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View Full Version : Charlie Heap of Birds & the Texas Deer Woman



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.

OUDoc
10/3/2006, 12:54 PM
:D

FaninAma
10/3/2006, 12:57 PM
I am thinking the whorn performance on Saturday will be smelling a lot like the forgotten deer in the trunk.

BlondeSoonerGirl
10/3/2006, 01:23 PM
That...so...rules.

:D

OLDSOONER
10/3/2006, 01:26 PM
Hey Fan, how's country livin'? I think the cattle believe they can stop the run without overloading the chute & pressurize tall Paul. We'll see.

Where is Brandon anyway?

jkm, the stolen pifwafwi
10/3/2006, 01:29 PM
in the trunk or was that a white tail deer?

Beef
10/3/2006, 01:31 PM
Epic.

sooner518
10/3/2006, 01:31 PM
I had a professor at OU named Edgar Heap of Birds. He taught some art class and his art was wierd as hell.

The class was a 3 hour night class and I left after the first hour and a half and dropped the class.

OUstudent4life
10/3/2006, 01:31 PM
Another classic :D.

Partial Qualifier
10/3/2006, 01:42 PM
You've got a gift, OldSooner. Always a good read :D

FaninAma
10/3/2006, 01:51 PM
Hey Fan, how's country livin'? I think the cattle believe they can stop the run without overloading the chute & pressurize tall Paul. We'll see.

Where is Brandon anyway?

I found out two things last time I was running herd for Dean: don't stick your damned arm in the chute when there's a cow in it and don't get the head gate turned backwards when there's a wild @$$ed female bovine stampeding through the contraption.

Other than that, it's great.:P

Brandon was at the first tailgat this year. Does everybody know he's married? Guess his wife keeps him too busy to come on the board much.

If you're at the game Saturday be sure to look us up.

GottaHavePride
10/3/2006, 01:51 PM
OLDSOONER is truly a bard for the ages. :D

OLDSOONER
10/3/2006, 02:00 PM
Yeah, that cowboying will tend to mash your snuff can if you're yawin' when you should be hawin'. My better half still hasn't gotten her knee repaired and it is to a point where walking, gaming and doing the stadium steps is now on to impossible. I can't even get her to bring me a battery for the remote anymore. Maybe I could just hire you to rip into her and tighten down a couple o' bolts or somethin'.

If y'all will just keep me calm up until game time...

Readyfor8
10/3/2006, 02:46 PM
Seriously great writing, not my style mostly because im too young to have any refined style thus far. Great jorb and GO SOONERS, BEAT TEXAS!!!

SoonerLB
10/3/2006, 03:36 PM
OLDSOONER is truly a bard for the ages. :D

I concur! :D

NormanPride
10/3/2006, 03:45 PM
Amazing. As much as I love writing prose like that, something of that substance takes dedication and talent. Hurrah!

picasso
10/3/2006, 07:43 PM
I had a professor at OU named Edgar Heap of Birds. He taught some art class and his art was wierd as hell.

The class was a 3 hour night class and I left after the first hour and a half and dropped the class.
he's still there as far as I know. studio art.

could this be the one and only Old One?

Rogue
10/3/2006, 08:02 PM
OS, welcome back.

mosoon
10/3/2006, 08:22 PM
Hugs and kisses from your sweetheart Old One. I may shave my legs tonight in your honor.

C&CDean
10/3/2006, 08:30 PM
Michael, my very dear friend, simply ........... bravo.

You are my hero. When I grow up, I wanna be just like Mike.

We miss you and the beautiful Miss Bobbi terribly. Julia Roberts asks about you two often. I think of you every time I clear up another tree (I had the dozer man push another 15-20 down front and it's starting to look good) and y'all's visit this time last year. You showed a true appreciation and understanding for what it takes to homestead a big ol' hunk of Oklahoma land. Few people have a clue.......

Call me dammit. And tell the little doe to get her danged knee fixed.

And all is well in the world again. Oldsooner has spoken. Boomer ****in' Sooner, beat the hell outta Texas!!!!!!!!!

C&CDean
10/3/2006, 08:32 PM
Hugs and kisses from your sweetheart Old One. I may shave my legs tonight in your honor.

Panchito?

My night is complete. My season is made. Two of the very best SF.com has ever offered in one night on one thread. God bless us, one and all.

aero
10/3/2006, 08:33 PM
Nice

C&CDean
10/3/2006, 08:39 PM
Oh yeah, I forgot.......stabby. This is too good to slide down the board.

OUDoc
10/3/2006, 08:55 PM
Hugs and kisses from your sweetheart Old One. I may shave my legs tonight in your honor.
Mo? You lurk but rarely post. For shame.

Always knew you were a chick.:D

Cam
10/3/2006, 09:02 PM
Old school stories from OS RMFO.

picasso
10/3/2006, 09:17 PM
Hugs and kisses from your sweetheart Old One. I may shave my legs tonight in your honor.
whoa!!!!!!

Mosoon Balboa?????

the Sooner karma is back folks.:D



and for the record, deer woman is a common talel up in the Osage Nation as well.

Norm In Norman
10/3/2006, 09:44 PM
WOO HOO!

Dio
10/3/2006, 09:54 PM
OldSooner & Mosoon. Great thread.

FaninAma
10/3/2006, 10:21 PM
Mosoon, welcome back buddy. Now all we need is David Earl to chime in on this thread.

I'm feeling better about this game by the minute.:D

OKC-SLC
10/4/2006, 12:24 AM
good mojo, this thread.

good mojo indeed.

sooner n houston
10/4/2006, 07:27 AM
good mojo, this thread.

good mojo indeed.


And ..... TEXAS SUCKS!!! :D

OLDSOONER
10/4/2006, 08:59 AM
Ohhh Mosoooooon. How I've longed for our traditional moment together before we leave for The Cow War. I remember when we first met, and you dropped your chaps to reveal your dedication to the purest things in life, like never using the electric start on your Harley. How your starter leg had grown to a huge, mammoth member and your other leg, a long and lean sinewy specimen. It was like having a defensive tackle and a quarterback all at the same time. This year, would you please just shave the quarterback one? Then tickle me with your perspiration laden Boa...

Deano!! You gotta be on a diet. You indicated that you had to make hay when the sun shines and we could sup when it rains. Damn Brother, I don't think it has rained in the two years I've lived down here. Yeah, when you said Julia was handing out autographs in Edmond and she didn't stop by an help us pluck that Grey Goose running around here, I Knew some action had to be taken. Sounds like you mighta got ol' Steve caught up crosswise with the cows and the contraptions. I'll get Bettie Ann on the stick. She's just dreading the repair and rehab, I think.

Picasso, many summer nights sitting around the fish pond in the Oval at Chilocco provided many goose bumps. Still massaging the Linen?

Sooner_Bob
10/4/2006, 09:04 AM
That

was

awesome.

Sooner_Bob
10/4/2006, 09:06 AM
Picasso, many summer nights sitting around the fish pond in the Oval at Chilocco provided many goose bumps.

I was just up that way last week . . . it's gonna become Oklahoma's version of little vegas in a few years.

OLDSOONER
10/4/2006, 09:14 AM
Sooner-Bob, the Vegas thing might be a bit hard to take. It was the real deal back in the mid-50's. My Dad was the Vocational Dept. Head for about 27 years up there. Me and about half a dozen white kids were the only ones on campus. On a school bus, there is no one better than razzin', than Native Americans. The bus ride was 45 minutes one way. Whew!

ADs_Agent
10/4/2006, 09:18 AM
I usually don't handle threads with stories that long, but I'm glad I did this time, that's a great story.

TUSooner
10/4/2006, 09:30 AM
Just payin' my respects. If I had a hat I'd doff it now, reverently, and move along in silent wonder.

boomersooner28
10/4/2006, 11:44 AM
Hats off...and golden hats ON!

GottaHavePride
10/4/2006, 12:13 PM
Oh yeah, I forgot.......stabby. This is too good to slide down the board.

Hooray!

SamTheSham
10/4/2006, 02:24 PM
I may be too much of a noob to comment, but...

That was soooo cool

StoopTroup
10/4/2006, 03:59 PM
Deer Ticks...lol.


Here's to Tickin' off Texas OS!

Great elephant story...lol.

Rogue
10/4/2006, 08:11 PM
I'm gettin' that feeling again.

soonerboy_odanorth
10/4/2006, 08:13 PM
****, Mike, I don't care (well, almost don't care) if we even beat those horned devils. I can just come back and have a little read...

God bless you...

opksooner
10/4/2006, 09:16 PM
[Cue Guy Lombardo Orchestra]

"Seems like old times, having you to walk with
Seems like old times, having you to talk with
And it's still a thrill just to have my arms around you
Still the thrill that it was the day I found you...."

I'm tellin' ya, Old One, Mosoon, Picasso, CCD...........nostalgia just ain't what it used ta be.

Good times, good times.

OLDSOONER
10/5/2006, 07:59 AM
:pop: Soonerboy-odanorth, Opk. Good to hear from you guys. All the old Championship Chase Guys probably need to have a reunion and see if we could get the stars aligned for NC#8. Dean cookin' up a pot of his latest kill out on his ranch. Mosoon struttin' her stuff, showin' just enough twix her feathers. The Deacon keepin' the devil off us and providin' the latest stats.
Faninama stirin' the flames. Norm 'n Brandon fighting an' rollin' around underneath the tables, Road Warriors' roar.

Yeah, that's what we need. Combine Auld Lang Syne with all the new board blood and that's what we got. Championship material.

Traditional Texas-OU week with old friends.

BEAT TEXAS.

picasso
10/5/2006, 09:40 AM
sponge a little Grey Goose on that brow Old One. it's looking a little weathered.

Little_Red
10/5/2006, 10:53 AM
Don't speak lightly of the deer woman, goat boy, owls, little people, boogers, or skillies.;)

OLDSOONER
10/5/2006, 11:40 AM
Picasso. I can't express the distress I felt on the school bus when WKY's Danny Williams spun Larry Verne's Please Mister Custer on the bus radio. The collective autonomy of directed rag was withering. The slipping of your feathered lance into my uglyness and lodging in my funny bone is especially appreciated. A toke on your calumet and a sharing of the Goose vessel could only add specialty to an oldtimey experience.

Little_Red, the things you mention usually begin to manifest just as you are starting to ever so slowly doze off. But the booger is with you now.....

OULenexaman
10/5/2006, 12:02 PM
threads like these just bring about everyone out of the closet...

OLDSOONER
10/5/2006, 12:15 PM
Yo, Lenexie! Your gift is always shining, especially on game daze. Those birds never looked better than when your light is on, man.

OULenexaman
10/5/2006, 01:04 PM
that's good to hear....a whole mess of my family and friends all from Edmond were up here in the heart of goose land to see me get hitched. So I have a legal other Lenexie now. Some folks have music and dancing at their reception but I had 50 inch plasma with the duck debacle on. Everyone loved it until...well....you know.

OLDSOONER
10/5/2006, 01:20 PM
CONGRATULATIONS!

Oh oh. No more midnight creepin' for you old friend.

50" plasma? Hmmmmm. Do ya leave yer house unlocked? Might be worth the trip up to crime free lenexa with a couple o' rentaguys and a truck some dark night seein' as how you will be legally occupied upstairs and all..

picasso
10/5/2006, 06:50 PM
hey Lenexa! I'll be looking for you at the PGA Championship this summer at Southern Hills. by the practice green right? :D ;)

opksooner
10/5/2006, 07:25 PM
Lenexaman, are you still with WEG up around Chi-town?

mosoon
10/5/2006, 07:26 PM
I would respond to all of this love, but I'm feeling a little crampy and bloated tonight.

opksooner
10/5/2006, 09:22 PM
Hey Mo,

Those Applebee's pop - ups are really a PITA!

......just sayin'

william_brasky
10/6/2006, 02:54 AM
If OLDSOONER isn't hooked up with a publisher, then we need to make that happen.

Excellent Stuff.

My favorite part:


Dazie's cleavage was deep; her beer icey cold.

sooneron
10/6/2006, 07:37 AM
Excellent work! As always, and yet, not nearly enough!! Good to see some ol'timers back.

OULenexaman
10/6/2006, 07:58 AM
Lenexaman, are you still with WEG up around Chi-town?

yep....right here in the NW burbs. Beautiful crime free Itasca. That changes fast though when heading east into the city.

OULenexaman
10/6/2006, 08:08 AM
hey Lenexa! I'll be looking for you at the PGA Championship this summer at Southern Hills. by the practice green right? :D ;)

I looked all 4 days at Medinah this year and never saw ya.;) That's quite a place....just 7 minutes from my office or house. I might have to plan myself a road trip for a return to T-town.

OUmillenium
10/12/2006, 11:18 AM
I remember finding a program for a HS basketball tourny held at SWOSU in the early 90s, one of the small schools had a player named Freedom Heap of Birds.

MiccoMacey
10/12/2006, 01:57 PM
Not enough nudity. :D