Wichita Falls: Stories From My Hometown

Discussion in 'Tall Tales & Fabrications' started by Bill Boggs, Jun 5, 2021.

  1. Bill Boggs

    Bill Boggs Supreme Member
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    George Brown was my mama’s first cousin. He lived across 3rd street from us a short way before 3rd street became River Road. He had over a half a block of land and used it all. He was a junk dealer and burned out wrecked cars and salvaged all usable from the vehicles. He was also a

    pretty good Jake-legged mechanic. He’d work on anything: cars, trucks, farm tractors, road graders, most anything.

    George was six feet two or so and Willa Belle his wife was almost as tall. They both were big , likable people and both dipped snuff. They were raising six kids. Their house looked like it had be built and put together

    over several years and it had. One add-on room might be smaller than the one it was attached to the next one larger. It sort of went in a semi circle, The picture above isn’t Georges’s home

    but it is so similar.

    Mom and dad had bought a regular wooden house and fixed it up. It was a

    Larger three room house, larger than we had ever had. Some I heard dad talking about George and Willa Bell, talking about their run down house or dad would say,

    "I wonder if George ever changes clothes. I’ve never seen him in anything but overalls and they're always dirty and dingy. And that snuff runs down the corners of both their mouths. Nasty.”

    Mom would say, "I’m sure he wears clean clothes. Willa Belle washes all the time. Look at the work he does, messing with them old cars and stuff, anybody was have their clothes greased up doing that kind of work”

    In spite of a little discord between families I liked both George and Willa

    Belle and sometime on Saturdays I’d go over and hang out with him or play with some of his kids. His oldest, Grady, was four years older than me. Marvin, his number two, was one year older. He and I got along well,

    We played together, fished and hunted together, and once or twice fought each other. They had a girl younger than Marvin, a pair of twin boys they called named Chester and Lester, all younger than myself. Although George’s hard on his boys, they minded him or else, I thought them good people and liked having kinfolk nearby.

    George worked hard all day and usually in the evenings he and Willa Belle

    Would set outside in charge George had made from seating he had taken for something he had stripped down. I liked to go over and visit with. They

    didn’t argue much with each other and they would talk to me like I was grown up.



    George and Willa Belle had spit cans placed out about four feet from where they sat. Willa Belle was the most accurate.

    So it was not unusual when my daddy said to me I want a storm cellar right here and he marked an X on the ground. He said, "I want some shelter to go to if a storm or a cyclone comes up."

    I did too but I didn’t know how to build one, so after discussing the situation with my mama and her saying. "I can’t tell you how to do it son, but you better try. Dig a hole. You know how he is.”

    I was up early Monday morning. Dad had already left for work. I was awake when he left but waited until he had gone to get up. I went out in the back yard and hung around until I saw George was out and around.

    I walked over and caught him with a hot cup of coffee in his hand.

    "Ÿou’re up early,”I said.

    "Yeah, I’m thinking,”he said.

    "I have been, too, but I haven’t figured it out yet,” I said

    "What are you thinking on," he inquired.

    So I told him my problem and I didn’t know how or where to start, and could he give me some ideas? George walked away for a minute and pulled on the handle of a wrecked DeSoto to see if the door would open.

    He walked back and told me he had never built a cellar. He said I hired one

    built one time cause I didn’t have time to fool with it but its something you probably could do. It don’t sound all that hard. You’ll need to dig hole a hole a little taller than you are, something I’d have to duck a little before I sit down. You’ll have to put something sturdy over so you can throw the dirt back on it to hold your covering in place. You’ll have to make some steps so your daddy can get in and out. Then you’ll need a door to keep the rain out, not much to it really. The rest of it is in the details.

    George asked me if I had any money and I I told I didn’t. He asked if I had a shovel and I told him I did. He said for me go start digging a hole about six and a half by six and a half feet square. Then we’ll see what we need to do. He said he’d look around and see if he had anything I might use.

    I dug the rest of the day until dark. Mama brought out a jug of water cause I was sweating so. By dark it looked all I needed was some leveling on the floor. Mom fixed a late big supper. She had a pot of red beans, fried potatoes, and salt pork bacon. Salt pork was good for breakfast, too, with
    syrup and a little grease poured in it.



    Next morning George hollered at me and wanted to go look at some railroad cross ties someone had told him about. We went out in his old truck, out on River Road about four miles. A retired old man lived out there

    But he bought and sold a little. He had some truck tires and tubes, and truck wheels, a good looking wood cook stove and about twenty or twenty-five eight foot cross ties. He had a bunch of other stuff but one couldn’t tell what is was unless he walked up close. He and George chewed the fat a few minutes and he introduced me as Roe’s boy and asked if he knew Roe Boggs? His name was Sanders. He didn’t know my dad but didn’t matter, they were just jawing.

    George said something like, I recon the railroad knows somebody hauled these off and its okay and everything. I read or heard the other day they were complaining about missing cross ties they had laid out to make repairs but that was recently, I expect.

    George told him he’d like to deal for nine of them if he was a mind for it.

    They jawboned some more and the three of us and his son loaded nine cross ties on Georges truck. Sanders said, Y’all come back and Geor.ge told him to swing by his junk yard sometime. And we had our top.



    George helped me manhandle the ties off the tuck and into the yard but told me he had a bad back and wasn’t ’t going to fiddle trying to get them over the hole. He said you can slid them up to the end and wrestle them on one at a tie with a crowbar you can borrow. He saiid I’ve got a chain lift over there but it can’t be moved.

    I said, you got any pipe? He did, several pieces of short pipe. I borrowed them, and worked a pipe under one end pulled, two inches at time, sometime six inches all day and part of the next but got them in place

    With the help of a crowbar and and a six foot piece of iron pole I wrestled

    the cross toes in place. I cut up old truck tire tubes ion to strip and tacked them over the cross ties. I shoveled the dirt back over the cross ties and rounded it off.



    George had some cement in his shed and I wheelbarrowed it over and George showed how to make a slurry. I put board at each conner and affixed chicken wire to top and bottom and poured the thick mixture of concrete slurry inside the chicken wire. The chicken wire wasn’t the best frame but it was what George suggested. When it set up you couldn’t see the chicken wire except in one corner and a little cement on the floor.


    The steps were the hardest and took longer even though George had drawn me a sketch. I didn’t put any concrete on the steps because we didn’t have any more cement and I was running out of time. George built the door from material in his yard. He had buckets of hinges. I put the screws in place on the door and had trouble fastening the screws to the frame by myself. There was no vent or no window but on that early Friday afternoon, where X marked the spot, there was now a cellar.

    George came over around noon and he and my mama walked down in the cellar. They came back out shortly and mama was smiling. George, said, You did good, Bill.

    Yes, sir we did, I replied. Thanks for your help.

    George said you owe me fourteen dollars and a quarter. When are you going to pay me?

    I told him I’d find a job next week and be paid from my first paycheck.

    He said, I know you’re a man of your word and that's good enough.

    When dad came home, he and his cousin, Jack Parks, came in. They visited with mama a while and then all three came out to view the X mark and see what was in its place. Jack, dad and I went in. Dad said we'd need some seating and if not didn’t cave in, we’d have a good place to

    Go when another bad storm or a cyclone came up. Dad asked what did you cover it with? I told him just some stuff I found snooping around over at George's place. He said see what you can do when you put your mind to It.? I don’t think I answered.
     
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  2. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    Great story, @Bill Boggs ! (Quoting so you do not delete this)
     
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  3. Bill Boggs

    Bill Boggs Supreme Member
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    Thank you.
     
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  4. Nancy Hart

    Nancy Hart Veteran Member
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    Bill, I meant to point out something from your first version before you deleted it.

    Maybe it's just me. If I read these sentences at the end of the first chapter of a book, I wouldn't put it down. They really grab your attention.
    Since this is in the Tall Tales & Fabrications forum, it doesn't have to be true.
     
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  5. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    Quoted for truth.

    It's not just you.
     
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  6. Shirley Martin

    Shirley Martin Supreme Member
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    I suspect that it is true, though. Sometimes truth is more painful than fiction.
     
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  7. Faye Fox

    Faye Fox Veteran Member
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    Sounds true enough to me. My family was visiting family in Henrietta and we were headed toward Wichita Falls when a tornado hit part of the city and the air force base. I think this was 1964. I saw it first hand. I had seen one previous when staying with my grandparents in the panhandle a month one summer. Anyway, that WF tornado was the worst to ever hit WF at that time. Lots were injured and a few were killed.
     
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  8. Bill Boggs

    Bill Boggs Supreme Member
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    No it doesn’t have to be but it can be and this story is true. The part you quoted was my perception at that time. I did quit asking permissions and told myself at the time I had taken my last whipping
    And it was in my mind I had taken my last whipping from anybody. It had been only a few months since he had whipped me as we walked home from my aunt and uncles after I had made a remark about a religious like song he
    didn’t? Georges remark about building a cellar or running away from home made me realize I had options. I left it out of this rewrite. I thought it might cast unnecessary reflections.

    @Nancy Hart, I can’t write fiction.
     
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    Last edited: Jun 5, 2021
  9. Bill Boggs

    Bill Boggs Supreme Member
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    1. @Faye Fox, Faye, would you believe I spent thirty minutes or so writing about that ‘64 tornado this very afternoon. I was writing personal memories of that time thinking I might make a memories story from it. Sheppard AFB was hit, the base hospital where my wife’s aunt was a head civilian buyer for the hospital. Another tornado hit Wichita Falls, a smaller one in 1958 and it also caused damage at Shepard AFB
    2. .
     
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  10. Nancy Hart

    Nancy Hart Veteran Member
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    That's exactly what I was thinking. Didn't mean to start a debate about whether it's true or not. Sorry about that.
     
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  11. Bill Boggs

    Bill Boggs Supreme Member
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    No problem. Tall Tales and Fabrications suggest the possibility. @Nancy Hart
     
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  12. Faye Fox

    Faye Fox Veteran Member
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    While I did spend some time with cousins in WF, I don't have a lot of memories other than the tornado. I have more of Henrietta where my mom's childhood and college best friend worked for a boot-making company. I knew her as an aunt although no blood relation. She was an artist and designed all the uppers and did the cutouts and fancy stitching. I think Nacona owned that shop but not sure. She made me a pair of boots with some fancy colorful uppers that no one noticed around there but when I returned to Colorado I stuck out like a parakeet at a sparrow convention.
     
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  13. Hedi Mitchell

    Hedi Mitchell Supreme Member
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    Why did i have to sign in again to make comment? @Bill Boggs - you go Bill we will read :)
     
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  14. Beth Gallagher

    Beth Gallagher Supreme Member
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    Love it, Bill. Keep 'em comin'.
     
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