My Preacher Mid McKnight flew Navy airplanes in World War II. After the war, Mid farmed near Hale Center located on the Texas plains near Lubbock. He planted wheat, but a hailstorm destroyed his crop just before harvesting. That’s when he started flying old Navy planes again. And why he became my preacher. Some enterprising ‘cloud-seeding’ fellow hired Mid to fly an old Navy plane into storm clouds, baskets mounted on the wings to catch hail
Category: Abilene
Try to Remember
“Try to remember…and if you can remember, then follow, follow…” Those lyrics from Fantasticks, an off-Broadway musical, were written by a fellow West Texas college friend in Austin. Tom Jones from Coleman and I were in high school when World War II ended. Today’s pandemic restrictions remind of those WWII days. In August 1945, I was 17 years old. If the war continued, I would be required to sign for the military draft in October. But I
Delta Moose
We were sophomores in college, back home in Abilene for the Thanksgiving holiday. Ada studied vocal music at North Texas University, Denton. I studied journalism and worked on the University Daily Texan, Austin. Ada wasn’t the beauty queen in our Abilene High School days. But she was a good-looking soprano soloist and the classmate with the quickest wit. I invited Ada out for Friday and Saturday night dates. First night we ‘dined’ on hamburgers and
Love a Parade
Missing just about everywhere in this 2020 pandemic year, cities canceled the parade that brought Santa Clause to town. Love a parade. Still remember the Hardin-Simmons University Cowboy band. Made our West Texas town famous at several Presidential Inauguration parades. Memorable, because at the front of the Cowboy Band parade there were six coeds dressed in white, riding six white horses and carrying the six flags of Texas. Look the six up. Old professor going
Too Much Interest
Bank President Briggs Todd agreed to make the loan—Alex and I gave him our personal guarantee—to our high school Sea Scouts. And “Briggs, work ‘em over like you do us. Teach our young men how banks negotiate loans.” Happened back in the 1950s when Lawyer Eastus and Oilfield Supply Salesman Elam volunteered to skipper Sea Scout Ship Phantom. A payback for the fine leadership Skipper Claude Willis gave us in the 1940s. Our young charges
Hustler v. Newsboy
My 1945 senior year in high school, I was given a pardon from the last classroom hour so I could edit the Abilene High student biweekly newspaper. I used that extra time, and a part-time reporter’s salary, to learn how to shoot a better game of pool. The pool hall was in the basement of the Grace Hotel. Located across the street from the Abilene Reporter-News where I worked weekends writing sports. My tutor and classmate
Keep America Singing
Barbershop quartets and sailboat racing were two loves I shared with Sandy Douglass. Who’s Sandy Douglass? Sandy was a famous judge of barbershop singing because he advanced the Buffalo Bills to the national barbershop harmony championship. Then the Bills turned professional. They sang “Lila Rose” in the movie “Music Man.” Sandy was even more famous as the designer, builder, and perennial champion of the Flying Scot, an 18-foot sloop sailboat. I owned and skippered a Scot
Mornings with Morrow
Olympic Gold Medal winner Bobby Morrow, who died this week at age 84, and I met after he returned from Melbourne Australia. The Abilene Christian College, now University, sprinter had won three gold medals and his 400-meter relay team set a world record. Sports Illustrated named him 1956 ‘Sportsman of the Year.’ We ‘howdied’ a couple mornings each week before we both worked out at Phil Kendrick’s Abilene gymnasium. I was Mister Elam, eleven years older.
Drive-in Movies
Drive-in movies will dare a pandemic and start opening for cars…and family passengers…in Texas this month. So the girls who went there in Abilene tell me. Daughter One remembers seeing South Pacific on the big screen. Daughter Three remembers climbing on the mattress in the rear of the station wagon after they showed cartoons, before the feature. Daughter Two ‘not much’. What Daddy remembers goes back to when the 1950 drive-in theater operator paid their
Wartime Horse Lot
At age nine, I got a job…consideration was room, board and transportation. Back in those Hamlin Texas years, Dad gave Lena two horses. Red took the horses when a drilling contractor couldn’t pay for the hauling and drilling mud A.R. Elam Trucking Co. furnished. Parents made me the horse lot manager. My job description entailed curry-combing and brushing, cleaning under the horses’ shed, cutting Johnson grass for feed, polishing my Mother’s saddle. There were occupational