditioning. Heck, we didn't have air conditioning until we moved into the country. We had an evaporative cooler in the den that blew down the hallway running through the house into the kitchen. Around 5th grade mom and dad got a window A/C unit for their bedroom. At Granny's we had an evaporative cooler in the kitchen that blew through to the front room. Her house wasn't even big enough to have a hallway. It was literally a 4-room house with a bathroom added on later. The bathroom was really little more than a lean to. It was wide enough to put a cast iron tub in and had a small sink and commode, but the ceiling wasn't more than 6 feet tall. The other rooms were Granny's bedroom, the living room, the kitchen/dining room, and Bob's bedroom. Most of the time Uncle Bob wasn't there. If he wasn't there we slept in the double bed in his room. If he was there we slept on the couch and on the floor, or maybe with Granny in her bed.
Early on, my uncle Bud and Jean Crouch lived in Sudan with our cousins Travis, Buddy, and Carla. Later they moved to Lovington, New Mexico but they'd come to Sudan when we were there. Jean's mother lived a few blocks away from Granny. The one thing I remember about her house was that she always had a bottle of vodka on the table and was drinking it from a glass. Morning, noon, or night she always had her vodka. Travis was a year or two older than Gary, Buddy was my age, and Carla was a couple of years younger. They also had a cousin, Tommy, who was Gary's age and lived in Littlefield. Sometimes he'd come over when we were there. Of course, Elsie and Blackie had my cousins Patty and Van. Patty was Travis' age and Van was Gary's age. As you can tell, that's a bunch of kids around the same age, so we had fun.
Sometimes we would have baseball games, sometimes we'd walk all over town, and sometimes we'd have a little bit of mischief. A fun treat was to walk down to one of the grocery stores and get some candy. There were 3 mom and pop grocery stores. Granny didn't like the lady that owned the store closest to us, so she didn't want us to go there. I think she didn't like her because she didn't give credit. It was a block from the house. The other 2 stores were 1 and 2 blocks further away and they gave credit.
So, the Sudan downtown consisted of 3 blocks and there was a grocery store in each block, all on the west side of the road. They also had a bank and a newspaper, The Sudan Bee, on that side of the street. Diagonally across the street as you headed downtown from Granny's house was the Methodist church. In the next block was the Ford dealership, then a hardware store in the next block, and finally the police station and the city park. Going south from Garnny's house, the Baptist church was at the end of the block. Main Street ended with the Baptist church and dead ended into the schools. The Elementary, Junior High, and High School were all on the same block with football field and Baseball diamond (no outfield fence) right behind.
Granny spent years working as a cook for the schools and later she was a cook for the coffee shop at the Sands Motel. All the farmers would gather there for breakfast and we often walked there ( about a mile away) for lunch. It was the best reastaurant in town.
I hope you got a picture of the town, 1200 people with no stop lights. One main street down the center of town with Highway 84 on the north end and the school on the south end. I forgot one of the other prime spots. On the highway was the Dairy Bee. That was the hangout for all the high school kids. Every night they'd drive up and down Main Street, turning around at the school or the highway and occasionally getting an ice cream or Coke at the Dairy Bee.
I said "mischief" earlier. Here is an example. Granny's house had a big porch in front and the roof was at its apex over the front door. High up in the apex was a huge wasp nest, probably 6-8 inches in diameter. Buddy and I (and maybe Van) found a box of rubber bands from somewhere and started shooting them at the wasp nest. When we'd hit the nest the wasps would come swarming after us. We'd run out into the yard until they didn't follow anymore. As we hit them over and over the wasps started chasing us further and further. On our last shot we had to take refuge in the Methodist church across the street. Granny finally realized what we were doing and sent Bob out to burn down the nest. He soaked a rag in gasoline, wrapped it around a broom or hoe or something, set it on fire, and held it up to the nest until it was burned away. It also blackened the white paint.
Bob also had a huge dog, Bo. I think it was part great dane, part boxer. It was huge, tall like a great dane, but much heavier. The butcher at the grocery store was always giving us bones to take to Bo. One day, while playing baseball in the backyard, I stepped on one of Bo's bones and slit open the bottom of my foot. We were playing barefoot. We went most everywhere barefoot. Granny didn't take me to a doctor. She just cleaned the slice, put a gauze bandage on the bottom of my foot, and wrapped it in tape. I had to walk on the side of my foot. I went bowling in Muleshoe like that and on the bus for the trip home.
One other event I remember in Sudan was during the fall when I was about 5. We went to a Sudan Hornet football game to see Bob play. I remember it was extremely cold and I was all wrapped up in blankets. As far as the game went it was always "Bobby Don this and Bobby Don that." He was the Sudan football team. I think he was about 5'10" and 160-170 pounds which was really big for a high school running back in those days. Granny always claimed that the Pittsburgh Steelers offered him a contract out of high school to play pro ball. That would have been in the mid-fifties. Instead, Bob wanted to join the Marines and avenge the death of his brother Jack in Korea. He joined the Marines and became a drunk. He killed his best friend in a DWI single car wreck by running up a phone pole. Since he was a football star and they couldn't prove who was actually driving, even though it was Bob's car, the judge let him go. Many years later when he ran over and paralyzed a kid on a bicycle while DWI the same judge put in jail in Huntsville for a couple of years.
My uncle Bud was also a drunk and was divorced from Jean by the time I was out of elementary school. He too spent some time in county jails for petty, alcohol related crimes. Coupled with my dad's admission that he was an alcoholic and my belief that alcoholism was hereditary, you can see why I've always been afraid of it and abstained from it.
The only other incident I remember was the death of a 15-year old girl. I don't know how she died but Granny made us go to the funeral. I was about 10. It was at the Methodist chuch with an open casket. They moved the casket by the back door at the end of the service and you had to walk by it to get out. I'll never forget the dead girl lying in a casket shrouded by plastic. I've hated open caskets ever since. I want mine closed when I die. At that point I'm dead, leave me alone. I don't want people gawking at me.
First, getting there and home was often an adventure. Many times we'd ride the bus. Mom would take us to the bus station in downtown Fort Worth, the bus driver would put our suitcase in the storage bin under the bus, and we'd get on for the almost all day ride to Sudan. I don't remember ever getting off the bus on the way. I guess we didn't have to change buses and we took a sack lunch. Anyway, the bus driver would stop the bus by the side of the road when we got to Sudan and let us off. We'd cross the highway to where Granny was waiting. On the trip back we had to wait outside by the road and flag down the bus driver to get on for the return trip.
Staying with Granny was always fun, even though she had no air conditioning. Heck, we didn't have air conditioning until we moved into the country. We had an evaporative cooler in the den that blew down the hallway running through the house into the kitchen. Around 5th grade mom and dad got a window A/C unit for their bedroom. At Granny's we had an evaporative cooler in the kitchen that blew through to the front room. Her house wasn't even big enough to have a hallway. It was literally a 4-room house with a bathroom added on later. The bathroom was really little more than a lean to. It was wide enough to put a cast iron tub in and had a small sink and commode, but the ceiling wasn't more than 6 feet tall. The other rooms were Granny's bedroom, the living room, the kitchen/dining room, and Bob's bedroom. Most of the time Uncle Bob wasn't there. If he wasn't there we slept in the double bed in his room. If he was there we slept on the couch and on the floor, or maybe with Granny in her bed.
Early on, my uncle Bud and Jean Crouch lived in Sudan with our cousins Travis, Buddy, and Carla. Later they moved to Lovington, New Mexico but they'd come to Sudan when we were there. Jean's mother lived a few blocks away from Granny. The one thing I remember about her house was that she always had a bottle of vodka on the table and was drinking it from a glass. Morning, noon, or night she always had her vodka. Travis was a year or two older than Gary, Buddy was my age, and Carla was a couple of years younger. They also had a cousin, Tommy, who was Gary's age and lived in Littlefield. Sometimes he'd come over when we were there. Of course, Elsie and Blackie had my cousins Patty and Van. Patty was Travis' age and Van was Gary's age. As you can tell, that's a bunch of kids around the same age, so we had fun.
Sometimes we would have baseball games, sometimes we'd walk all over town, and sometimes we'd have a little bit of mischief. A fun treat was to walk down to one of the grocery stores and get some candy. There were 3 mom and pop grocery stores. Granny didn't like the lady that owned the store closest to us, so she didn't want us to go there. I think she didn't like her because she didn't give credit. It was a block from the house. The other 2 stores were 1 and 2 blocks further away and they gave credit.
So, the Sudan downtown consisted of 3 blocks and there was a grocery store in each block, all on the west side of the road. They also had a bank and a newspaper, The Sudan Bee, on that side of the street. Diagonally across the street as you headed downtown from Granny's house was the Methodist church. In the next block was the Ford dealership, then a hardware store in the next block, and finally the police station and the city park. Going south from Garnny's house, the Baptist church was at the end of the block. Main Street ended with the Baptist church and dead ended into the schools. The Elementary, Junior High, and High School were all on the same block with football field and Baseball diamond (no outfield fence) right behind.
Granny spent years working as a cook for the schools and later she was a cook for the coffee shop at the Sands Motel. All the farmers would gather there for breakfast and we often walked there ( about a mile away) for lunch. It was the best reastaurant in town.
I hope you got a picture of the town, 1200 people with no stop lights. One main street down the center of town with Highway 84 on the north end and the school on the south end. I forgot one of the other prime spots. On the highway was the Dairy Bee. That was the hangout for all the high school kids. Every night they'd drive up and down Main Street, turning around at the school or the highway and occasionally getting an ice cream or Coke at the Dairy Bee.
I said "mischief" earlier. Here is an example. Granny's house had a big porch in front and the roof was at its apex over the front door. High up in the apex was a huge wasp nest, probably 6-8 inches in diameter. Buddy and I (and maybe Van) found a box of rubber bands from somewhere and started shooting them at the wasp nest. When we'd hit the nest the wasps would come swarming after us. We'd run out into the yard until they didn't follow anymore. As we hit them over and over the wasps started chasing us further and further. On our last shot we had to take refuge in the Methodist church across the street. Granny finally realized what we were doing and sent Bob out to burn down the nest. He soaked a rag in gasoline, wrapped it around a broom or hoe or something, set it on fire, and held it up to the nest until it was burned away. It also blackened the white paint.
Bob also had a huge dog, Bo. I think it was part great dane, part boxer. It was huge, tall like a great dane, but much heavier. The butcher at the grocery store was always giving us bones to take to Bo. One day, while playing baseball in the backyard, I stepped on one of Bo's bones and slit open the bottom of my foot. We were playing barefoot. We went most everywhere barefoot. Granny didn't take me to a doctor. She just cleaned the slice, put a gauze bandage on the bottom of my foot, and wrapped it in tape. I had to walk on the side of my foot. I went bowling in Muleshoe like that and on the bus for the trip home.
One other event I remember in Sudan was during the fall when I was about 5. We went to a Sudan Hornet football game to see Bob play. I remember it was extremely cold and I was all wrapped up in blankets. As far as the game went it was always "Bobby Don this and Bobby Don that." He was the Sudan football team. I think he was about 5'10" and 160-170 pounds which was really big for a high school running back in those days. Granny always claimed that the Pittsburgh Steelers offered him a contract out of high school to play pro ball. That would have been in the mid-fifties. Instead, Bob wanted to join the Marines and avenge the death of his brother Jack in Korea. He joined the Marines and became a drunk. He killed his best friend in a DWI single car wreck by running up a phone pole. Since he was a football star and they couldn't prove who was actually driving, even though it was Bob's car, the judge let him go. Many years later when he ran over and paralyzed a kid on a bicycle while DWI the same judge put in jail in Huntsville for a couple of years.
My uncle Bud was also a drunk and was divorced from Jean by the time I was out of elementary school. He too spent some time in county jails for petty, alcohol related crimes. Coupled with my dad's admission that he was an alcoholic and my belief that alcoholism was hereditary, you can see why I've always been afraid of it and abstained from it.
The only other incident I remember was the death of a 15-year old girl. I don't know how she died but Granny made us go to the funeral. I was about 10. It was at the Methodist chuch with an open casket. They moved the casket by the back door at the end of the service and you had to walk by it to get out. I'll never forget the dead girl lying in a casket shrouded by plastic. I've hated open caskets ever since. I want mine closed when I die. At that point I'm dead, leave me alone. I don't want people gawking at me.
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