Telling Stories on the Front Porch

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And this old porch is like a weathered, gray-haired

Seventy Years of Texas

— Lyle Lovett and Robert Earl Keen

 

We sat on the front porch in early July. A steady western breeze and low humidity sliced the edge off the 90-degree afternoon. We sipped beer. I listened and took notes as the three men and two women swapped stories, out in the blacklands of Central Texas. I balanced my laptop on my knees, taking a tighter grip when Miles the collie came by to nuzzle my hand. Miles and I became fast friends, after I spent much of a previous visit kicking his soccer ball and waiting for him to retrieve it, again and again.

I finally stopped kicking the soccer ball, worried this bushy, beautiful creature was going to become overheated. But Miles remembered me when I returned a few weeks later. We are tight, Miles and I. Two other big dogs rested behind the porch chairs, paying us scant attention.

The three men, all pushing or past 70, were reminiscing about their times together as kids. One of the women is married to the son of the fellow on whom I have been writing a biography for five-and-a-half years. The other woman is his older sister who lives next door on a separate ranch.

The boys met on the first day of football practice in seventh grade, became inseparable and remain friends today. I was here to hear stories about Henry B. Fox, the fellow whose story I hope to wrap up soon. Fox was their mentor, taking them to football games at TCU, picking them up as they floated down the San Gabriel River down to the Brazos and eventually to the Gulf of Mexico — a trip that spanned four summers of week-long voyages. They would take up where they left off the following summer until they were floating in salt water.

As these conversations go, they got off track at times, which was fine. The beer was cold, the breeze constant. A solid five minutes was devoted to the relative benefits of hearing aids — a device that could be in my future as it gets harder to distinguish among a cacophony of voices. That segued into a discussion of classmates who had already died, the prevailing theory being that the best athletes died younger. These fellows all played football but were not the stars. They half-seriously attributed that to their continued good health. Indeed, all appeared hale and hearty.

A veterinarian in the area became the topic of conversation, but I can’t remember why. I wrote down what one of the guys said about him: “I wouldn’t take a stuffed animal to him.”

Dirt daubers kept landing on the porch and wiggling their way between the cracks of the porch, occasionally stymied by someone’s outstretched foot, or a sleeping dog. “They have a nest under there,” one said. Dirt daubers are harmless, so a dirt nest under the porch is tolerated as part of country living. That led to a discussion about wasps, since an active nest hovered high above the front door. One fellow remarked, “I don’t have a problem with wasps, but I object to them building a nest at the front door.”

I handed out beers to everyone. A few beers on a hot afternoon will loosen tongues, spark memories, lengthen the stories. The fellows recalled playing nearby Rockdale the night of Kennedy’s assassination, which occurred on a Friday — Nov. 22, 1963. That means football in Texas, and I have heard more than one account of folks who headed to a game — or perhaps covered it — the night of that horrific event.

As these guys recall it, the star of the Taylor team was a fellow named Lucky, who played drunk that night. Rockdale had scored to go ahead, but Lucky taunted a player before the score and drew a personal foul that brought back the touchdown. Taylor won, 9-7, against a previously undefeated team. Nearly 54 years later, the guys still shook their heads at that memory, an inebriated Lucky pulling out the win as the country mourned.

These guys grew up doing manual labor, loading hay bales, fixing fences and such, but the worst job for one was a summer spent chipping mortar off bricks on a demolished building in Taylor, the rubble sandwiched in a concrete alley between two other buildings — no shade or breeze. He said a dispute over pay led to him getting fired.

“That was the happiest day of my life,” he said.

I got him another beer.

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