Month: July 2022

“Man, after all my grandma put into me learning the piano, that was a hard day telling her I was telling jokes for a living.”

—Jamie Foxx, American actor, comedian, and singer.

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The call for “words of wisdom” at any Thursday Center Noon Lions Club meeting is an invitation to share a joke. However, it also closes the door on any appropriateness of behavior or conduct the group may have followed to that point.

The moments of fun are a break from the long hours and hard work by the local civic club raising money. Money that goes back into the community aiding charities, schools, children’s eyeglasses, and children with health problems, as well as assisting with building baseball, softball, and soccer fields in recent years.

It usually starts with something like, “My IQ test results came back. Good news—they were negative.” Or maybe, “What’s the difference between an outlaw and an in-law? Outlaws are wanted.” Longer jokes are also endured with anticipation of a good laugh.

Telling a joke at Lions Club is a “you’re on your own” proposition. Humor is graded by a system of laughter, boos, or a barrage of flying objects—primarily wadded-up napkins. The ultimate penalty for a bad joke is a fine from the club’s “tail twister,” Danny Paul Windham, who often offers the first words of wisdom himself. But it’s all fun and considered a less-than-clinical medicine for stress relief.

Comedian Milton Berle is credited with coining the line about laughter being the best medicine. There must have been something to that. The iconic funny guy died in 2002 just short of his 94th birthday with a career spanning more than 80 years.

I’ve always believed humor was medicinal. It’s certainly added a healthy element to the Center Lion’s Club since I first joined in 1980. With one-liners being the more popular form of funnies offered, the organization’s words of wisdom sessions are not unlike a popular form of humor during Berle’s early days, burlesque shows.

“Thrilling” was the term I once heard long-time Texas humorist, musician, and motivational speaker Doc Blakely use to describe burlesque. His reference, of course, was more to the risque element of the traveling shows typically found at carnivals back in the day. Blakely’s view was that of a youngster trying to sneak in to see the show. He likened burlesque to a combination of comics in baggy pants and girls in skintight outfits. “I never saw skin that tight,” he recalled, “or at that age, knew that girls had so much of it.”

Although 16 was the legal age to buy a ticket, he recalled that it wasn’t difficult to sneak in. Blakely’s story centered on the time he managed to sneak into one of the shows visiting town only to be discovered by his father. While he was being reprimanded for passing himself off as 16 when he had, in fact, just turned 14, his dad warned him of the evils of the burlesque show. “You might see something you shouldn’t,” he told his son.

“You’re right dad,” he told his father. “I did see something I shouldn’t have. I saw you in there.”

With his story, Blakely also offered a few modern burlesque-style one-liners that have almost certainly been heard at a local Lions Club meeting.

“They say football is our national pastime. And what the Dallas Cowboys play is pretty popular too.”

“What did one DNA say to the other DNA? Do these genes make me look fat?”

“I never knew what happiness was until I got married—and by then, it was too late.”

For all its glory as a venue of humor and tough audiences, however, the Lions Club may have been outdone last week by guest speaker Shelby County Judge Allison Harbison. After enduring the organization’s weekly dose of words of wisdom, she began with some of her own.

“I see now why this is an all-man group,” the judge began. “I’ve been a blonde all my life,” she said with a smile. “So, I tend to like blonde jokes. Do you know why so many blonde jokes are one-liners?”

Getting no response after a few seconds, she said, “So men can understand them.”

The semi-official Lions Club rating system gave the judge much laughter and applause, sparing her any boos or tossed napkins. Not even a fine.

“I remember every one of your jokes … and I’ll use them later,” is also credited to Milton Berle. However, we’ll wait to see if that one ever resurfaces at Lions Club.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are published in these Texas newspapers: The Center Light and Champion, the Mount Pleasant Tribune,  the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche, and The Fort Stockton Pioneer.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2022. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

“A good writer is always a people watcher and eavesdropper.”

— I overheard that somewhere.

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It was simply awful.

How could such a terrible thing have occurred right here in our town?

Last week, I was hardly settled at my table in a local eatery when I overheard a conversation nearby. Now I wasn’t eavesdropping, you understand, I just couldn’t help but hear what the two were talking about.

In my defense, they were talking loudly, and well … I’m a trained journalist. Supposed to “keep my ear to the ground.” Right?

“You just don’t know,” one said to the other. “He may very well be hospitalized for months.”

“In the wrong place at the wrong time,” said the second conversationalist. “And he paid the price for it.”

Who had fallen victim to this terrible tragedy, and what was it? I had to find out but keeping up with the conversation was challenging. Especially while I was trying to decide between chicken salad or a hamburger for lunch.

“Well,” I overheard, “I guess you know his wife is seeing her attorney. And I don’t mean professionally … if you get my drift.”

A scandal as well. What a juicy story. Curiosity was killing me. How could someone be in the news business in this community and not have a clue who these two were talking about?

I had to find out.

Maybe I could hear better if I went back to the salad bar one more time. I just wasn’t sure how many plates of lettuce, tomatoes and honey Dijon might look suspiciously frequent. And if the waitress decided to tack on an extra charge for multiple salad bar trips, this could be expensive information.

The lunch hour chatter made details difficult to understand, even as I stood next to the pair and filled my plate with more bean salad. “I realize,” one of them continued, “There was some question as to who his secretary married after she left town following the accident, but I don’t believe the two incidents were related at all. Do you?”

“Then there’s that thing about Jamie confronting Marley about her scheme to adopt Olivia’s baby. Not to mention, Jake trying to enlist Hannah in his plan to win back Paulina.”

To get closer, I thought about searching the floor pretending to look for a lost contact lens before I remembered. I’m wearing glasses today.

“You know who his first wife is, don’t you?”

“Who? Who,” I thought, leaning over so far I nearly fell out of my chair?

“She works for the CIA and lives in the same town. She’s married to the stepson of the doctor that’s treating him at the hospital, and no one suspects a thing. Can you believe it?”

“Wow,” I thought. I never realized anything like this was going on. All this time, I thought the buzz about getting ready for the Poultry Festival and the new traffic light at Walmart were the hot topics.

The waitress asked softly, “Sir,” are you all right? You have three plates of salad, and you haven’t taken the first bite. You seem to be in another world.”

“Another World,” I repeated aloud?

“Yes,” one of the conversationalists turned toward me and exclaimed. “I’ve been trying to catch up on old soap opera reruns on one of those new streaming channels. So … do you happen to know anything about what’s happening on ‘As the World Turns?'”

“No,” I replied politely. “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“I’m fine,” I whispered to the waitress as I shook my napkin, placed it in my lap, and continued. “Have you ever noticed how some folks get caught up in those silly soap operas,” I asked her? “My grandmother used to watch them. Always called it ‘watching her stories.’ I think she believed they were real people,” I added with a chuckle.

“Isn’t that the craziest thing you’ve ever heard?”

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are published in these Texas newspapers: The Center Light and Champion, the Mount Pleasant Tribune,  the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche, and The Fort Stockton Pioneer.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2022. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

“Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.”

— Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher.

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Fishing. I just never got hooked on it.

My uncle, Freddie Scott, loved it. My mother’s brother-in-law from Hazard, Kentucky lived his life in West Texas as a teacher and a coach honored by halls of fame for his tennis coaching. He was also at times a comedian and a philosopher. He was always a guy I was proud to call my uncle.

That said, I’m pretty sure there was little he liked better than fishing. He spent most of his life in classrooms, gyms, and on tennis courts in Texas communities like Happy, Hart, Nazareth, and Sweetwater. But when it was time to wet a hook, he was often headed for places like the Carolinas, Kentucky, or even Mexico.

Therefore, it seemed odd that day in the late 70s living in Abilene when I told him I was headed home to East Texas for the weekend, and he said he had wanted to fish that new lake over in East Texas. Toledo Bend.

“What,” I responded. “You’ve fished half the states in the union and a few in Mexico, but you’ve never fished Toledo Bend?”

“So, how ’bout we make the trip together,” he said. “We’ll take my truck, pull my boat, and I’ll fish while you visit. Unless you want to fish with me.”

“I don’t do fishing,” I replied.

“You just haven’t fished with the right person,” he offered. “I’ll teach you how to enjoy it.” So, with plans to squeeze a road trip halfway across the state into a weekend, he picked me up at my office in downtown Abilene Friday at 5. Around midnight, the pickup’s headlights were casting shadows on our destination down between Possum Trot and Goober Hill in southern Shelby County. The porch light came on, and after exchanging hellos, how was the trip, and glad you’re here, it was time to grab some sleep.

Falling into deep slumber was easy. But the bed in which I was curled up was not even warm yet when I heard this voice. “You ready to go find those fish?”

“What a vivid dream,” I thought as I fluffed the pillow and rolled over.

“The fish are already up,” the voice in the darkness added.

“Are you serious,” I replied. “The clock says 4 a.m. I just got in bed.”

“Gotta go early to get the big ones,” Uncle Freddie said.

“I just got out of this truck, and I’m right back in it,” I thought as this time, the headlights were bouncing off the dirt county roads and tall pines deep in the Sabine National Forest.

Shades of rosy pink and warm orange on the horizon were diluting the darkness as the boat’s wake painted a pattern of rhythmic ripples across the early morning smooth water. Finally, Freddie brought the boat to a stop in a spot he liked. The fishing games were about to begin.

Providing me with what he deemed the best rod and reel complemented by a box of baits, Uncle Freddie shared some basics of casting with me. “It’s in the wrist,” he said, slicing the air with a pop in the fishing rod that put the bait right where he intended for it to go.

Positioned at opposite ends of the boat with coffee from the thermos in hand, the newbie and the pro were finally doing it together. Fishing the waters of Toledo Bend for the first time.

While working on casting skills, I began to notice little things. Fish popped the top of the water. Several birds sang morning melodies from the lifeless limbs of partially submerged trees while others swooped low over the water, looking for breakfast. Turtle heads bobbed up for a moment here and there, then disappeared.

A couple of hours into daylight, Uncle Freddie asked, “How’s it going? Any bites?”

 “Oh, a couple,” I responded. Then, just as I let go with another reel ringing cast, Freddie exclaimed, “You don’t have a lure on your line.”

“Yeah, I know,” I drawled. “Just a weight. But I’ve been practicing, and I can hit that big stump over there just about every time, now.”

“You won’t catch any fish like that,” he chuckled.

“That’ll come later,” I said, cranking on the reel. “Right now, I’m just enjoying casting practice. And taking in the early morning sounds of nature while marveling at the serenity of it all.”

“See,” he said, letting go with another long cast. “I told you I’d teach you how to enjoy fishing.”

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are published in these Texas newspapers: The Center Light and Champion, the Mount Pleasant Tribune,  the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche, The Fort Stockton Pioneer, and the Naples Monitor.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2022. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

“Move to the country and build you a home. Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches, try and find Jesus on your own.”

— John Prine. American singer-songwriter of country-folk music. (1946-2020)

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“So, what do you know about peaches from Pittsburg, Texas?”

The question popped in my text from someone who got word that Johnson’s Produce in Center had Pittsburg peaches. Someone who knew where I was from.

“Sit down; this is going to take a while,” I thought, recalling the summer after graduation from Mount Pleasant High School.

Many regions of Texas produce great peaches. So, who has the best is often a fuzzy decision rooted in personal choice. Or sometimes, it’s just about where you grew up.

For my tastes, good peaches can be procured at any roadside vendor along US Hwy 271 from Gilmer and up through Pittsburg to Mount Pleasant in Northeast Texas. Plus some hidden just off that path.

When I said goodbye to Mount Pleasant High School in 1966, one of those off the path was Jerry Benton’s orchard on the Monticello highway southwest of Mount Pleasant. Mr. Benton offered me gainful employment that summer where I not only made money for college but also acquired a lifelong taste for East Texas peaches.

The first day reporting for work was Monday after Friday night graduation. It was spent with the picking crew plucking peaches from the trees. A couple of days after that, I was promoted to tractor driver pulling trailer loads of peaches from the orchard to the shed.

Mr. Benton called it orientation. It also likely had something to do with getting me down to the courthouse for a commercial driver’s license. A trip the DPS office where Trooper Gene Campbell approved almost every kid’s driver’s license back then for one quick exam made an 18-year-old legal to drive commercial vehicles in the mid 1960s.

With that license, I went from tractor driver to truck driver herding a refrigerated truck of peaches to Dallas. By 5 a.m. Five mornings a week. All summer long.

My first week, I was rising, but definitely not shining, at 2 a.m. so I could leave the orchard by 3 a.m. and be at the Safeway warehouse dock in Garland by 5. After dropping the warehouse shipment, delivering to a list of Safeway stores scattered around the Dallas and Fort Worth metro area was next on my delivery list. It’s still crazy when I think about learning to navigate the Dallas and Forth Worth at 18 in a big truck. Using a paper map from the Texaco station up at the north end of town by the Gaddis Motor Hotel. Way before GPS.

It was at that same station I stopped one of my first “up at 2 a.m.” mornings needing a dollar’s worth of gas to make it through the week in my ’58 Chevy. As best I remember, it was the only 24-hour gas station in town.

“Just now heading home, huh,” remarked the station attendant pumping the gas?

Gotta love growing up in a town where everyone knew your parents. In a time when everybody knew everyone else in town, too.

“Truth be known,” I responded with a responsible tone of voice, “I headed home about 8 p.m. last night. I’m headed to work now.”

“Mmm,” he replied. I never knew whether that response was disbelief or simply an appropriate conversational response for a gas station attendant between 2 and 3 a.m.

Still considering a response to the “what do you know about Pittsburg peaches” question last week, more memories from that summer many road trips ago came to mind. Like the one when the GMC cabover rental truck motor decided to throw all its belts. Halfway between Mount Pleasant and Dallas. On the interstate, somewhere around 4 a.m. Guiding the truck off the highway and turning on the flashers caught a state trooper’s attention. Phones without a cord were still sci-fi then, but the officer’s two-way car radio got a Hertz repair truck coming my way.

Then there was the early morning escape from a roadside diner near Greenville. And I’m not talking about the quality of the food. My craving for caffeine put me on the parking lot at the exact moment it was being robbed. At gunpoint.

I’ve always considered myself a dedicated employee, no matter what the job was. So it was that morning that I saved not only myself but also a truck full of fresh peaches. I had no idea a loaded truck would move that fast.

Oh, and there’s that peachy piece of advice Mr. Benton offered me as we shook hands at the end of the summer. “Work on your second million first, son,” he said with a smile. “It’s a lot easier to make than the first one.”

So, what do I know about peaches from Pittsburg, Texas? East Texas peaches are my favorite. Just the mention of them brings back memories.

And if you buy some, you better invite me over for cobbler.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are published in these Texas newspapers: The Center Light and Champion, the Mount Pleasant Tribune,  the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche, and The Fort Stockton Pioneer.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2022. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

“Change? I’m all for it as long everything stays the same.” — Yep, I’ve probably been accused of saying that.

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Looking out the exam room window at the dentist’s office last week, I started to think. Nothing complicated or even philosophical. Just a simple observation. “The view out that window hasn’t changed in 40 years.”

Truthfully, it was a comforting thought that made me smile. When you’ve been walking through the front door of the same dentist’s office for most of those 40 years, little things do not go unnoticed.

Change comes slower for me than it once did. Probably related to age … because some things never change. It’s always been the younger generation that seeks change more while it’s the, what I prefer to designate as “wiser through experience,” generation that tends to question it.

My father, typically a man of few words for advice, put it best many years ago. Two times he offered tidbits of wisdom that have remained with me. One was about decisions, and one was about love. We’ll save the one about love for another time and a much longer column.

On making decisions, I shared details with him one night about a major purchase I was contemplating. Probably an old hot rod or race car, I don’t remember what it was, just what he told me. Still in college at the time, in my mind, I knew it all anyway.

As I laid it out to him, he listened quietly. Then I paused, anticipating his praise for making such a smart move. But his response startled me. “I don’t think that is such a good decision.”

“Why not,” I asked him in disbelief. After telling me why he felt the way he did, he added, “But I know you will do what you want to regardless of what I say. And I know that only because I was the same way at your age. I had to learn the hard way, from experience.”

He said, “I wish there was some way to benefit you from the knowledge I’ve gained from my experience, good and bad. But I know that’s not possible. Some things in life have to be learned just like I did. By experience.”

On any other day, it might seem odd those thoughts were going through my mind sitting at Dr. Clayton Windham’s office in Center while waiting for a “clean and check.”

The smile about noticing the same old view out the window was still there when another aspect of change hit me. And I’m not talking about the fact that the “new” Dr. Windham to whom I entrusted my dental care 40 years ago is not the same “new” Dr. Windham in whom I place that same trust today.

When Clayton became the new dentist at the old dentist’s office a few years ago, I admit to having apprehensions about breaking in a new dentist at my age.

But they were short-lived apprehensions. Dr. Clayton Windham has proven to be every bit as good a dentist as Dr. Danny Paul Windham. The change I’m addressing here goes much deeper than dental care.

Gazing out the window reminded me of the office music softly soothing anxious dental patients for all those years.

A professional musician and appreciator of good music, Danny Paul, featured a mixture of what many call singer/songwriter country music. I spent decades getting dental care while relaxing to the likes of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Jerry Jeff Walker, David Allan Coe, and others of the same genre.

But as I gazed out the window last week, taking in the same view I’d seen for four decades, I noticed I was now listening to … classical music. Instead of steel guitars and fiddles with “strangs,” I was listening to woodwinds and violins with “strings.” The music had changed.

Exam done, I mentioned jokingly to Clayton that I noticed the “new” music playing softly throughout the office. In response, he offered that his wife, Jackie, was in charge of the music and that a variety of tunes were being played that would still include country collections on some days.

“No, problem,” I thought. I can deal with change.

When asked about a convenient date for my next checkup, all I have to do is ask, “What country music days do you have available.”

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are published in these Texas newspapers: The Center Light and Champion, the Mount Pleasant Tribune,  the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche, and The Fort Stockton Pioneer.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2022. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.