Tall Tales and Ripping Yarns from The Great State Of Texas
Author: Phil Strawn
I'm a 7th generation Texan and write about growing up in this great state. Tall tales and ripping yarns are what Texas is about, and I will oblige my readers with these. Most stories are true, some are a total fabrication, and others are a bit of both.
There she is, folks, standing with her girlie friends, cheering on her soon-to-be next breakup song inspiration: Travis Kelce, who doesn’t have a clue what he’s latched onto, but now that he has spent serious time with her, he’s fresh meat for the lithe blonde succubus. Who is it I’m taunting? Why it’s that semi-country music, man-hating gal, Saint Taylor Swift. I read on some sort of reliable website that there were ten- thousand of her “Swifty” lemmings praying and lighting religious candles outside the stadium in hopes of a miracle-induced glimpse of the Swift One as she and her entourage of movie brats left the venue. She brought in better ratings than the game, so you can bet that Jerry Jones is calling her for an appearance at his Dallas Plowboys game next week. If there are any more Taylor Swift sightings in the news, I may go into hibernation for the winter.
Chick Filet Is Costing Me A Butt-Load Of Money
Yesterday, while watching the tube, I enjoyed a chicken lettuce wrap from Chickie Filet. I bit down on the supposedly soft morsel and felt a piece of my proper back molar break off. After a visit with my dentist today, I will pay around two grand for a crown made from some new wonder material called Kryptontonium that will be good for at least a century. I asked my dentist why he couldn’t use the cheap stuff since my parking meter is about up. He said I’d have sound molars if I needed to eat in Heaven. He’s about half right.
Craftsman vs. Aftermarket Hardware
When I had my major back surgery over a year ago, my surgeon said he used only Craftsman tools and materials. I was comforted knowing that a brand that has been around for a hundred-plus years would be used on my spine. Screws, plates, cages, and other mysterious materials take to support my spine at L4 and L5. Good ole’ American-made stainless materials. Right? I hope my surgeon didn’t cheap out and use aftermarket materials, but how would I know? A few weeks ago, while attempting to catch a plane, I tripped on DFW’s uneven sidewalks and went down hard. I’m talking bone-jarring, falling like a tree hard. That, and another fall at the Houston airport and then a bone-jarring fishing trip in the Gulf, did my carcass in. Now my hardware has shifted, sprung a screw, or some other failure, and I am looking forward to another cut-and-paste spine surgery. I’m beginning to feel like Dr. Frankenstein’s creation. It’s only Monday, so I’ve got the rest of this week to see what else can go to hell.
I haven’t flown on a commercial airline in five years or so, and I don’t miss it for one minute. I recently flew to Corpus Christi to visit my son and his family for five days while my wife, MoMo, flew to Colorado Springs for the same reasons. United Airlines, ” Fly The Friendly Sky’s of United,” yes, those friendly folks had the best fare, so bang, I’m in. What could go wrong with a brief layover in Houston, then a commuter jet to Corpus? Plenty can and did go south.
My wife dropped me off at Terminal C at DFW Airport. Once inside, I discovered I was in the wrong terminal; United changed it at the last minute. I called MoMo to haul me to the new and improved Terminal E. Coming out of the old terminal, I tripped on an uneven sidewalk, went down hard on my left knee, and sprawled out like a Squirrel lying in the shade, my laptop case went flying, little roller suitcase goes too, sunglasses ejected from my face. I’m lying on a filthy sidewalk, bleeding, cursing, and feeling like an old fool. I look up, and this foreign guy is yapping on a cell phone, staring at me with a stupid grin; he gives me a little wave, and I wave back with my one-finger wave. He keeps smiling, not understanding the traditional American one-finger salute. No one is there to help me, so I belly crawl to a trash bin, haul my injured carcass up, collect my stuff, and wait for MoMo to collect me. Blood and other major fluids are running down my leg, my back hurts, both legs hurt, and I somehow banged my head. My once-clean flying clothes are covered in dirt and grime from the disgusting sidewalks. I’m pretty sure every known disease to man is lurking on their surface, and now I’m covered with the deadly germs.
MoMo collects me at the curb, patches me up the best she can with handi-wipes and one bandaid, and drops me off at terminal E.
A sympathetic young lady, a United employee, helps me check in and sends me on my way to security. I wait in line for a while, arrive at the roller belt, remove shoes, wallet, laptop, coins, glasses, and walking cane. I pass through the radar detector, and it goes off. I tell the officer I have metal in my back. He gave me the wand treatment and had me collect my belongings. As I reach for my walking cane, an agent grabs it and says,
” Not so fast, buddy-boy, we don’t like canes here at the TSA. There could be explosives, Cartel money, or Fentenayl in that hollow stick.” Holy crap, I hadn’t thought about any of those things, it’s an old man walking stick. “We’re going to let Cujo, our security dog, have a sniff of this cane.”
The agent walks over to a humongous dog crate and opens the door. A tiny Chihuahua wearing a camo vest trots out. The agent bends down, gives him a dog treat, and holds the cane for inspection. Cujo sniffs it from top to bottom, steps back, barks once, and trots back into his carriers. The agent handed me my cane and said, ” Cujo says you’re good to go, but remember, we don’t like canes.” I get it.
Seated on the plane, a less-than-perky flight attendant stops by,
” Sir, I can put that cane in the overhead for you.”
“No thanks, I need it to get up and out of this tiny-assed, kid-sized seat.” She wasn’t amused, and by this time, neither was I.
“Sir, here at United, we don’t like canes. There could be explosives, drugs, or a laser weapon in the handle that you could use to kill the attendants and then laser through the cockpit door and take over the plane.” Her tone is snarky at best.
I give her my cane and am thinking about a cold beer to calm my nerves.
An attendant speaks over the intercom, ” We hope you enjoy the 59-minute flight to Houston. Since the flight is under one hour, no beverage service will be available.” You could hear the “tough-shit Sherlock” tone in her voice. Son-of-a-bitch, one minute shy of an hour, and they don’t serve beverages. I’m parched and dying here. The guy next to me is sucking on a Big Gulp and eating a sub sandwich full of onions and garlic.
The plane jumps into the sky. The ride is a bit bouncy, but I’ve had worse. I noticed the lady across the aisle had a huge, gnarly red pimple on her cheek and was messing with it. This is not the place to work on her facial outbreaks. One good squeeze and that pimple juice could land on me; I’m within squirting range. She gets up, heads to the bathroom, and comes back with a bandaid on her face.
Once in Houston, I asked a gate attendant how to get to my connecting flight.
She points down the terminal and says,
” Well, you go about three miles that way, turn left, go another mile or so, then take the SkyTrain to Terminal A, gate 2. These are big terminals, so it will take you at least an hour or so to get there.” She’s damn dead serious. I find a skycap with one of those nice rolling riding invalid chairs, and she takes me to the SkyTrain entrance; I tip her five bucks. Then she says,
“The elevator is broken, so you’ll need to take the escalator up to the SkyTrain, then to Terminal A.” Take the escalator, no kidding?
The “Up” escalator is on the left. You have to make your way through the passengers coming down the “Down” escalator, and they are moving fast; everyone is late and about to miss their flight, so it’s every person for themselves; herd mentality takes over. I see a break in the stampede and dart through. I’m not fast enough; a Wildabeast in a pink tracksuit sideswipes me, and I go flying and land on my back; she keeps running with the herd. Lying prone on the carpet, the passengers are leaping over me like Axis Deer escaping from a pride of Lions. I feel someone grab me under my arms and drag me back. I look up into the eyes of a teenage girl. She helped me up and collected my cane and laptop case.
” Are you sure you are alright, Sir?” I say yes and thank her for saving my life. ” Oh, it was nothing, Sir; I have a Grandpa, and you remind me of him.”
I make it to Terminal A and find a skycap to give me a wheelchair ride to the gate, which is another two miles away. I notice a Marine Corps ring on his finger and a Masonic Lodge medallion around his neck. I am impressed.
” I say, ” You served in the Marine Corps and are a Mason, dang young man, I am impressed.”
“Thank you, Sir; yes, Marines for eight years, and a Mason, now for three years. Married my high school sweetie, and we have two kids; life is good.” He drops me at my gate; I tip him generously and shake his hand in thanks.
Sitting at the small airport bar, I drink my $ 14.00 beer and munch on a $12.00 dry Tuna sandwich. I want to rant about the prices, but it’s a useless cause, so I reflect on meeting two generous young folks today and think if there are more of them out there, then maybe I won’t feel so afraid about handing off the baton to their generation. The flight to Corpus was good, and the visit was great. We went deep-sea fishing in my beloved Gulf, and I spent some quality time with my son, daughter-in-law, and grandson. Sometimes, life can be good.
I first learned of the “Jackalope” from my late Uncle Bill Manley. Summer nights on the porch of my grandparent’s farmhouse were ripe for spinning yarns and swapping lies. Uncle Bill was a masterful storyteller; my cousins and I were young and ready to believe anything he dreamed up.
The Jackalope is part Jack Rabbit and part Antelope and is a staple of Texas lore; is it real or a yarn? No one knows for sure, but many have claimed to have seen one, Uncle Bill among them.
After three or four ice-cold Pear beers, he begins his recount.
His voice lowers an octave; he leans over, rests his elbows on his knees, and begins,
” Back in 1948, when myself and the missus were visiting down from Chicago to this here farm, I was looking for my doggy that escaped the screened-in porch. It was almost dark, and I was walking through the back pasture, making my way into a grove of Mesquite trees, and there it was, sitting, chewing on a big blade of Johnson grass. He was a big critter, about the size of a big old lazy dog. His horns stuck up like a West Texas Antelope, his eyes glowed ruby red, and his pupils were yellow like a big summer squash. I was scared the varmint was going to gore me with those big horns, but I stayed real still and began to talk to the critter. I knew it was a Jackalope right away. The more I talked, the critter seemed to like what I was saying, and it began inching closer to me. I went on for a while, and when I took a break, the varmint was right next to me, looking up at my face with those crazy eyes. Then he did something funny; he nuzzled me with his head, and not knowing what was up, I reached out and scratched him behind his long ears. He made a funny sound, sort of a cat purring. I knew we were buddies now.” Wow, what a story! My cousins and I were delighted; we wanted more, so I asked, ” Uncle Bill, what happened to the Jackalope?”
Uncle Bill always had a dramatic end to his tales; this one was no different. He takes a giant slug of his Pearl Beer and says,
” There was a pack of wiley Coyotes roaming around the farm making a ruccus and killing Granny’s chickens. I went out hunting them one night and found the Jackalope all chewed up over behind the hen house; the Coyotes got him. He put up a good fight because there was two dead Coyotes laying beside him, all gored up from the horns. I took him to the taxidermist in Brownwood and had his head mounted, and that’s him hanging on the wall of the Biscuit Cafe.” Twenty years later, I stopped at that cafe, and the Jackalope was still there.
My good friend John Payne was raised in West Texas, and I have, with his permission, used his antics as a teenager to inspire my favorite character, Ferris Ferrier. This story was inspired by John.
Ferris Ferrier lives in Happy Texas. It’s 1958, and he is as happy as a resident can be. He reads an article in the Amarillo newspaper about a movie soon to be filming in Fort Worth, and the company is auditioning for cowboys who can sing and play guitar while riding a horse.
Ferris plays guitar a bit and has some fancy cowboy duds, and his father has Ole’ Rip, the family ranch cutting horse, so he’s convinced he could give this a shot. His parents give him their blessing, and it’s arranged that his cousins Jimmy Jam and Mary Meredith will take him and Ole Rip to the casting call.
Ferris isn’t nervous about the singing and playing but more about Ole’ Rip getting spooked and bucking him off. Ole’ Rip is a working horse used to cattle and his pen, and he’s pretty unpredictable, but he’s the only horse on the farm, so Ole Rip it is. Jimmy Jam suggests that Ferris and Ole Rip give a practice performance in the upcoming Christmas Parade next week. “Give the folks in Happy a preview of their soon-to-be movie star,” says Jimmy. Ferris agrees, and plans are made for his debut.
On the day of the parade, Mimi Jo Musson, the coordinator, moves Ferris and Ole’ Rip to the front of the show, right behind the baton twirlers.
“Might as well give our new movie star a plug, right?” she said. Ferris is nervous as hell.
Why right in front of the high school band? Ole’ Rip is bound to have a meltdown once that loud music starts. He explains to Mimi Jo the scenario that will likely happen.
Mimi Jo says, “It will be fine; all horses love music.”
Ferris is freaking out. His throat is dry as sand, he has to pee, and Ole’ Rip cuts one fart after the other, a sure sign he is unhappy. As the parade turns the corner from the alley onto the main street, Ferris starts to play and sing, and Ole’ Rip is doing fine. Then, the drums start, the band kicks into Jingle Bells, and Ole Rip loses it. It is the first time Ferris has seen him rear up on his back legs like Trigger, and is, for a moment, impressed…until the horse makes a hard right turn and runs into Miss Honey’s Beauty Parlor.
As Ferris and Rip enter the business, Ferris hits his forehead on the top door jamb and spews blood like a fountain. Ole Rip manages to demolish half the parlor before turning around and heading out the front door. They travel a few stores down, running parade watchers off the sidewalk.
The next stop, Western Auto and Rip, is doing a similar demo job on the best store in town. Ferris is bleeding, his guitar is smashed, and the saddle is beginning to slide sideways. As they exit Western Auto, there are three vacant lots until you reach Bramwell’s Feed Store. Ole’ Rip, smelling horse feed, picks up speed and heads for the feed store lot.
As they enter the lot, Rip is smelling oats and makes a beeline for the warehouse, where he abruptly stops in front of an open bin and proceeds to chow down.
The saddle slips sideways, and Ferris is on the ground.
He is a sorry sight, with a bloody face, torn clothes, and his precious Harmony acoustic guitar smashed to kindling, and then Margie Lou, his secret crush, shows up. She is so excited she can barely speak.
” Good God, Ferris, I have never seen a demonstration of horsemanship like that in my whole life, and I’m a rodeo queen. That was fabulous and sensational,” she screams. Ferris picks himself up and thanks Margie Lou.
She adds, ” and next week you are going to audition for that movie, you should be so excited.”
Ferris says, “You know Margie Lou, I think I’ll do my guitar playing on the ground from now on. Who knows, in a few years, I might start a band. By the way, that’s a good idea for a name, The Fabulous Sensations, and I’ll keep that in mind.”
As usual, the town square here in Granbury is full of vendor tents selling their high-priced items to the tourists that invade our town every darn weekend. Labor Day is just another shopping day and another invasion. I guess they are doing their part, Laboring in the hot sun; it’s a balmy 103 today. There must be 10,000 pontoon, rocket boats, and personal crotch rocket jet skis tearing up the lake. I saw one pontoon boat full of senior folks in wheelchairs and personal scooters; I’m not sure they thought this out. No one had on a life vest, but they all had a frosty beer, so enjoy. The pontoon boat is the new ” let’s get the whole fam damnly on board and see if she sinks” type of vessel. I counted one boat at the marina with twenty-four bodies on board.
Ruut-Rooow, hold my beer and watch this!
Saturday afternoon, while eating at “Stumpy’s,” our local marina and lake food style restaurant, we were treated to the sounds of multiple fancy-assed cigarette boats with their 500 decibels ear-shattering 427 cubic inch stock car motors revving up. All this as we enjoyed our lake burger and a brew. Some of these boats can travel in excess of 200 mph, but if they hit a stump, of which there are plenty in Lake Granbury, it’s curtains. I thought these boats went out of style when Miami Vice ended? Guess not.
I got a haircut this morning and am considering mowing my lawn, but Laboring in the heat may cause my expiration date to go critical.
I think I’ll have a cold Oktoberfest German Beer and put off the Labor until tomorrow. Labor Day is for relaxing, and just pecking away at my laptop has already worn me out. Have a good one.
If you were a kid in the 1950s, there is a good chance you had to endure the “home haircut.”
My father, also known as “Mr. Cheapass,” became a barber almost overnight. A friend had given him a pair of worn-out electric barber clippers, and he saw a way to save that $1.50 flat top haircut I received once a month. My mother, bless her heart, tried to intervene and save her only son from the humiliation of the shearing, but the old man won the battle, and I found myself sitting in our kitchen with two phone books under my butt, just like the real barbershop.
No cape, no tissue around my skinny neck, no talcum powder, no Lucky Tiger Hair Tonic, just a worn-out towel with a clothespin holding it in place. My mother sat at the kitchen table, misty-eyed, crossing herself despite being a Baptist.
My father tried to act like a “real live barber” by making small talk, asking me about my baseball team, the weather, and my dog. It didn’t work; I knew I was in for a massacre.
He didn’t know which guide to use, so naturally, he picked the wrong one, flipped the switch, and tore into my nice, thick seven-year-old hair. Gobs of dark hair were spilling onto the towel and the floor. My mother sat there with a shocked look on her face. The more he buzzed me, the worse it got. Finally, he removed the guide and put the clippers on my scalp, rendering me bald except for a tuft of hair in front for the application of Butch Wax.
The deed was done. I was scalped, mutilated, disfigured, and humiliated. Lucky for me, it was summer, and by the start of school, I would have a normal head of hair. My father was rather pleased with his handiwork and strutted around the house for an hour or so. I happened to catch my mother tossing the clippers into the garbage can in the alley the next day. When school started, she took me to my regular barber and paid half the buck from her grocery stash.
I was young, barely talking, so I couldn’t say Trigger. It came out as Twigger. The other little buckaroos in the neighborhood mocked my speech impediment. I was three years old, so what. I rode the wilds of Sycamore Park, ducking under low branches, hearing Indians in the trees and Buffalo calling. I rode the banks of the swollen creek, watching turtles feed on the carcass of a carp. I was, in my intended element, a cowboy. Then, the owner of the Little Pony Picture Service lifted me off and put the pony in the trailer. Bummer.
We have not seen a Squirrel in the four years we have lived on this rocky hill within throwing distance of Comanche Peak. I read that they don’t care for Cedar trees or rocks, which we have in abundance.
A few months ago, I was sitting in my recliner, gazing at the bird feeders and waiting for the mailman to pop something in our box, and “bam,” there’s a giant female Squirrel chomping down on our unique “good stuff” birdseed. I was shocked but excited to see her; I love Squirrels, even though they are destructive little critters. My friend, Mooch, lost most of his lawnchair cushions to a pack of them, and they chewed the railing on his deck like notches in a pistol handle. He plugged a few with his Daisy pellet gun, and the rest of the pack got the message and split the scene.
My wife tolerates Squirrels; she doesn’t share the love of them as I do. When we lived in DeCordova Estates, our home was surrounded by large Oak trees, their preferred dwelling. I had a semi-pet Squirrel named Daisy that I hand-fed peanuts to while sitting on my deck, drinking coffee or an adult beverage. If I was slow in feeding her, she barked and chattered. She bit me only once. My wife, MoMo, reminded me that the little darlings will wreak havoc around our property. I scoffed at her warning.
Now we have two older baby Squirrels visiting the bird feeders. Mama shows up, gives them proper directions, and points out which nuts are the best. It’s a cute scene, right out of a Disney movie, before they went wokie.
I sit in my recliner, transfixed, watching their antics, observing the table manners of the animal kingdom.
I checked the feeders this morning around daybreak and discovered widespread structural damage around the bird cafe. The Squirrels have chewed the plastic on one hanging feeder, chewed the wood sides on the other two, and are working on my nice horizontal fence, adding notches to the rails. MoMo was right; they are destructive little rats and are wreaking havoc at the “LaLa Seed Cafe.” I plan to buy some Planters Cashews and see if I can strike a truce.
Strawn, Texas Depot, back when there was a train running
Strawn, Texas. Yep, same name as mine and a distant relative in the family food chain. We visited the town last Saturday for a day trip and lunch. Founded in the late 1800s and soon to be the gateway to our newest Texas state park, “Palo Pinto Mountains State Park.” A 5,400-acre rough and rustic layout that includes a lake, a river, a creek, mountains, trails, rocky escarpments as big as a house, and every kind of critter imaginable. The main entrance is through the town, which is in need of a shot in the arm to boost the economy. 80 percent of the downtown buildings are vacant. The Paramount Plus, Taylor Sherriden-driven television show “1883 The Bass Reeves Story” wrapped filming in the town last March and, at the request of the city fathers, left many of the sets and changes made to the abandoned 1800-style buildings. The little town has seen better days, but no one can remember when.
The Strawn Greyhounds are the winningest six-man football team in history, with numerous state championships. Mary’s Cafe, the famous eatery written up in food magazines and Texas Monthly for her large Chicken Fried Steaks, was left in its original condition because Mary and her gals fed the film crews good ole’ high-calorie Texas vittles; Chicken fried everything and topped off with gallons of white gravy, and to finish up, with a lot of sugary pie, iced tea, and coldbeer ( all one word in Texas).
Fake front movie set left by the 1883 crewsOld Hotel repurposed for the series
I’m no stranger to Strawn. My affiliation with the village goes back to 1958 when my father purchased a lot on Lake Tucker, the town’s source of drinking water and a beautiful small body of water formed by a creek when the dam was built by the PWA in the 1930s. The lot itself was steep and rocky, backing up to a massive hill and rock escarpment with boulders the size of a single-family home and a Buick. There was a dwelling of sorts, a small plywood one-room fishing shack with a tar paper roof. It had running water, a bathroom, a window unit, a hotplate for cooking a few cots, and a small dock. My mother was appalled but captive and had to rough it; she couldn’t walk out and darn sure couldn’t swim back to the dam. The place was crawling with Rattlesnakes, Copperheads, and Coral Snakes, and that was just the vicinity of the shack. Down at the dock, by our flat-bottom aluminum boat, the only transportation to the shack unless you could rock climb, the Water Moccasins were as thick as mosquitos. My mother, holding my baby sister in a parental death hug, damn near had a nervous breakdown as my father and I set about chopping the heads off of every venomous reptile we could find with a sharpshooter-shovel and a chunkable bolder. The Rattlers were the most fun; they would strike the shovel and break a fang before they were guillotined. I got to remove and keep the rattlers for later use in scaring the kids in my neighborhood. I could have been bitten many times over if I had thought about being scared, but I tackled the task with glee and abandon. I was a feral boy in my element.
The second night in the shack, during the wee hours before dawn, my mother heard something sniffing and clawing at the door. It could have been a Coyote, a Mountain Lion, a Bobcat, a Bear, or the dreaded Sasquatch. That was it for her, and we packed and left the next morning. She never went back.
Every visit to the grocery store found me hounding my mother for a nickel or two so I could ride the stationary pony to nowhere. She always gave in and handed me a few nickels to keep me riding the range while she shopped. In my kid’s mind, the wilds of Texas stretched before me, Indians around every corner, wild critters stalking me on my trusty steed. When the coins ran out, I would sit quietly on Twigger until my mother fetched me. I missed my pony, but I was glad when she changed stores, and the new one had a rocket ship to nowhere.
Notes From The Cactus Patch 