Kitchen Table Tales - Alarm Clock Club

Maybe people living in big cities think living in a small town would be pretty boring, but living in Pecos in the 1950s or so was pretty much fun for my parents. In those days, TV had just arrived and for years we only got CBS, which might explain why they had to make their own fun.

The Alarm Clock Club was mnade up of couples who agreed to host the group once a year, or so. The host couple provided drinks and three (no more, no fewer) hors d'oeuvres. The guests would arrive at 7 p.m. and the party was over when the alarm clock rang at 9 p.m. exactly. Then they all adjourned to the Pecos Valley Country Club for dinner.

The PVCC at that time was housed in the old air base officers club with a bar, booths and a big hardwood (oak, maybe?) dance floor. Our high school dances were held there, and the different high school sororities would decorate the club with crepe paper and balloons. We would shake out that floor wax so the splinters in the floor would be smoothed over.

The club had shuffleboard games and a pool, with a canteen where you could order food. I think I spent almost every summer day at the pool.

At that time in Texas, only private clubs could serve "liquor by the drink", but restaurants could serve "set ups". They would charge extra for club soda or tonic water, and the patron would bring in a flask or bottle in a brown paper sack and surreptitiously add the booze. Hence the popularity of private clubs.

There was no actual gambling at the PVCC, but sometimes the club would buy those little tickets which if you tore it open and found three cherries, you won more little tickets. It was a great way to keep the kids quiet while we drank our Shirley Temples or Roy Rogers.

The food, as I recall, was pretty good. My favorite was the Steak Diane, which they fixed tableside and flamed! Pretty tall cotton for West Texas.

The Alarm Clock Club spawned a younger version - the Ding-a-Lings.

The Alarm Clock and the PVCC both have dwindled due to deaths and people moving away. One old timer told me that in the old days, they would pay Joe Henry, the long-time bartender and local favorite, to stay open late and that these days they couldn’t even stay up till 9.

The club finally tore down the old club and the new one is in a triple-wide modular building and has an open membership. It still has fried chicken for Sunday lunch, but is even closed on Saturday nights.

Iced in

Since it is 21 degrees and the streets are covered in ice, I can't get out to go the Craig Class - ironically the program today is a review of "Hot, Flat and Crowded", I would like everyone to be entitled to my opinion of Big Rich, a new book by Bryan Burrough about the big Texas oil fortunes.

I stayed up late last night reading about Hugh Roy Cullen, Sid Richardson, Clint Murchison and can't wait to read the parts about H. L. Hunt. However, I'm appalled that the author or his editor has misspelled the name of the Texas towns Burkburnett (he writes Buckburnett) and Waxahachie (he writes Waxahatchie).

Burkburnett is actually named for a man named Burk Burnett.
Here's the Wikipedia entry:

Originally settled by ranchers as early as 1856, this community was known by some locals as Nesterville. By 1880 the town had a small store with a population of 132. From 1882 until 1903, a post office operated there under the designation Gilbert, named after the north Texas pioneer Mabel Gilbert. In 1906, a nearby wealthy rancher named Samuel Burk Burnett sold over 16,000 acres (65 km²) of his land in northern Wichita County to a group of investors who were seeking to extend the Wichita Falls and Northwestern Railway north through Oklahoma and Kansas.[4] Within Burnett’s former land near the railroad, lots were auctioned off the following year and a post office was established. The town was named Burkburnett by President Theodore Roosevelt, who visited the area for a wolf hunt that was hosted by the wealthy rancher Burnett.[5] In 1912, oil was discovered west of the town attracting thousands to the area and by 1918, an approximate twenty-thousand people had settled around the oilfield. The Great Depression would have a negative impact on the town’s population, which would be boosted again in 1941 as Sheppard Air Force Base would be established nearby.

There are about 10,000 people living there now.

Couldn't Penguin Press have consulted a Texas native or a Texas map?

That reminds me of the old joke:

Yankee travelers were driving through Texas and came to a town named Mexia. They got into an argument about how to pronounce it, and the argument got a little heated. They stopped at a fast food place in the town, surged in and demanded of the girl behind the counter.

"How do you pronounce the name of this place?"

She looked dumbfounded, but pronounced very carefully "Dairrrrry Queeeeen."

Kitchen Table Tales - Stuffed Deer

When Dad was a teenager, he used to take his friends, Dan Shieder and Joe and Sam Bonney to go deer hunting at his dad's ranch outside of Kerrville. The ranch was about 1000 acres in the hill country of Texas and was pretty rocky with hills and lots of mesquite trees and brush.

The story is that in the old Flanary house in Dallas (a big house on Lemmon Avenue in which Byron's grandparents (A. B. and Lolah Armstrong Flanary and their helpers ((he had Parkinson's)) and his parents Joe and Mae Rene Flanary Egan) lived, there was a stuffed deer. This was not just the head on the wall - this was an entire deer. It lived in the parlor (it was a very big house).

When Judge Flanary died, Joe and Mae Rene moved to the house at 3637 Stratford, with grandmother Lolah and young Byron (aka Biff) who was a sophomore in high school. There was no room for the stuffed deer, so Joe took it to the ranch.

When Byron and the boys went to the ranch to hunt, they would be assigned blinds from which to hunt, so they wouldn't shoot each other. During the night before the early morning hunt, Byron would go out and place the stuffed deer near one of blinds. If the unwary hunter saw the deer and shot it, the others would have a good laugh, and if the hunter didn't see it - an even bigger laugh.

Kitchen Table Tales - Mary Bird and the race tickets

When we were growing up in Pecos, the summers were hot. Like 120 degrees hot.

Daddy had air conditioners installed at the house - not those window units, but real refrigerated air registers like you'd find in a meat locker. He liked it cold.

Anyway, several weekends during the summer we would take a trip to Ruidoso, New Mexico, which was 285 miles from Pecos in the mountains. It was cooler there and also had the attraction of horse racing at Ruidoso Downs.

Daddy shared a Jockey Club membership with some other man, and we would sit up high in the bleachers with chairs and little built-in desks, have Shirley Temples and bet.

Children, of course, weren't allowed to bet, but Daddy would finance $20 per child for the day. Since there were 12 races, you would have to have at least one winner to have enough to bet on all 12 races at $2 a race. You could keep your winnings, which didn't amount to much, and you didn't have to pay back the $20 if you lost it all.

Bobby and I (the big kids) would study our race programs, buy a tip sheet and maybe end up with $5 or $6 at the end of the day. Mary Bird, who might have been about 6, would choose a horse because of the color of his jockey's outfit or because she liked his name, and she would clean up!

To keep us out of the way during the races, Daddy would have all of us go around and pick up all the tickets that people had dropped, and later in the motel room, we would carefully go through to see if anyone had inadvertently discarded a winning ticket. You'd be surprised that we found at least a couple of winners every day, which we turned in for the cash value.

Mary Bird, however, was the champ. Once she got the hang of it, she would bet not only the Daily Double (you pick the winner in two different races), she would bet on the Quinela (first and second in the right order, I think). I remember that she once won a big Quinela while Daddy had had no luck, and he decreed that she had to pay for the hotel rooms and dinner for all of us out of her winnings. She still kept about $25, if I recall.

Many years later, we had a reunion at Ruidoso and Jonathan was still a baby, so Mary Bird and Bob stayed back with him as the rest of us went to the races. Mary Bird randomly picked out horses and we made the bets for her. She still did better than all the rest of us combined.

Kitchen Table Tales - Wedding tale

Mary and Katherine gave me a list of stories they wanted me to write down, and I'm about at the end of the list. If you have a story you want me to include, let me know.

The story of our wedding is on a past blog - June 2008. However, there was the Bill Teague saga.

Bill Teague is a friend of Byron's (then called Biff), from his Sigma Nu days at UT Austin (then known as The University). Bill is from Odessa and is a couple of years older than Byron. He was an usher at our wedding in 1966.

We had several pre-wedding parties and Bill would drive over from Odessa - once managing to overimbibe and run into the only tree between Pecos and Odessa, and another time stopping at the stop sign on Hackberry and falling out of his car.

During the festivities leading up to the wedding, he developed a crush on Cheryl Garrett, one of the bridesmaids - as did another of the guys. Bill must have made an oblique pass at her at the rehearsal dinner, and she said something like "If you'd try harder, you might get somewhere."

At the wedding, Bill was so drunk he could barely stand up and showed up with his tux shirt studs fastened on the inside of his shirt, wearing a long-billed baseball cap. One of the other ushers leaned him against the wall of the foyer of the church and kept him from falling down.

At the reception at my parents' house, Bill decided to act on Cheryl's suggestion and sort of tackled her (probably meaning to hug her) and they both fell down on the living room floor - in front of God and everybody. Actually, we had already left, so missed the show.

Mary Bird and others had painted my car up (a Nash Rambler with front seats that reclined all the way), and Kenny Hughes drove us in my car to where Byron's car was nice and clean at Jack & Bill's Texaco station, and we were off to Odessa's Sands Motel, then to NYC to stay at the Plaza.

Later, Bill got his PhD in English and taught at the junior college level. He's lately had some health issues (probably related to too much alcohol) but is doing better.

We fixed him up with Byrd, a Theta sister of mine, and they dated for nine years before marrying. We had dinner with them at the Woman's Club just the other night.

Fin and Feather

Fin and Feather is a hunting and fishing club 18.4 miles from our house. Our son-in-law Mark is a member and talked me into joining last year. There are 41 members in this club which was established in 1893, which is pretty old for Dallas and Texas.

About two weeks ago, one of the members with a cabin (there are only 19 cabins) decided to sell his cabin at a sealed bid auction, and I won. The cabin itself is maybe marginally functional, but I'm now entertaining visions of tearing it down and building a cool two bedroom cabin with a long front porch looking out on the lake with a stone fireplace (gas logs so no ashes to clean up).

We've never lived in a new house - how cool would it be to have a new cabin?

Kitchen Table Tales - Wake up, baby!

My grandmother Dean (Bam) was the oldest of 10. Her name was Mary Medina Breeding. (also spelled Madina)
Her siblings were
Louise Antoinette
Robert (a girl)
Florence Crozier
Ida Louis (Louis is correct)
Clarence (another girl)
Margaret Cecilia
Alice Elizabeth
Arthur (only boy)
Laura

Margaret and Florence never married, and Louise (widowed twice) and Rob (widowed) all lived in Carlsbad, NM, where Daddy was born. Louise had married into money and had a nice house I remember visiting - mainly because she had several layers of Oriental carpet nailed to the floor. Her sisters all lived in a little house in the poor part of town that lacked paint and maybe indoor plumbing. This was probably the old family house from their childhood. Louise didn't like to share.

At Christmas, Daddy would go, or send Bobby, to pick up the great aunts and have them come for the family celebration. He always bought corsages for all the ladies, including babies. Your age and status decided your corsage. Mother and the grandmothers got huge purple orchids. The young ladies got cyndibium orchids, younger ladies got gardenias and babies got carnations. The carnations got pinned on the babies' backs, so the pin wouldn't stick them. The old great aunts fell into the young lady category.

I'm pretty sure my grandmother wasn't best thrilled to have her sisters there, but Daddy loved having the whole family around.

Anyway, Elizabeth (the first grandchild) was about a month and a half old that Christmas and the aunts were there. Bobby's favorite story of Louise is her saying "This egg nog is too strong! Gimme another cup!"

Elizabeth was asleep in the old infant seat which would get you arrested for child abuse today (soft plastic with a metal stand hooked on the back) on the floor of the living room when Louise noticed her for the first time. She poked Elizabeth with her cane - "Wake up, baby. Wake up!"

There is also a great photo of the aunts all sitting on the couch in the living room with their legs a little spread - leading all of us younger generation to relate to the dicta - You aren't old until you sit with your underwear showing!

Kitchen Table Tales - Mother and Daddy on the cruise

There are three stories about Mother and Daddy on a cruise.

The first two involve John and Barbara Stuart, who, as UT representatives, were in charge of this trip of Flying Longhorns. I think this cruise went to Greece and the Deans and the Stuarts had many adventures, including mule rides up and down a mountain and also finding a cab driver with no English who took about two hours to find their hotel in the middle of the night.

On this particular cruise, there was a dress-up night and Daddy took his WWII Naval uniform, which, even though had had a big placket added to the rear of the pants, was still too tight. After the party, they decided to throw the pants overboard. They conducted a Viking funeral, complete with flowers and a trumpet solo.

At the end of the cruise, John heard a commotion in the Purser's office and went to see what was wrong. He found Daddy and another man arguing over their bar bills. Apparently Daddy was offended that the other fellow had a larger bar bill. "I ALWAYS have the biggest bar bill!" he asserted.

The other cruise story took place in 1976 - which was the bicentennial of the U. S. In the celebrations leading up to the country's 200th birthday, Mother and Daddy, with several other couples from Pecos, took lessons in dancing the minuet. After learning the steps and acquiring costumes, they performed a couple of times for school children and at the country club. Later, on the cruise, they were demonstrating the dance on a slick marble floor and Mother slipped and fell. She broke her coccyx (tailbone). It was a painful injury and she had to sit on a "doughnut" pillow for several months after.

Wii Fit

Taking a break from Kitchen Table Tales - I have a Wii Fit! I bought the basic console before Christmas and Katherine and Mary and I played on it.

The Wii Fit came today (I couldn't find it at any store here) and it is cool! The good news is that I have improved my Wii Age from the 72 on the basic Wii to 61 on the Wii Fit. It may turn out to be one of those relentless fitness programs that is impossible to cheat.

Kitchen Table Tales - Driving on the airstrip

I'm writing about these in the order requested - this one would have been at the very bottom on my own list!

When I was in high school, I was given my grandmother Dean's (Bam), Chrysler New Yorker - a two-tone green four-door sedan. It had all the bells and whistles like power steering and power windows. Unfortunately, by the time I got it the windows didn't work, which in Pecos was a serious problem. If I got the windows down, the dust got in and if I got them up, it would be 125 degrees inside.

Anyway, the Pecos airport had twice-weekly flights on Trans-Texas Airways (we called it Tree Top Air) which Daddy and some of his friends talked into serving the area. Sometimes they even mounted campaigns to fill the planes in order to meet the minimum passengers to keep the service going.

The airfield was left over from WWII, when Pecos had a big flight training operation (flat land and lots of blue sky), and the field was not fenced. I was out driving with a friend and we decided to look for Cat's Eye Cave - which was a large abandoned pipe. When you looked through it, the far end looked like a cat's eye.

As we were driving around, I looked up and saw a plane getting ready to take off, and I was right in its way. I stomped on the gas and the plane lifted off. I don't know how close I came to being hit by the plane, but it felt very close.

Later, as we were sitting down to lunch at the house (we always had a formal lunch at home since the schools didn't have cafeterias) the radio was on for the noon news and it was announced that a car had driven in front of a plane, and issued a description of the car.

Once I was identified as the culprit, Daddy asked if I wanted to go confess or not, and I chose not to confess. The authorities didn't find out, or at least didn't let me know they found out. However, some members of my family like to bring it up.