ETBC - part 3

The season was mostly uneventful. I played in every game I suited up for and started in some. I missed two road games, one due to injury and the other due to not packing my uniform. After having a missing uniform I required the manager to always pack an extra uniform whenever we took a road trip. It came in handy later in the season when Waymon didn't have his uniform in his bag when we got to the away gym. Here are some of the highlights I remember.

We played Tyler Junior College in Tyler. They won the national JUCO championship either that year or the next and were continually in the playoffs. They had scrimmaged our varsity prior to the season and had beaten them soundly. They had a 6'4" guard named Poo Welch who was supposed to be the second coming of Pete Maravich. In fact, he was signed to go to LSU but couldn't quailfy academically. He was averaging 35 points a game and I was assigned to guard him. He actually ended up at Houston after leaving Tyler. I "held" him to 25 points, primarily because he sat out the last 10 minutes of the game. They won 120-something to 40 or 50.

Tyler had a lot of height and a lot of great basketball players, mostly Division I caliber players who couldn't qualify academically. Playing in their gym with their referees was a nightmare. They didn't need the help but one hot dog referee was intent on giving it to them. If I breathed too hard near Welch a foul was called on me. When I blocked out and he came over my back for the rebound a foul was called on me. When they set a screen on me and I quickly rolled around it, getting between the screener and the basket so they didn't have an easy pick and roll, a foul was called on me. They ran a full court man press. I jab stepped and the defender jumped toward the feint. The referee had his back to the play but, when the crowd "oohed" due to the good move, he figured I must have travelled and blew the whistle. Sometimes on the foul call he would run across the floor and come sliding in on his knees, blowing his whistle to call the foul. He was a real showboat. Obviously, I fouled out. To give you an idea how totally overmatched we were follow this description of the last 17 seconds of the first half. "Tyler shoots, no good. Tip, no good. Tip again, no good. Tip up on the right side, no good. Tip front the left, no good. Tip again, no good." Over and over they tipped the ball from all sides of the rim until finally, "Tip in, good! And, that's the buzzer to end the half." They tipped the ball for 17 seconds with no one having control until it dropped in for the score.

In another game we were playing a 3/4 zone trap. The guy from Cushing was supposed to be playing the point on the press but he just couldn't figure it out. I was trying to tell him what to do but he couldn't do it. Finally, we swapped positions without asking the coach and we started running a successful trap and causing several turnovers.

As the season went along I found myself often playing a forward position against guys as big as 6'7". The only way I could compete was with elbows, hard fouls, and hitting them when the ref wasn't looking. I got tons of retaliation fouls called against the other team. In some respects I became the enforcer on our team because I could hit guys and get away with either no foul or a foul called on them, and I wasn't afraid to take them on.

One game late in the season was played in our gym. The other team had a real hot dog guard who mouthed off a lot and had scored a number of points. He had 20 points or so and they were winning about 70-60 with just a few seconds to go in the game. For some reason, they called time out to set up a play for one more score and that made us mad. By this time I was guarding the guy and all our players were encouraging me to deck him when play resumed. The ball was being inbounded right in front of their bench and they were obviously going to throw it into this guy. As the ref handed the ball to their player to inbound the ball I bellied up to my guy and grabbed his shorts with my left hand, hidden from the referee by our bodies. He felt me grab his shorts and tried to push off on my chest while he broke away for the pass. As he was pushing away I lifted his legs and lower body up by his shorts causing him to lose balance and fall. On my upward motion I released his shorts and showed an open hand in a defensive position. I had put him on his ear and the ref saw nothing. Their coach saw it all clearly and was screaming bloody murder. No foul was called and the remaining seconds ran off the clock with no other scores.

One thing I failed to note about the Tyler game occurred on the drive to the game. I was driving the coach's car with the a player sitting between the coach and me in the front seat and 3 guys in the back. I was telling them about Lee Shaw of IM Terrell and how he had to go to a small college because he only made a 4 on the ACT college entrance exam. The coach punched me and shook his head at me to be quiet. When we got to Tyler JC he told me there were guys in the car who didn't make that high a score!

With that kind of scholastic apptitude it is no wonder that only 6 guys were left eligible after grades came out. Joe, Donny, the soph Indiana guard, Frank, and and other guy (I think Waymon) and me were the only guys eligible. One road trip (Ouchita) was cancelled because they didn't have enough guys eligible to have a JV team and the team we played in the last game only had 5 eligible players.

We had played this team earlier in the year at their place and had beaten them 100-90, or something like that. One guy for sure and maybe more weren't on the team when we played them before. I think they picked them up so they wouldn't forfeit. The "new" guy was 5'7" and slow. He was supposed to guard me. On defense, we played a 1-2-2 zone and I played the position on the right side at the free throw line (left side from the offensive point of view). When the offense took the ball to the right offensive corner I slid down for the offside rebound. Over and over again they would take the ball to the right corner and shoot. The ball would bounce off the rim over to the offside where I would rebound it and head downcourt on the fastbreak. I scored 27 points with 20 rebounds and 20 assists. Our coach kept telling us to quit running up the score but we ignored him. We won 130-something to 40-something.

That ended my playing career at ETBC except for the tryout day for high school seniors. I'll tell you about that in another post.

ETBC - part 2

The JV team at ETBC was made up of freshman and sophomores. There were about 12 players with all but two on some sort of scholarship. Some had a baseball/basketball scholarship or a golf/basketball scholarship, etc. Half were center/forwards and the rest guards.

Here are the descriptions of the players I remember. Frank was a 6'2" guard from Many, LA, a class A school. He was on a full scholarship and was a very good shooter. Bert West was a 6'3" guard/forward from a little town in Arkansas. He was a class B All State player and played center in high school. I think there were only about 10 boys in his entire high school. He was a great pure shooter and really nice guy. I think he is the basketball coach at ETBC now. Donny was a 6'3" guard from Pasadena, TX and a pretty good all around ball player. Joe Redfern was a big 6'4" center from Mt. Pleasant, TX, a 3A school. He was on a golf/basketball scholarship. He left after his freshman year and went to SMU. He is now a big insurance guy in Mt. Pleasant. The last starter was a sophomore black kid named Waymon. He was 6'3", a good rebounder and defender, physcially strong, but not a very good shooter.

The center/forward subs were my Gomer Pyle-like suite mate, a 6'7" skinny center from class A Grapeland, TX. He was a much better guitar player/Johnny Cash singer than he was a basketball player - poor shot, poor defender, awkward and slow. The other center was a 6'5" skinny black kid I think named Charles. He was a sophomore, extremely nice, but only an average ball player. The other forward was a 6'3" black kid, extremely muscled and great jumper who had never played on a school team. He was a fabulous athlete but not a basketball player. He was the other walk-on. There was one other guy that had been given a full scholarship. He was a 6'3" black center from Chicago. His coach had played at ETBC and recommended him. He couldn't handle the cultural differences. He was used to the big city and dating white girls. That was definitely not Marshall, TX in 1968, so he went home after a few weeks.

The subs at guard included a 6'2" sophomore from Indiana, an overall decent player, and a nice guy. There was also a guy named Easterling from another small school in Arkansas. He was 6'3" with big buck teeth and was on a track/basketball scholarship. I beat him in the 880 at the track meet, his specialty. He played guard/forward. The last guy besides me was a 5'9" black kid from class A Cushing, TX. He was a good jumper and agressive defensive player but an inconsistent shooter and ball handler. He was a baseball/basketball scholarship guy. Lastly, you had me, a 5'11" guard from a big school, the only one besides Donny. Of course, I thought I should have been starting.

Quite honestly, I wasn't a better player than the guys starting but I knew more about basketball. Some of these guys had never played any sort of zone defense, much less half-court or full-court zone presses, traps, etc. With me on the court I could direct them where they were supposed to be, so it made the team better.

A week before our first game we had a game-like scrimmage at Jacksonville Junior College. The 6'3" guard from whom I had stolen the ball several times during the ETBC tryout was playing for them. They also had a 7-footer. Late in the game I beat the guard at the top of the key and started down the lane. With the 7-footer coming toward me I stopped at the free throw line for a jump shot. I never got it off. The 7-footer hit his knee to my right knee as it was planted for the jump. I crumpled to the floor and had never hurt so badly.

They basically did nothing for my knee. No ice, no nothing. It swelled up overnight so badly I couldn't sleep. The next morning I was sent to a doctor. X-rays showed nothing torn so they drained my knee by sticking me with the huge syringe and drawing out the excess fluid. Even though I had been given a local anesthetic it hurt like heck every time he bumped the needle into one of the bones. I was given some crutches and told to stay off of the leg for a week. 25 year later I had surgery to remove a bone splinter that had calcified into an object the size of your little finger. I know it was from that injury.

The first game fell on the last day of the period I was supposed to stay off the leg, but I wanted to play anyway. So, I suited up and had my knee wrapped with tape and an ace bandage. We were playing Louisiana Tech. They were much taller than us and we stayed 8-10 points behind. The closest I got to the game was marking shots and turnovers on a clipboard until there was about 2 minutes to go in the game. We were down by 8 and the coach asked me if I wanted to play. I said "Heck yeah! I didn't suit up to do nothing."

I went in as the point guard. They were playing a man defense. We ran a motion offense with a set pattern. Obviously, after running it the whole game the defenders knew where we were supposed to go and started cheating there. I was supposed to pass it into the center, go into the center of the lane, and try to rub off the defender for a possible pass back and a jump shot on the right side, free throw line extended. I passed it in but, instead of going down the lane, I went directly to the shooting spot. My defender went where I was supposed to go and left me with an open 18-footer which I promptly swished. They missed there shot and we got the rebound. I was dribbling at the left side of the top of the key when I noticed the lane was open. Our center had moved over to the right of the lane at the free throw line to set up our offensive pattern. Instead of setting up the standard offense I quickly drove by my guy, down the lane, and laid it in. We had cut the lead to 4 with more than a minute to go. Their coach quickly called time out.

Up in the stands James Hoffpauir, my roommate, was sitting with a couple of his upper classmen friends in front of the sportswriter for the newspaper. "Where has this guy been all game?" the sportswriter asked. One of James' friends said, "He suffers from big school disease. He went to a 4A school and didn't make All District so he can't be as good as the 1A or B guys." The sportswriter had heard that before and just nodded his head.

ETBC - part 1

Fall of 1968 found me in Marshall, Texas entering East Texas Baptist College. My main purpose of going to ETBC was to play basketball and get away from home for a while. ETBC had a record enrollment that year with about 600 students and they had no football team, so basketball was the sports king.

I think everyone should go away to school for a least a year. It's good for you to be on your own a little and face new challenges. ETBC was a somewhat protected atmosphere since it was a small Baptist school that took the word "Baptist" seriously in its rules and campus life. For example, they rescinded the scholarship on the freshman starting guard I had met because he shacked up with a girl from the school one weekend.

Chapel met on Tuesdays and Thursday and attendance was mandatory. Seats were assigned and the roll checked. An unexcused absence was 5 demerits, 25 demerits got you expelled from school. You could also get demerits for a dirty room, being too loud in the dorm, or using the fire escape as regular stairs.

I was assigned the last room on the second floor of the northeast corner of Fegan Hall, the primary dorm residence for men. The room was about 10 x 14 with two built-in single beds taking up the entire east wall. The room also had two small 3x3 closets, some built-in drawers with a counter top and mirror on the west wall and a small bathroom with shower that was shared with an adjoining room. It also had two small wooden tables and chairs to use as a desk. Just outside my room was the fire escape exit. The regular stairs were in the middle of the building, a long way away.

Initially, I had no roommate which I thought was good. The room was so small I could use the extra room and there was no bookcase on the north wall as there was in the other rooms. It had a window instead, since it was the outside wall of the building. That provided better ventilation since it also was not air conditioned. I chose the bed that had the cross ventilation.

My suite mates were both freshman scholarship basketball players. Donny was a 6'3" guard from Pasadena, TX and a 6'7" Gomer Pyle clone from Grapeland, TX. Donny was the only other 4A school player besides me. Grapeland was a class 1A school. The Grapeland guy was tall, skinny, and awkward. He also played a guitar and sang Johnny Cash songs. He was pretty good at that, if you liked country music. I wasn't a country music fan at that time.

After a few days I was convinced that I wasn't going to have a roommate until I came in after class and found some clothes thrown on the extra bed along with a Bible and some theology books. "Oh no, " I thought. "I'm going to get stuck with a preacher." Essentially, you went to ETBC to be a preacher or teacher. They didn't offer much of anything else.

James Hoffpauir was a preacher allright, but he was also a former class 3A All-State basketball player at Sillsbee, TX. He had played one year on scholarship at Lamar University until he had a conversion experience, felt called to preach, and transferred to ETBC. He did not play basketball at ETBC. He was about 5'9", had long thinning floppy hair on the top of his head, and a country drawl that would quit. We became great friends.

He was a preacher but didn't wear it on his sleeves. He wasn't pompous or sanctimonious or "holier than thou". He was just a good guy. He was a junior who had been engaged to be married and scheduled to live in the married housing area, but he broke the engagement and didn't get married. He gave me, and I still have, the Bible his fiancee had given him. We played a lot of basketball together. He also taught me how to bowl. (He had come within 4 pins of qualifying for the PBA tour.) He also taught me some life lessons that I still remember and practice today. I had the honor of being his Best Man when he got married a year later to Cathy Bartels. Sometimes, when James was at the girl's dorm visiting with Cathy, Ricky Hargrave and I would go over there and ask Cathy, "can James come out and play?"

Registration for classes was done on a seniority basis, except they let the basketball players inside the building early and the coaches let us into the registration room well ahead of our assigned space. They also visited with us and told us which classes and teachers to take and which teachers to avoid. One of the required classes was "Appreciation of the Arts" and was taught by two different teachers. They said to avois one guy at all costs but his class time matched what I needed to I took him.

Under him, Appreciation of the Arts was not a gimme easy arts survey course. He had 5 different masters of music degrees and had completed the work to get his doctorate in all of them. However, he didn't want to be called "Doctor" so he never took the final oral exam. He also always wore two watches. It seems he was behind enemy lines in Korea and his squad was supposed to get to a pickup point by a certain time. He was the squad leader and his watch broker. Evidently, no one else had a watch. They were late getting to the pickup point and got there in time to watch the rescue helicopters fly away and had to spend another night behind enemy lines. So, you can tell he was a little bit eccentric. He said he wasn't qualified to teach anything about painting and sculpting. He knew music and was going to teach music. He taught a course equivalent to a Music History course required for music majors. We had to be able to listen to snippets of songs and identify the song and composer. If we spelled the composer's name wrong we got no credit for the answer. We also had to recognize when new instruments were introduced to the orchestra. I brownie points one day in class by recognizing what was not authentic in a record of a 17th century piece. I recognized they were using an electric organ instead of a pipe organ. Miss Ellis always gave me extra points for taking this course so that I could relate to Kay Ellen more. I never told her it was a required course.

I also took an idiot's math course. It transferred to UTA as College Algebra but it was really a simple, almost remedial high school math course. A couple of weeks into the class I realized that I didn't really need the book and I could save some money if I took the book back. Unfortunately, it had been 2 weeks and 1 day since I bought the book and I could only get a full refund in I had taken it back within 2 weeks. I kept the book but usually took the Dallas Morning News to class, when I went. I'd also go 20-30 minutes late for the hour and twenty minute class. When Mr. Jimerson would take roll at the start of class and I wasn't there he often say, "Well, Mr Goodyear will probably show up in a litle bit" and wouldn't mark me absent. When I got to 8 absences he erased them all and started over. Nine absences was supposed to be an automatic F. I made a 92 in the class.

Basketball practice was just like the preseason practices at EHHS. We ran a couple of miles before we got to go in and start shooting and working on basketball drills. The coach asked me if I had run track in high school. I told him no but did say I had been timed at 4:38 for the mile.

One Saturday morning early in the semester I got up at my usual 7:00am time, went up to the cafeteria, ate pancakes, eggs, bacon, and sausage with orange juice and milk, and went back to my dorm room and went back to sleep. At about 9am the team manager was knocking on my door. "Coach wants you down at the track field." He didn't say what for. I put on some jeans , t-shirt, and regular shoes. I also wore gym shorts under my jeans, just in case. When I got to the field the coach says, "You're in lane 4 running the mile." ETBC was having a dual track meet with LeTourneau College from Longview. "I don't have any track shoes" I said, but the manager reached in to the equipment bag and pulled some out that were my size. So, I got in lane 4 with no warm up to run the mile. I finished 2nd. "Can I go home now?" I asked. "No," the coach replied, you're going to run the 880 (1/2 mile) in a few minutes." 15 minutes later I ran the 880 and finished 1st with a time of 1:58. By then, I wanted to run in the mile relay. It was going to decide who would win the meet, but the coach wouldn't let me. He had some fat kid on a track scholarship who was supposed to be a sprinter. He would run in the slot I wanted. We lost as that kid got totally whipped on his leg. I still think we would have won if I had been allowed to run.

Well, enough about that. My next post will be about basketball season.

College Tryouts

Since I haven't been too successful at coming up with non-basketball stories, I'll start on basketball stories again.

After my senior season was over there was very little prospect of me playing college basketball but I was invited to two tryouts, East Texas Baptist College in Marshall and Hill Country Junior College in Hillsboro. I was invited to ETBC because of Ken ? whose wife was the ETBC President's daughter. He had seen the first half of the game against Sam Houston at EHHS when I scored 17, didn't miss a shot from the field, and made a nice move and layup on a 1 on 2 fastbreak. The invitation to Hill was really a blanket invitation to everyone on our team.

I went to ETBC first. The tryout day was on a Saturday and Gary and I drove down Friday afternoon. That evening I went down to the gym and played with some of the guys that were trying out and some of the current ETBC players. I came away convinced that I could help this team and thought I'd do well the next day.

They had a big 6'9" black guy, Nathan Hollis, from Gilmer, TX who was a center for the varsity. I hit him with so many good quick passes off drives for easy layups, it was incredible. The only problem was, he dropped most of the passes. The coach said they were good passes but Nathan wasn't used to getting passes that were that quick.

There was also a kid (Frank?) there from a small school in Many, Louisiana. He was a class A All-State player in LA and was a 6'2" guard. He was an excellent shooter with a terminal case of acne. He ended up with a full 4-year scholarship to ETBC. He was a really nice guy but not too smart. There was another kid, 6'3" guard from around Houston that ended up at Jacksonville Junior College. And, the only other guy I remember was a small 5'10" guy from Indiana who was a starting guard for ETBC as a freshman.

The tryout consisted primarily of several full court scrimmages. I played tremendous defense, stuffing the freshman starter and stealing the ball often from the 6'3" guy from Houston. The only problem, I couldn't make a shot to save my life. I even missed an uncontested layup after I'd stolen the ball at mid-court from the 6'3" guy.

I knew I could play for this team. I was better than the freshman they had starting on the varsity and was as good as any other guard there, at least in my mind. I didn't get a scholarship offer but was encouraged to play as a walk on. They gave scholarships to guys from small schools (class A and B, now class 2A and 1A) that had made All-District or better. If you didn't make All-District you must not be good enough, even if you had played in a much higher (4A now 5A) and tougher competition class of basketball. A guy I met later at ETBC said the coach had a "big school complex" and wanted to be able to say he had recruited all these All-District abd All-State players, even if they were from tiny schools and not as good as guys who went to big schools but didn't make All-District. They also signed guys who played another sport besides basketball. Some of the 2-sport scholarships included golf, track, abd baseball. I only did basketball. Although I had run a 4:39 mile I didn't want to run track.

Several weeks later was the Hill JC tryout. I drove down to Hillsboro after school and arrived a little late. I was the last guy there and they had a 10,000 people who had showed up to tryout. Really, there were probably about 60 or so, too many to get a good look if they didn't know you. The only person there that I knew was Owen Barnett from Sam Houston. Owen had been All-District and averaged about 25 points a game.

We did a bunch of one on one drills and I was great. I was making shots, beating guys on the dribble, and really doing well. I even had great jump that day. On one drill I beat my guy, drove for the layup, and laid it in. I was so high on the layup that I actually hit my elbow on the backboard. When we broke up into teams for the scrimmages it was obvious who they intended to really look at by the team you were put on. I ended up on a team with Owen that had 5 guards. The team we played had 6'3" black kid who had played center in high school, a forward and 3 guards. Since I was the tallest guy on my team I had to play center. Like I said earlier, I had great spring in my legs that day, and I won the tip.

If I had played as well at ETBC as I played at Hill I would have gotten a scholarship to ETBC. At Hill I simply didn't have a shot. Owen was invited back for another tryout after his coach called Hill. With his awards and track record, he deserved a legitimate shot. He ended up playing there 2 years on scholarship.

I also talked with a representative from Houston Baptist who said they'd give me an academic scholarship that would cover 50% of my tuition and I could walk on, but 50% there was more money than 100% at ETBC. Besides, I knew I could play at ETBC and decided to go there. I cancelled my dorm room reservation at Texas Tech, a fact I'm sure makes Ben happy, and enrolled at ETBC.

Strick

You know you are getting old when one of the kids you grew up with dies of health related causes. We buried Mark Strickland last week. He died of a heart attack at the age of 55. His son was in the 8th or 9th grade which is strange because Mark's dad died of a heart atack when Mark was in the 9th grade.

I don't really remember Mark in elementary school. My first real rememberance of him was when he was in the 7th grade and I was in the 9th grade. Although I was only a year older, I was 2 grades ahead of him because I started 1st grade at age 5. Mark and I roomed together on our church's first Youth Chior tour. Remember, I was a little guy. I was 5'2" when I started my sophomore year, but Mark made me look big. Mark was really a little kid growing up. I remembering him asking me about girls and how you get them to like you and kiss you and stuff.

I also remember us going to an amusement park in Oklahoma City on that chior tour. There was a fancy red cadillac convertible, highly waxed and shiny, with Illinois plates parked in the lot with the top down. We couldn't believe such a nice car was sitting on the parking lot totally open and unlocked. As we were admiring the car a black guy walked up to use and told us to "go ahead, reach into the car." We looked at him questionally and he said, "go ahead, it's my car." We reached into the car and I don't think we had even touched anything when the horn started blaring and an alarm started sounding. The man quicly shut off the alarm and said, "You gotta have an alarm system like that if you want to keep a car in Chicago."

The next year I started fooling around with a girl (Cindy) in Mark's class at different church trips. She was going with a guy named Guy Davie who was a football star at Nichols and much bigger than Mark. I don't know how or why but somehow Mark and Guy got into a fight over me and Cindy. Mark and Leonard Sanderson had to give me a complete blow by blow account about how Mark had whipped him. Mark was small, but he was tough.

After his dad died, Mark's mother married her dad's brother and they moved to North Carolina. Two years later they were divorced and Mark, his mom, and his little brother Lynn had moved back to Arlington. In the years he in North Carolina Mark grew up a lot and played a lot of basketball. Basketball was king in North Carolina and everyone played that all the time instead of football or baseball. Besides getting bigger Mark had become a pretty good basketball player.

I was now a sophmore in college and Mark was a senior in high school and we played on the FBC men's basketball team at church. That would start a number of years playing basketball together. That will be a separate story. Mark also was working in the mailroom at the Citizen Journal with Verne and me. He continued to work in the mailroom while he went to college at UTA and I moved to the front office and worked in the accounting department. The C-J had a softball team.

I think I told this story in another post, but no story about Strick would be complete without it. We were playing a game at Randol Mill park and I thinkwe were losing. Mark was trying to motivate eveyone and was hollering stuff. Jerry Hyde was the General Sales Manager, stood about 6'2" 240 pounds, and had been drinking. He didn't take well to Mark's encouragement and told him to shutup. Mark, being the banty rooster, combative person that he was said "No'. Jerry had been sitting on the bench instead those chain link dugouts and he started coming out after Mark. It was 180' down the right field line to the 5-foot fence. Mark made the fence and jumped it in about 2 seconds.

Later, when we played on the church softball team, we were playing the Word of Victory church team for first place. The score was close and they were mouthing and had taken a couple of cheap shots. Mark was playing first base when one of their guys grounded out and proceeded to run up Mark's legs. Mark had already had multiple knee surgeries and was already amd and intense from the game. When the guy ran over Mark's legs the tripped and sprawled over the ground behind Mark down the first base line. Mark was on him in a flash, had him turned over, and had his fist lifted ready to smash him in the face. I was playing second base and hollered, "No, Mark, no!" That was enough to bring Mark back to his senses and he didn't hit him. We went on to win the game. Later that season we played Word of Victory in a rematch and beat them again. This time the score wasn't close. They also didn't mouth off or play dirty. I think they scared of us and especially of Mark.

As the years went on Mark and I stayed in touch through church. After we quit playing baskeball and softball we only saw each other on occasion. I wasn;t a golfing or drinking buddy, but we remained friends.

Strick was the first of my childhood friends to die. I guess I am getting a little older.

1740 Sharon

I was born in Sweetwater, Texas but my family quicly moved to the Arlington area when my dad got a job with Vought aircraft. Initially, we moved to Grand Prairie but, after a few months, bought a new house at 1740 Sharon Street in Arlington. Sharon street was directly west of C. B. Berry Elementary, right off Browning Street. Running along the east border of the school was New York Avenue and on the other side of the street was a big Cotton field surrounding a large farmhouse.

The house was wood frame with a light green color paint, like the cabins in the mountains, and had 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, a kitchen with a small eating area, and a combination living/dining room. There were hardwood floors throughout, except for linoleum in the kitchen and bathroom. Gary and I shared a bedroom, my folks were in another, and we used the largest bedroom as a den. There was no air conditioning. We had a big evaporative cooler. (That's a big fan with a water reservoir at the bottom. The fan evaporates the water by blowing over it and out into the room, cooling the air somewhat.) The cooler was in the den, positioned so that it blew done the hallway toward the kitchen. Hopefully, along the way, some cool air would get into each room. When I was 10 or 11 my folks got a window A/C unit for their room. There was a gas heater in the living room that always looked like to me that it had a mechanical man inside. I think there was a small gas heater in the bathroom, too. The total size was almost 1,000 square feet. The house had a large backyard with a nice sized patio and a covered front porch.

My earliest memory was Gary and I peeking out the front door to our neighbor's house on the east and looking at the little boy in that house who was peeking around his screen door at us. When we saw each other we quickly closed the door and ran back inside. Then we'd look out again, see each other, and run back inside. We kept doing that until eventually we met the little boy. The boy was David Purcell. He was Gary's age and his dad worked at Vought, Temco, Bell or one of the aircraft companies.

All of the houses were new, inexpensive, and owned by young families with small children. On our side of the street were the Purcell's to the east and then to the west the Wiseman's and the Dickey's. Across the street from the Purcell's were the Ferguson's and then the McAlister's, ???, Keener's, Brouillette's, a family with a son my age named Chuck, and a couple of houses futher, the Harrigan's. They all had kids around our age. I already told you about David Purcell. Then there was Frank and Wade Wiseman. Frank was a couple of years older than Gary and wade was my age. The Dickey's had Glenn, Gary's age, Paul (also known as Doody) a couple of years younger, David, a couple of years younger still, and another brother even younger. The Ferguson's had a boy much older than us, about Sis Erin's age or older, and Martha, my age. The McAlister's had a boy Sean who was my age and the house next to him didn't have any kids. That's why I can't remember their name. The Keener's had 3 or 4 boys, all older. Kenny was a year older than Gary, Billy was a couple of years older than that, and the other(s) were several years older. The Brouillette's had Mike, Gary's age, and Maureen, Bunny's age. The Harrigan's and a boy and girl the same age as the Brouillette's. I can't remember their names. Anyway, there were 8-12 boys of an age close enough that we could play baseball, football, or other games together, so we spent all our time outside playing. When we played hide and seek that game could be spread over several houses on both sides of the street.

David was left handed and grew up to be a pretty good pitcher. He played for the Bankers and, along with Mike Nichole, led them to our league championship when they were 12 and I was 11. He also pitched for Sam Houston in high school. Mrs. Purcell was Catholic but I think Mr. Purcell was Methodist. I don't ever remember seeing them go to church. Two other remembrances of David were: (1) Once Gary held my arms behind my back so David could punch me in the stomach. When my dad got home, he held Gary and let me punch him in the stomach. (2) We were playing tackle football in his front yard with no pads. I was tackled and hit the back of my head on the sidewalk. My head got busted open and needed 3 stitches to close it up.

The Wiseman's were originally from Illinios and Mrs. Wiseman was "Yankee" through and through and smoked. I didn't like her much. Mr. Wiseman was a tall, skinny, really nice guy. He was a salesman for Watkins, a company that sold products like Amway but it was a regular business, not multi-level marketing. Frank wore glasses and, despite being several years older than us, he wasn't much of an athlete. I remember a Little League game when he was the runner on 3rd base. The batter hit a ball down the line and it hit Frank standing on the base for the 3rd out. Wade was a much better athlete. They moved back to Illinios before he was 12. He came back to Arlington on vacation when he was 25-30 and came over to our house. He was a motorcycle racer. The other thing I remember about Frank and Wade was that they were saved in the same revival as Gary and me. I made my profession of faith first and Brother East came to our house to talk to me further since I was only 6. While he was there Gary also made a profession of faith. He then went next door to the Wiseman's and Frank and Wade made profession of faith. They all walked down the aisle at the revival meeting, I think on a Friday night. The Wiseman's were baptized on Saturday and Gary and I on Sunday.

Glenn wasn't much of an athlete either and Paul, David, and the other brothers were really too young. You had to tryout for Little League and you weren't guaranteed to make a team. When Glenn was 11 he tried out for Little League but didn't make it. His parents and a bunch of other parents went to the Optimists who sponsored the Arlington Little Leagues and demanded a change. They insituted a minor league for the kids who didn't make the "major" league teams, but after a couple of years moved everyone into the same league and guaranteeed spots for everyone who wanted to play. One time Wade Wiseman and I started a "club". The initiation was you had to drink pee out of a dog food can. We told Paul and David that we had both done it and if they wanted to be in our club they would have to do it too. Paul didn't believe we'd done it, so we peed in a can and I put it up to my lips and faked drinking it by swallowing saliva. I then put on a nasty face and ran for the water hose. Of course, I never drank it but they thought I had, so Paul did it. He took a big swallow and then ran for the water hose. We told David to just fake it and he did and ran to the water hose, too. Kids can be mean. The other thing I remember about the Dickey's was smoking my one and only cigarette. Wade, Paul, David, their little brother, and me were all out in front of my garage. I guess the Dickey's parents smoked because they had a cigarette and the little brother who was about 5 really enjoyed smoking. We lit the cigarette and I took a puff. It burned my throat! It was horrible! I've never taken another puff in my life. Wade tried it too with the same result, but the little 5 year old just smoked away.

On down the street was a family with two boys 6 or 7 years younger than me. One of them looked just like me. It was incredible. Of course, I liked him a lot, but I don't remember his name.

I'll tell you more about the other side of the street in another post.

1740 Sharon - the other side of the street

On the other side of the street, starting across from the Purcels were the Fergusons. They went to our church and had a girl my age, Martha, another girl a couple of years older, and a son several years older, probably Steve East's age or more. Martha was not good looking and not very smart. I never had anything to do with her, even at church. She's still a member of our church. She used to live in one of the low rent apartments that were torn down for the new Cowboys stadium. She and her husband, I think they're married, rode bicycles to church and sat in the foyer. I haven't seen her in several months but I remember her being so happy one day when I did see her and said "Hello, Martha." It's amazing how a simple "Hello" can seemingly brighten someone's day.



Next to her and across from our house was Sean McAlister who was my age. He wasn't an athlete but he had more board games than anyone I can remember. I used to go over there a lot and we'd play Chutes and Ladders, Life, and other games.

Next was a house that didn;t have kids and then the Kenners. They had 3 or 4 boys. Kenny was a year or two older than me and Billy was a year or two older than that. They other boys were much older. Kenny and Billy would play football and baseball with the neighborhood. I'll never forget two baseball games involving Billy. We were playing with some kids from another neighborhood and Mike Hedlund was pitching. Hedlund was a big red-headed kid and could really throw the ball. He was 12 and I was 9. He could have struck me out on 3 pitches, so Billy, playing left field, sat down when I came up. For fun, Hedlund decided to try throwing a knuckleball rather than simply striking me out on 3 fastballs. I smashed the 2nd pitch over Billy's head and got a home run. The other event I remember was having a brand new bat that I'd brought up to the field to hit with. I was playing left field and Billy decided to use my bat instead of his own and he broke it. I cried all the way home carrying my brand new broken bat.

Next to the Kenners was a family with a boy my age, also named Charles, but who everyone called "Chuck". He was a dork, a gangly, dumb kid that I didn't like. Because of him, I never let anyone call me Chuck to this day.

The Brouillettes had a son my age and a girl a few years older. Mike was a lot of fun and we'd play together all the time. When I accepted Christ as my Savior I tried to witness to Mike. He was a Catholic. As I was talking to him Wade Wiseman came over and started making fun of me. That hurt becasue he and both had just made professions of faith and had been baptized that week and I couldn't believe he was making fun of me for trying to tell someone else about Christ. I'm sure that experience inhibited me from sharing the gospel with anyone else for many years. Mike also woked in the CJ mailroom with Verne and me years later. He lives in Red Oak, I think, now. His sister Maureen and the Harrigan girl who lived a couple more houses down would sometimes have backyard plays. They'd charge a dime or something and we'd go watch them. They'd use a bedspread for the stage curtains and the shows were always fun. She's an artist now and has paintings at the Upstairs Gallery. Her dad was a nationally acclaimed watercolor painter who sold through the Gallery.

A couple of houses further down were the Harrigans. The main thing I remember with them was the summer that I sold tomatoes from our garden in the country, 2 pounds for 20 cents. They wanted only the cherry tomatoes.

Our neighborhood played the Farhat/Barnett neighborhood in baseball and football a couple of times. They had a great baseball field on a block in the middle of thier neighborhood where no houses had been built. I don't know who won, I just know we had a good time. The Farhat's daddy was Big Daddy as in Big Daddy's liquor store. I would play basketball against Owen Barnett later on in high school. I think Huey and Denny Insell were in that neighborhood as well. Denny was on the First Methodist men's basketball team that I'll tell you about later. And, a kid with the last name Vaughn was also in that neighborhood. He was a grade ahead of me and played quarterback on the football team. He peed in his uniform pants at the start of every game.

It was fun growing up on 1740 Sharon. We'd treat ot treat in an area from Abram on the north, Park Row on the south, New York Avenue on the east, and Meadowbrook Park on the west. Lots and lots of candy, haunted houses in people's garage, and just plain old fun without having to worry if any wierdo was going to do something.

Senior Year Basketball - District Play

Non-district play and the tournaments are over and the calendar has turned over to a new year (1968) as we begin district play. Due to intergration I.M. Terrell and Dunbar, the two all-black high schools, were added to our district creating a 9-team district. Rather than have a 16 game district schedule, the school district opted to split the district into zones.

Poly, Arlington Heights, Trimble Tech, Dunbar, and EHHS were placed in one zone. I.M. Terrell, Paschal, Carter-Riverside, and North Side were placed in the other zone. I can't remember if Diamond Hill was also in that zone or iff they played in a lower classification. If they were in the zone that would have made it a 10-team district and an 18-game schedule without the zones. Paschal, Carter, and North Side were all poor teams giving Terrell a free shot to the district championship game. Poly, Heights, and EHHS were all musch superior to any team in the other zone except Terrell. Dunbar and Tech were as good as any of the other teams, so our zone was much tougher. In the pre-district forecast the Star Telegram rated us as "probably the 4th best team in their zone on paper, but they'll find a way to finish second." Riddle was our tallest player at 6'4" and the other teams all had bigger guys. They were right, we did finish second.

Our first game was against Arlington Heights whom we had just beaten by 30 points in the Lions Club tournament. Our team wasn't a 30 points better team. We were really very evenly matched, we were just super hot in the tournament. The district game was a much closer game. It was also one of only a couple of games that we had that were filmed. We played our 1-3-1 zone with me on the top, Riddle in the middle, Hall and Worley on the wings, and Groody on the baseline. Heights attacked the zone differently than they had in the tournament and exploited the baseline. They drove the baseline and were either getting around Groody or getting fouls called on him and really beating us underneath. One of my worst memories was at the end of the half. They scored with three seconds to go and went ahead by one. I grabbed the ball out of bounds and tried to throw it downcourt so we'd have a chance at a last second shot. One of their guys was in my face as I threw and deflected the ball into the lane by their basket where another guy picked it up and they scored again. A horrible play on my part. I had no business trying to force the pass. They went on to win the game by 5 or 6 points. We all made so many mistakes that Coach Howerton, after making us watch the entire game film once, said he was going to burn it. WE NEVER SAW IT AGAIN.

Our next game was against Poly. They were the favorite to win our league. The had a 6-9" post man who was very good, Bob Bounds a 6'5" or 6'6" forward who was really good, a really quick 5'11" left handed point guard and several other good players. They could play an 8 or 9 man rotation without a drop off in quality. We played a 6 man rotation. In preparation for the game we made a couple of changes. I was moved to the baseline on the 1-3-1 so that no one could beat us down there again. Worley was moved to the point and Groody was moved to the wing. With me on the baseline the wing guys had to be more active (remember Coach Howerton was trying to get them to do that back in the Castleberry game) and they did. Our defense was now actually better. We also worked on a spread 4-corners offense to use against Poly to try and neutralize their height advantage. We could also use the 4-corners to stall away the end of the game in normal situations. Frankly, I didn't like it as an offense to run as a base offense during the game. We started the game well against Poly. Running our normal rotation offense we got ahead by 6 points in the first quarter. We were playing well and they couldn't stop us. Coach Howerton had us change to the 4-corners spread offense for the second quarter and the wheels came off. We lost our intensity, we had a couple of bad calls, and we let them get back in the game and go ahead by half. We went on to lose a close game but now had started out district 0-2.

We beat Tech and Dunbar as expected and were 2-2 for the rematch with Arlington Heights. It was another close back and forth game. There were two plays I vivdly remember late in the game. On one fast break the lead pass to me was thrown too far. I finally grabbed the ball on a full sprint directly under the backboard with Charlie Jenkins their 6'1" guard on my back. As I grabbed the ball I jumped back as best I could toward the basket and flipped the ball behind my head toward the basket. It went in and I was fouled. A picture of the play ran in the Star-Telgram. Later with 11 seconds to go we were down by one. I had the ball on the left side of the court beyond the top of the key. I drove the free throw line, squeezed by Jenkins and split between him and the post guy coming up to help, shot, scored and was fouled. I was excited. I had just scored to put us up by one and the the free throw would make it two. But, wait. The ref said "No basket!" He said I was fouled before the shot. I made the free throw and we won in overtime. I'm still hacked that I didn't get the basket and a free throw. In later years I would make a similar play to "win" the Arlington Church League city championship only to see the ref not only disallow the basket but call a charging foul on me.

I don't remember anything about the Poly rematch except that we lost and I fouled out. Linda Kaye, the freelance photographer who shot mostly for the Fort Worth Press, took my picture on the bench. The Star-Telegram used that picture in their article about me. Again, it was a close game but they were simply bigger, deeper, and better. We akso won the rematches with Tech and Dunbar. I think the Tech game was the last game of the year. As I was dirbbling up court our fans, led by Marge Johnson, started yelling "Shoot Charlie" and laughing. As they continued to call for me to shoot, I decided "Why not!" and put up a 20-25 foot jump shot. Swish, nothing but net! And, so ended my high school career. I averaged 9.5 points for the season and 8.5 for district play. I played almost every minute of every game, at least while the game was in doubt. I had a good season and loved it. It is a memory I will treasure always.

I hope I didn't bore you too much. There are hundreds of details I could have added, but I think you get the picture.

Basketball- Senior Year- Tournament Time

We played in two tournaments - Abilene and the Fort Worth Lions Club tournaments. We had an invitation to play in the Arlington Classic at UTA but it was the same weekend as the Abiliene tournament. Since that was our only out of town opportunity the team voted to play in Abilene.

North Side didn't play in the tournament this year, so, instead of taking a bus, we drove in 3 players' cars and Coach Howerton's car. I decided I wanted to make the all-tournament team and the way to do that was score a lot of points, even though that wasn't my strength or my role on the team.

Our opening game was against Lubbock Monterrey. They were one of the better West Texas teams and won their district. We lost by 4 or 5 points and I scored 15. I also took a lot of bad forced shots and cost us several quality offensive possessions. It was the kind of game that the stats might get me an all-tournament vote but it wasn't winning basketball. In the second game we played Haltom. They ran a full court press the whole game. They also had a guard who was a friend of mine from RA basketball who would jump in front of you and draw a charge. The way things are called today it would probably be called a blocking foul on him. Anyway, our team played poorly and I was atrocious. I didn't score a single point and missed several shots. I wasn't taking wild forced shots, but I wasn't making the shots I was shooting. So much for all-tournament and I lost my starting job for the last game of the tournament. I didn't play at all in the first half but played quite a bit in the second half. I went back to playing the way I was expected to play, scored 4 points, played good defense, didn't force shots, and our team won. I learned a lesson that is as good in life as it was in basketball: Don't try to be something you're not. Do what you can do and do it well. That will make you and your team better.

I mentioned the private cars to tell two stories about them. First, after the game against Monterrey David Lebeouf, the team manager, and Dwight Mitchell, a cheerleader, took David's Mustang and drove to Mexico. They had just enough time to get there and turn around and come back. They drove into the motel parking lot just before we were to leave for our Saturday morning game. No purpose to the trip, they just did it because they could. Dumb!

After the Riverside game we were supposed to meet at a particular restaurant for dinner. Coach gave us the name and said to meet him there in 30 minutes. I was in a car driven by Kim Riddle. Also in the car were Don Groody and Jimmy Swanson. Kim had a Chevy Impala with a big V-8 engine. Following us to the restaurant was Lebeouf with Allen Stanford, a little bitty sophomore kid with the big black plastic rimmed glasses that were the style in that day who was a team manager, and someone else. When we got to the restaurant no one was there. We found out there were three locations for that particularly named restaurant. We looked at the food, it was a cafeteria, and decided not to eat there. We also decided not to try to find the "right" restaurant and figured we'd find something to eat on the way home.

Abilene was 150 miles from Fort Worth and there was no I-20. You had to go through each town and most of the road was two lane highway. LeBeouf and Riddle decided to race home. Even worse, they decided to drink beer while they raced home. The only guys not drinking were the little manager and me. Riddle had the speedometer pegged a 130, that was as high the the speedometer went, and we were still gaining speed. Lebeouf passed us, probably going 135-140. The manager's eyes were as big as saucers in the back seat as they passed. Ahead of us on the highway the road turned to the left and went up a hill. An 18-wheeler was ahead of us. Lebeouf turned off his headlights and "snuck up" on the 18-wheeler. As he started to pass him he flipped on his lights. You could tell the trucker's startled reaction by the way his truck moved momentarily from side to side. We slowed down to 70-80 to go through the towns. Somewhere along the way we stopped at a roadside cafe and had chicken fried steak and all the trimmings. We arrived in Fort Worth 2 hours after leaving Abilene. Take out the 30 minutes for dinner and we made the 150 miles in 1.5 hour, an average speed of 100mph. It was crazy and I'm glad I only experienced it once. I wouldn't want to do it again. We were lucky we weren't killed.

The second tournament was the West Side Lions tournament. We played Lake Worth in the first game and crushed them. It was a total mismatch and everyone on our roster played. I only played the first quarter and scored 2 points. Most of the starters only played the first half. Worley wasn't having a good shooting day and Coach Howerton left him in into the 3rd quarter so that he could get close to his normal game average. Still, he only scored 8 points. The second game was a rematch against Haltom. This time we handled the press a lot better. We also did a better job of avoiding the charge calls. However, once we were going down the court on a fast break. I had the ball near half court and saw Hall open on the side near the free throw line. I also saw the Haltom guy setting up to take a charge. I passed down to Hall and stepped to my right to avoid the charge, but the guy slid over another step, too. I slammed him hard with my left elbow and forearm into the stomach and he crumpled to the floor. They called a foul on me, but it should have been a block. They had to help the Haltom guy off the court. When he came back he didn't try to take any more charges. We won and and I scored 8-10 points.

The 3rd game was against IM Terrell. This was the first year of intergration, although we had played them in a tournament the previous year. They were in a different zone from us in district so this would be the only time we played them unless we met for the district championship playoff. They had several of their key players back from the previous year. They didn't get to do their dunking routine because of the rule change outlawing dunks, but they still all had to be able to dunk in order to make the team. We played a 2-3 zone and really sagged on their big guy, Lee Shaw, a 6'4" guy who could really jump. We invited the guards to shoot the 15' jumper. While they missed some, they also made a bunch.

My first shot early in the first quarter rattled in and out from the top of the key. I wouldn't miss again from the field until my last shot of the game. Later in the quarter I made a 15' jumper and then, as time was running out in the quarter, I made a 25' jumper. Nothing but net!

In the second quarter I made another basket and was open for a 20 footer near the end of the quarter. Worley was determined to take the last shot and was trying to get free even though he was being double teamed. They poked the ball behind him and I was able to run over and retrieve it about 30 feet from the basket with a second on the clock. I jumped and shot, nothing but net! We went into halftime tied or ahead by one or two. Shaw had 4 fouls on him and we were in an excellent position to win. For the quarter we had shot 50%. Terrell had shot 80%. We had no turnovers and had allowed almost no offensive rebounds. That's why we were still ahead even though they were shooting such a high percentage.

In the third quarter is was still a close game. After a foul call on them, a double cup full of ice came flying onto the court from high in the stands and hit just a few feet in front of me at mid-court. At least it wasn't a whiskey bottle like they'd thrown the year before against Paschal, but the damage was done. The refs were now scared. I kept setting up in front of Shaw and let him run over me but they wouldn't call the 5th foul on him. Riddle fouled out midway in the third quarter. Shaw could do whatever he wanted and no foul was called. I still hadn't missed a shot since the first one and with three seconds to go in the 3rd quarter it was our ball out of bounds near half court and we were ahead by one. I made Worley throw it in to me. Standing in the corner of the halfcourt line and the sideline I took the inbounds pass and heaved a shot toward the basket, off the glass and in! We were ahead by three. I had made last second shots at the end of each quarter from successively further distances - 25', 30', and half court.

The fourth quarter continued with the refs afraid to make a call against Terrell. I was really tired. I played the whole game with no substitution. I was fouled once and had trouble shooting the free throws because I was so tired. I should have called time out so we could rest. Terrell had rotated 8-10 players in so they were much fresher in the 4th quarter. They got ahead of us. Without Riddle in for us they were getting offensive rebounds and scoring. We were get one shot and that was it. I turned the ball over on a poor pass to Hall and then missed a shot from the side. They ended up winning by 6. In the last minute they finally called the 5th foul on Shaw but the game was already over. The refs came into our locker and apologized after the game. They said they were scared.

In the Fort Worth Star Telegram story of the game the headline was "Terrell holds off hot shooting Highlanders". If you looked at the stats they shot a much higher percentage, ours were just from further away. The story also read "Gary" Goodyear did this and that. Bob Hood, the sportswriter, knew my brother Gary's name from football and just assumed it was G Goodyear instead of C Goodyear. He made it up later in the season by featuring me in a 1/4 page story with picture.

In the last game of the tournament we played Arlington Heights and beat them by 30 points. Again, even though I was shooting and scoring well Worley hogged the ball. On one 2 on 1 fastbreak he wouldn't throw me the ball. Finally, he threw a behind the back pass below my knees. In full running stride I couldn't reach the ball and kicked it out of bounds. Despite the 2 point opening game, I averaged 10 points for the tournament. I played well and I played within myself. More importantly, the team won.

We either played in another tournament that I forgot about or we played another game in the Lions Club tournament because we played Paschal. Like Terrell, they were in another zone for district play but we played them in a tournament game. We drilled them, beat them by 10 or more but they played the whole game at a slow, slow pace. We were running a 2-3 zone defense and they would simply hold the ball out front. They wouldn't try to penetrate. There was no shot clock so they weren't doing anything illegal, just boring. Charlie Turner was their coach and he was a strict disciplinarian. Anyway, that's what I remember of the tournaments. Next post, district play.

Basketball - Senior Year part 1

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.