Small Town Stories

Toms' Story

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 27 Aug 2014 19:28:00 +0000

It was an unusually hot day in early June 1970, and I had begun my summer job which was mowing yards. It wasn't really that much of a job, because I only had about 3 yards to take care of, but it was enough to keep me out of trouble. I had a pretty good deal with my dad. He would supply the mower and oil for the engine. I would supply the sweat and gas to run the the machine, and I got to keep the money that I made as long as I kept our yard mowed also. One of the yards that I took care of was our next door neighbor Mrs.Kinzelt's place. Now Mrs.Kinzelt had a big yard, or at least it seemed that way to me, and she was very particular when it came to her grass. There had better not be a single blade of grass standing when you finished, or you didn't get paid. I hated it back then, but I have found that later in life it taught me a very good lesson and that was to be pretty thorough, and to pay attention to details.

Anyway, back to my story. One day while I was mowing her yard, and I was at the back side of the property when I saw a pickup pull up to the curb and stop. Now no kid ever likes to see an adult show up unannounced and without warning, so I began wondering who it was, and what they could want. I immediately started going through my memory banks, what could I have done that would have gotten an adult out looking for me! Nothing came to my mind, since school was out I thought I had managed to stay out of trouble pretty well, at least to my way of thinking. As I pushed the mower ever closer to that pickup a face slowly began to come into view, and I recognized it was Tom McGee. My mind quickly shifted gears, had I done something mean to Tam or Troy. Once again I came back to the fact that school was out and I hadn't seen them since, and I sure didn't remember picking on them in school, at least recently.

I shut the mower off as I reached the curb where he was parked. A cold sweat came over me as I approached the pickup. Time to find out what I was in trouble for this time. I was put somewhat at ease as a big grin came over his face when I got to the pickup. Tom spoke first, and I will always remember what he said to me. "I've seen you mowing Mrs.Kinzelts' yard for a couple of years now, and you always have it looking nice." "Thank you" I replied thinking hot dog, he's gonna want me to mow his yard for him, but then I immediately thought there's no way, Tam or Troy can mow yards, and if they can't, well it's time they learned. "If you can do that good of a job on her lawn I was wondering if you would like to come and farm for me"?

He must have thought I was deaf or an idiot, my brain couldn't comprehend what I was hearing. I told Tom "I don't know how to drive a tractor." "I'll teach you" he said. "I don't have a way to get out to work and back" "I'll come and get you in the morning, and I'll bring you home every evening" he told me. "and I'll pay you $1.25 an hour." Well that one got my attention, $1.25 an hour for all summer, man I won't ever have to go back to school. I wondered if I would be the first 12 year old to just retire from life! "Yes sir" I told him "when do I start?" "I'll pick you up at sunrise in the morning" he told me.

Well sure enough the next morning as I was sitting on the front step waiting Tom pulled up, I got in and away I went on my new adventure. As we pulled up in the field I saw my new chariot, a John Deere model R that was pulling a 3 bottom sweep with chicken pickers. Yep, I had no idea what all that meant either, but that's what Tom told me it was and I had no reason not to believe him. However, it might as well have been the space shuttle. Up to that point in my life I had never driven anything except a bicycle, and most of y'all know how well that turned out! Now, you folks out there that know anything about tractors know that on a model R there are 2 motors. The first one is a small gasoline starting motor. You have to get this one running first, and then after it is going you pull 2 levers that engage the main diesel engine and get it to rolling over. Then you release one of the levers, which is the decompression lever and the main engine will fire up. I will never forget the feeling in my stomach when that bad boy fired up. Like I said the astronauts on the shuttle couldn't have been more excited than I was at that moment.

Tom showed me how to work the hand clutch, what gear to put it in to plow, where to set the throttle, and then off we went. He showed me how to measure the distance between where the front tire was and how far it needed to be so that the sweeps overlapped just enough to get every weed in the field. He showed me how to use the foot brake to make a turn, and how to leave the corners until you were finished and then you can plow them out. I will always remember the most important rule he told me was, that if you got sleepy, stop and take a quick nap, cause he would rather me take a quick nap than him having to come out there and fix fence after I ran through it because I was asleep. When we got back around to his pickup he told me "lesson over, I'll be back at quitten time and get you." I let him out and I was on my own.

I drove that tractor all that summer right up until time to go back to school, ( by the way, I wasn't able to retire either) and for the next 3 summers also. I am pretty sure that I probably tore things up as most kids will do, but in that entire time he never raised his voice to me for anything that I did or didn't do. I have met, worked for, and worked with people from all over the world, and there are very very very few people that I admire and respect, but Tom was one of them, he never treated me as a kid, he always treated me as an adult. On August 21, 2014 Tom lost his battle with cancer, and although I had not seen him for many years I still remember, and employee many of the lessons he taught me those many summers ago. I guess this is my way of saying goodbye, I will miss you.

Are ya crazy or what!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 21 Aug 2013 20:32:00 +0000

How many of you have ever been coon hunting? Well I was fortunate enough to have been many times when I was younger. I happened to be neighbors with ole Bill Back, and friends with Brandon, one of his sons. So when they went hunting Brandon would ask me to go along with them. Some of the best times, and memories I have as a kid was running up and down the creek banks in the dark, listening, and following the bays of Duke and Luke as they tracked a raccoon. Duke and Luke were Bill's coon dogs. They were blood hounds that Bill had trained to smell, and track the coons. They would chase one many miles if they had to until they would finally run the raccoon up a tree, and then they would stay at the base of that tree and bark and howl so that the coon would stay up in the tree, until we got there.

Those were the only two coon dogs I have ever been around, but to me ole Duke had to be one of the best ever, that dog lived to hunt, and nothing else. After going hunting with them as many times as I got to you got where you knew the difference between their barks, and it always seemed that Duke would get on the trail first. There was several times when we would get to where they had the coon up a tree, and Duke would be climbing the tree trying to get the coon. Now, your probably saying, that's ridiculous dogs can't climb trees, but I'm tellin ya that this one could! I remember one night Duke and Luke had a coon up a tree, and when we got there Duke started climbing the tree, and then he walked out on the branch that the coon was on. Duke approached the coon, and got him around the neck, when he grabbed the coon they both fell out of the tree, and into the creek below. After what seemed like several minutes Duke's head finally broke the surface of the water, and he still had that coon in his mouth. Ole Duke swam to the bank and layed that coon down at Bill's feet. Now I don't know who looked more proud ole Bill, who looked like a proud father who's son had just scored the winning touchdown, or Duke who had just scored the touchdown. Like I said the best coon dog I have ever seen.

Anyway, one evening Brandon came down to the house and asked if I could go hunting with them that night, and after getting permission we went up to his house, and Bill told us to load the dogs. I don't know how they knew, but those dogs knew we were going hunting. They were jumping around, and barking, I don't think I ever even got that excited Christmas morning! So we loaded Duke and Luke into their boxes, and waited. Finally Bill told us it would be a few minutes before we left because we were waiting on someone else to get there. In a few minutes a car pulled up, and a man that neither Brandon or I recognized got out and came over to where we were. Bill introduced us, but time and age doesn't help me remember his name. However, I do remember he was a new preacher in town. I'm pretty sure he was the new Lutheran, or Baptist preacher.

Bill had decided that the best spot to find our quarry was along the creek South of town, so off we went on our little adventure. When we got to the place that Bill wanted to start the hunt, we unloaded the dogs and started off. I do remember the preacher telling us his life story as we walked along the creek while Duke and Luke searched for a scent. I know he told us that he grew up in a city, and had never really participated in a lot of outdoor activities growing up. Brandon and I just looked at each other and smiled. About that time the dogs picked up a trail, Bill took them off their leashes, and off into the darkness they went. We all knew that this city preachers education to the country was about to begin!

I know dogs can run awfully fast, and after just a few minutes those dogs sounded like they were a couple of miles down that creek already. Typically when the dogs get after a coon the coon will do one of two things. They will either run to the first good tree they find and climb it to get out of trouble, which makes chasing them pretty easy because you don't have far to chase them, or they will try and outrun the dogs, which of course leads to a longer chase. Bill, Brandon, and I knew from the bays and barks of the dogs that this one was gonna be a runner, it might be a long night. Every so often Bill would stop, turn off his flashlight, and listen for the dogs to see if they had changed direction, and to see if we were getting any closer. From the sounds they were still chasing the coon, and moving away from us, so on into the night we went.

After a couple of hours the preacher started asking questions like how far had we come, and how much longer till we caught up with the dogs. So we knew he was getting tired, Brandon and I knew that if he couldn't go on that one of us was gonna have to stay with him and take him back to the pickup, and then we would miss out on catching the coon, and neither one of us wanted that. It didn't matter how far you had gone, or how much farther you had to go, once the dogs were on the trail you stayed out there until you got the coon, or until it got away. There wasn't no going to the house resting, and then coming back out in the morning. After awhile Bill told the preacher that he could tell that the dogs had the coon in a tree just from the different sound in their bays. I'm not positive but to this day I'm pretty sure I heard the preacher saying a prayer of thanks. So after what seemed like a couple more miles of walking we got to where the dogs had a big ole coon up in the top of a cottonwood tree.

We all stood there looking up into this tree wondering how in the world we were gonna get this coon outta that tree, and listening to the preacher gasping for air. We knew that there was no way Duke could climb that tree. It was way to far up for us to shake the branch and knock it off. Brandon and me started looking for rocks that we could throw up at the coon to try and knock it off the branch it was on, but before we could start throwing any rocks Bill said to wait a minute, he had an idea. Now ole Bill pointed his flashlight up into the tree at that coon, and asked the preacher if he wanted to get a stick, climb up the beam of light up there, and knock that coon out of the tree. Well, that preacher looked at the coon, then looked up at that beam of light, and then he looked at Bill and said "Do you think I'm crazy or what? I'll get half way up there and you'll turn that durned light off!"

Pucker up hot lips!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 16 Jul 2013 16:53:00 +0000

I bet if you think hard enough you can remember your first kiss, and if you think just a little bit more you can remember the first kiss that you got from that special person in your life. I know I can, cause mine came with a little pain! No, she didn't bite me, hit me, or nothing like that. Oh, OK I'll tell y'all the story.

This is a story about the first kiss I got from the beautiful girl that would eventually become my wife.If memory serves me correctly we were about 13 or 14 years old. We had started seeing each other at basketball games when we played Booker, and whenever her family came to functions in Darrouzett. We would talk, maybe hold hands if nobody was looking, but we hadn't had a kiss yet. So one evening I had saved up some dimes and called her on the telephone. She told me her parents had gone somewhere, and her brothers were off doing something, and she sure wished I could come out and see her. Man my brain went into hi gear. There had to be a way to get the 6 miles it was from Darrouzett out to her house.

I might could hop on the train that went past her house, but the train only came through 1 or 2 times a week, and it sure wasn't due right now, plus how the heck would I get back home. I could walk, but by the time I did that her parents would probably be home. Then I remembered, Barney had a Honda Trail 50 minibike, maybe I could borrow it, ride out to see Lori, get a kiss, and then ride back to town! Man that sounded like a fool proof plan to me, what could go wrong! So off I went to find Barney, and borrow the scooter. After a little looking I found him and told him my plan, and asked if I could borrow his scooter. He told me that I could, but it needed some gas, which wasn't a problem, and I needed to be back before dark, cause the headlight didn't work, again shouldn't be a problem. So with the scooter full of gas, it was off on the back road I went. As I was leaving town I was sure a hoping everything was still OK to come out, because after I put gas in the mini bike I didn't have any money left to call Lori and tell her that I had acquired transportation to her place of residence.

As I pulled into the yard I didn't see any vehicles around, well so far so good. As I was getting off the scooter Lori came out the door. She seemed surprised and happy to see me anyway. I asked her if her parents, or brothers were still gone. She informed me that they were and so we went into the house to listen to the radio. As we sat and talked about really important stuff, like who was going with whom, and how much we hated school, and which school had the toughest teachers, the time began to slip away, and along with it my courage to kiss her.

As we were sitting on the couch and I was trying to gather up enough courage to plant a kiss on her, she musta got tired of waiting on me, and the next thing I know I'm gettin the smooch that I had came after. When she finished kissing me my head was swimming, but I needed to get started back to town. It seems I had taken so long trying to get my courage up that it was now dark outside. We walked out on the steps and I told Lori goodbye, and of course got me one more smooch for the road. I hopped on the minibike, fired it up, and off I went.

The first part of the ride to town went pretty good. The road is fairly straight, and the white caliche road stands out real good, but further down the caliche runs out, and the road has some long curves, and I was rapidly approaching the longest one on the entire road. So far I had been staying on the road by dragging my feet along the road, and when I felt the surface change I would simply steer the opposite direction slightly so that I would get back to the middle of the road, but in the middle of this curve I didn't feel the the road change until I couldn't feel the road anymore because I had driven right off of the road, and I was soaring over the bar ditch. Well if any of ya'll have ever jumped a bicycle or a motorcycle over anything then you know that when you leave the end of the ramp you pull up on the handle bars. I knew this; however, when you don't know your at the end of the ramp, and you don't pull up, then you crash into the side of the bar ditch, and then you fly over the handle bars, and then when you don't let go of the handle bars the minibike comes with you, and when the minibike comes with you you end up rolling through the ditch with a minibike, and you don't want to roll through the ditch with a minibike!

I'm sure a whole bunch of thoughts went through my head as I lied there looking up at the stars. Like OK, I'm still alive, and can I move my arms and legs, is the minibike broken, will it start so I can get back to town? Yep, I'm sure all of those passed by my mind, but the only one that I can remember is. I got a kiss tonight!

Fore

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 16:23:00 +0000

As ya'll know when I write one of these stories, I usually change the names to protect the guilty, or innocent whichever the case may be, however, I couldn't figure out a way to tell this one without using the correct names. Hopefully none of the guys takes offense, so here goes.

When I was a Junior in High School, Brad came to me and said that we needed to get a golf team together and go play golf. I told him that I had no idea how the heck to play golf. Wheat said "don't worry about it, I'll teach ya." I asked him why I should learn to play golf, and he told me well we get out of school to go play in tournaments! That's all the persuasion I needed. So Wheat went to recruit the rest of the team. We didn't do that good that year. Now don't get me wrong we didn't completely suck, but getting good at golf takes some time.

So my Senior year rolls around, and here comes Brad again wanting to know if I was gonna play golf this year. I told him I really didn't want to get embarrassed again. Now ya'll probably know that Bradley is a golf pro down in Cabo San Lucas, but if he hadn't done good playing golf, he sure coulda been a used car salesman cause he talked me into it again. This year he had conned Randy, Jerry, and Brandon into playing on the team, and so off on the tournament trail we went.

It was amazing the progress we had made since last year, and we seemed to be playing better each week. I think we played 3 or 4 tournaments before District came around. The district tournament was held at Clarendon that year. Unlike most of the other tournaments, District was just a one day deal instead of two days. At the end of the day ole Darrouzett High had done well enough to post a score that put us in second place behind Booker, but second was good enough to earn a trip to the Regional Tournament in Lubbock, which brings me to the point of this here story.

The actual tournament was held in Levelland, but we got to stay in Lubbock. Yep, the country kids had finally got to the big city! We got checked into our hotel, I don't recall what the name of the place was, but we were on the third floor, so it was like a skyscraper to us! After supper we were all trying to decide what to do the rest of the evening. Randy, Jerry, and I thought heck, we would go swimming in the indoor pool, and so after changing into the proper attire, off we went to get our swim on. When we got down there they had one end of the pool area roped off where nobody could get in. Seems they were having a wedding supper, rehearsal, or something going on over there. We figured that they shouldn't bother us, as long as they didn't get too rowdy.

After a few minutes we started hearing little splashes down in the deep end of the pool. We looked up at the roof to see if it was leaking, and it wasn't. So what the heck was making those splashes! After a few more splashes we figured it out. Brandon, and Wheat were up in the room, they had the room door open, and Wheat was chipping golf balls from back of the room by the bathroom, out the door, three floors down, and into the swimming pool. We went down to the deep end, and started diving down to get the golf balls from the bottom of the pool. It took some skill to dive down, get a ball, and then surface without getting beaned by another incoming ball. It woulda been pretty tough explaining to coach how come we couldn't play the next day cause we had a golf ball concussion!

After Wheat had hit all of the golf balls into the pool we were still gathering them up when we all heard some commotion in the shrubs. Now if you ever stayed at one of them fancy hotels that have an indoor pools then you remember that they had all them trees, shrubs, and plants around one end of the pool, well that was where the racket was coming from. After a couple of minutes we could hear Wheat laughing, then we heard Brandon start screaming something, and here he comes a runnin out of them bushes Now Brandon did have his swimming trunks with him, except he was carrying them in stead of wearing them. Seems that Wheat had dared Brandon to run jump in the pool without his trunks, and of course Brandon couldn't pass on a dare.

Only one thing was wrong with their plan. Yep. the bushes and stuff was down at the deep end of the pool. So when Brandon jumped in he couldn't touch bottom to put his shorts back on, and he began bobbing up and down trying to get those shorts on. He would get a gulp of air and then sink to the bottom trying to get them shorts on. Then when he got to the bottom, he would push back up to get another breath of air, and the process would start all over again. Of course we were all laughing so hard I guess we never even thought about helping him, but after a little bit he did manage to get them back on, and made it back to the shallow end where we figured we had better go on back to our rooms. You know, to this day I don't think anyone at the wedding party saw what happened, because the manager never knocked on our door and asked us to leave the hotel. Oh, by the way we did go on to win the Regional tournament, and earn a trip to the State tournament in Austin, but that's another story for another time.

Scout's honor!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 15:57:00 +0000

To me one of the best things about growing up in a small town was the limited amount of choices of activities that we had available to us. What, your saying, that's right, unlike the kids in the big cities where the choices of things to do was probably unlimited. In our town it was choose to participate, or stay home and do more chores. One of the best activities to me was Boy Scouts! Getting to go hiking, camping, cooking your own food, and especially not having to take a bath every night! I mean how much better could it get? Well, it did, the night at Scout meeting when our Scout leaders told us that we were gonna get to go to Scout camp that summer.

I think that was the longest school year on record. Time just drug by. Nothing seemed to speed it up, and the worst was at the meetings when they would tell us about everything that we could choose to do down there. It seemed like the whole world awaited us just a few miles South at Camp MK Brown. Fishing, canoeing, rifle shooting, bow and arrow shooting just to name a few. It seemed worse than waiting on Christmas to get here, but finally the day arrived. We all met at the Scout Hut and loaded all of our gear into the pickups and trailers and headed off to Mobeetie, TX. and our week at camp!

We arrived and got assigned our camping area. We spent the rest of the afternoon pitching tents and setting up our camp. It was a decent site, we had a bathroom close down the trail, but the chow hall was kinda far away, oh well I guess you can't have everything. We would get up in the mornings and head off to participate in the activities that were being offered. I remember talking Calvin into going canoeing, which wasn't an easy task since he couldn't swim. He threatened me to within an inch of my life, that if I tipped the canoe over and he lived, I would live to regret it. Needless to say I didn't tip it over and we both lived. Then I found the shooting range. Talk about being in heaven. This is where I learned to shoot something bigger than a BB gun.

As the week went on and we began making friends with other kids from other towns, word started getting around and we started hearing stories about a right of passage that occurred on the last day of camp. An activity that if not participated in made the whole week just a waste of time. Might as well have stayed home, something that every troop in the entire camp took part in, and since we was one of the smallest troops there would take considerable effort on our part just to survive it. However, to a person we knew we would be more than up to the challenge of the great gourd fight of Scout camp!

A troop meeting was called for that night, we had to start making our plans now if we were going to show these bigger towns what we were made of. Towns with familiar names like Pampa, Borger, Dumas, and some towns that we had never heard of. All we knew was that at the chow hall when we looked at their troops, there were only about 15 of us, and what seemed like a hundred of them. First we found a few aluminum trash cans. We emptied them out and hid them at strategic spots along the trails where only we knew where they were. Then whenever we found some gourds, we picked them, put them in our pockets, and then put them into the cans when we went by one of them. We came up with a password so that if someone started throwing gourds at you, you could holler out Kiabow, and if whoever was throwing at you was one of our guys then they were supposed to stop throwing at you.

Finally the big night was here. Everyone ate their supper quickly so that when they dismissed us we would be ready for battle. As night approached we finalized our plans, and set out to show everyone that we were the troop to beat. A few minutes after it got dark Calvin and I were sitting in our spot along the trail when we heard footsteps coming down the trail, then all of a sudden we heard some yelling. The guys up the trail had begun throwing gourds at some guys that had been trying to sneak up on our camp. We started laughing because we knew they probably wouldn't try that again! After a few more minutes we once again heard someone coming, but from the other direction this time. As they got right in front of us we started throwing gourds at them just as fast as we could, and I knew we were hitting them because of all the yelling that was coming from the trail. Then I saw Calvin rare back and unleash a gourd towards one of the guys that had been running. Now I can still see that gourd heading towards that guy because it was in slow motion. In the moonlight I recognized him from some of the activities I had seen him at. We called him Whitey, not really sure why, maybe it was because of his blonde hair, but this kid was definitely different. The best way I can describe Whitey is if you remember the cartoon character of Ichabod Crane in The Headless Horseman. He was tall and skinny with an Adams Apple that stuck out at least 2 inches from his neck, and a hooked nose. When he ran arms, legs, elbows, and knees went in all different directions at the same time. I never could figure out how he got enough of himself headed in one direction to get any place, but he did. I saw the gourd that Calvin threw explode as it hit him in the side of the head. The impact knocked him off of his feet, of course I think he only weighed about 50 pounds, and he hit the ground with a thud. He layed there for a few moments before he began to spit and sputter trying to get the gourd fragments out of his mouth, eyes, and ears. As Calvin and I took off running up the trail to get more gourds we could hear him babbling something to the effect of he was gonna get whoever it was that got him.

When we got back to the camp Calvin and I began laughing about the Whitey incident, and deep down I think we were happy that we hadn't hurt him. Calvin headed towards the bathroom. About the time Calvin got his pants down some of the guys that saw someone go in began throwing gourds at the bathroom. Now, whether or not the guys knew it was Calvin that went into the restroom they never did say, but suddenly you could hear Calvin yelling at the top of his lungs, kiabow, kiabow, kiabow. Finally the barrage ended. One of the older guys told us we needed to go down the trail to the shed where the lawn equipment was so we could help guard the prisoners. I was thinking, what prisoners, and when we got their, our leaders had decided that they would help us out, and whenever someone would run by they would run out and throw a blanket over their heads and carry them back to the shed. They had done pretty good too, there was 4 or 5 kids in there!

Sometime during the night, and all outta gourds, arms sore, and feet tired, the great gourd war came to a end, and we all went to bed with the knowledge that we took on the big towns and had held our own. Breakfast call came awfully early that morning, but we were all still pretty pumped up about the nights battle. At breakfast one of the camp councilors came over to our table. I remember him asking us "What was going on over there on the South side of the camp. I thought I was going to have to send out a riot squad!" We all just laughed and told him we didn't know what he was talking about.

It's time for your medicine.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 15:27:00 +0000

I wanted to tell y'all a little different story today. As most of you probably know I am a Paramedic. I have been practicing this trade for quite a few years now. I have seen a lot of pain and suffering, along with some funny things over the years. I have always said there is no telling what your going to see when you go into someones house at 3:00 am! One of my favorite parts of Medic class was the first class day after the weekend. The first half hour or so was spent telling and listening to every one's stories about the clinical experiences that they had. These stories usually ranged from tragic to comical, but when the person telling the story lit up while they were relaying something they had seen, or had done to the rest of us was what made this time so enjoyable. Anyway, in order to get your Medic patch you have to go through lots of hours of classroom learning, and many more hours of clinical training, and this is a story of one of those clinical training experiences.

Most of our clinical time that was required we spent in Amarillo, either at AMS riding on the ambulances, or at Northwest hospital in the Emergency Room, ICU, CCU, or the Pediatric ICU. Because of the long drive involved we would usually schedule 16 hour shifts , and in order to do that we usually left Darrouzett around 4:00 am, this day was no different.

This particular day there were 4 or 5 us that had ventured down to Northwest to knock out a few more of the required hours. With this many of us there at once it was decided that we would rotate through different areas so that we weren't stuck in one place for the entire 16 hours, 8 hours in ER then 8 hours in PICU, which is what I had decided to do that day. After 8 hours in the ER working with all of the different types of illnesses, and injuries that came through there doors I was a little concerned that 8 hours in the Pediatric ICU might be pretty boring, boy was I wrong!

I walked into the PICU that afternoon wearing my white shirt, black pants, black shoes, and enough identification badges to get into a nuclear reactor sight without any questions asked. I also had all of my books, papers, and forms that would have to be signed and verified so I would get credit for my time. I approached the Nurses station and introduced myself as Mark Potter a Paramedic student that was scheduled for an 8 hour shift with their department. "Put your stuff done over there, are you comfortable with administering drugs?" the Charge Nurse asked me. Well we had been told in class when confronted with this question if you wanted to be able to do anything other than just follow a nurse around the entire time you had better say, yes, I am comfortable with administering drugs!

So, "Yes I am comfortable with administering drugs" was what I told her. "Great, we have an 18 month old that crawled into a swimming pool about a week ago. He is recovering fine, but he is being chemically paralyzed so that his body can recover, plus he has an endotracheal tube in that is breathing for him, but he has been running a low grade fever, so we have been giving him Tylenol suppositories to help keep his fever down. Do you want to give him his medicine?" "Sure" was my reply. While I found a place to put my stuff the nurses placed a suppository in a small medicine cup, and handed it to me. Then one of the nurses took a tube of KY Jelly and squirted the cup about half full, and I started out the door towards his room. "Also the family is very protective, they will watch your every move while your there. So act very professional, explain to them who you are, and what your going to do!"

So, I knock on the door, go in, introduce myself, and explain that I am there to give the boy his Tylenol suppository. After I remove the child's diaper, I lift the child's legs and reach into the medicine cup and grab the suppository. Now you remember I told you earlier that one of the nurses had squirted a bunch of KY Jelly into the cup. Well as I was bringing the suppository towards his butt, you guessed it. It shot out of my fingers like a bullet leaving the barrel, and it landed over by the edge of the bed where the parents were standing, causing them to put their hands up quickly to keep it from going off onto the floor. I reached over and grabbed it again, this time it squirts back towards the middle of the bed. Well so much for professionalism. After a few more times of this enough of the slick jelly has come off that I can at least hold it between my fingers. So I once again start towards my ultimate goal of getting this suppository inserted into the proper orifice for the medication to take effect.

I am not sure how many of you know exactly what, and how paralytics work on the human body, but in a simple explanation the drug works by paralyzing the muscles so a patient cannot move around. Well, unfortunately it don't work on the muscles of the sphincter So when I get the suppository to the young lad's rectum he clamps it shut tighter than a bear trap, and he is not going to let anything go in there! As I attempt to push this medicine into his body, he is fighting me just as hard to keep it out. Of course I still have the entire family standing all around the bed with their hands up, looking like hockey goalies just in case the suppository shoots toward the edge again, and they were, well I wouldn't exactly call it giving me support, but at least they at hadn't started cursing me yet. By now I am soaking wet from sweat, so I think they were maybe feeling a little sorry for me. Finally I had the suppository melted down to about the size of a Tic-Tac from all the handling of it, and it slips neatly into the place it was designed to go into. I apologized one last time, and thanked the family for their patience, and I head back to the nurses station.

When I walk into the room all of the nurses are setting around a desk and laughing uncontrollably. You see they all had the same experience with this patient, and they had been watching me on the closed circuit TV that are in these rooms to monitor patients without having to actually be in there. They all told me that I had done good, and that I had passed my initiation. Man I couldn't wait till class next week, did I ever have a story for them!

I thought we were buddies

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 15:56:00 +0000

This is a little story about my Granddad John. If you knew John, then you know that he could be a little ornery, and that he always liked to have fun. Along with the locker plant that he and my Grandma Edith had, he also had a pig farm. Some of my greatest memories as a kid was getting to go to the pig pens with granddad. My mom told me that she used to tell me that if I didn't get in trouble that day that I could go to the pig pens with granddad. I can remember spending many hours chasing pigs back into the pens after they had tore up the fence, or rooted under it. We would get the pigs back in, and granddad would spend hours fixing the fence back up only to have them find another way out a few days later.

One morning when I was at the locker, granddad told me to go get in the pickup, and that he needed my help that day. Man I don't think I had ever been so excited, granddad needed my help! First stop was granddad's garage to pick up some tools that we were going to need for the job. Next stop was the CO-OP Lumber yard, and if my memory is right I believe ole Ed Burton was the one running it back then. Anyway granddad starts looking at electric fencers. I know I asked him what an electric fencer was, and he told me that it sent an electric pulse through a wire that we were going to run around the pig pens to help keep the pigs in.

After getting the fencer, wire, posts, and insulators it was off to the pig pens to start the project. Granddad loaded me up with all the posts that I could carry. He would step off so many feet, take one of the posts, and put it on the ground, and so many steps to the next one until finally we had posts all around the place. So the next job was to go back around, and using a hammer, drive all the posts into the ground. I remember wanting to hit the posts with the hammer, and granddad telling me not right now. I guess I pestered him long enough and he got tired of hearing me that he finally gave me a chance. I did pretty good for the first 2 or 3 posts, until I hit his hand with the hammer, so needless to say my post driving career was over, and it was back to holding them again..

Next came running the electric wire. We put a roll of wire on a post and took off walking. I did pretty good at that, of course all I had to do was hold my end of the post and walk along with granddad. After we got the wire strung, then of course came the stretching of the wire. After granddad got all the wire stretched we started back around the whole place putting on the insulators so that the electric fence wouldn't ground out against the posts. Now, it might sound like I know a lot about electric fences, and maybe I do now, but I sure wished I would have known a little more about them back then!

Come along evening time granddad and I had finished running the fence around the pig pens. Now was the moment of truth. Granddad plugged the fencer into an outlet. A hum came from the box, and then a red light lit up and then in a few seconds another one lit up. Granddad said it was working perfectly. I looked around the pig pens and I didn't see anything working. I'm not sure what I expected the electric fence to do. Maybe I thought something would pop out of the posts and scare the pigs back in or something. So I told granddad that I didn't see how that one little wire was gonna keep them pigs in when all those other wires couldn't.

So, granddad drew upon all of his years of experience and knowledge and told me "go over to that wire there and pee on it". Well when you love and respect someone as much as I did my granddad you don't question anything, you just do it, and besides when your a kid you;ll pee on anything, right! So I'm standing there, peeing on a wire when that electric pulse passed by. Now I played football and was hit pretty hard. I've jumped outta swings, crashed my bicycle, wrecked vehicles, even got hit on my motorcycle. I have broken many bones in all of those cases, but I have never had anything hit me as hard as that little, unseen bit of electricity did! Now, if some of you have never been shocked by electricity, the best way I can describe it is like being hit with a hammer. So you can imagine what it felt like to get hit with a hammer, where I felt like I got hit with a hammer at!

As I was laying there on the ground, with my granddad and George Pratt laughing at me, I was thinking, we are buddies, and buddies just don't do that to each other! I am also pretty sure that it was several days before I worked up the courage to pee again.

Just a little off the top

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 18:33:00 +0000

It was one of those cold , cloudy, drizzly days. The school day was over with, and we had a basketball game in a couple of hours, so we were trying to kill some time before it was time to go get ready for the game. There was 4 or 5 of us down at the FFA hog pens behind the Gym feeding our project pigs. The usual talk was going on, you know like who had broken up with who, who liked who, why a certain teacher always assigned so much homework. After a while Bobby said "I need a haircut,I wonder where I could go and get one"? Well, at that time there was no barber shops in Darrouzett, there was a beauty shop, (my moms) but guys didn't go to beauty shops to get a haircut. Of course I had no choice, but I was a cheapskate anyway and I wasn't going to spend any money on something I could get for free! Somebody made the suggestion that Bobby could always drive to another town and get one, but Bobby said that his pickup was nearly out of gas, and he didn't have any money to get any gas.

So it was starting to look like Bobby wasn't going to get his hair cut. We went back to talking about regular stuff when Bobby said "hey I know how I can get my hair cut and it won't cost anything". Bobby went on to explain "we can go up to the Ag shop and get the pig clippers, and you guys can give me a hair cut", " but we don't know how to cut hair" we told him. "I just want a burr hair cut" Bobby told us "so you won't have to do anything fancy!" We thought about it for a minute and decided, heck we can do that. So off to the Ag shop we go to get the necessary tools to do the job.

After gathering all the required equipment, we head back down to the pig pens to begin the job. The Ag Department had 3 sets of shears. The 2 good sets were locked up in the tool room. The shears that we had access to were probably 20 years old. They were so worn out that the motor in them barely had enough power to keep the cutting edges moving. I know some of you have sheared pigs for competition, and some of you haven't. Well trust me when I tell you that pig shears were never meant to be used on human hair, especially old worn out ones. Along with being worn out they are not very sharp, having been dulled on the coarse hog hair over the years, and secondly they have very coarse cutting teeth, but if that is all that you have to do the job with, you make due. So Bobby sits down on a 5 gallon bucket and the cutting begins.

The first pass down the middle of Bobby's head had to be agonizing, Those shears were pulling more hairs out of his head than were being cut. Those shears were pulling so hard on Bobby's scalp that his eye holes were now in the middle of his forehead, and his nose skin was between where his eyes were. Bobby was yelling in pain, but we couldn't stop now that we had begun, unless he wanted a reverse Mohawk. Finally somebody says "hey, you know when we shear the pigs, we always dip the shears in some diesel, maybe that stops it from pulling so bad." So, back up the hill to the shop a couple of us go to get some diesel. When we get back with the can of diesel we pour some in a bucket, and dip the cutting head in the liquid and back to the hair cut we go. You know, if we learned only one thing that day, it was that, diesel does not help to keep pig shears from pulling human hair while cutting, but we kept dipping and cutting until we had gotten all of the hair cut off that we could, or at least all that Bobby could stand.

As we stood there admiring our work, I still, to this day, cannot remember a more pathetic sight than that of Bobby sitting there on that bucket with patches of hair sticking up that we had missed, and the shears didn't or couldn't cut, and then other patches on his head that had been cut all the way down to the scalp, and then of course there were those trails of red diesel running down his head and neck. Bobby took a rag, and wiped the diesel off of his head, he then ran his hand over his new hair cut. A look came over his face, and he asked "why didn't ya'll cut it all the same length?" "We tried" we told him "but the shears wouldn't cut right." "What am I going to do, we have a basketball game in just a few minutes. I'm going to look stupid" he said. We all shrugged our shoulders thinking, that's your problem, not ours!

We gathered everything up and put it back in the Ag shop, and then we headed to the locker room to get ready for the game. Well, it got worse once Bobby was able to look at his hair cut in the mirror, and the madder he got, the funnier it became to everyone in there. Finally Bobby decided that all he needed to do was just wear a stocking hat during the game, figuring that nobody would be able to see what his hair looked like. Then all he had to do was get it fixed before school started tomorrow. The girls game ends, and now it's time for us to take the floor. We run out on the floor and start doing our warm up lay ups. So far so good right, but then Coach comes out onto the court. Now Bobby is not the tallest guy on the team, so he kinda stands behind some of us as long as he can, but now it's his turn to do a lay up, and when he does Coach sees that Bobby has a stocking hat on. "Bobby get that hat off your head" he tells him. "but Coach my head is cold" Bobby replies. "Get that hat off, or your butt is going to be hot!" Coach tells him back. Slowly Bobby reaches up and slides the stocking hat off of his head.

Bobby no more gets that hat off of his head than his mother spots his brand new hair cut. I'm sure everybody remembers back when you were younger, and when you would get into trouble, you know how your mom would call out your name you knew you were in trouble, and the more of your names she used then the more trouble you were in. Well Bobby's mother used his entire name that night, yep first, middle, and last name, and when she said it, it was heard over all of the other noise in that gymnasium !

Hey look what I found

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 17:54:00 +0000

Growing up in a small town there really wasn't a whole lot of things to do, however, one thing that we spent our time doing was riding around. Of course you had to have a car, or one of your buddies did! So your plans usually revolved around how much gas was in the car, or how much money everybody could scrape together to buy gas. If you didn't have very much gas, or money you stayed in Darrouzett dragging main, and honking at the other cars, not the get out of my way honking, or you idiot, you just cut me off honking. Nope, it was the hey how ya doing, hope you had a great day and your night is going just as good honking, although you had just been talking to them at the CO-OP station parking lot not 5 minutes ago. Now if you had a half a tank you could go to Follett or Booker, and if the tank was full, well you might even venture plum to Perryton! Although we didn't go there very often, except on dates, wasn't anybody over there we knew to honk at.

Anyway, this one night there was several of us sitting at the station parking lot trying to figure out what we wanted to do. We didn't have much gas, or money, so it was going to be a dragging main night. So Calley says get in let's go riding around. Now if memory serves me correct Calley, Barbie, and I were in the front seat. Rudy, Sheila, and Travis was in the back seat. If you are from Darrouzett, or have ever been there then you know that it doesn't take you very long to drag main 5 or 6 times and then to drive down all of the other streets in town. So after this was accomplished Callie said "let's go out to the big tree and see if anything is going on out there." Of course we all knew that there wasn't anything going on out there, or we would have already been out there, but what the heck it was gonna be something different to see other than what was in town. For those of you who don't know what the big tree is, well on the East side of Darrouzett there is a creek that runs through there, and there was a giant Cottonwood tree that stood beside the creek. The city had put some picnic tables down there, put in some lights, and kept it mowed. It was a great meeting place for all types of activities from family reunions, beer parties, to a make out spot! I'm just glad that danged ole tree can't talk!

As we pull off the highway onto the dirt road, one of Callies favorite things to do was put in an 8 track tape of Pink Floyd's, Dark Side of the Moon, and turn off the headlights so that the parking lights were the only light that there was. So with the moon light shining, and Pink Floyd blaring down the road we went. The road that you drive on today to get down to the big tree is almost the same as the one we used back then. You still drive along the top of the ridge by the baseball field, although the field wasn't there this night. We dropped off of the top and down to the bottom. We made a slow pass, and sure enough nothing was going on down there that night, nor was there anyone down there. So we started back up out of there, up the hill and back along the road.

About then Barbie says "I've got to pee!" So Callie drives a little further along the road to where there was an old tree trunk laying beside the road. When Callie stopped, I opened the door and let Barbie out to go pee. While Barbie climbs over the tree trunk I get back into the car and shut the door. We are sitting there listening to the music and talking waiting for Barbie to finish her pee. When all of a sudden Barbie lets out a blood curdling scream. This is the type of scream that you would hear at the movies when the ax murderer is fixen to kill the girl, or the grizzly bear is about to attack the hikers! Well the first thought that goes through my head is that Barbie squatted down and a rattlesnake musta bit her on the butt! So I throw open the door, jump out of the car, and run over to where Barbie is standing, Callie, Rudy, and Travis right behind me.

When we reach Barbie someone asks what's the matter, are you all right? Barbie points to the log and says, "Hey look what I found!" About three feet away from her sits a white Styrofoam cooler, and inside of that cooler there is probably a case of iced down beer! Somebody had bought the beer, iced it, and had stashed it for some reason behind that log. Maybe they had to go home for a little bit, maybe they had to go to some function, who knows. We didn't care, we figured finders keepers, right! So we grabbed the cooler and back to the car we go. Should we get some out and start drinking, we were thinking. No, what if whoever put it there comes back to get it. Better if we wait till we get out of there, so we put it in the trunk, and we all get back into the car to once again wait for Barbie to finish her pee.

As we are sitting there I start thinking to myself, and then start laughing. "What are you laughing about?' someone asks me. "Well we were all so excited about finding the beer that we never even noticed that Barbie was standing there in front of us with her pants around her ankles!" Everybody sat there for a minute thinking about this, and then we began laughing. Sure enough nobody had noticed this. Barbie gets back to the car, and I let her back in "what's so funny" she asks.Of course this just makes us laugh harder.

Run Forrest Run...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 20:32:00 +0000

When it comes to sports, and small towns, it usually means that you have to participate so that there are enough kids just to have a team, however, when it comes to track that's not always the case, because track is mostly an individual sport. Except for the relay events of course. Anyway we always had 5 to 10 of us that went out for the track team. We had our field event participants, I threw the shot put, and discus, we had our sprinters, and then came our long distance runner. Now you may have noticed that the reference to this athlete was singular, not plural! We had 1 long distance runner, not a whole team of them, which brings me to the point of this story, which is track training. Now, like I said, I threw the shot and discus so you would figure that the training for these events would mainly consist of some weight lifting, lots of practice on technique, and maybe a few wind sprints, right. So that day when the coach told us field event guys that we needed to run to the State Line with the distance runner, and the P.E. boys, we couldn't help but wonder if maybe he had lost his mind or something!

So, here I was sitting in the locker room putting on my track clothes, and bellyaching about having to run up to the State Line. Now for those of you that don't know where Darrouzett is located, it's not very far South of Oklahoma, as a matter of fact across country, like the route we were going to run, is about 2.5 miles up there, and 2.5 miles back A whole lot further than I thinking a shot and discus thrower needed to run. A few of the guys that had been running to the State Line and back since track season began told me to grab my cigarettes, and run with them. While I was wondering why I needed cigarettes to run cross country, one of them tells me that what they do is they run up to the canyons, duck off there, smoke cigarettes until the others come running back by, and then join in with them and run back to the gym. I'm thinking you know, this was my kind of training!

So after finish dressing, we all meet behind the gym, coach blows his whistle, and off we go North towards Oklahoma. After 100 yards there is a fence that has to be crossed, and then about 50 yards further you drop down into a creek bottom. Somewhere around 400 to 500 yards up a long hill, you come to some washed out canyons where the rain, over thousands, or even tens of thousands of years has eroded the soil down forming a system of canyons that in places is up to 10 - 12 feet deep. I can remember going up there when I was a kid, pretending that I was a cowboy, and the Indians were up on top getting ready to attack.I would have to maneuver through the canyons to escape from them, I always got away from them and kept from getting scalped! Man I was one good cowboy. Anyway, the canyons are pretty impressive, especially if you know how hard that panhandle caliche is, then you will understand what I'm talking about.

   When we get down in the bottom of the creek bed we figure that we are far enough from the gym that it will be OK to light a our cigarettes. Somebody looks back, no one is at the back watching us. So everybody pulls out their cigarettes and lighters, except for Arnie. That day Arnie doesn't have a lighter, so he pulls out a box of matches, strikes the match, lights his cigarette, and tosses the match away. Now don't get ahead of me. When everybody gets their cigarettes lit, we start running up the hill.  When we get up out of the creek bottom we can see that the real runners were already at the top of the hill, which was probably only about a half of a mile away, but it sure looked like it was at least 10 miles up to the top to me. After we had run only about 100 yards we start to hear something behind us. When we turn around and look, yep you guessed it, evidently Arnie's match had not gone out, it had instead caught the grass on fire!

Well what do we do. Do we go back and try to put the fire out, We could all be hero's battling a wildfire with gym shorts and tennis shoes, but if we do that then they will also know who started the fire. So someone hollers, "let's hall butt up to the canyons!" an even better plan in our minds! Everyone ditches their cigarettes and begins running just as fast as they can for the canyons, figuring that we can hide out in them. So, we reach the canyons in what had to be world record time( if they would have kept that sort of thing) and we duck off into one of the gulleys. "Oh man what are we going to do now" someone asks. "Well we wait here until the guys that run all the way come back by, and then we will follow in behind them and run back to the gym, just like nothing happened!" Except for the fire this plan is sounding better all the time. After a little while we can hear the fire whistle in town going off. We are all peeking around the edge of a gulley watching down the hill to where the fire is burning. In a few minutes we see the first fire truck arrive and start putting water on the fire.

After what seemed like hours some of the guys that had run all the way started coming back by. We knew that we all couldn't just jump in there with those guys, or coach would know that we hadn't ran the entire distance, and if we hadn't run the entire distance we were probably responsible for the fire. So while we stood there waiting we began thinking, what if when we get back to the gym they want to search us to see who might have matches, or a lighter on them. Somebody says, hey lets leave our cigarettes and lighters here. We can always come back later and get them. We all find little hiding places for our stuff, and then one by one we take off back down the hill to the gym.As we are heading back we can see the fire trucks running through the smoke, the emergency lights on the tops of the trucks spinning. We were all wondering just how much trouble we were going to be in. How many days suspension would we get, how many laps of bleachers would we have to run, and would our butts be able to take all of the licks we were going to get before we would get out of this !

By the time we got to the bottom of the hill the Fire Department had finished putting the fire put out, but we would have to run around the burned out area, we sure didn't want to get our shoes dirty! As we came around the end of the fire line, there was the Fire Chief standing there, and he had this look on his face, you know the one like he knew exactly what had started the fire, and exactly who the guys were that were responsible.I'm pretty sure he didn't really know, but it sure seemed like it. We ran by him trying to act like we didn't have a clue as to what was going on. When we got back to the gym coach was standing there, but we all had just the right amount of sweat on us, and we are out of breath just enough. Coach never said anything, now I am really starting to think, hey this is gonna work!  None of us bothered with taking a shower that day. We just got our street clothes on, and got the heck out of there! We all figured that the faster we got out of there the better chance we had of not getting into trouble. To this day I don't think anyone ever did get into trouble over that fire, but I do know that I never did have to run to the State line again!

So ya think ya wanna be a bird

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 16:51:00 +0000

I'm pretty sure that everybody when they were younger, or maybe not so young, has had one of those "Hey I've got an idea, here hold my beer "! Well, we had had one of those moments one day. Now my memory ain't what it used to be, so I'm not real sure who came up with the idea, but I do remember we all thought it was a good one. All we needed was a pickup, 200 to 300 feet of rope, a parachute, and a bunch of kids thinking parasailing in the Texas Panhandle wind would be a good way to pass the time. What could possibly go wrong, right!

Well as it turned out, we had access to all of those items. Believe it or not the amount of rope we needed was probably the toughest to find, but being resourceful kids we finally managed to find enough pieces to get to what we thought would be the right length to give us a good ride. So we set about tying ropes together. Anybody get their knot tying Merit Badge in Boy Scouts? I don't think any of us did either, but after awhile we had enough rope spliced together to give us the height we needed. So we all headed off to Frass's pasture, and another adventure. The best way to get the parachute inflated, and keep it inflated was to pull it and the person your pulling into the wind. Now, as anybody knows that has been, or lived in the Panhandle of Texas, there is hardly a day that goes by that the wind isn't blowing, and usually pretty hard. Well this just happened to be such a day. In fact it was blowing so hard that anyone who wasn't riding the parachute had to stand in the back of the pickup, because if we didn't the parachute would pick the back end of the pickup off of the ground.

I'm not sure who went first, or even how many went before it was my turn, but every time that parachute inflated and they began to rise in the air I knew I just had to try it. Finally my turn, and I began putting on the harness. I think I knew the feelings that the Wright brothers must have had standing there on the sand dunes at Kitty Hawk."You ready Moose?" someone yelled. The pickup slowly took the slack out of the rope, when it tightened up it began pulling me forward, slowly at first and then I had to run to keep up. The parachute behind me had fully inflated, slowing the pickup down a little, but I heard the engine speed up Then suddenly my next step did not touch anything solid, I was off the ground, airborne!

I felt my stomach drop as I began gaining altitude, Everything on the ground started getting smaller. Now I know that I was only a hundred feet or so off the ground, but it felt like I was a mile up in the air. Up to that point in my life the view from up there was the coolest thing that I had ever seen, except for maybe the day the wind blew some of the girls dresses up at recess! It felt like I had just got up there, when I felt the pickup start slowing down, and I started descending, until I was back on the ground.

Next up was Cecil, we got him all buckled in and ready to go. Up in the air he went, I was actually jealous, maybe I could get another turn somehow, even though there had to be 15 or 20 of us out there that day. After a few minutes the pickup started to slow, and Cecil was beginning to return to earth. Then all of a sudden POW, what was that noise? It sounded like a gun had gone off, except that we didn't have any guns out there, and even if we did they surely wouldn't have been shooting at Cecil! We looked up at Cecil, and then noticed the rope that was supposed to be tight between the bumper of the pickup and Cecil was instead hanging limp towards the ground!

Instantly a fear shot through all of us that our friend was going to fall from the sky to his death out there in that pasture, maybe we should have spent the 5 extra dollars for the personnel parachute instead of the cargo chute! Then it came to us, wait a minute, he is attached to a parachute, that is what they are designed to do, to keep someone from falling out of the sky. Sure enough Cecil was heading towards the ground, but not at a speed fast enough to hurt him, but slow enough that he shouldn't even hit the ground very hard.. Everything was going to be fine right. Now, if you have ever seen a war movie, when someone in a parachute comes in contact with the ground they hit and fall over onto their side. That's exactly what Cecil did, however, unlike the movies where the parachute deflates and crumples to the ground, and the guy stands up, unbuckles the harness, and then goes off to do whatever he is supposed to do. With the wind blowing as hard as it was that day, Cecil's chute didn't deflate, it stayed full and with it not being tied to the bumper any longer, it actually began pulling Cecil to the North, away from us!

We all jumped out of the back of the pickup and began chasing Cecil through the pasture. He was easy to see, he was the big orange and green parachute with a cloud of dust following it! After what seemed to be miles we caught up with Cecil. We got the chute deflated, and Cecil unbuckled from the harness. He was a sight, scratches from head to toe, and cactus thorns everywhere. So we set about pulling the thorns out. I remember about the only thing Cecil was saying was, "my mom is gonna kill me!" he just kept repeating it over and over. After we had gotten most all of the thorns out and cleaned him up a bit, someone said " hey you wanna fix the rope and go some more?" I'm pretty sure no one volunteered for a ride! Even my desire to go again had diminished!

Now what was ironic about this incident was that Cecil's father had fought in WWII with the 101st Airborne Division, (Band of Brothers) and Cecil had shown me a picture that was taken of his father during jump training, and it showed him landing on his head. So I guess it's true that the nut really doesn't fall far from the tree!

Calling all fish!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 19:33:00 +0000

It was a lazy hot summer day, probably a Saturday, when the three of us were sitting around at Walter's house trying to decide on something to do with our time. It wasn't often when all three of us didn't have something going on, whether it was a job, ballgame, or something. The talk soon turned from the activities at school, to girls, and then to fishing.( I'm pretty sure that wasn't the order of importance) We oughta go fishin one of us suggested. That was a great idea the other two of us thought, but where should we go. Well, we go could go up to Aunt Susan's. No, it's all the way up in Oklahoma, and besides, none of us had ever caught anything very big up there, and if we were going to spend our valuable time we wanted trophy sized fish! You know, I personally never knew who the heck Aunt Susan was. I just knew that there was a swimming and fishing hole up in Oklahoma where we would occasionally go. It was more than likely a relative of the Hennighs', or the Howards'. How about just down on the creek. No, wasn't anything down there but mudcat and carp. What about going out to the Grove, yeah there has got to be some monster bass there, everybody always talks about losing at least a ten to twelve pounder there. The grove was a group of cottonwood trees out on the Duke ranch, with a spring fed creek running through it.

OK, the Grove it was, but how were we gonna catch that monster fish there? We had tried all kinds of bait there before. Spinners, plastic worms, buzz bait, live bait, hula poppers you name it we had tried it. Man if we only had some dynamite, someone said. That would certainly get the big ones! Yeah, but it might blow it to pieces, then we wouldn't be able to see just how big it was, and anyway none of us knew where we could get any dynamite at anyway. Then Walter came up with an idea, "we could shock the fish, and that way it wouldn't kill them, and we could throw the little ones back in." That was a good idea, but how were we gonna be able to shock them. We couldn't run an extension cord out there and throw it in the water. Then Walter said, " I know where there is an old crank type telephone that we could get." The old crank telephones had a crank arm on the side of it that when turned would generate an electrical current that would travel down the phone line and cause a bell to ring on someone Else's telephone, or possibly send it out into the water to stun some fish.

So we set out to gather up the required supplies for our trophy bass fishing trip. After having found everything that we thought we would need, we set off for the Grove. There was a lengthy discussion on the ride down about which fishing hole would be the best candidate for our experiment. We finally decided on one that we thought was sure to have the hawg in it. We carried the telephone, two pieces of wire that were approximately five to six feet long. We hooked the wires up to the phone, and threw the other ends into the water. Our palms were sweaty, our mouths dry, and our hearts were beating faster in anticipation of the coming carnage. Since it was Walter's idea we gave him first crank. Walter spun the handle with elegance, grace, and enough speed that it should have sent an electrical impulse all the way to New York City! We waited for the fish to begin floating up to the surface, but none appeared. Walter once again spun the crank, nothing. Calvin said, " let me give it a spin." Once again no fish appeared. So I tried my luck with the phone. It turned out I was no better at calling up the fish than they were.

What could we possibly be doing wrong? After some discussion it was decided that we had the ends of the wires too close together. The reasoning being, that maybe the fish had to be between the wires in order to get shocked. Maybe we had actually learned something in Mr.Vickery's Ag class! (not about shocking fish, but about electrical currents) After we had gathered up some more wire, we once again set about our task. This time we had a wire on one side of the bank, and the other strung to the other side. That had ought to have them fish covered this time. The crank was spun again, and once again we waited as no fish surfaced. Perhaps we really are stunning them, only they are getting caught in the moss and weeds, and that's not letting them float to the surface or, maybe the telephone crank wasn't creating an electrical charge, but how would we be able to find out?

As we were standing there contemplating this dilemma, I saw Walter take a wire in each hand, and he then told Calvin, "I'll hold these, and you turn the handle once really slow, and I will be able to tell if it's sending out a current or not." I can still see that smile, or maybe it was a smirk creeping across Calvin's face just before he spun that crank as fast as he could! I remember thinking, just before Walter's eyes bugged out, and he started shaking all over, and falling to the ground , peeing his pants, and flopping around, like how those fish shoulda been doin. Walter, are you really gonna let Calvin spin that handle, while your holding those wires in your hands, because Ive known Calvin nearly as long as you have, and I sure as heck ain't gonna trust him to do that to me!

After a few minutes, Walter began to regain his senses, and after talking to him for a bit, we figured there probably wasn't any permanent brain damage, and anyhow, at least we knew that the telephone crank was in perfect working condition. You know, maybe we just need more volts. So, back into the car, and off we went to find a portable electrical generator!

The Rodeo

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 20:22:00 +0000

I think all kids growing up in a small western town probably have the same dreams, one of those dreams is of being a cowboy. We were no different in Darrouzett than anywhere else, so whenever someone had a horse in town everyone showed up. Somehow we all knew, whether it was a sixth sense or what I'm not sure, but a horse in town drew the same attention as an ice cream truck in a city, and everyone came to see if they could get a ride. If you were lucky enough to get on your thoughts quickly turned to winning some event at the National Finals Rodeo, whether it be roping, pole bending, or the biggy, the bronc busting event. Although most horses that people would let us ride were, well usually so old and broken down that they posed absolutely no danger to anyone, except if they happened to fall over dead while you were on them. Except for one, one called Ticket.

  Ticket was a Shetland pony, and for anyone that does not know what a Shetland pony is, it's a small horse that is somewhere between the size of a normal size horse, and a miniature horse, with the temperament of an attack dog. Now, I'm sure that there are mild and timid Shetlands somewhere out in the world, but I personally have not met one yet. Ticket was without question the meanest horse that has ever eaten oats, and pooped in a field. We all felt sure that if Lucifer himself were trying to take over the earth, he would be mounted majestically on the back of Ticket. The people that owned Ticket claimed that they were at a carnival or something, and they purchased a raffle ticket and won the horse. I always thought they should have held out for whatever the second prize was, but they didn't, and so Ticket the rodeo horse was what they got.

It was a warm summer afternoon when Pete and Bobby brought Ticket to town. Word quickly spread that Ticket was in town, and if you wanted to ride him you needed to get up to the hotel before the brothers took him back to his pen. So, like I said, with visions of riding the winning bronc at the rodeo, I started off to the backyard which was the rodeo arena. I had seen others ride, and attempt to ride him. Sometimes it went well, and then sometimes, more times than not it didn't. There just seemed to be something about somebody on Ticket's back that must have really annoyed him, because as soon as anyone sat down in the saddle he would begin snorting and bucking for all he was worth. I'm pretty sure that he wasn't actually jumping 10 feet in the air and reaching back and biting pieces out of your legs, but in my mind that was exactly what was happening!

"Who wants to go first?" Bobby yelled. We all just stood there looking at each other, nobody wanting to volunteer for the suicide mission. "C'mon you pansies, don't be a bunch of babies. There's nothing to be afraid of" Bobby chided us. Suddenly, as if being controlled by some outside force, I felt my hand being raised, and my voice saying I'll go. By the time I realized what was happening, it was too late, I was committed, that is unless I wanted to be considered, and called a chicken the rest of my life, and no kid wanted that. I had to prove my bravery to all my friends.

Slowly I approached Ticket. Bobby was holding him by the reins and smiling like an executioner about to pull the handle. I petted Ticket a time or two, thinking maybe if I made friends with him he would like me and take it easy on me. I placed a foot in the stirrup and stood up, kicked my leg over, and sat down in the saddle. So far so good I thought as I stuck my other foot in the stirrup. Just about then I thought I had to be on Seabiscuit, Secretariat, or some other race horse, because Ticket took off like he was shot out of a gun. By the time I got my head up off of his butt he began to buck. I was holding on for my very life. Every time that his feet hit the ground my jaws popped together so hard that everything went dark for a second, and my ears would ring. Slobber and snot was flying everywhere. I wasn't sure if it was his or mine, but it was all over the place. I knew that in a proper rodeo if you held on for 8 seconds you had fulfilled your obligation, and could get off. I was pretty sure it had not been that long, but surprisingly I hadn't been bucked off yet! Maybe I was going to be the one who tamed the beast.

We were right over by where everyone was standing and watching, when all of a sudden I saw Pete shoot out of the crowd and fall to the ground, get up, and then take off running. What the heck was going on? Well, it seems that Bobby had pushed Pete out in front of us, and whenever someone would run then Ticket would chase them. Yep, you guessed it, just like a dog chases someone! So, I'm sure Ticket was thinking, hey this is more fun than trying to buck somebody off. Well Pete is running around in the backyard, with me and Ticket hot on his heels. I'm pulling back on the reins as hard as I can, but it's doing no good at all. Then for some reason that is still not known Pete decides the best way out was to run underneath the clothesline. I saw the wires coming at me, but instead of ducking, falling off, or anything, I froze.

  You know how they say that sometimes in situations your life flashes before your eyes, well it's true. Only as young as I was there was only like 2 or 3 pictures that flashed in my mind before the wire hit my throat. Now, clothesline wire is made out of #9 wire, which is about the size of a Bic ink pen, and it is strung between two 2" x 4" boards at the ends. I'm not sure how long I was unconscious, but I don't think it was very long. When I opened my eyes I saw all of these faces looking down at me. I noticed their mouths moving, but I couldn't hear anything. Slowly as my hearing started returning I could tell they were asking if I was alright. No I wasn't alright, I had just had a killer horse try to do me in! I started wondering, where was that devil horse, because I just knew he was waiting for everyone to move so he could come over and trample me. They told me that I had broken the wire and both 2" x 4" boards at each end.

The rest of the day was just a blur and has since sunk into the recesses of my memories. I do however remember making a promise to myself that I would never ever under any circumstances get on a horse again, and that I had absolutely no desire to become a cowboy. As I have gotten older every now and then I would catch myself looking at some cowboy boots, thinking man those are some good looking boots, but reality would hit me again and I would remember the rodeo at the hotel all those years back..  Well to this day I have kept my little promise to myself!

A little background

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 19:29:00 +0000

First off, I should make it very clear that I'm not a professional writer, but you'll probably figure that out real quick. People have told me for years that I should write down the stories that I have been telling, and hearing about growing up in Darrouzett, TX. So I thought, what the heck, might as well.

Darrouzett is a small town in the Northeast corner of the Texas panhandle with a population at the apex of an oil boom of 444 souls. The majority of the population there are from German descent. Even the town was supposedly founded by a German immigrant who was heading out West to make his fortune, and when he got to the little valley where Darrouzett now stands, his wagon broke down. So the story goes that he wrote back to his relatives that were arriving at Ellis Island in New York, and he told them that as he was crossing the prairie his wagon hit a big ole gopher hole, and the wheel broke off. They say that his letter said" vell da vagon she's busted, and I can go nowhere, so Dare I'll Set till you get here".

We grew up during a time where the main entertainment available was, well whatever we could dream up, and believe me we had had some very active imaginations. There were only 3 channels available on the television. The only computers we knew about were on the Apollo space capsules, and a cellular telephone was not even a flicker in an inventors mind yet. We rode bicycles without helmets, played in the dirt, drank water out of the garden hose, fished in the creek, and then swam in it if the fish weren't biting. We could play outside until it got dark, but if Mom had to yell out the door for you get home, then you were already in trouble. We were typical kids, we played baseball during the Summer, football in the Fall, and basketball during the Winter. It was the time between that we used our imaginations to get into mischief. As far as I'm concerned it was the best childhood anyone could want. I'm sure that you've heard the old saying that it takes an entire community to raise a child. Well, that was certainly the case in Darrouzett. So consequently if you did something to get into trouble at your friends house, you not only got into trouble there, but you were in trouble when you got home also.

I am going to attempt to retell these stories as accurately as I can. I won't guarantee that I haven't forgotten parts of them, or have had to add a little bit to them, but my heart is in the right place anyway. They also will not be in chronological order (I have a hard enough time remembering everyday stuff). Oh yeah, I have changed some of the names to protect the innocent! So here we go, and I hope you enjoy them.