A Story Worth Telling

Did I see Elvis? If I did, thankfully it wasn’t him and grandma welcoming me into the light.

Know me, and you know I thrive on old rock and roll music in general and anything about “The King of Rock and Roll” in particular. “Did you see him in person,” someone always asks. For many years, the short answer was, “No.” But, that’s where this story begins.

Before moving to Mount Pleasant during my grade school years, the last career stop for my dad was in the small West Texas community of Seymour—a dusty spot at that time where everything was within walking distance.

Walking to a country music show at the high school gym one night was exactly what the teenage daughter of a family friend had in mind. Only after agreeing to let a couple of younger kids tag along did her parents consent to allowing her and a girlfriend to attend. I suspect that was to dampen any plan for meeting boys, but it worked—and I was one of the tag along kids.

Childhood recollections of the night were pretty much limited to a late night, loud music, some guy in brightly colored clothes singing, and the weirdest thing—every girl in the crowd going insane. There were also doses of stern parental lectures afterward regarding trust, responsibility, not coming home on time, and other similar parental sermons many have heard … and given.

Fast forward to 2003 and on the phone is Ernst Jorgensen, a record executive whose life work has been documenting Elvis’s image by re-mastering songs and publishing books about “The King’s” career.

He was gathering information for a book chronicling early Elvis appearances from his Sun Records days driving across the South singing at small town store openings, community fairs, gyms and dance halls. Seeking confirmation of a 1955 appearance at the Mount Pleasant National Guard Armory, Jorgensen said Jordanaires’ lead singer Gordon Stoker suggested he call me. “Gordon says you’re from Mount Pleasant.”

“I am,” I said, “But we didn’t move there until 1959 … from Seymour.”

“I’ve already confirmed Elvis in Seymour,” Jorgensen said. “I’ll email you that clipping and a copy of the poster.”

“Cool!”

The story bylined Doug Dixon related how the local VFD had sponsored a country music show April 25, 1955, “… in the Seymour High School Auditorium … with special guest star, Elvis Presley.”

Dixon, who attended the show, reported a man at the entrance with a cigar box collected admission of one dollar “You just paid your dollar and walked in.”

Entertainers from the San Antonio record label TNT, “put on a pretty good opening show,” according to Dixon, “But of course, the crowd was impatient to see Elvis.” Dixon describes a long evening where, “Every singer sang twice, even the man who had taken our money at the door got up and sang. That was when the M.C. admitted Elvis wasn’t there yet, but he would be pretty soon.”

Dixon’s article accounted as how following intermission, the man with the cigar box went through the crowd refunding 50 cents to everyone, including some who had sneaked in without paying during the intermission. The second half continued much like the first and time grew late, wrote Dixon. “Eventually, most of the audience left, grumbling about being ‘took.’ Only hard core Elvis fans remained, still hoping for a miracle.”

“Suddenly a girl at the edge of the stage … screamed, ‘He’s here! He’s here!’” Dixon described guitar player Scotty Moore and other band members (drummer D.J. Fontana and bass player Bill Black) taking their places before Elvis walked on the stage.

“He was wearing a fire engine red sport coat, bow tie, white shirt and blue trousers, Dixon wrote. “Both coat and trousers were two sizes too large, so he could make his moves without ripping something. For a long moment, he stood there with half-closed eyelids, not saying a word. Scotty stepped up behind Elvis and pretended to wind him up as one winds a wind-up toy. With this done, Elvis suddenly grabbed his guitar and broke into ‘That’s All Right Mama’ … and the show was on.

“What a show it was!” Dixon wrote. “Elvis shook, danced and twisted, as he sang one song after another … Bill Black rode his bass like it was a horse, as he slapped out a rockabilly beat. Scotty Moore’s guitar lashed out adding to the frenzy of the crowd. Girls screamed, cried and several appeared to faint. The girl standing next to me moaned and slid to the floor and lay there jerking, as if she was having some kind of seizure.”

According to Dixon, after several songs Elvis explained their late arrival. “We were booked into Miller Brothers over at Wichita Falls for a dance,” he quoted Elvis as saying. “We didn’t know about this booking until we got a phone call earlier in the evening … some kind of mix up.”

Elvis reportedly asked for a long intermission in Wichita Falls allowing time for a quick appearance in Seymour. The problem was compounded, according to Elvis, when they ran out of gas just outside Seymour and had to hitchhike into town.

“Hectic man,” Dixon quoted Elvis as saying. “Real hectic.” Elvis reportedly also said he would appreciate someone taking them back to their car with some gas after the show, and “… almost every girl in the house volunteered.”

So the question remains. Did I see Elvis in person? There’s no way to know for sure, but the evidence is compelling that I was there the night in a dusty West Texas town when “Elvis finally entered the building.”

Leon Aldridge — July 7, 2015

(Originally published in the Center (Texas) Light and Champion, June 2, 2014)

Independence Day is the National Day of the United States. It’s the day we celebrate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 declaring the American colonies as a new nation.

Americans mark the occasion with barbecues, parades, community celebrations, picnics, family reunions, and perhaps everyone’s favorite —fireworks.

July Fourth is also the day some of us celebrate the semi-famous “Lake Murvaul Fireworks Incident” of some year ago. In case you missed that one, it was the night my son, Lee, lit up the sky over the small East Texas lake.

Like many young boys, Lee loved fireworks with a passion to the extent that for years, I was pretty sure he was a pyromaniac. His artillery stash for this particular night rivaled a military weapons depot. Truly, he was equipped to defend the south shore of Lake Murvaul against any invasion, should one occur.

As dark descended on our Panola County lake house, Lee was ready. He had carefully stored every piece of his arsenal in a plastic container to keep them dry and safe from the firing line. Seemed like a smart move to me.

Families along the shore migrated to piers with lawn chairs and refreshments. Lake Murvaul was then, and is today, regarded as an excellent place to view fireworks displays staged by residents around the lake’s perimeter.

Shooting fireworks at the lake means launching them from piers. Not only is it safer, it’s also a Murvaul tradition to enjoy the numerous shows with family and friends.

“Oohs” and “aahs” rose from the darkness of nearby piers as brilliant, colorful displays began illuminating the night sky before falling into the placid water below. Certainly, no one was looking for anything spectacular when the small “twirly-thingy” whizzed upward, or even gave a second thought to the still glowing ember drifting downward. I’m pretty sure no one even noticed when the device, blown slightly off course by summer breezes, drifted toward Lee’s stash.

However, the instant it hit the bucket, we hit the road. When the “really big show” is about to begin at your feet, sitting at the end of a 30-foot pier becomes an obstacle leaving just two options for evacuation—go into the water or run.

Within milliseconds, four people broke into a sprint down the pier toward land. That would have been fine, except the pier was wide enough for only one person at a time.

Curiosity got the best of me. I stopped and looked back at the inferno. Funny, at that same instant, a Bible story crossed my mind—the one about Lot’s wife. As I looked through the boathouse door out onto the deck, I saw several things.

One, I saw a fireworks display the likes of which I’m pretty sure had never before been seen on Murvaul, perhaps never since. Rockets shooting one direction, bombs going off in another. Whizzers, climbers, flares and twisters. The light was blinding and the noise was deafening. Not since Wolf Blitzer’s CNN coverage of the invasion of Iraq, had I witnessed such firepower.

Next, I saw my pier beginning to burn. I knew it would eventually hit the water, but it also occurred to me that I was standing on it.

Last, I saw neighbors in both directions hunkering down, dodging bottle rockets while folding lawn chairs and scrambling to get off their own piers.

Then an idea hit me. Using a broom in the boathouse, I reached through the door and pushed what was left of the inferno off the pier and into the water. With a muffled sizzle, the mass of embers, melted plastic and still detonating devices sank in a cloud of steam that lingered over the murky depths. Almost as fast as it had started, the show was over.

The silence was deafening. Not one single flash of fireworks could be seen on the water. Not one frog or cricket was singing. Then it started. First with my neighbors, then spreading around the cove and across the lake, applause and cheering that lasted for several minutes.

My son was devastated. He had just watched weeks of allowance and pay for extra chores go up in a flash. He was out of fireworks and the evening was still young. Then in an act of sympathy and compassion, his sister, Robin, shared her fireworks with him. I was impressed, but had to wonder what this would cost Lee at some later date.

My son was famous. For weeks, people asked, “What was that over there on the south shore the other night?” Everyone was pretty sure it was the most spectacular event since lightening hit the oil storage tanks. The legend of the biggest fireworks display ever was still being talked about the day we moved away.

Enjoy the holiday weekend as we pause to celebrate this great country, say a prayer for the men and women in the armed services who will be working to protect our freedom—and remember the semi-famous “Lake Murvaul Fireworks Incident” if you’re celebrating with fireworks.

Leon Aldridge

July 3, 2015

Adapted from a column I wrote for the Boerne (Texas) Star, July 4, 1995

It’s funny how one thing often leads to another. Sometimes funny enough that it leaves us asking, “Who would have ever connected those events.”

Long-time Mount Pleasant friend, Susan Prewitt, sent a request last week searching for a column published recently in the Tribune. Seems she tossed the issue before husband Randy finished reading it.

After sending it and noting what I assumed was our common interest in that particular edition of my weekly missive, I had to smile when Susan responded with, “… unfortunately the mention of the cars is what attracted Randy’s attention. Some things never change.”

“And your point is …,” I pondered. When not sticking words together hoping for something meaningful, my other passion has always been bolting automotive iron together hoping for something fast, loud and cool looking.

One fast, loud and cool car that led from one thing to another years ago, and the common denominator in this narrative, was a high performance car built for drag racing. And race is exactly what I did with it at drag strips across Texas and Louisiana before eventually selling it to Randy Prewitt.

My sister Sylvia and Susan were buds at MPHS then, which led to Susan accepting my invitation to a race one summer night. I’d have to ask her, but that may have been the first time she went on a date and wound up working on a racecar. In any case, it certainly wasn’t the last. She later married Randy (and I guess the race car as well) and their passion ever since has been racing cars and motorcycles.

The Friday night Susan ventured off with me as a date more than a racing event, that for her turned into more of a racing event than a date, also led to her father teaching me something I’ve never forgotten.

Auto races were, and still are, unpredictable events that often become late night affairs, especially when you’re winning. This particular night in rural East Texas, we were almost an hour from home when the dust settled on the track as midnight approached.

Susan’s father, Carlton McAlister, was waiting when we pulled back into Mount Pleasant. And, Mr. McAlister was not a happy father. Our feet were hardly on the porch before he began strongly expressing his displeasure with this young man’s lack of responsibility for bringing his daughter home at that hour, and rightfully so.

The next morning, actually just a few hours later, Saturday dawned with me punching the time clock at Sandlin Chevrolet and Olds where I worked to support nagging habits like racing, college and dating. I was still trying to focus sleep-deprived eyes and sort out problems I had created for Susan when someone stepped up next to me. Sleep-deprived or not, my eyes quickly confirmed that I was face-to-face with Susan’s father—again.

I froze, my heart stopped and my first thought was, “Oh no, he forgot something last night. I’m about to hear ‘Angry Father Lecture—the sequel.’”

To my surprise, Mr. McAllister said, “I owe you an apology. Susan explained what happened.” He also added that it would be all right for me to ask her out again—something he told me in no uncertain terms just a few hours earlier that I needn’t bother attempting again.

Decades have failed to diminish the memory of that event, it’s still vivid and I can tell the story as good today as I did then, maybe better. More importantly, in later years I better understood Mr. McAlister and his actions. That clarity came once my own daughter reached the age that Susan was then.

As one thing leads to another, it was as a parent that I figured out his actions both that night and the next morning weren’t so much because he was mad at me, but more because he loved his daughter.

The old racecar is gone, although not forgotten by me or by Randy. Such is the legacy of fast, loud and cool cars among old guys who are still young at heart. But, as I told Susan recently, I’ve always fondly remembered her father and the valuable lesson I learned from him … because of a racecar, and how one thing often leads to another.

Leon Aldridge

July 1, 2015

Originally published 7-1-2015 in the Mount Pleasant (Texas) Daily Tribune

The kitten sits by our back door, gazing through the glass pane at the world on the other side. Her universe, since we found the scared infant feline on the back porch, has been limited to what she’s explored inside four walls.

She watches the older cats and dogs that allow us to live here as they parade in and out, but she seems content to sit and look, never venturing through the door. You have to wonder, isn’t she curious about what lies on the other side?

My curiosity was piqued the first time I peered through the back door of the old Mount Pleasant (Texas) Tribune office, and I’m talking about before the newspaper was a daily. Huge, noisy beasts, those machines were that once produced characters of type—one line at a time, and printed pages—one sheet at a time. In addition, the type setting machines that employed molten lead generated enough heat to make the entire office toasty during the winter and sweltering in the summer time.

Linotype machines, as they were called, assembled molds for the letter forms in lines of type called “matrices.” Each line was then cast from hot metal as a single piece producing what was called a “slug.” While tedious by today’s standards, the machines allowed for much faster typesetting and page composition than the previous method, by hand. Prior to linotype machines, typesetters built pages by placing one pre-cast metal letter, punctuation mark or space at a time.

With some 90 keys on two separate keyboards for caps and lower case letters, operating a linotype machine was a unique skill. As I recall, a Mr. King was the linotype operator at the Tribune that night.

Contrast that with the method for creating and delivering the communiqué you’re perusing right now. Took me about 20 minutes to compose it on a laptop computer that is small enough to tuck under your arm, quiet as a whisper and doesn’t heat up the room. Plus, no printing press was needed. All I did was hit “publish” and it was done, zapped away into cyber space, ready to read on any computer anywhere in the world. Hey, my computer will even send your computer an email to let you know I just “published” another volume of ramblings for your consideration.

With the launch of a blog for my columns, I’ve quit looking through the glass pane and I’ve stepped through the door. Certainly blogs are nothing new. They’ve been around a while, and they’re just a different means of doing the same job linotypes did until offset printing flourished in the 70s—delivering information such as someone’s weekly column. Using a blog to publish my columns is just a new world to me.

So, I’ll keep doing the same old thing I’ve been doing for decades, crafting a weekly dispatch, arranging words on a page while hoping to strike a note of harmony with your reading pleasure. The only new thing will be the method of delivery.

Look for a new column each week as well as an archive of some older pieces. Oh, and I’ll also let you know should the kitten ever make a bold new move into a different world.

Leon Aldridge

June 30, 2015