OLDSOONER
10/3/2006, 12:39 PM
As I've begun hearing the 'scittth' of the Reaper's scythe a little more loudly each year, I naturally peruse the obituaries. I noticed that Charlie Heap of Birds has taken flight.
Charlie Heap of Birds was lithe, bronzed and muscled, and was the custodian for the country school I attended. He had a bicep EGA tattoo and was missing two middle fingers on his right hand. We'd ask him about those fingers and he'd just grin oddly and say something about a frozen Chosin. We thought he was speaking of a dessert like a Popsicle or something. He said it wasn't a dessert. He did point out that it was difficult to order five beers with his right hand.
He'd come into the classrooms during the winter and fill the stoves up front with coal. I remember once he, in no uncertain terms, threatened to scalp Jimmy, and me if we ever pushed a box of Crayolas up side his hot coal stove again. My career as an encaustic expressionist was forever dashed. Charlie could have just waited, as most of my hair is gone now anyway.
Charlie Heap of Birds knew stuff.
He knew if you ever got stuck with a Ted Kluszewski baseball card, you would be stuck with a Big Klu forever, but if we happened to run across a rookie card for a kid named Mantle, he'd give us a real bayonet for it.
Charlie looked out for us kids. He questioned the school board's wisdom of placing railroad cinders around all the bases at the ball diamond, but was always there with a band-aid when some kid took a ride on the Katy into second base on their palms and bare knees.
There was a small rounded-out cave in the woods by Coal creek and the school would have picnics and such out there in October around Halloween so the juniors and seniors could neck between chaperones' gazes.
After it would get dark, Charlie Heap of Birds would tell us ghost tales and stories of Native American legends, sacred buffalos, and how the feet of a woman changed into hooves as she leaped from the circle of a round dance. Stories that kept you out of the outhouse at night and the covers over your head. I remained impacted until after Christmas.
Charlie Heap of Birds inquired if any of us had heard about the Texas Deer Woman. Thinking back, most of us had heard about Texas. It was usually after church services when the men would gather under the briar trees and speak of Texas and Hell in the same breath. The conversation would always get around to Oklahoma and Oklahoma A&M. I remember once when the earth stood still when I asked, "Aren't they the same thing?" Ignorance ain't bliss, brother.
None of us had heard about the Texas Deer Woman though, so Charlie Heap of Birds scattered the campfire logs a bit. The night crept in, as did the chill, and Charlie began.
It seems an ol' Texas hill-country boy by the name of Red Green had settled in Old Glory, Texas, after they'd kicked him out of Korea with a medical discharge for bladder trouble. He'd brought with him to Old Glory, Beverly Behot, of the Springdale Behots, as his wife, and a son named Darryl. Red had met Bev in western Arkansas while he was stationed briefly with the 4th armored division. Bev had been a seductive and scantily clad coochie dancer at a little chicken wire tent joint on the outskirts of Fort Chaffee. Bev had picked up the nickname of Yella because the stage where she performed was illuminated only with outdoor bug lights. Darryl wasn't the product of Red's loins, but did have some 4th division in him somewhere.
The townsfolk had started calling Red 'Stop 'n Go' mainly because of his name and somehow his Army wartime bladder problem had just leaked out. The jokes about 'Stop 'n Go on Yella' always got him riled up more than a mite.
At Dazie's Place, come Saturdays, most everybody would gather around a dusty blonde DeForest-Sanabria 24" television, where if the Tena-Rotor was set just right, you could pick up occasional flickering, snowy football coverage out of San Antonio or Fort Worth. The top draw each year for Old Glory and Dazie's was the Cotton Bowl.
Dazie's cleavage was deep; her beer icey cold. A place where belt buckle weigh-ins were commonplace. Around closing time, Jimmy Rodgers would have already started a bleary romance or two and Hank Williams would always seal the deal. Sometimes somebody would make a Yella comment, so Al Price, the local cop and mortician, would have to break up a scuffle so Red wouldn't get injured or wet down a bar stool.
According to Charlie Heap of Birds, folksy Old Glory referred to Al, as 'Owl', because many of his corpse duties were nocturnal in nature and he mostly slept in the daytime.
Yella's Darryl seemed to only want a few things in life as he had grown older. He wanted to attend the University of Texas and to become a doctor. Since schooling opportunities in Old Glory were limited, Darryl commenced to take correspondence courses in Biology, Anatomy and the like, and practiced dissecting things he'd find around the place.
Rarely, when Owl would go out to run his speed trap-nap, it would be in the morning when it was cool. He and his old arthritic Catahoula would patrol out on State 83 and park under the cottonwoods near the south fork of the Brazos River. There was usually no traffic out there, so Owl and that old dog could just sit out there, eat pickled eggs, doze and smoke.
Owl and the dog both witnessed the incident.
Yella Green was traveling southbound on 83 in her '51 DeSoto Coupe when a deer jumped up out of that river bottom, ran out into the road and became a sacrifice to the illuminated likeness of Hernando DeSoto and a whole mess of grille teeth. Since Owl had just backed his patrol car up on the bank under the trees, he just depressed the clutch, rolled down the embankment, and came to rest behind Yella and Hernando's fluid drive.
Upon Owl's trained eye investigation in both police duties and terminal occurrences, it appeared that the deer had expired, the DeSoto had sustained little damage, and Yella had been driving with the hood vent and her garter belt clips open with her nylons down around her ankles in an attempt to beat the Texas heat.
Her head had hit the steering wheel tho, thereby emblazing her forehead with the likeness of a Spanish Galleon that was symbolized in bas-relief on the horn button and her nose was already starting to swell. Owl noted that it appeared at least two bushels of Avon samples had become weightless and had distributed themselves all around inside the car. He realized the enticing fragrances, combined with his gazing upon Bev's powdered up gams had caused him to experience some puffiness as well.
Yella, after pulling herself together, absolutely insisted that she and Owl put that deer into her trunk. And after much breathless nasal cajoling, real close-up rubbing and fingering of his badge and Sam Browne equipment, She and Owl transferred Red's fishing and camping gear to inside the car itself, and wrestled the carcass into the coupe's trunk and closed the lid. She explained that Darryl was going to be doctor and would want to dissect the animal.
Charlie Heap of Birds said it was the damnest thing when Owl had noticed that Bev and Darryl were leaving Old Glory in the DeSoto early one morning, about four days after the deer encounter, and was headed out of town towards Highway 83 along with what looked like every Black and Tan hound in town, plus a good sampling of cats including the old blind Persian with tail mange, that most of the time, just bumped into things underneath the Sun Drop cooler at the Humble station, was following along behind that Custom 6.
Owl, while rocking on the porch, had noticed that Bevy had not fixed the headlight on her car damaged in the deer encounter. Fearing the Texas Highway Patrol might stop her, he thought he'd catch up and remind her to have it fixed. By the time Owl had found the patrol car's keys in the Kleenex box on the toilet tank, got into the Ford and got things wound up, Bevy had already made the Aspermont corner and had started south. Owl had him a pipeline siphon hid away out in the prairie scrubs, so he ran the Ford on drip gas he collected, and pocketed Old Glory's fuel allowance. But when the flathead got all the pinging and knocking all gathered and wound up, it ran pretty good. So he had just about caught up to Bevy and Darryl when they started swerving all over which a way, then the DeSoto appeared to have blown up and maybe caught fire what with all that smoke billowing from inside the vehicle.
Owl's examination showed that due to Bev's minor head and face injury, she had become somewhat brain addled and she had forgotten to ask Darryl to remove the deer carcass from the trunk. Because of her busted nose, she couldn't smell the odoriferous anatomy project behind her and Darryl tended to have a certain effluvium about him from past experiments anyway.
So when Yella and Darryl's seated crevices were penetrated by all those deer ticks that had infiltrated into the vehicle, while they were driving, they set off three bug bombs that were part of Red's camping and fishing gear.
Charlie mentioned in Bev's case, she might Behot once, but in Texas, she ended up a Yella Green woman, with a forgotten past behind her, and then had to create a smoke screen to cover a carload of suckers going to Austin.
I see her though, as one that stopped the run, tackled a problem straight away with basic fundamental defense while on the road.
I was concerned maybe after seven or so years our Crimson fields had gone fallow. Maybe we were going to have our collective glutei handed back to us in a Cub Scout popcorn bucket by the likes of Mack and the horned cow herd.
Instead, with the Mid Tennessee State performance in mind, I enjoyed seeing the newly implemented Dollar Defense. You know. Full value for four quarters.
As for Charlie, I'm reasonably cofident that he is brandishing his right-handed upside down Hook 'Em sign, while flipping with his left, a celestial Heap of Birds to Texas.
GO SOONERS, BEAT TEXAS.
Charlie Heap of Birds was lithe, bronzed and muscled, and was the custodian for the country school I attended. He had a bicep EGA tattoo and was missing two middle fingers on his right hand. We'd ask him about those fingers and he'd just grin oddly and say something about a frozen Chosin. We thought he was speaking of a dessert like a Popsicle or something. He said it wasn't a dessert. He did point out that it was difficult to order five beers with his right hand.
He'd come into the classrooms during the winter and fill the stoves up front with coal. I remember once he, in no uncertain terms, threatened to scalp Jimmy, and me if we ever pushed a box of Crayolas up side his hot coal stove again. My career as an encaustic expressionist was forever dashed. Charlie could have just waited, as most of my hair is gone now anyway.
Charlie Heap of Birds knew stuff.
He knew if you ever got stuck with a Ted Kluszewski baseball card, you would be stuck with a Big Klu forever, but if we happened to run across a rookie card for a kid named Mantle, he'd give us a real bayonet for it.
Charlie looked out for us kids. He questioned the school board's wisdom of placing railroad cinders around all the bases at the ball diamond, but was always there with a band-aid when some kid took a ride on the Katy into second base on their palms and bare knees.
There was a small rounded-out cave in the woods by Coal creek and the school would have picnics and such out there in October around Halloween so the juniors and seniors could neck between chaperones' gazes.
After it would get dark, Charlie Heap of Birds would tell us ghost tales and stories of Native American legends, sacred buffalos, and how the feet of a woman changed into hooves as she leaped from the circle of a round dance. Stories that kept you out of the outhouse at night and the covers over your head. I remained impacted until after Christmas.
Charlie Heap of Birds inquired if any of us had heard about the Texas Deer Woman. Thinking back, most of us had heard about Texas. It was usually after church services when the men would gather under the briar trees and speak of Texas and Hell in the same breath. The conversation would always get around to Oklahoma and Oklahoma A&M. I remember once when the earth stood still when I asked, "Aren't they the same thing?" Ignorance ain't bliss, brother.
None of us had heard about the Texas Deer Woman though, so Charlie Heap of Birds scattered the campfire logs a bit. The night crept in, as did the chill, and Charlie began.
It seems an ol' Texas hill-country boy by the name of Red Green had settled in Old Glory, Texas, after they'd kicked him out of Korea with a medical discharge for bladder trouble. He'd brought with him to Old Glory, Beverly Behot, of the Springdale Behots, as his wife, and a son named Darryl. Red had met Bev in western Arkansas while he was stationed briefly with the 4th armored division. Bev had been a seductive and scantily clad coochie dancer at a little chicken wire tent joint on the outskirts of Fort Chaffee. Bev had picked up the nickname of Yella because the stage where she performed was illuminated only with outdoor bug lights. Darryl wasn't the product of Red's loins, but did have some 4th division in him somewhere.
The townsfolk had started calling Red 'Stop 'n Go' mainly because of his name and somehow his Army wartime bladder problem had just leaked out. The jokes about 'Stop 'n Go on Yella' always got him riled up more than a mite.
At Dazie's Place, come Saturdays, most everybody would gather around a dusty blonde DeForest-Sanabria 24" television, where if the Tena-Rotor was set just right, you could pick up occasional flickering, snowy football coverage out of San Antonio or Fort Worth. The top draw each year for Old Glory and Dazie's was the Cotton Bowl.
Dazie's cleavage was deep; her beer icey cold. A place where belt buckle weigh-ins were commonplace. Around closing time, Jimmy Rodgers would have already started a bleary romance or two and Hank Williams would always seal the deal. Sometimes somebody would make a Yella comment, so Al Price, the local cop and mortician, would have to break up a scuffle so Red wouldn't get injured or wet down a bar stool.
According to Charlie Heap of Birds, folksy Old Glory referred to Al, as 'Owl', because many of his corpse duties were nocturnal in nature and he mostly slept in the daytime.
Yella's Darryl seemed to only want a few things in life as he had grown older. He wanted to attend the University of Texas and to become a doctor. Since schooling opportunities in Old Glory were limited, Darryl commenced to take correspondence courses in Biology, Anatomy and the like, and practiced dissecting things he'd find around the place.
Rarely, when Owl would go out to run his speed trap-nap, it would be in the morning when it was cool. He and his old arthritic Catahoula would patrol out on State 83 and park under the cottonwoods near the south fork of the Brazos River. There was usually no traffic out there, so Owl and that old dog could just sit out there, eat pickled eggs, doze and smoke.
Owl and the dog both witnessed the incident.
Yella Green was traveling southbound on 83 in her '51 DeSoto Coupe when a deer jumped up out of that river bottom, ran out into the road and became a sacrifice to the illuminated likeness of Hernando DeSoto and a whole mess of grille teeth. Since Owl had just backed his patrol car up on the bank under the trees, he just depressed the clutch, rolled down the embankment, and came to rest behind Yella and Hernando's fluid drive.
Upon Owl's trained eye investigation in both police duties and terminal occurrences, it appeared that the deer had expired, the DeSoto had sustained little damage, and Yella had been driving with the hood vent and her garter belt clips open with her nylons down around her ankles in an attempt to beat the Texas heat.
Her head had hit the steering wheel tho, thereby emblazing her forehead with the likeness of a Spanish Galleon that was symbolized in bas-relief on the horn button and her nose was already starting to swell. Owl noted that it appeared at least two bushels of Avon samples had become weightless and had distributed themselves all around inside the car. He realized the enticing fragrances, combined with his gazing upon Bev's powdered up gams had caused him to experience some puffiness as well.
Yella, after pulling herself together, absolutely insisted that she and Owl put that deer into her trunk. And after much breathless nasal cajoling, real close-up rubbing and fingering of his badge and Sam Browne equipment, She and Owl transferred Red's fishing and camping gear to inside the car itself, and wrestled the carcass into the coupe's trunk and closed the lid. She explained that Darryl was going to be doctor and would want to dissect the animal.
Charlie Heap of Birds said it was the damnest thing when Owl had noticed that Bev and Darryl were leaving Old Glory in the DeSoto early one morning, about four days after the deer encounter, and was headed out of town towards Highway 83 along with what looked like every Black and Tan hound in town, plus a good sampling of cats including the old blind Persian with tail mange, that most of the time, just bumped into things underneath the Sun Drop cooler at the Humble station, was following along behind that Custom 6.
Owl, while rocking on the porch, had noticed that Bevy had not fixed the headlight on her car damaged in the deer encounter. Fearing the Texas Highway Patrol might stop her, he thought he'd catch up and remind her to have it fixed. By the time Owl had found the patrol car's keys in the Kleenex box on the toilet tank, got into the Ford and got things wound up, Bevy had already made the Aspermont corner and had started south. Owl had him a pipeline siphon hid away out in the prairie scrubs, so he ran the Ford on drip gas he collected, and pocketed Old Glory's fuel allowance. But when the flathead got all the pinging and knocking all gathered and wound up, it ran pretty good. So he had just about caught up to Bevy and Darryl when they started swerving all over which a way, then the DeSoto appeared to have blown up and maybe caught fire what with all that smoke billowing from inside the vehicle.
Owl's examination showed that due to Bev's minor head and face injury, she had become somewhat brain addled and she had forgotten to ask Darryl to remove the deer carcass from the trunk. Because of her busted nose, she couldn't smell the odoriferous anatomy project behind her and Darryl tended to have a certain effluvium about him from past experiments anyway.
So when Yella and Darryl's seated crevices were penetrated by all those deer ticks that had infiltrated into the vehicle, while they were driving, they set off three bug bombs that were part of Red's camping and fishing gear.
Charlie mentioned in Bev's case, she might Behot once, but in Texas, she ended up a Yella Green woman, with a forgotten past behind her, and then had to create a smoke screen to cover a carload of suckers going to Austin.
I see her though, as one that stopped the run, tackled a problem straight away with basic fundamental defense while on the road.
I was concerned maybe after seven or so years our Crimson fields had gone fallow. Maybe we were going to have our collective glutei handed back to us in a Cub Scout popcorn bucket by the likes of Mack and the horned cow herd.
Instead, with the Mid Tennessee State performance in mind, I enjoyed seeing the newly implemented Dollar Defense. You know. Full value for four quarters.
As for Charlie, I'm reasonably cofident that he is brandishing his right-handed upside down Hook 'Em sign, while flipping with his left, a celestial Heap of Birds to Texas.
GO SOONERS, BEAT TEXAS.