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.