Snapshots in the Sun
by Bryce Martin

These are the days we will see again,
No matter how things they may go,
These days will be our snapshots in the sun.

These are the sunny highlights
we will remember,
Like snapshots in the sun;
Like all those snapshots in the sun.

Squinting at the past,
Of days long done,
Days of youth,
These will be our snapshots in the sun.

-30-

Pirate Pitching Staff
by Bryce Martin

All-time major league baseball 12-man pitching staff, worthy of ruling the high seas:

Jerry Davie
Sam Jones
Bob Locker
Bob Walk
Ed Plank
Ed High
Fred Waters
Mike Parrott
Dave Jolly
Steve Rogers
Lem Cross
Ricky Bones

Manager on the Deck: Sparky "Captain Hook" Anderson
Side coaches: Johnny "Patcheye" Gill, Jay Hook

Tex Cobb: 'Bad body' bad boy (Part 1 of 3)
by Bryce Martin

In Tex Cobb's world, the sport of boxing was hindered by the rules of the ring. He affirmed a last-man-standing approach.

It was the same routine every morning. He would come in alone about 7 a.m., round up a discarded morning newspaper and order coffee, for which he would need about 100 purple packets of artificial sweeteners. He always sat in the wall booth next to the jukebox and always played the same songs, sometimes carrying a book. It would always be a book filled with a collection of classic, philosophical insights.

I was already acquainted with Randall "Tex" Cobb, boxer-cum-actor, when we crossed paths for around three hours every morning during several months in 1989 and 1990 at the 24-hour Steak 'n' Egg Kitchen on West End Ave. in Nashville. Getting to know more about him proved interesting.

He would read some mornings but would not absorb himself in the material if it meant distracting someone who wanted to carry on a conversation. Once, I asked about his famous comment regarding sportscaster Howard Cosell… actually about the bout he had with then-champion Larry Holmes in November 1982 in Houston with the World Boxing Council heavyweight title at stake that led to the comment. Cobb was referred to as "Randy" in those days.

"Holmes didn’t whip me," Cobb said. "He beat me in fifteen rounds. If we’d kept on going I would have won. That’s in the ring. Outside the ring, in the street, I would have handled him like a pussycat. He knows it, too."

Holmes pounded Cobb savagely during the ABC-televised contest, never knocking the challenger down in winning a unanimous decision. Cosell pronounced it a travesty and never again broadcast another boxing match.

Cobb’s fabled rejoinder: "If I had known that’s what it would take to get Cosell to quit doing boxing I would have fought Holmes a long time ago."

But, back to Cobb’s opinion on the fight, the part about him not losing to Holmes.

"I was in the best shape of any heavyweight who ever fought," he said. "It’s not about how hard you can hit. It’s about how many punches you can throw. I was a ‘bad body’ fighter, probably in the top three all-time. Those who judged me on how I looked didn’t see the whole picture."

So, given more time, Holmes would have eventually toppled for the count?

"I’m a gladiator. I’ve never trained just for boxing. My workouts go way beyond what any boxer has even attempted to try. You can’t kill someone who wants to die."

A death wish, is it?

Then came the Cobbian laugh, the one you could never be prepared for, best described as some short honks delivered in meticulously punctuated intervals. Customers from faraway booths turned heads to target the eruptions, smiled, and repositioned themselves.

"Give me a broad-axe and a club. That’s the way I wish it could be."

I knew that he had played football at Hardin-Simmons in Abilene, Tex., left that for kick-boxing, a sport not nearly as popular then as now and one in which he excelled, and in later years I had read an article about him in a fitness magazine that described his workouts, incredibly grueling and torturous in description. He began a professional boxing career in 1977 at age 22.

Each morning, he would be wearing a bulky sweatshirt, either jeans or sweatpants, scuffed white athletic shoes and usually a sock hat to cover a bushy head of hair. He was not one to put on airs. "Whatcha see is what you get," he liked to say.

It was not uncommon for him to disappear for lengthy intervals. Those were the times he would be doing movie work or television commercials. He was best known for his biker role in "Raising Arizona." A second movie, "Uncommon Valor," provided a prominent role as well.

"Yeah, they let me run my mouth some in that one," he smiled.

He had worked with the likes of Richard Pryor, Nicolas Cage, Chevy Chase, Gene Hackman, and several other big names, but he never talked about movies or himself unless someone asked, then he would usually turn it into a joke and steer the conversation elsewhere.

"They had me playing a psycho…rip off your arm and wrap it around your head and not blink twice about it… It was a stretch but I think I handled it."

He would then add his loud and deranged laugh, which somehow did not make him any less likable. Usually polite, a good listener and with the smiling, open manner of one who enjoys life and wants those around him to do the same, Cobb seemed natural in making friends with all those he met.

His nose was that of a boxer’s, flat and broad; yet other than the defacement of that most prominent feature, a stranger to his existence might not tab him as being a fighter. I can’t help but try to picture how he might have looked had he chosen a more regular profession. I find it impossible to form any other image.

Married, he would call his wife, Sharon, from the restaurant phone and discuss their plans for the rest of the day just before leaving.

END PART 1

By Bryce Martin
Published: 4/30/2001

-30-

Asscuseame, Yahoo search you, what? Can't find it?
by Bryce Martin

Jassacksophone.
What is it? What does it mean?
What is intriguing is that you won't find the word or variations of it going through Yahoo search. That's highly unusual since almost any random selection of keys in that long box will produce a result.
Jassacksophone was a word coined by western sidekick actor Smiley Burnette. Coined is likely not correct here, since I am, I'm sure, one of probably less than a dozen people on this planet who knew this in the first place and among an even smaller group who would remember it at all. On screen, Burnette was sometimes in character as Frog Millhouse, a slightly bumfuzzled pal to Gene Autry, and he rode a jackass instead of a horse. (That's a totally different side issue since Burnette usually rode a screen-favorite white horse with a black circle around one eye.) When he was Frog Millhouse on the big screen Burnette had a jackass that liked to bray. Frog, a singer with a frog-like voice, was able to tug on an ear or tail to manipulate the braying sounds in such a way that he could get the animal to provide a sort of musical accompaniment to the squeeze-bulb horn and other noise making contraptions tied on the animal.
He called his braying musical beast a jassacksophone (think "bassackwards" for "ass backwards.")
I searched the word while on a nostalgia binge, seeking to tie the past to the current for some reason known only by certain cranial crevices. By adding it here, I hopefully have added it to the multitudinous list of searchables.

-30-

Drinking coffee from a saucer
by Bryce Martin

My grandmother drank coffee from a saucer. She experimented with different brands but usually brought home Folger's' mountain grown. She bought the two-pound tin for economy. It was a red can that opened with a metal key wind. My grandfather liked his cut plugs of Tinsley chewing tobacco so he would claim the empties and convert them to spittoons. Grandma poured the steaming hot liquid from her percolator into a cup sitting on a saucer but she didn't drink it out of the cup. She would add a little Milnot or Pet evaporated milk and sugar, stir and then she would leave the cup off the plate and set it aside. Next, she would dip a spoonful of the still semi-raging hot brown liquid and blow on it. You could see a slow wave go from one edge of the spoon to the other. Her lips would get close enough to the spoon to gauge the intensity of the heat it emitted. After two or three blows, she emptied the spoon's coffee onto the saucer, picked up the saucer, carefully tilted it downward and drank the coffee. Other of my older relatives secretly wondered if it was a habit picked up from old world relatives. I wondered too so I asked her one day. She seemed surprised that I would ask. "It's hot," she said. "I like to cool it down. I don't want to scald my tongue." As she got older, she switched to Postum. She still, though, drank it from a saucer, except when it cooled to her liking in the spoon and she drank it from that.

-30-

Barry Bonds: Getting His Just Undue
by Bryce Martin

The "Satan of Swat," the guy who cheapened the most hallowed record in all of sports, how do you measure he? This way:

Feature flash from Yahoo:


One of our favorite ways of measuring the popularity of sports stars is to check jersey searches. If a player is cool enough for fans to wear his or her name on their back, the athlete's status in buzz is cemented.

1. David Beckham Jersey
2. Marion Barber Jersey
3. Tony Romo Jersey
4. Walter Payton Jersey
5. Tim Tebow Jersey
6. Brett Favre Jersey
7. Michael Vick Jersey
8. Hope Solo Jersey
9. Devin Hester Jersey
10. Vince Young Jersey
11. Randy Moss Jersey
12. Patrick Willis Jersey
13. Reggie Bush Jersey
14. Tom Brady Jersey
15. Peyton Manning Jersey
16. Larry Bird Jersey
17. Joe Montana Jersey
18. Craig Biggio Jersey
19. Steve Nash Jersey
20. Mia Hamm Jersey


My point is not in providing the list, but to remind that of the 20 named Barry Bonds is not one. Only one baseball player is, the now-retired Craig Biggio. The puffball who claims the career home run record does not have enough residue from that to even make the top 20?

I'll claim that as a certain amount of justice.

-30-

Repent Now?
by Bryce Martin

Today's news flash:

Astronomers have spotted evidence of a second Earth being built around a distant star 424 light-years away.

Uh, oh. We may not know the exact day and time, but has God hitched his workbelt in preparation to forge a new beginning?

-30-

They Don't Unmake 'Em Like They Used To
by Bryce Martin


Excerpt from a 1915 obit regarding a former Cookeville, Tenn., citizen:


(name omitted) as he was familiarly called by his large circle of friends, who were limited only to the extent of his acquaintance, was the very embodiment of the whole-souled, hospitably natured, generous-hearted Southern gentleman, and will be as greatly missed by all classes of people in his town and community as any other one man who could have been taken away.

Not a bad inscription:

Here Lies
Ded Ingone

Whole-Souled
Hospitably Natured
Generous-Hearted

-30-

The Belled Buzzard: Where do song ideas come from?
by Bryce Martin

John Hartford composed "Gentle on My Mind" after watching the movie Dr. Zhivago.

For old-timers, though, often the most simple of songs came from long, wrought-out tales handed down involving fact and maybe a little fiction.

As in this recount of the origin of the old-time breakdown fiddle tune "The Belled Buzzard" and the little, tinkling bell-sound made by the fiddler that provides a signature for the tune:

The melody has similarities to "Billy in the Lowlands." Ford (1940) relates an Ozark tale regarding the origins of the tune, concerning a settlement along a river bottom. "One bank of the river was bordered for miles by high unscalable bluffs crowned with scrub timber, the home and breeding place of thousands of buzzards. Hog raising was the main source of income of the community. Mast from the acorn-bearing trees furnished food for the droves of hogs ear-marked and turned into the woods each year, to by rounded up in the fall ready for market. One summer hog cholera broke out among the porkers. The buzzards, feasting on the dead carcasses, carried the disease from one section of the country to another. There was an unwritten law that these birds should no be killed, but the farmers were aware that, unless some action was taken to check the spread of the disease, their hogs, together with their incomes, would be wiped out entirely. A meeting was called. It was decided to capture one of the birds and fasten a small sheep bell to it, in the hope that it would cause them to leave. One of the birds was accordingly trapped and belled. His arrival among the others created a great commotion and in a few days the flock of buzzards disappeared, only the belled buzzard remaining. Finally he, too, took flight. At the end of the summer there was an epidemic of typhoid fever in the community, many dying. About the same time the belled buzzard reappeared, the tinkle of his bell being plainly heard as he soared above the houses. He came and went time after time and always following his reappearence some sort of calamity happened. The return of the belled bird aroused apprehension in the minds of the more superstitious and his presence became associated with their misfortunes. They believed the repulsive fowl was posessed of an evil spirit. Many believe he still roams the skies, as he has for more than a hundred years, so that even today any report of the belled buzzard casts a spell of gloom over them. The tune, 'The Belled Buzzard', has been handed down through the years with this tradition, the plucking of the fiddle string in certain places in the music representing the tinkle of his bell."

Source for notated version: fiddler Ruthie Dornfeld (Seattle) [Phillips]. Ford (Traditional Music in America), 1940; pg. 60. Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes), 1994; pg. 22.

-30-

Happy Helling, you more than deserve it
by Bryce Martin


Today's News flash:

9:29 AM ET

BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomber struck the police headquarters in Basra on Tuesday, killing at least three officers and wounding 20 people amid fears over the southern city's deteriorating security situation.

I see another suicide bomber has changed his address. It's amazing that Hell is still taking on such willing new residents after all these years. Amazing. Some people will do anything to get there. Well, happy gnashing. Just don't expect a vase of flowers. Uh, can I get you a water? Just kidding. I imagine you'll hear a bunch of those type jokes from now on, forever, actually.

-30-

Former Bakersfield record store owner launched Janet Jackson
by Bryce Martin

In 1986, Janet Jackson released an album titled Control on A&M Records. "What Have You Done For Me Lately" was the first single from the LP. It was her third album and the first two fared poorly. This one, though, was about to launch her like a moonshot.

The single was brought to Olen Harrison, a record promoter who owned Advance Music in San Francisco, a one stop shop with distribution. From there, the disc, promoted by Harrison, climbed near the top of the local music charts and went on to become a nationwide hit credited with launching the bigtime career Jackson was seeking.

Harrison, a southerner by birth, was living in Palo Alto, Calif., when, in the early 1950s, he made a move to Bakersfield, Calif., where he worked as a disc jockey at radio stations KBIS and KAFY while owning a retail record store called The Record Shop. In 1955 he went to San Francisco and continued in the music business until the 1989 earthquake. He died in 2000.

-30-

Meeting Satchel Paige
by Bryce Martin

It was just one of those things in life that lasts a moment, but in afterthought is revered in the mind forever.

The Kansas American Legion State Baseball Tournament, held Aug. 4-8, 1960, at Blue Jay Park in Salina, featured the eight district playoff winners.

Chet Roark managed our Columbus team. I was the team's centerfielder. We stayed at a hotel in downtown Salina. The afternoon of our first full day there the temperature sign on a nearby bank read 103 degrees. At the Topper Jr. on 9th Street, you could get a hamburger for 15 cents and a malt for 19 cents.

Roark caught me walking through the lobby and said, "Do you know who this is?" He was talking to a tall, long armed black man. "Sure, I said. "It's Satchel Paige. 'Hello, Mr. Paige.'" I knew it must be him since I had read the local sports page and it had a box score and story of a recent game. Paige was pitching for a Salina team. I shook his hand and went on my way.

We won our first game, defeating the Wichita Derby Rockets, 8-3. We were undefeated when we eventually played Salina, which had one loss. They beat us to force a final game, a game we lost, thanks mostly to my only error of the season in center field.

I remembered that for a long time, until it became more convenient and a whole lot less painful to recall the image of Satchel Paige looking me in the eye in the cool of a hotel lobby on that hot Kansas day.

-30-

Recordings about Merle Haggard
Compiled by Bryce Martin

"Feelin More Haggard Than Merle"
Cody Austin
Foxfire 888

"Hello Hag"
Lonnie Deerman
Driftwood 102

"Hello Hag"
Tommy Collins
New Patches (CD)
Password A-0001
1986

"If Merle Only Knew" b/w "All My Love Songs"
The Phillips East Family
EMC Records 912
(Dale, Texas)
1985

"The Mighty Hag"
Mel Lawrence
Memory 102
1982

"Hag and I"
Bob Teague
Angela Celeste XX1
1983

"Tribute to Hag"
Danny Wood
Avion 102

*Mr. Hag Told My Story (LP)
Johnny Paycheck
Epic FE 36761
1981
*LP title

"I'll Change Your Tire, Merle"
Be a Brother (LP)
Big Brother and the Holding Company
Columbia C-30222
1970

"If Merle Would Sing My Song"
In My High School (LP)
Blaine Larsen
Giantslayer
2004

"Hag and Jones"
Which Way Do We Go (CD)
Al White
Bellaire/Glad
1999

"Thank You Merle"
Bill Woods -- Mike Myers
Turquoise 202

"Buck and Merle"
Don Walser
From Valley Entertainment album
I'll Hold You in My Heart
September 2000

"Ain't No One Can Sing a Song Like Merle"
Don Malena
Comstock COM 1762
1984

-30-
...

> My Aunt Helen wrote a poem concerning an event that happened regarding her mother, and my grandmother, Iva. Helen caught a glimpse of a rich girl whose folks owned a grocery store, a glimpse of her silk panties while she as a school kid played on the swing sets at recess.

"This is a poem I wrote about a true happening. I was in the third
grade. It was Mom's one and only slip, silk or otherwise." -- Helen Hudson


My Silk Panties
By Helen Hudson

When I was in grade school, a long time ago
There's things I remember and they are so
One day at recess, while sliding down the slide
I noticed a rich girl showing off her pride

She wore silk panties, with lace and all pink
Looking at my flour sack ones, hers were unique
So when I got home and no one seemed to be around
I started making me silk panties, not making a sound

The silk I used was Mom's one and only slip
All I could think of was "rip, rip, rip"
I wore the silk panties to school, so proud while sliding
But, when Mom found out, I had to go in hiding

She was so mad when she found her slip scraps
I knew I was in trouble, my world about to collapse
She hollered, "Helen! Helen! You better come here right now!"
Pretending not to hear her I kept quiet somehow

After a while I showed up thinkin' she had forgiven
To my surprise a switch appeared; I can't go on livin'

A lesson was learned to my dismay
The sting of the switch went away
I was so happy, what can I say?
I had silk panties... for one whole day

-30-

The House of David bearded baseball boys
by Bryce Martin

Satchel Paige referred to the House of David baseball team as "Jesus' Boys."

I was fortunate enough to witness the bearded ones at Miners Park in Joplin around 1954. I think they played a black team that game called the Tulsa T-Town Clowns. If not, the Tulsa T-Town Clowns was another visiting attraction I observed at Miners Park versus another nine.

It was a fun night and a big deal for my elders who relished all things baseball. My uncle Noah, however, was not too fond of the large Star of David displayed near the visitors' dugout. Its size is what he seemed to dislike. Pushing one's religion was fine but going overboard by shouting the message with such a huge symbol was questionable in his mind. It was a point made quickly and then we were all smiles the rest of the night.

Putting aside the fact the original name for the group appears to be "House of Davids" (note the "s" on the end of "David") research indicates the House of David team didn't tour after World War II, that instead the team that did tour was called City of David. They usually toured in matchups with black teams, so I might be right on the Tulsa T-Town Clowns.

I asked area historian John Hall his take on the subject: "They probably were still called the House of Davids after the war by many non-City of David folks. I did know Frank Morrow, former Carthage and Miami Eagles outfielder. He told me he played for the 'House of Davids' in 1950-51 and had to purchase a fake beard because he couldn't grow one. Wish he was still around so I could talk about some of those things with him."

The last year the bearded baseball wonders sent a traveling team around the country was in 1956.

Further information revealed the House of David played in the first -- the very, very first -- night baseball game, at Independence, Kans., on April 17, 1930. (I think that might be disputed.) I know games were played long before that date with lanterns for lights.

And... other than their beards, what are they famous for?

Give up? -- "pepper game" exhibitions between innings. In fact, they are given credit for inventing the warmup and it was an integral part of their overall performance.

-30-

Truckin Souls for Jesus Down Those Golden Interstates
by Bryce Martin

I like truck driving songs. Not the life so much as a personal thing, more how the tales of the road intersect our lives in ways we may not know, of a broader truth. The new folk songs. Parody, or for real, or just playful? I didn't write the following song and I don't know who did:

Mother Trucker

Come all you hearty truckers, I'll tell you of my fame
Waitress pour the coffee, won't somebody pass the cream
A broken heart has brought me to this truck stop here today
A heart that got run over on the interstate highway

It was fifteen years ago today dear mama left our home
She walked out before breakfast, the freeways for to roam
Now they say that ma's a trucker, out on that broad highway
She put on boots and Levi's, threw her gingham dress away

cho: What made her give up pots and pans for a gear box and a clutch
Leave her husband and nine children, who love her very much
Now she's mother to the truckers as the interstate she roams
But Lord if you love your children send that mother trucker home

Little did she know the danger as she drove her diesel through
Till she got in a heck of a terrible wreck just outside Kalamazoo
The flames was seen for miles and the streets ran red with gore
We despaired of ever feelin mama's tender touch no more

Three truckers, two state troopers and six cows was lost that day
But thanks to the love of Heaven above dear mama walked away
I ask you hearty truckers, as you travel through this land
Should the mother of nine children face the hazards of a man

Chorus

Well have you seen her Crystal, tell me have you seen her Pop?
Does she ever stop for a piece of pie down in this old truck stop
She's sweet and prob'ly grayer than she was when she left dad's farm
And a tattooed heart says Father in the crook of her right arm

Well fifteen years of searchin I can't track poor mama down
So I only hope she's happy in that rollin life she's found
One thing I know for certain, when we reach those pearly gates
She'll be truckin souls for Jesus down those golden interstates

Chorus

-30-

Grammar-challenged Bakersfield song titles
by Bryce Martin

Hey, what do you want? These are country boys through and through. Sometimes song titles are written "countryish" on purpose, such as Fuzzy Owen's *"Yer Fer Me," and sometimes not, as in the ones below from Bakersfield 45 rpm records and LPs.

1.
"Put Me on the Welfare" (Darrell Gene)
Maybe it's just me, but shouldn't the article "the" be eliminated?

2.
"Opal, You Ask Me" (Tommy Collins)
Asked.

3.
"Hag and I" (Bob Teague)
Hag and Me.

4.
"Sing a Song" (Dennis Payne)
The line "I have sing a song" from where the title is born should contain "sang" and not "sing."

5.
"Bulshipers" (Red Simpson)
Technically, this may be correct, with one or two "p's" but it looks bad.

6.
"Scotish Guitar" (Gene Moles)
A "tt" I should see.

7.
*"Your For Me" (Buck Owens)
Go for "yer" for effect, or the contraction "you're" for "you are."

(This gets an asterisk because Owens wrote it and published it as "Your For Me" but when it came out on vinyl it was corrected by the record company and printed as "You're For Me." The song was published by Fuzzy Owen's Owen Publishing. Fuzzy did a hick version of it on record and titled it "Yer Fer Me.")

8.
"The Whizer" (The Bakersfield Five)
Even with instrumentals where just about anything goes concerning song titles, wouldn't "The Whizzer" just look better?

-30-

Meaningful math formula for body count in Iraq
by Bryce Martin

Nearly each day comes the body count in Iraq from suicide bomb attacks.
How do we best interpret the numbers?
With me, it's a simple mathematical formula: You take the total number killed (including the suicide bomber) and subtract 1, for the suicide bomber. The sum difference is the number of those who might go to Heaven (depending on the lives they've led) and the subtracted suicide bomber is the one definitely going to Hell.
It is with a certain amount of, yes, pleasure that I know these misguided cretins will roast in the embers of everlasting flames.
Anyone who thinks "suicide is painless," as stated in the words of the M*A*S*H theme song (yes, it has lyrics), might want to disconsider any such romantic notions.

-30-

When a car crash is a real crackup
by Bryce Martin

Does anyone out there remember Nervous Norvus and his song "Transfusion" from the year 1956? It's spoken, not sung. He does dumb things while driving and then you hear the sound effects of a car crash with a loose hubcap spinning to a clattering stop.

Right before the end of each verse he says "I'm never never never gonna speed again" and then he comfortably settles in for the hookup:

Pour the crimson to me, Jimson
Transfusion, transfusion...

Another verse and --

Pass the claret to me, Barrett
Transfusion, transfusion...

Another verse --

Put a gallon in me, Alan
Transfusion, transfusion...

I'll never forget the sound of the hubcab, sort of like a silver dollar spinning to a halt on a hollow-top table, and the flippant manner and lyrics of Nervous Norvus, who wasn't nervous at all.

-30-

Your Honor, Can We Punt?
by Bryce Martin

When Michael Vick's attorney, Billy Martin, read what was supposed to be a statement from Vick, and he made the apology to his Falcons teammates for not being there for the opening "of spring training," two things were clear: 1. Vick didn't write the statement. 2. Vick's attorney knows nothing about pro football and likely nothing about sports in general.

The term "spring training" belongs exclusively to baseball. It is never, not even in the most casual of conversations or discourse, used in reference to pro football.

I'm guessing that Martin is solely focused on his career as an attorney as to be completely removed from the routine life of the common man. I'm not sure I would want such a person as my attorney, but, hey, that's what makes a dogfight, I mean a horserace.

Another thing. Martin's voice sounded angry that someone would even charge Vick with such crimes. Excuse me, guilty or not, dogfighting equipment, numerous buried dog carcasses, and dozens of bull dogs in cages is no call to get huffy after being charged with illegal dogfighting after a long federal investigation. It is, afterall, Vick's residence no matter how little he might say he stays there.

In addition to Vick's crack defensive team, he has the added support of Deion Sanders, who equated Vick's having the biggest and baddest dogs to his wanting the biggest and baddest cars and chains as a sign of status back when he was a star NFL defender. If you ever wondered whether Sanders really grasped the idea of religious conversion he said he achieved in recent years, this should reconcile that thought.
...

For what it's worth:

Why would a cowboy want spurs that jingle jangle?

Judging by the classic photo, Marilyn Monroe didn't seem upset when her dress blew up while standing over the sidewalk grating.

The Phillies' Ryan Howard reminds me of the cop near the end of the movie in "Planet of the Apes."

-30-

 

The Little Church in the Wildwood

By Bryce Martin

I was driving home early Sunday morning through Bakersfield Listening to gospel music on the colored radio station And the preacher said, "You know you always have the Lord by your side" "Far Away Eyes" (Mick Jagger-Keith Richards) 1977 Sort of like Mick Jagger (sort of because the actual event preceded The Rolling Stones song) I was leisurely driving down Union Avenue one quiet Bakersfield Sunday morning when most of the radio stations were broadcasting religious programming. I finally gave in and quit twisting the knob. Music from a piano sounded so familiar. Not the song itself as you might expect but something about how the music was being played. A voice came on, not a familiar voice, but a voice that spoke a familiar language. "Tune in again next week," it said, "when you'll again hear a broadcast from the Little Church in the Wildwood, Sarcoxie, Missouri. Until then..." Sarcoxie, Missouri? I knew it. Here I was miles from home in California, and just a little bit of home I recognized right off from a snippet of radio. There amounted to town churches, but a good number of churches in Missouri remained from pioneer days and were located in what might aptly be described as the wildwood. One could only imagine that was not exclusive with Missouri. There was in fact a song with a title about a church in the wildwood, and I was told years ago it was a song written many years hence about a place far from Missouri. I knew the gospel show from Sarcoxie was not a live broadcast. Radio stations played either a tape or a long-play record submitted to them. it amounted to a paid advertising from the church doing the promotion to the radio station. The church in these instances always asked for money, usually near the end of the broadcast, to stay on the air. No money from your area and they moved on to another area. Church music was a part of growing up. I heard it not only in church and local radio and television programs, but around my house with songs from Grandma as she sewed and did chores and at the houses of relatives who practiced songs of worship and praise on parlor pianos. I got mixed up a little on two songs, "The Bible Tells Me So" and "Jesus Loves Me." The first one was written by cowgirl Dale Evans and the second one Grandma sang around the house. What created most of the mixup was that "Jesus Loves Me," whether intentional or not, references the other song with its line "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so." I'd hate to think what lyrics I might get mixed up growing up today. Was that "ho" or "mo?" And what kind of memories I might have from them. A stretch? A cheap shot? As I look around, I think maybe not. -30-

Sweet and a Little Sour For Good Measure
by Bryce Martin

It was one sweet block, mostly.

An asafetida bag was something you got from your druggist. It emitted an offensive odor so fetid and foul only the devil could love. A user wore it on a string around their neck. It supposedly had medicinal powers strong enough to ward off a cold. It was also the basis for a joke, an old, old joke I would imagine. The joke had to do with a play on words. When someone wanted to sound as if they were going to use a bad phrase, but instead intended to trick you: "KISS MY AS!-afetida bag," they would say. Another one in the same vein: "GOT DAND!-ruff in my hair."

An old man in Galena was the only person I ever knew of who actually wore one of the asafetida (pronounced locally as "as-fit-tid-e") bags on his person. It was said that he had came in every winter for the past few years to get outfitted with a new bag from druggist Otto Schwartz who owned Schwartz's Drug Store on Main Street. He sold the best ice cream you could buy. He made and packaged it himself using pure and superior ingredients. It was expensive, though, at fifty cents a carton. And that was in 1960. Vanilla was the only homemade flavor offered. I would say that the overwhelmingly obnoxious smell of the asafetida bags, compared to the soothing aroma of the vanilla bean and the rest of the ice cream's creamy ingredients, covered both ends of the smellorama meter for Schwartz's Drug Store.

Otto's son, Corky, often worked the soda counter. The malts, shakes, and ice cream sodas were first rate. You could get a burger, too.

Across the street and on the opposite corner had once stood the Double Dip. Malts, shakes, sodas, floats, the like. An elderly couple owned an operated it. They were gone by 1960, retired or maybe deceased. I last went there when I was very young, and with adults. In its last days, it did little business. The owners appeared too old to keep it up.

Across the street from the Double Dip was Anthony's. No ice cream or sodas, but candy galore. A gigantic Hershey chocolate bar rested in the window deck. My favorite was the peanut clusters.

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Of Culverts, Viaducts and Old 66
by Bryce Martin

Some disjointed history.

Words such as “culvert” and “viaduct” were words I heard often around the region where I grew up, but little or not at all in other parts of the country. Culverts are usually open-top and they carry water drainage. Viaducts are elevated bridges, usually for rail. My little Kansas hometown didn't have a multitude of either but you often heard the words as a way to bring a landmark into the equation when giving directions or when relating to an area in general.

What I have discovered living in other parts of the country, namely California, culverts and viaducts are as commonplace as they are from where I'm from, except they're more likely to be called ditches and overpasses.

A viaduct must have also been a common term for comedian Groucho Marx. Maybe that is why I had no trouble as a youth understanding Groucho's “Wanna buy a duck”? routine.
...

Route 66 follows as a pattern an old road through Kansas. It enters Kansas a mile east of Galena, heads northwest and, after passing Eagle-Picher, the road turns south on Main Street. Going through town it reaches 7th Street and turns west again, going through the Quaker town of Riverton. Past Riverton, it curves south at the Brush Creek Bridge and toward the community of Baxter Springs. There, Route 66 turns east and then south, running to the Oklahoma state line.

In 1961, the southern section of Interstate 44 was completed. This leg extends from Joplin to the Will Rogers Turnpike in Oklahoma. Kansas, now completely bypassed, no longer has a piece of The Mother Road. The east part of Galena, where 66, had entered the town, is now barren of travelers passing through. A new route from Galena to Joplin is, in actuality, old US 166, east along 7th Street, now a divided, four-lane.

In the 1950s, where 22nd Street crossed Short Street was a high gravel bed that formerly served as the foundation for the “old car line track” -- A public transit system, which amounted to a vast electric interurban railroad, called the Southern Missouri. The electric locomotives headed trains into and out of the areas most populated by, primarily, mill workers and mining hands. The electrics tied together Carthage, Mo., to Baxter Springs; and Miami, Okla., to Joplin, Mo. Workers and visitors could travel to the various areas of robust activity and families could pay visits. The electric railroad industry was competing with the diesels and the doomed steamers. The electrics were quieter and cleaner than steam or diesel, and operated on the fundamentals of electricity, magnetic induction, and whatnot, which means I do not have a clue how they worked.
Hey, it's electricity.

-30-

Rockin' With Conny and the Bellhops
by Bryce Martin

At Liberty Elementary in Galena, Kan., Gene Woods was a classmate. When the whole Elvis scene was just unfolding, Woods performed a pair of his songs at one of our school talent shows. He broke a string on his guitar right off with some savage picking but in what we were just beginning to recognize as true Elvis fashion he just kept on boppin'.

Long combed-back hair, shirt collar up, and sensous rock 'n' roll music, it all came from the devil's handbag of tricks. We were a little suprised the school allowed Woods to do Elvis.

Woods went on to play guitar for Conny and the Bellhops at the Hilltop Club in Pittsburg. That was the first real rock 'n' roll band in the region and that was the beer joint where the band made its name. In Kansas you only have to be 18 to legally consume alcohol, which means on any given night many 16-year-olds and younger are downing some suds in Kansas taverns.

Conny was the lead vocalist and a wonderful saxophone player. His name was Edgar M. Conrad III. He died in 1989.

Talking to Woods during a band break he once mentioned the group had just recorded a song he had written called "Bop Sticks" and it was out on a 45 rpm record. Since they were an instrumental group, I knew it was a rocked-up version of "Chopsticks," which as it turned out it was. They had a regional hit record with another one called "Shot Rod."

Gene Woods still lives in Pittsburg.

Another who guested at the Hilltop about the same time was Dick Feller. He went on, as they say, to write "Some Days Are Diamonds," a gem of a song for John Denver, and other hits and a few misses and lives in Nashville, actually in Hendersonville, Tenn. I lived in Hendersonville and I'd run into him at the post office and we'd chat. In my salad days, before the main entree of life, he was more or less a regular at the Land Inn in Fort Scott, Kan., another hangout of mine.

True pioneers of the musical sphere, Conny and the Bellhops was a surf rock band before the genre got its name.

I didn't know at the time I was drinking in so much history with the beer.

-30-

The Big City of Joplin Held Many Wonders
by Bryce Martin

Visiting the big city of Joplin, Mo., always was an adventure and a real door opener for the wonders of the world.

We visited Lewis Green in Joplin. Lewis, a cousin, was a car salesman for Hi-Dollar Joe Burtram. He had a daughter about my age I had not met before and she immediately disoriented me. She was nice and all that, but she began talking to me as if we were old friends, question after question loaded on top of comment upon comment.

I quickly excused myself, backed away and went out the front door. I decided to walk around the neighborhood a bit. Not too far, though. I did not want to get lost. I walked down a sidewalk and a boy asked, “Who’s at the Y? See anybody?” I didn’t know what or who the Y was, but I figured I must be walking from its direction. “What’s that?” I asked. The kid was sitting shirtless on his front porch. He didn’t bother to get up, but he turned his head and shoulders around and shouted at the screen door shielding the open front door. “Hey, hey,” he desperately tried to get someone’s attention inside. “This guy wants to know what the Y is.”

He obviously thought I lived around there. I walked back to the Greens’ house. A commercial had just played on the television. It was the one where some cartoon gangsters had names like Sticky Valves and Greasy Sludge and they were doing damage to a car engine until Bardahl came along. It had music similar to Dragnet.

Is Sticky Valves a-ridin’ with you tonight?
Is Greasy Sludge a-ridin' with you tonight?
Are you sure your car is running exactly right?
'Cause with Bardahl
Sticky Valves won’t be stickin’
Greasy Sludge won't be grippin'
And your engine won’t be clickin’
...
…Bardahl did it again… Bardahl did it again…

That's how it went. Or thereabouts.

The cartoon villains wore shirts with horizontal stripes, beret-like thug caps and eye masks. The kicker was the Bardahl song imitating the popular theme song of the Dragnet TV show.

“Isn’t that just the neatest thing,” the daughter said.

I told her it was. I mentioned to Lewis about the kid wanting to know about the Y.

“Oh, that’s the YMCA,” he said. “It’s just down the street.”

Wow, I thought, a YMCA. This neighborhood has a real YMCA, a magical place I had only barely heard about. I'll have to remember that next time I'm in the neighborhood. And I'll be sure to refer to it simply as "the Y" if I get the chance. How neat is that?

-30-

Nashville's Burger King Betty
by Bryce Martin

In the late 1980s I had a small office in Nashville on Music Row where I served as editor of the Nashville Inquirer. I saw Betty often keeping order at the Burger King lot down the street on 21st Avenue. I lived near there, too, and was around on weekends as well as during the week at my office. Next door and directly south of Burger King's parking lot was San Antonio Taco Co. Behind it and downstairs was Bobby's. It was a bar owned and operated by a hefty fellow who was said to have won a lottery in New York and this was what he had to show for it. It was Betty's job starting at about dark to when Burger King closed to keep anyone from parking, and leaving their vehicle unattended, who wasn't patronizing Burger King. After Betty would run someone off, a favorite thing was for them to open a car door, place an empty beer bottle upright on the asphalt and drive away. "Is Rolling Rock beer?" Betty asked. "I can't keep up with what these rich Vanderbilt kids drink."

There was a little shop area just to the north of Burger King and on the corner where a man did the same thing as Betty. He was looking out for the convenience store that sat back from the street. Young people came in, mostly Vanderbilt students who lived in nearby dorms, for beer and cigarettes. Those who lingered too long in their cars or around the entrance he asked to leave. "Get a real job," those asked to leave would shout to him.

Bobby's dream of making a killing selling New York style pizza to poor souls in Nashville who had been deprived of such heavenly bliss failed to catch on to any great degree and his Bobby's went out of business. Jerry Seabolt, former record producer ("California Sun" by the Rivieras, and others) and promotion man for Smash Records, took over with his own place he called Duffy's Tavern, and it went out of business in about a year's time. I had paid to see Pat McLaughlin perform at Duffy's on a Saturday night and I had seen Tara Moonshadow sing for tips during the week. I thought I had found my hangout. When Duffy's folded, San Antonio Taco bought that portion of the building (it was all connected) to use for storage.

Betty, meanwhile, kept on keeping non-Burger King customers off her lot.

I could have mentioned to Seabolt but never did that "California Sun," the top five hit of 1964 that he produced, was an exact copy right down to the arrangement of the song as done by Rodney Lay and The Blazers, a recording that went nowhere by the fivesome from my neck of the woods in Coffeyville, Kan.

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Vandy remains constant, UT ripe for ridicule
by Bryce Martin
(An encore feature first published October 6, 2003)

Although they both are members of the powerful Southeastern Conference, there is a world of difference between Vanderbilt, which has a lot to overcome when it comes to football, and Tennessee, whose fans are touchy when you label them as hillbillies.


From the Merchant of Venom, Vitriol and Verisimilitude (that's me):

Vanderbilt and Mississippi State collided Saturday, i.e., they each tried to.

Coming into the head-to-head, the two had a combined 28 consecutive Southeastern Conference losses. Something had to give, and, of course, that something was Vandy.

I will try to summarize what it all means by filling in as best I can the void left by the late poet Ogden Nash. In my best Ogdian, here goes:

In this ever-changing world
Vandy football remains a constant.
If a game was on this date circled,
You can bet they lost it.

Mississippi State 31, Vanderbilt 21.

The Commodores are now zero for their last SEC 20.

Unlike Neo in The Matrix, new coach Bobby Johnson is not The One.

For those who say the problem of losing at Vandy is not who the coach is but lack of talent, that is only partially true. A literal handful of coaches in this U.S. of A. could work, squeeze, cajole - demand, even - another win or two and get it. Johnson is not one of that handful. Vandy fans will have to wait three or four more years, when Johnson is shown the door, to see if that coach comes along. Do not bet on it.

Remember a few years back, when University of Tennessee fans hyperventilated at mean old ESPN for portraying its Knoxville eleven as the butt of jokes perpetuating hillbilly stereotypes?

I was reminded of that Saturday on ESPN while watching the No. 7 Vols fall to Auburn, 28-21. UT's (way-) backup quarterback, #15 Jim Bob Cooter, was shouting plays (to little avail, apparently) given to him by the coaches from the sidelines to starting QB Casey Clausen.

Stereotypes? Jim Bob Cooter?

First off, UT is located in Knoxville, the South, mid-South really but the South nonetheless. If your mascot was, say, a lion, and you had an innocuous and forgettable fight song, like most schools, most of the rest of the country would still associate you with coonskin caps and all things Southern. Couple all that with the fact a Bluetick Coonhound called Smokey serves as your actual mascot, your fight song mentions moonshine stills, ducks in a pen, and a girl as sweet as soda pop. Toss in the fact your head coach is portly (remember: the higher the IQ the smaller the waistline) and you have... need I say hillbilly.

UT fans could not have been blindsided by the accusation back then. Now they have added a Jim Bob Cooter to the equation. UT has declared hillbillies' open season for ESPN.

In summation, Vandy, you ain't nothin', and UT, you ain't nothin' but a houn' dog.
...

Published: 10/6/2003

-30-

Bad Body Bad Boy
(Part 1 of 3)
by Bryce Martin

In Tex Cobb's world, the sport of boxing was hindered by the rules of the ring. He affirmed a last-man-standing approach.

It was the same routine every morning. He would come in alone about 7 a.m., round up a discarded morning newspaper and order coffee, for which he would need about 100 purple packets of artificial sweeteners. He always sat in the wall booth next to the jukebox and always played the same songs, sometimes carrying a book. It would always be a book filled with a collection of classic, philosophical insights.

I was already acquainted with Randall "Tex" Cobb, boxer-cum-actor, when we crossed paths for around three hours every morning during several months in 1989 and 1990 at the 24-hour Steak 'n' Egg Kitchen on West End Ave. in Nashville. Getting to know more about him proved interesting.

He would read some mornings but would not absorb himself in the material if it meant distracting someone who wanted to carry on a conversation. Once, I asked about his famous comment regarding sportscaster Howard Cosell…actually about the bout he had with then-champion Larry Holmes in November 1982 in Houston with the World Boxing Council heavyweight title at stake that led to the comment.

"Holmes didn’t whip me," Cobb said. "He beat me in fifteen rounds. If we’d kept on going I would have won. That’s in the ring. Outside the ring, in the street, I would have handled him like a pussycat. He knows it, too."

Holmes pounded Cobb savagely during the ABC-televised contest, never knocking the challenger down in winning a unanimous decision. Cosell pronounced it a travesty and never again broadcast another boxing match.

Cobb’s fabled rejoinder: "If I had known that’s what it would take to get Cosell to quit doing boxing I would have fought Holmes a long time ago."

But, back to Cobb’s opinion on the fight, the part about him not losing to Holmes.

"I was in the best shape of any heavyweight who ever fought," he said. "It’s not about how hard you can hit. It’s about how many punches you can throw. I was a ‘bad body’ fighter, probably in the top three all-time. Those who judged me on how I looked didn’t see the whole picture."

So, given more time, Holmes would have eventually toppled for the count?

"I’m a gladiator. I’ve never trained just for boxing. My workouts go way beyond what any boxer has even attempted to try. You can’t kill someone who wants to die."

A death wish, is it?

Then came the Cobbian laugh, the one you could never be prepared for, best described as some short honks delivered in meticulously punctuated intervals. Customers from faraway booths turned heads to target the eruptions, smiled, and repositioned themselves.

"Give me a broad-axe and a club. That’s the way I wish it could be."

I knew that he had played football at Hardin-Simmons in Abilene, Tex., left that for kick-boxing, a sport not nearly as popular then as now and one in which he excelled, and in later years I had read an article about him in a fitness magazine that described his workouts, incredibly grueling and torturous in description. He began a professional boxing career in 1977 at age 22.

Each morning, he would be wearing a bulky sweatshirt, either jeans or sweatpants, scuffed white athletic shoes and usually a sock hat to cover a bushy head of hair. He was not one to put on airs. "Whatcha see is what you get," he liked to say.

It was not uncommon for him to disappear for lengthy intervals. Those were the times he would be doing movie work or television commercials. He was best known for his biker role in "Raising Arizona." A second movie, "Uncommon Valor," provided a prominent role as well.

"Yeah, they let me run my mouth some in that one," he smiled.

He had worked with the likes of Richard Pryor, Nicolas Cage, Chevy Chase, Gene Hackman, and several other big names, but he never talked about movies or himself unless someone asked, then he would usually turn it into a joke and steer the conversation elsewhere.

"They had me playing a psycho…rip off your arm and wrap it around your head and not blink twice about it… It was a stretch but I think I handled it."

He would then add his loud and deranged laugh, which somehow did not make him any less likeable. Usually polite, a good listener and with the smiling, open manner of one who enjoys life and wants those around him to do the same, Cobb seemed natural in making friends with all those he met.

His nose was that of a boxer’s, flat and broad; yet other than the defacement of that most prominent feature, a stranger to his existence might not tab him as being a fighter. I can’t help but try to picture how he might have looked had he chosen a more regular profession. I find it impossible to form any other image.

Married, he would call his wife, Sharon, from the restaurant phone and discuss their plans for the rest of the day just before leaving.

END PART 1

By Bryce Martin
Published: 4/30/2001

-30-

When Edison Highway was the cool spot
by Bryce Martin

Edison Highway was the main entry to Bakersfield coming from the east before the bypass changed things. The Lucky Spot country music tavern, a long loaf of a building, stood on a sun-bathed corner on Edison to partner with a slew of other beer joints, liquor stores, second-hand stores, garages, and fruit and vegatable stands. All of the businesses lined the south side of the road. The railroad track ran alongside the north side for several miles, that and some scattered packing sheds. I will always remember one business in particular, one of those oases you see along the desert advertising itself as a last chance. A traveler leaving town and heading east faced a long, hot trek of highway back in the 60s when legendary Bakersfield and Mojave desert summertime conditions were bound to be hot ones. Travelers didn't want to be the ones they had seen stalled on the side of the road roasting in the sun until who knows how long. As a sure-fired attention getter, one of the gas stations had a huge billboard with a big-breasted cartoon girl wearing a bikini. ICED JUGS -- JUGS FILLED FREE, the sign read. Not to be outdone, a gas station right next door to it offered the same, FREE ICED JUGS, but no bikini-clad girl. Both places always had an overflow of cars.

-30-

...

Two Bakersfield Bars
by Bryce Martin

Tex’s Barrel House: On my last evening visits during the early 1980s, the unremarkable and poorly-lit pod of indifference held mostly elderly and low-income patrons content with shuffling along in a flat-footed version of the Cotton-Eyed Joe. And the usual bar drunks you find anywhere.

Tex's Barrel house: It's a perfect name for a Bakersfield honky-tonk, Bakersfield being an oil and farming town. Barrel house: a building on the refinery grounds where barrels are filled with various grades of oils for shipment

How about having a “straw in the cider barrel?” That is to have an interest in a well in a producing field; reservoir.

Country people can relate to apple cider, hard or soft. They can grow the trees that produce the apples and ferment the juice that makes the drink, all homegrown.

So, roll out the barrel and have a barrel of fun, as the song says. It'll be even more fun when the barrel, or keg, is filled with beer and you're holding your honey tight on the dance floor with a fiddle playing a slow waltz from a quartet of backing musicians on an elevated stage.

The Blackboard is another beer joint. Windowless and like a cavern, its ambiance inspired the country classic (classic title, anyway) "Dim Lights, Thick Smoke and Loud, Loud Music." The Blackboard got its name from the oil business. “Oilfield people came in, of course,” said part owner Joe Limi, years ago. “They got to writing on the walls.”

Just the word "blackboard" is part of country music's history. Who can forget Hank Thompson's sad reading from "Blackboard of my Heart" from the 1950s?

My tears have washed I Love You
From the blackboard of my heart

Limi found out that the oil workers were just leaving information about new wells starting up, the locations and the companies, and other details to help others of their sort looking for jobs.

Some info was plain enough and some was for the oil savvy only. Wells and prospective drill sites nearby were promoted and some remote ones “out where the wildcats prowl and the hoot owls mate with the chickens.”

“We put up a big blackboard for them to write on after that,” Limi said.

Limi said he didn’t understand most of the writing, but figured someone did.

Call it “creekology,” if you will, a term for early, unscientific geology. Or, in Bakersfield, maybe that's “oilology.”


-30-

Bob Skahan, Kansas football legend 

By Bryce Martin 

 While patrolling centerfield for Columbus (Kan.) in American Legion Baseball for two years in the summers of '60 and '61, Bob Skahan would often come around the dugout to visit. He was slightly younger than myself, dated a Columbus cousin of mine, Diane Gust, and was one of the few high school kids I knew of during those days who lifted weights. He often wore t-shirts with the sleeves cut out, and it was obvious he lifted weights. Coaches and athletes in general did not think lifting weights was such a good idea. They felt it could cause muscle tears, and unwanted muscle (read: muscle bound). It did not seem to affect Skahan in a detrimental way. A good-natured kid, Skahan was an outstanding baseball player. He was an all-state quarterback in 1962 for Columbus and was given a scholarship to play the quarterback position for Kansas University at Lawrence. I still own a newspaper clipping that shows Skahan taking in a touchdown on a play that everyone thought would involve Gale Sayers as the ball carrier. The final score was Kansas 15, Oklahoma 14. 

It was the last play of the game and is on the top ten list of anyone's greatest college football finishes. 

At KU, Skahan was one the top Big-8 quarterback statistically.

Bob Skahan

It amazed me how Columbus could field such great youth teams, such as our American Legion baseball team, and not have all of their best athletes compete. Missing from the Legion team during my stay was John Cowley, a lefthanded farmboy who stifled a great Joplin High School team. Cowley threw double-digit strikeouts in defeating Joplin's highly regarded Gary Churchwell. It was a stinging and throughly administered defeat, something Joplin was not used to and amounted to a deep wound stuck in the overweening pride of the Lions. Cowley pitched for us some early on in 1960, but had too many competing farm duties and had to give it up. I'll always remember his introducing me to Absorbine Jr. to treat my throwing arm after games.

...

"Scoop" Albright and the last of the windmill baseball pitchers
by Bryce Martin

Jim "Scoop" Albright, a righthanded junk ball pitcher for my hometown Galena Merchants was a hero of mine in my early years. I'd seen an old time pitcher on occasion employ the old double windmill windup to give a batter a little extra to see, but "Scoop" did it on every pitch.

To fully appreciate Albright's double windmill windup, one would have to understand the demise of the spitball pitchers. When the spitball was outlawed in professional baseball, great leeway was given to the handfull of pitchers who threw the pitch for their livelhood. They, and no others, were allowed to still throw the spitter the rest of their careers. The last one, Burleigh Grimes, earned the sobriquet, "Last of the Cuspidor Curvers." The double windmill, because it could not be employed without making a balking motion -- several in fact -- was declared an illegal motion by most leagues, minor and major, in the 1940s. Like the last spitballers, the last of the double windmillers were cut some slack, at least on the non-professional level. Albright did not have overpowering stuff. He did throw a heavy ball. He always pitched wearing large, floppy, white undersleeves, and sported a bulbous cheek full of tobacco. A batter faced this from Albright: a motion of counter-whirling arm spins, not knowing exactly where the pitch was coming from or when it was going to get there, and when it was released, was faced with the chore of trying to pick up the path of the white baseball against the backdrop of flopping white sleeves and a bulging white orb from the side of a face.

-30-

Mantle, Boyer brothers and hometown baseball
by Bryce Martin

In the 1950s, during the Major League baseball off-season, my Galena, Kan., townteam often played at home against a ragbag of players, including Roy and Ray Mantle, Alton Clay, Floyd Woolridge, Cliff Mapes, Red Rose, and Barney Barnett Jr, some current and some former big leaguers. Miami, Okla., had a team, with Max Mantle in centerfield. The Joplin Globe newspaper printed news releases relating to the dates and times of the off-season baseball games at Miners Park in Joplin, and those in the Alba/Purcell area that included the Boyer brothers. Even Mickey Mantle played in some of the contests. I saw games in Miami, Galena, Joplin and the Alba/Purcell region. Some good, young players resided in these regions, but deference was given to older, local amateur players when it came to playing against the big boys. A Galena pitcher, Jim Albright, employed a double windmill wind-up, a memorable motor movement passé even then. Attendance for these exhibitions was moderate and the setting was informal. In a game at Miners Park in 1956, a hefty Bub Woods from Galena, who had no professional baseball experience and who didn't play much anymore because of age and some added girth, was seated in the front row of the grandstands watching the festivities in his overalls. He was called in to pinch hit. He belted a drive up the right alley that should have been a double, but he barely made it to first and gave way to a pinch runner. He returned to his seat. In the same game, sure-fielding Ken Boyer of the St. Louis Cardinals let a rather routine groundball go under his glove at third, and was unsteady on some other chances. As a young kid, I could not imagine a major leaguer of his stature being so far off in his fielding. That was memorable, because the next year St. Louis moved Ken to leftfield. Associated Press stories in the Globe reported that Ken, for reasons unknown, could no longer field his third base position. An image of the cleanest uniform I had ever seen is still vivid in my mind. Mickey Owen Jr. wore a bleached-white home uniform of the Reds. Usually, if a player wore a ML uniform in one of the exhibition contests, it was of the traveling gray sort. Owen Jr., a catcher, like his father, seemed a fish out of water to my young eyes. He showed little ability. His dad, remembered for a World Series slip-up, always stood behind the screen and watched his son's every move. I felt a little sorry for the elder.

-30-

Hitting a baseball not hardest feat in sports
by Bryce Martin

"Hitting a baseball is the single hardest thing to do in sports."


You have heard that axiom. We all have. Taken literally - and I do not know how else to take it -- the statement has never made sense to me. If you have an official at bat in baseball, which excludes walks, sacrifices and the like, that means you hit the ball into fair territory and it is live. When you hit a baseball, these things happen: a base hit, flyout, groundout, or an error in the field (which counts as a time at bat but not as a base hit). You can also strike out. But even those who strike out more than others also hit the ball and put it in play more often than they strike out. If you were to bat 600 times in one baseball year and strike out 100 of those times, that means the other 500 times you either connected bat to ball for a flyout, groundout, base hit, or reached base on error, but you hit it. That is difficult?

Hitting a baseball, and hitting a baseball for a base hit are two different things. I've heard it expressed, and so have you, that you only have to hit the baseball three out of ten times to be considered successful. That's because that would be a .300 batting average and .300 is considered the benchmark for a good hitter. Nevermind that the other seven times fielders had to make Brooks Robinson-like circus plays to get you out.

The old bromide would be more accurate stated something like this: "Hitting a baseball for a base hit is the single hardest thing to do in sports."

-30-

The Hottest Club in Bakersfield
Or, That's Life... Movin' West
by Bryce Martin

The Golden Lion was a moderately large lounge in the Holiday House, a low-slung building in Bakersfield on Old Highway 99 where White Lane crossed.

The structure was once a Holiday Inn. The new Holiday Inn relocated about a mile to the west, down White Lane and at an exit just off the new Interstate 5. The older building may have changed names but you can spot a dead and repurposed Holiday Inn by the shape of its sign, and on this one the "Holiday" part stayed the same.

I was the new ID checker for the lounge operated now by my old boss Bobby Cline. I had worked for him before salvaging iron. I drove his heater-less pickup truck south each morning to the top of the summit at Castaic, up the often foggy and steep climb on the gray asphalt early each weekday morning with two black men as my passengers. They were co-workers I picked up at their residences on Cottonwood Lane. We cut cement-laden railroad track from tunnels in the mountains, loaded the iron strips on a truck bed and sent them on their way with a driver who showed up in the afternoon to Cline's salvage yard in Bakersfield.

When that job played out, Cline took over managing the Holiday House. It was just a few years back that he operated his own steakhouse, the Buckhorn, a place famous in this area of town for its sign -- "Wine And Dine With Bobby Cline."

I even had a free room at the motel. I worked Friday and Saturday nights. That was it. I was paid "transient pay." That is, I made up a name each week, was given a check with that name and they cashed it for me. It was all done at the front desk. Each week, they would get a good laugh at the name I picked. "Who are you this time?"

I found out that the guy who had this job before me, Rick Sessions under previous management, had applied for the job again but was turned down. He was too rough on the customers. I was told he'd tear an arm off and beat a guy to death with it. He was an older brother of singer Ronnie Sessions, who came into the club a few times. We sat around and talked over a beer a few times. Ronnie was confident he would be hooking back up with Gene Autry's Republic Records.

It was a dead club then. Not long after, it was the hottest club in town. Al Garcia and the Rhythm Kings packed them in. A large Mexican clientile showed on weekends. A regular was a Mexican I only knew as "Fast Eddie," actually as I only bothered to know him by. That nickname was supposedly for his pool playing prowess. He was really upset each time he came in, reminding himself and me how it should be him who had my job. "That's life," I told him, "movin' west." That was one of my favorite lines. It was a voiceover ending the show each week from an old television western series called Frontier in the 50s. "That's the way it happened, movin' west," were the exact words as covered wagons rolled onward. I'm confident he didn't know that nor would most anyone else. Still, I could appreciate my own sarcasm more than most anyone else.

A resident for a few weeks was Jim Manos from Phoenix. He was a phone man. "Just put me in a room with a phone, a phone book, some index cards, some oatmeal to keep me going, and I'm in business anywhere." He would organize and stage charity events for a fee, such as donkey basketball games between the police and fire departments in cities around the country. He was in Bakersfield to do a Kern Country Fish and Game barbecue that was to feature cowboy movie stuntmen from Hollywood.

On Sunday mornings, Jerry Gianinni liked to go to the Mint bar on 19th for what he called "church." He was a Holiday House regular who had just joined the Eagle's Club and was a volunteer fill-in bartender for Cline. The Mint opened at 6 a.m. all days. It was owned by Bud Walston, known as the "Mayor of 19th Street." Gianinni would always set it up for at least a couple of people to join him. One morning I "snuck" in with the group. As it turned out, they were cliquish and didn't like it much. I drink on while they plotted against me.

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10 Country music myths
by Bryce Martin

1. Dwight Yoakam is not from Bakersfield, Calif. He wasn't born there (Kentucky). He didn't grow up there (Ohio), and he has never lived there. The closest he has lived to Bakersfield is where he is now, in the Los Angeles region about 130 miles to the south.

2. Johnny Cash never served time in prison. Most people I've learned over the years don't know the difference between "jail time" and "prison time." Prison is the "Big House," the place you go for the more serious crimes and longer sentences. Jail might just be an overnight stay or shorter. When you are released from prison, you are on "parole." When you are released from jail, you are on "probation." It's a state prison; a city jail. There's a big difference between the two. Cash had some very short stays in jail, but he never served time in prison.

Okay, two.

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Trona days
(Notes from 1963)
by Bryce Martin


American Potash and Chemical Corporation is located in the middle of Trona, Calif., and represents the biggest investment any company has thus far made in mining the brines from the ancient lakebed of Searles Valley. Trona is a company town in the classic mold of such places.

Many of the workers are from the Midwest and the Southwest. It is rich pickings for those driven from their home place by poor economic times. The name of the Trona plant is often shortened to AmPot in conversation. That is not just for convenience. Many of the workers own stock in the company, and it is listed as AmPot in stock market lingo.

When entering Searles Valley heading north, you first encounter Westend, where the other plant – Stauffer Chemical Co., is located -- then Borosalvay, Argus, Trona, Pioneer Point, and Valley Wells. From there, Death Valley is just over the next rise.

It is many locales for such a small space. The sun shines on all of them, too. That is true since the valley floor is unrelentingly flat. Some houses, though, are backed up to tall and massive rock formations, providing, one would guess, more shade at times in the day than a house in the open.

The giant rocks, however, act as a kiln in holding in the heat of the boiling sun.

Schools, churches and homes are of indistinct architecture, and built primarily in the thirties and forties. The newer homes are in the Pioneer Point and Homewood Canyon district.

The company buildings in downtown Trona resemble railroad depots.

The two plants mine brines from the lakebed to produce inorganic chemicals. A staple is sodium carbonate (soda ash). There are also borates, sodium sulfates, and potash (potassium chloride and potassium sulfate).

The two plants have different priorities and use somewhat different processing systems. Potash, for instance, is produced at American Potash but not at Stauffer.

I work at Stauffer. Few of us pay that much attention to borates and sulfates. I have been told some of what we produce is used to give glass beer bottles that brown tint, and as an ingredient in some household cleaners. From what I have gathered in conversations, most do not know or care. The paycheck is the main thing. Keeping those happy who are responsible for the paychecks is another primary consideration.

Technical talk is left to the engineers. Many of the workers, most of whom have little formal education, make comments typical of those downtrodden and plain. “Last week ah couldn’t spell engineer and now I is one,” is a one-liner repeated regularly and often followed with a knowing wink. Then there is the old standby: “I may not have much schoolin’ but at least I got some common sense.” The implication is always that anyone with an education could not possibly have common sense too.

When the engineers and plant workers are together for discussion on a project, I always get the feeling the engineers get a satisfaction from humoring the time card punchers. Conversely, the workers walk away with a smile like a fox in a henhouse. Both groups are able to break away and return to their own, content that all went well.

Most of the guys in the valley do not soup-up or customize their cars to the extent they do in Galena. I rarely see a primered car in Trona, one with flipper wheel covers, lakes pipes, a split manifold and rapping dual pipes, or one with an exotic or standout paint job. The native boys are an easygoing bunch who wears flip-flops (some here call them “thongs”), plain white t-shirts and Levi’s (and I mean Levi’s, the brand name, not just jeans).

The San Bernardino Sun newspaper runs a regular ad featuring Earl Scheib. He is a man who started his own company painting cars at a cheap price. The ad has a head shot of Scheib, with a cartoon balloon coming from his mouth that reads, “I’ll paint any car for $19.95.” The idea of someone that unhip-looking as Scheib doing something as cool as putting a new paint job to your car seems incongruous.

I have an uncle in Trona who has a used car lot. He said he takes cars to the Scheib shop in San Bernardino for paintwork and that they do a good job. “They don’t sand them or do any body work for that price,” he added.

Scheib also has a television ad. It is the same photo of him and with his taped voice playing in the background. “I’ll paint any car for $19.95,” he says, in a nasally, uninspired voice, one you would expect to hear from such a face.

Minor body work is $5 extra.

Even cooler than getting your car painted is going below San Diego to Tijuana for a tuck-and-roll upholstery job. It is a fancy style of pleated upholstery; much the same as the style of seats in a diner I frequented on Joplin’s Range Line. I have never been to Tijuana, but I have seen the results of the tuck and roll work and it is impressive. You can get the whole interior done for a hundred dollars. Those who have had it done tell me the Mexicans stuff the insides of the seats with foam rubber. You do not even need a map or an address. Just go to Tijuana, drive around and you will find one of the shops on a side street. The ones who know their way around, however, usually take the new people to the places they are familiar with and trust. It is a one-day affair. I have heard several stories about a bar in Tijuana called the Blue Fox, where some of the guys killed time while the interior work was taking place.

“I chi-hwa-wa!”

I'm picking up a little Spanish after working and being around Mexicans for the first time. I'm told most of it is slang and no one who learned Spanish in this country would know what I was talking about if I repeated any of it.

Those who go to Tijuana usually bring back an ample supply of Mexican sandals, or huaraches. The latest ones are neat, the soles and tops formed from fresh tire treads.

I thought parts of my hometown in Galena were about as "moonlike" as it got here on earth from its lead mining days. I was mistaken. You would have to go to the moon to top Trona. Trona is one desolate, forsaken spot.

The local water is too alkaline for consumption. Water is piped in from Ridgecrest. The pipe runs above ground alongside the highway.

A hydrogen sulfide smell flares the nostrils. I have asked the scientific types where the smell comes from and, to put it in my own words: The rotten egg smell comes from bacteria feasting on organic material in the lakebed brine.

After a time, you do not notice the smell. I do not, anyway. It may be just me, but if I am gone from the valley for a spell, I do not smell it when I return, either.

Trona is 18 miles northeast of Ridgecrest. Ridgecrest seems desolate, that is, until you see Trona.

I remember my basic science from high school: sodium chloride is common table salt, and sodium bicarbonate is baking soda. It is also called bicarbonate of soda. Knowing this, I was able to figure out a cartoon one time when one of the characters had an upset stomach and said, "I need a bicarb."

That is about all I know regarding the soup in the dry lake. I am not about to imply that I am familiar with the chemical compositions of all the products produced from the different brine processing techniques employed by the Trona plants.

However, I did go to some trouble to find out exactly what Trona is. I found that it is half sodium bicarbonate and half sodium carbonate. What I might do with that information is up for grabs.

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How Sopranos finale ends
by Bryce Martin

My prediction:

Safe house is attacked by rival mob leader's henchmen.

Tony escapes, or appears to have, only to get waxed by Paulie Walnuts who lets Tony know he has resented him for a long time now and has worked out a better deal for himself with the other side.

Tony's wallet somehow ends up on the floor with it unfolded and Tony's driver's license is splattered with his blood (this is some metaphor we're supposed to attach to classical drama).

And, since the show relies so much on song clips to set the tone, and because Paulie has a hair style replete with what has been referred to on the show as "wings," in the background plays a Wings song.

What Wings song? Any number of them would do but I'll go with "Band on the Run."

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No contradiction in believing in creationism and in evolution
by Bryce Martin

I have seen this many times over the years. A poll that indicates a high number of Americans believe in creationism and in evolution, and that to have both views is contradictory. Perhaps, and perhaps not.

I have yet to see a poll -- any poll -- that does not bias responses by the wording, placement, or other factors regarding how the question is presented.

Evolution, in its classical sense, is opposed to the creationism concept. But, evolution in the process of change and adaptation over a period of time is easy to understand and is accepted by many creationists and others. This is why so many people say they believe in both, and this is why it is not a contradiction, and this is why the supposed intelligent people who decipher these results are sorely out of touch and ignorant to boot.

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It's baseball season and... I miss Mickey
by Bryce Martin

The faint recognition of early spring brings revival to the spirit and, with it, another Major League baseball season in slow bloom. Always this time of year I can't help but being overcome by an old and kindred feeling -- the nostalgia that is Mickey Mantle.

This is the time of year I really miss Mickey, when the sky's clouds are crisp over a background of light, dreamy blue, much the same as on his 1951 Bowman Gum Co. rookie baseball card, #253.

Most of Mickey's fans, I believe, were his fans first and baseball fans second, with no big drop-off. It was true for me. Sure, keeping tabs on Mickey and his New York Yankees teammate Roger Maris while they chased Babe Ruth's magic 60 home runs benchmark in 1961 was incredible theater. I was even astonished by the Tigers' Norm Cash and his surprising long-ball power that summer.

The fact that the small Kansas town I lived in was only about 35 miles from Mickey's house made my hero accessible. He wasn't just some snowy image on a black-and-white TV that you saw occasionally on one of three, and only three, venues: CBS, NBC, ABC; or a gloriously smiling figure posed in a magazine layout with singer Teresa Brewer, whose 45 rpm vinyl, "I Love Mickey," was hot.

He was the Mickey that I caught on KSWM-TV, Channel 12, out of Joplin, Mo., late in 1955, telling sports host Johnny Holmes that he was seriously considering quitting baseball and taking up professional golf. I didn't have my cap pulled over my ears. He said it, and I worried about it all winter. The next year, when nothing more came up on the subject, I still had concerns. Mickey earned a rare Triple Crown in 1956 -- leading the American League in homers, runs batted in, and batting average. What more did he have to prove in baseball?

Then there was the thrill of playing on the same dusty baseball fields as the adolescent Mickey, especially the one in Baxter Springs, Kan., hearing the old-timers describing one of the legendary clouts the young son of a lead and zinc miner -- many of whom knew and worked alongside the elder Mutt Mantle -- had witnessed, and his blazing speed and raw ability.

There was the chance to see his cousin, Max Mantle, a smooth-fielding centerfielder, twin brothers Roy and Ray, boyhood chum Barney Barnett Jr., a giant hulk of a man, all playing in "townball" games, where a collection hat (usually straw) was passed around to pay the civvies-clad umps.

Where Mickey lived and where he played his first two minor league seasons -- Independence, Kan., and Joplin -- were short car rides to all who lived in the Tri-State area of northeast Oklahoma, southwest Missouri and southeast Kansas. Everyone in the Route 66 region knew and discussed all things Mickey.

In 1955, I got to meet him.

It was my grandfather's idea. It was a simple plan to execute. Just drive to Commerce, Okla.

Arriving in Commerce, unannounced as it was, we found a modest home, no different than any other in the tiny hamlet. A station wagon was parked in the driveway. The front door was swung open to the inside and blocked by a closed screen door, the preferred manner of most households back then on pleasant mornings. Two hunting rifles stood upright against an outside wall.

Then, as if on cue, Mickey emerged, along with pal teammate and second baseman, Billy Martin (who much later would be peddled to Detroit and cited as a "bad influence" on Mickey). Relating that they were going on "a little hunting trip," they were, nonetheless, cordial and friendly and didn't seem to be in a hurry.

Oddly, I recall little of the meeting. Maybe it's not good that we actually meet our idols in the flesh, and maybe God has a way of suppressing such epiphanies, an idol-check of sorts for our own good.

I miss keeping up with the young Mickey in all those golden, eternal summers. Mickey, the promise, dream and inspiration that he was. Always, I miss him the most around right now.

I feel sure that poet Robert L. Harrison would not mind if I share his tribute to Mickey, one concerning a "pro-de-jus" blast at the Tigers' Briggs Stadium in 1953. The poem is, of course, about more than that.

1953 Young Mantle Hits One

It was a shot like no other
tearing into the breath of God,
leaving earth and grass and fans.

A sphere for the ages racing along
casting no shadow in frozen space
finally arching for the great fall.

Described on the radio as a new star
a stellar moment of freedom expressed
bright and clean as a summer's dream.

...

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More on Mater the Boom Truck

(Posted by Ron: Four-wheeled Inspiration for Mater is Found)

The actual post is at: http://rwarn17588.wordpress.com/2006/10/05/four-wheeled-
inspiration-for-mater-is-found


Rod Harsh, proprietor of Route 66 TV Online and chairman of the Route 66 Committee of Jasper County, Mo., had been diligently looking for the tow-truck inspiration of the character Tow Mater, voiced memorably by Larry the Cable Guy, in the hit animated movie, “Cars.”

He found it.

The good news is the truck (second photo above) will be exhibited and treasured at a historic Route 66 gas station that’s being refurbished in Galena, Kan.

But first, a little background …

In 2001, a crew from Pixar Animation Studios was being guided by Route 66 author and expert Michael Wallis down the Mother Road to do research for “Cars,” which includes the Mother Road as a central part of its theme.

A dedication to late Pixar animator Joe Ranft in the book “The Art of Cars” describes what happened during the research tour:

In Galena, Kansas, we found a lonely old tow truck that most folks would pass by without a second glance. Our Head of Story Joe Ranft, however, saw beyond the rust and broken-down parts — he saw the inspiration for the character Mater. They soon became kindred spirits. Joe gave Mater his warmth, his sense of fun, his humble and generous spirit, and his capacity to see — and bring out — the best in others.

There’s a piece of Joe in every movie Pixar has ever made. But Joe truly was the heart of Cars.

Here is a photo of Ranft gazing at the beat-up truck that eventually would become Mater:

Tragically, Ranft died in a traffic accident in August 2005, before he saw his creation come to life in movie theaters.

In April, Wallis looked for that truck while he was filming a segment about “Cars” for the Disney Channel’s “Movie Surfers” program.

The crew was unable to film one of the “Cars” inspirations, however. When the Pixar crew first traveled down Route 66, the studio’s “story guru,” Joe Ranft, became inspired by a rusty old pickup truck he saw in a junkyard near Galena, Kan. That truck provided much of the template to the equally rusty and rickety Mater. […] Wallis said he had hoped to buy the truck and fix it up so it would be running again.

Harsh read about the truck and its inspiration for Mater in the summer issue of Route 66 Magazine and went to look for it. He couldn’t find it. He kept looking for it.

The truck had been parked for years next to an abandoned, circa-1933 gas station at Old Route 66 and Main Street in Galena. Galena businessman Larry Courtney recently purchased the building, sans truck, to convert it into a gift shop and snack bar.

Courtney had no idea of the connection of the gas station’s truck to Pixar until Harsh told him. The truck eventually was found in a farm field, with its hood a quarter-mile away, Harsh said. Courtney purchased the truck, and it’s being stored in an undisclosed location.

“Mater” is a 1951 International boom truck, not a tow truck. Harsh surmises the extra-long boom was used to lift equipment out of the lead-mine shafts that dot the region. Wallis confirmed it is the same truck that Ranft saw in 2001.

Now “Mater” will become a part of the gas station’s attractions.

Harsh is planning a media event at 9 a.m. Nov. 3 Nov. 11 at Courtney’s station, where the truck will be parked for the public to see all day weekend and celebrate Route 66’s 80th anniversary. After that, the truck will be put back into storage until the station opens in the spring. At that time, the truck will be parked beside the station in its old spot so “Cars” and Route 66 fans can enjoy it.

(Boom truck photo courtesy of Route 66 TV Online.
Other photos are from the author’s collection.)
Comments»

1. Sherry Owens - October 9, 2006

Kudos to Mr. Harsh and his plans in Galena, Ks. Galena is a town of mostly historic bldgs. that are in danger of being lost. More should be done to revive the Main Street area of Galena. With the building of the interstate highway system, a lot of small towns across the USA have become “ghost towns.” It would be a shame for the history of this small town to be lost with so many others.
2. Chad Kerychuk - October 12, 2006

Not since the Brokeback Mountain vehicle, has a movie-related truck garnered so much attention. Fun stuff. I’m sure Ranft would be happy to see it preserved, rust and all!
3. Phil Frey - October 15, 2006

While I have no doubt that they were inspired by this truck, I believe they also took many cues from this truck as well:

http://www.edwoodonline.com/mater.html

It is seen in the Cars Podcast “Kickin’ It On Route 66″ and shares a lot of physical featurs with Mater, such as color and the nature of the headlights.
4. Ron - October 15, 2006

Interesting, Phil. I either don’t remember that moment from the podcast, or I hadn’t seen it.

I wouldn’t be surprised that the truck you’ve shown had an influence. But Pixar and the writer of “The Art of Cars” made it a point to show the old boom truck in Galena, Kan., and its impact on the Mater.

Either way, thanks for bringing it to my — and our — attention. It’s something to think about.
5. andrea - December 7, 2006

i love the movie cars mater made cars the movie
6. Alisha Newby - December 10, 2006

I live in the area of Galena KS and drove over with the kids today 12-10-06, and found “mater” sitting and still decorated from the Christmas parade and events in Galena. My kids as well as myself and my husband love the movie “CARS” and the kids thought it was a real treat to see the REAL MATER… my 3 year old was still talking about Tow Mater when he fell asleep tonight.
7. Meagan - May 5, 2007

i live in the area of anderson SC we was going to Greenville and we saw a tow truck that looked like mater we are going to try to buy him.i really didnt know that much about the movie cars but i wantes to look it up becouse my brother really liked it he NEVER waches cartoons and the way cars was inspired was very meaningful
we had to buy the movie. the movie inspired to start a company with my bestfriend were planning it to be MEAGAN DIXIE and MATER’S TOWING CO.

I LOVE THE MOVIE

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Fess Reynolds’ Place (1977)
by Bryce Martin

Lebec, Calif. -- Fess Reynolds trains various animals here. He has a dingo that has dropped a stick at my feet from its mouth and is looking up at me as if I should know what to do next. I’m watching Reynolds as he has Frosty, a full-grown Brahma bull, tethered and walking in a circle. The working area is much like a large pit. The ground is totally devoid of vegetation and sloped on the outsides at a back angle all the way around. You name the animal and he has probably trained one here for movie work. Frosty is a minor movie star himself. I toss the stick with a strong throw, thinking the dingo may lose sight of it. Reynolds talks to me as he keeps Frosty moving slowly. I don’t know what the regimen amounts to. Some of his animals were used years ago by car dealer Cal Worthington for his late-night TV ads featuring his “dog Spot,” who was hardly ever a dog, but a tiger, camel or some other animal. Reynolds is a common sight in the area, running animals up and down the highway from Hollywood movie sets to his ranch and back and forth. He became a traffic hazard of sorts because of all the gawkers. He said the California Highway Patrol ordered him to quit hauling lions on his flatbed truck going down Highway 99. The dingo returns the stick back at my feet and returns its arrogant stare at me. I look at the stick and it appears to be the same one. As I reach to pick it up, the dingo’s head darts some toward my hand. I pick up the stick and really fling it this time. Reynolds mentions how his son Jug played the role of Little Beaver in Red Ryder movies, replacing Robert Blake (known then as Bobby Blake). As Red Ryder’s sidekick, Little Beaver was a lovable little Navajo boy whose catchphrase was “You betchum, Red Ryder,” a phrase often uttered in my neighborhood and schoolyard in the early 1950s when old cowboy reels filled our TV screens. (Blake portrayed Little Beaver for all the Republic features from 1944-47 with Bill Elliott as Red Ryder. Don Kay "Little Brown Jug" Reynolds followed as the last movie Little Beaver with Jim Bannon as Red Ryder for Eagle-Lion films.). The elder Reynolds, who is short and stocky, looks like one of the many crusty sidekicks that cowboy movie stars in all those low-budget affairs always had, has another son called Sled who lives nearby and who also trains animals for movie work. All of his boys, I don’t know how many, have been involved with rodeo, movie stunt work, and animal training most of their lives. The dingo drops the stick again. I bend to pick it up and he clamps his teeth on my hand. Not hard enough to break the skin, but a crushing pressure nonetheless. I pull my hand up as it releases its bite. I toss the stick for the last time.

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