When the Porch Light's On. . .Stories of People, Popcorn, and Parasails. Don Ph.D. Newbury PhD
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handled this debt so quickly. It was a three percent note and was paid off in three years.) In the mid-1950s, Central Texas Gas Company was sold to Lone Star Gas Company, and Dad worked there until retirement around 1970. He never earned as much as six hundred dollars per month….
Finishing HPU in 1961 with a triple major, I stayed on to teach journalism and help with college information duties for a couple of years. Then, in 1963, I left home for the first time; it was the best move of my life. I was twenty-five years of age, and accepted the “lofty” position of “Director of College Information and Instructor of Journalism” at Sul Ross State University in Alpine. It was a queasy feeling, not only leaving home for the first time, but moving three hundred thirty miles away. SRSU’s offer of five thousand four hundred dollars a year, plus a free room in the men’s honors dorm if I would direct it, seemed like a ton of money. (I had earned three thousand dollars and three thousand six hundred dollars, respectively, during my first two years out of college at HPU. When Dr. Guy D. Newman, my president, learned of my offer at Sul Ross, he offered to equal it.) Though much of my heart was at HPU, I couldn’t bear to accept such a big salary from a small, church-supported school where the never-ending struggle to meet monthly payrolls was a way of life for several generations….Dr. Newman remained a close friend and loyal supporter throughout his life, championing me every step of the way.
OF CHICKENS, RABBITS, AND SUCH
THE WORD “CHICKEN” elicits smiles, if not outright chuckles. Mere thoughts of this bird, gangly and way down on the IQ chain, conjure up a multitude of images and funny stories….
Dr. Reagan Brown, former Texas Commissioner of Agriculture, entertained around the state with such stories many thousands of times. He sounded more rural than he actually was, but audiences, “citified” or not, loved his stories. Particularly popular was his account of growing-up days when he claimed to be a “chicken-turner” on the family farm. Listeners did some head turning, shifting gazes toward others to see if fellow listeners had an inkling of what a chicken-turner might do. Usually, at least for a few minutes, audiences were clueless, unless they had heard him speak previously….
Soon, though, they exploded in laughter when he explained what chicken-turners do. Dr. Brown explained that on the farm, chickens would “roost” each evening around the rim of their cistern, the source of the family’s cool, clear drinking water. In fact, to get a dipper of water after sundown, one had to push chickens aside.…Brown said that the chickens’ usual roosting formation was “heads outward, tails backward” (toward the water). He claimed that his chicken-turning duty each evening was important if the water was to remain clear and appealing. Usually, Dr. Brown had to pause for several seconds for the laughter to die down, and no matter how many times he appeared before the same audiences, they almost always made him promise to tell the “chicken-turning” story….
THERE’S BEEN PLENTY else along the way to keep chickens front and center of humor, with or without chicken-turners. Take “Laugh-In,” one of the funniest and longest running TV comedy shows ever. It depended greatly on chicken humor. The players often dressed in chicken outfits. They squawked like chickens. They flapped their wings. They popularized a question folks across the country quickly picked up on: “Is that another lousy chicken joke?” “Laugh-In” was king and chickens helped make it so.
Anyway, I never expected another farm story to be as funny as the one about “chicken-turning,” but let’s not run the risk of saying “never.” One thing is sure: true stories are always the funniest; it’s a universal truth.
I NOW TAKE full liberty of asking you to open wide the doors of your imagination. Picture me and my futility as a rural kid, inching toward high school, knowing little about agriculture, and accepting as fact a practice borne out in the history of Early, Texas, schools. All freshman guys took what was called the “ag class” (agriculture). It had to do with animals, crops, rodeoing, and a host of other outdoor things. Girls took “home-ec” (home economics); guys took “ag.” There was no cross-over. They participated in 4-H projects together, but in the classroom, it was “ag” and “home ec” for the guys and gals, respectively. Memory runneth not to the contrary.
Never mind that this fourteen-year-old had never used a hoe, ridden a tractor, fed an animal, or tied a rope. We lived a dozen miles out in the country because that’s where the pipe yards were for my dad’s work at a local natural gas company. And that company supplied natural gas for rural customers. I was in the country, but not of the country. Though I’m sure I looked plenty country enough to be country, looks deceive.
In truth, I was neither urban nor country. I was gangly and clumsy—a veritable poster boy for awkwardness and uncertainty upon entering high school. I froze when the freshman year was mentioned, particularly when “ag class” was the topic. Just about all my friends were “true country,” already owning animals for 4-H contests and such. Some had been tending animals since toddler-hood, with a built-in understanding of which brushes to use in animal grooming, what and when to feed, and so on. They were both conversational and functional concerning cattle, horses, sheep, and hogs. I learned to “hush up” when such conversations began, crutching my way along to adroitly change the subject as soon as possible. “Read any good books lately? Gee, ain’t it been hot?” You know the drill.…
AH, THE VIRTUE of patience! First day of class, my ag teacher, Mr. Herschel Wheeler, no doubt sensed my apprehension about being the only guy in the class with only a barnyard cat and a mongrel dog between me and total “animallessness,” despite our living out in the country. (Cats and dogs, by the way, don’t qualify for 4-H projects.) He said students with limited livestock opportunities sometimes chose rabbits, with a buck and a doe often producing multiple litters of bunnies during a school year. Eureka! I could join the ranks of animal owners; my livestock background was a lot worse than limited.
I digress. My original intention was to get right into an “I’m-not-making-this-up” story about “rabbit-turning,” thus linking it with Brown’s yarn about “chicken-turning.” Allow me to fast-forward to springtime of my freshman year. It was “County Meet Time” (translation: livestock competition in Brown County). I was hanging around the rabbit area with zero chance of getting a ribbon. Alas, I had no entry, but I could at least associate with those who did….
Remember, rabbits were no higher than third-tier as animal project choices among students in my class. Only a few kids—usually living in town and limited to backyards for livestock projects—chose rabbits, and even fewer raised chickens. I had plenty of room, but, for reasons cited earlier, I bought a pair of rabbits as animals of choice….
AGAIN, DIGRESSION, AND apologies are in order. It won’t happen again, probably. As mentioned, it was county meet time, and youngsters from all over the county brought their entries, groomed for judging. Most of the crowds, of course, gathered around the cattle, horses, sheep, and hogs. They even had a “paid judge,” a bright young man with two college degrees and only a whisker away from a doctorate.
Dick Eudaly, now a good friend at Travis Avenue Baptist Church in Fort Worth, had studied at three of the foremost “ag” universities in the world—Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, and Texas A&M. In total awe, we applauded him generously. He smiled at us, acting as if he were more than competent to judge any sort of animal competition. Stifling a yawn, he gave the impression that judging animals at our county meet would be a breeze. (Usually, such judges gave ribbons for cattle, hogs, sheep, and goats, and a lesser judge, almost always a volunteer, ranked the rabbits, because at many shows, there were no rabbits.)
The young man wasn’t visibly shaken—remember,