Allen Thrower

I was in the sixth grade in the West Columbia Elementary School. I loved to play softball, but was one of the worst players in school. I could barely run because I was pigeon-toed and knock-kneed. Besides that, I was just naturally clumsy. I had never been able to run the way other kids could.

We lived on the southwest edge of town. We had a cow, three calves and a pig. The cow was usually staked out in the daytime for good grass beside the highway that ran in front of our house.

I pretended to be a pitcher on an imaginary baseball team. I chose one particular board on the cow shed and pitched to it, with a natural mark on that board being knee-high and another about neck-high. For a long time I just pitched to strike the “batter” out. I got to be pretty accurate. With time I increased the speed of the ball until I had a pretty fast and accurate pitch. I struck out a lot more “batters” than I walked, and developed an underhanded fast spin on the ball.

That year the sixth grade classes had exactly 36 boys, just enough for four softball teams. For some reason I never understood the nine best players were put on “Team A” and so on until the worst nine were on “Team D.” I was natural “Team D” material.

We had a double round robin tournament. Team A had one boy who could knock the ball completely out of the ball park when he connected. We were all awed by his long hits.

I don’t remember which team Billy Richards (Slaven) was on. Slaven’s mother was my Cub Scout den leader. In the eleventh grade, Slavin and I went to school together at Brazosport High School, and later we were roommates at the University of Texas.

Anyhow, our round robin tournament took place as planned. Team D batted poorly, but other pitchers walked a lot of our players. So, we did make some scores. Also, my pitching kept them from getting hits. Few opponents could hit my fast ball, and the spin I had developed made the ones who did hit pop the ball up into the air for pop flies. Our players scrambled enough that we got most of the hitters out.

Beating Team C was a real feather in our caps. We had not expected to win any games at all. But, their pitcher could pitch only slow balls and we got a lot of hits. Team B was our next opponent and we beat them, too, for the same reasons.

We ended up in the championship game with Team A, with all their heavy hitters. But, their pitcher also could only pitch slow balls. I was the only pitcher that could pitch a fast ball. We won the championship undefeated, much to everyone’s surprise.

(Written 2-1-2001)

From our house in Old Ocean, Texas it was maybe a bit more than a fourth to “The Thicket” which was a jungle-like swampy area infested with poisonous snakes, spiders, chameleons and other wildlife,–including an occasional bobcat or a javelina. The trees hung heavy with mistletoe and long strands of Spanish moss. We carried a machete with us to make the going easier, and often one of us carried a .22 rifle. David Brown (Pop’s younger brother) carried a bayonet most of the time, throwing the point into the ground. He was good at doing that. One day as approached the thicket he threw the knife and cut a copper head in two. I still shudder as I think about the two parts of that snake writhing separately on the ground.

Occasionally we would catch chameleons in the woods and take them home to catch flies, mosquitoes, ants and other insects. The technique was to tie a little string around them so that they couldn’t get away. The other end of the string was tied to a bed post or something. Mother never complained about the stakeouts. In fact, I think she actually got a kick out of it, though she was visibly squeamish about having them around. It was interesting to watch the chameleons change color, from their natural green to brown or black. Sometimes they would shed a part of their tail, which grew back in a few days.

For our personal entertainment, near those woods and next to the dump were two canals, compliments of the nearby oil refinery. The small canal was probably 20 or 30 feet across. The larger one was more like a hundred yards wide, or more. That was our main goal, for in it were some pretty big catfish. We strung a trotline across that canal with big hooks on individual strings tied several feet apart onto the main, larger line. I was usually not along when they ran the trotline, but with a rowboat we could check the line for the the daily catch. Usually the catch was quite meager. Running the line was done very carefully, for sometimes there was an alligator gar on a hook, or a big water moccasin with maws and fangs like the claws on a Lorain crane. In such instances, we cut that hook from the line, just letting them have their freedom. Too scary to play with!

For bait, we caught small perch from an earthen dam on the smaller canal. It was common to see the head of a turtle stick up out of the water. The shells of those turtles were usually about six or eight inches across, but we saw only the heads unless we found one crawling somewhere on the ground. Also, many water snakes swam there with only their heads showing, plus a wake of their bodies. Like a miniature Loch Ness Monster! All summer long Bobby and I fished for bait side by side, about ten feet apart in that small canal. We used the same kinds of pole, hook, line, sinker and bait. We fished at the same depth and maybe even used the same embouchure. Bobby usually caught plenty of perch for bait on the trot line. All summer long I caught only three perch. In all my life I have probably caught a total of half a dozen fish, none big enough to keep. Bobby could have skipped all his later years in college and supported his family well just by selling his surplus fish. To this day he retains a definite talent there.

There was a fairly narrow hump of land between the two canals with a sort of makeshift pathway on top. From there one could see a long way, for the terrain all around was flat, with woods on both sides of the water. Sometimes I took my BB gun and went there alone. I shot at everything imaginable: weeds, sticks, insects, leaves floating in the water, or snakes wherever they might be. There were countless mosquitoes and many colors of dragonflies all over the place. And red ants. Almost all my shooting was done from the hip. I was a dead shot from the hip. One day I shot at dragon flies and killed well over two hundred as they hovered in the air.

Another day, for no particular reason, I took the .22 rifle out there. Again, I was by myself. I shot at many things that day. Most memorable was a target floating about 200 feet away in the big canal. It was an alligator about eight feet long. Every time I hit him the bullet ricocheted off, whining into the woods across the way. Finally he tired of it and submerged. There was nothing interesting to shoot at anymore, so I headed toward home. On the way, I crossed the dump. A Negro man and his young son were scavenging there for treasures or just anything useful. The man asked me what I was shooting at. “An alligator,” I said. Without another word, and to my great surprise, the man was truly frightened! Immediately, he and his son got into their old truck and made fast tracks out of there! That was one really scared man! I thought to myself, “Well. He must think that they really are alligator bait!” I had never put any stock in the saying before. I just thought it was another derogatory phrase some people used rather than saying “nigger,” just as one of them might call a low-life white guy “po’ white trash.” Well, I wasn’t ever much into name calling. To me people, for the most part, are just people, as you can see from a lot of other stories I pass on. In those days, though, to me a nigger was just a nigger, with nothing else implied. Eventually this term elevated to Negro, and later to Blacks. In later years I was glad to know people from over a hundred countries. One of my dearest thoughts in my adult life is: “…and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.” To me, that’s the REAL America. As I see it, that’s the real goal in being American. I believe in that with all my heart.

Please forgive me, for I have digressed…

On the far side of the big canal was a swimming hole that the older boys used to frequent. They had a diving board that was probably a 2 x 12 secured under part of a tree or stump. One of my brothers once told me about an incident at the swimming hole. A boy walked out to the end of the board and was about to dive in when he looked below and saw an eight foot alligator resting in the shadow of the board. The boy very cautiously made his way off the board and back onto the bank. The boys then rowed back across the canal, went home, and never swam in those waters again.

Another event I was not in on, but was very impressed by was a nocturnal visit to a large slough on the far side of the big canal. The water there was surrounded by very large trees with long, hanging Spanish moss hanging down. Many trees spread out over the slough. Lots of trees on the bank lay on the ground rotting, and perhaps even some in the water. If I remember right, Bobby, Jimmy, David Brown and one other were there. I don’t remember which one told me what happened that night; but, this is as I recall it: They rowed across the canal and up stream several hundred yards to this slough. The purpose of the trip might have been to gig for frogs or to kill a little alligator, or was just another adventure. I really don’t know. The slough was perhaps a hundred feet across, with an island in the middle. The object was to land on the island to do whatever they went there to do. To enter the slough they had to go through a narrow straight. Once in, they had rough rowing. There were quite a few logs rotting in the water. When the moon came out from behind a cloud they saw that the island was covered with and the banks were lined with countless alligators. Then, realizing that the logs they had been pushing aside with their oars were actually alligators, they performed a Biblical feat, copying the example of Joseph of old; they got themselves out.

The attraction of the canals seems to have waned a bit from that time on. Soon after that we moved to West Columbia.

On a hot, sweltering day I rode my bike to the highway and then a mile north to where our road dead-ended at yet another highway. That was where our neighborhood grocery store was, where we at Old Ocean bought bread, milk, and such. This particular trip of mine was to get a cold pop and some gum or candy. On the way home, I saw a colored boy about my age walking in the same direction I was going. I offered him a lift on my bike, and he got on the cross bar. As we rode, we talked and were laughing and having a good time. We were only together for about a mile. When I got home, Mother and Pop said they passed us on the highway. I hadn’t even noticed. Pop kidded me a little about pumping the colored boy on my bike. I hadn’t thought anything about it, really. But, I do remember that it took a couple of days for his odor to leave me. He had certainly been a lot more fun to be with than the boy across the street, and I’ve never been sorry for befriending him.

[In Old Ocean] the nearest person my age to play with was a boy who lived across the street from us. He was a smarty-pants kid that was hard to like. But, we played together. Out in a vacant field we built a laboratory out of boxes and boards and had some chemicals and eqipment out there. We did some simple experiments and had our own little club house. Actually, as I think of it, it may have been Jimmy’s lab, not ours. Anyhow, we played there sometimes. There were lots of dogs in the neighborhood. sometimes they chased us. I was deathly afraid of dogs, because I didn’t want to get bitten by any of them. A day came when the dogs had us cornered in the lab for a long time. It was hot in there, and we wanted to go home, but the dogs wouldn’t leave. They just hung around, waiting for us to come out so they could chase us. We bot a beaker and put some water into it and brought it to a boil. Then we poured the boiling water onto the rump of the nearest dog when we looked out. The dog immediately howled and began running away, and all the other dogs chased after him, and we went home without being chased. It was nothing to be proud of, but we were glad to be rid of the pack. We were really afraid of them.

That same boy had a habit of riding my bike when I was not at home. When confronted with this, he denied it. So, next time I had to go somewhere, I parked my bike in a certain place with it in a certain position. When I came home a little later, the bike was not in exactly the same position I had left it,–just a little bit different. Again, I confronted him about riding the bike, and told him what I had done. He confessed, and promised never to ride it again without permission. He was embarrassed to have been caught, but at least had the character to admit it when he was caught.

It rains often in [Old Ocean]. Sometimes it rains a lot. A whole lot! It was during one of the latter times that we kids were alone in the house. It was afternoon, but it was dark and stormy. The wind blew. Rain came down in sheets, in buckets, in huge amounts. This went on for seemingly hours. Perhaps I was home alone. I don’t remember. What I do remember is that I lay on the top bunk reading comic books when Mother and Pop got home. My educational endeavors came to a sudden and shocking end as Pop dragged me off the bunk and was spanking me soundly before I even hit the floor. I had no earthly idea why. Pop was quick to let me know that as I lay there with my comic books, I didn’t think to check the windows to keep the rain from coming in. Their bed was soaked to its limit, and they had to spend that night sleeping on the hard floor. I think that was the most deserved spanking I ever had, and I certainly learned a lasting lesson from it.

After one such rain, the ditches surrounding each block of houses was filled with water. That’s what the ditches were there for, to catch the runoff. Ribbon snakes lived in those ditches, and when the water was high, the snakes came out in droves. One day I took my BB gun and killed over a hundred snakes. Pop got angry at me for doing it, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why, until the next day when they began to stink. Then I understood.

One time as Mother was driving from Old Ocean toward West Columbia we had a flat tire. Bobby, Peggy and I were with her. Pop was not along. Bobby was always good at doing mechanical things. Without hesitation he opened the trunk of the car and got out the jack and spare tire. In his hand he had the tool to take the hubcap off the wheel, and approached the flat tire. Suddenly I ran at him and hit him with a diving tackle, knocking him to the ground. He was ready to hit me when I pointed at the flat tire. It was resting on a large, writhing rattlesnake with its fangs bared. He killed the snake, and Mother drove the car forward a bit to get away from it so Bobby could change the tire. It had been a scary moment!

Pop took us boys frog gigging several times. Mother went at least once. We gigged in ponds that abounded in the area. Most of the time the ponds were in some woods. The woods were scary, for they were infested with snakes and insects, and the Spanish moss hung down all around us, looking as spooky as death itself. From the trees and Spanish moss little worms hung down on single strands of silk, and they would get in our hair and fall down the necks of our shirts. They squished slick stuff when you slapped them. I still shudder when I think about it.

Arriving at a pond, some of us would shine flashlights at the water until we spotted a big bullfrog. The light would blind the frog and another person would cock his gig and reach out to the frog. Upon contact, the trigger on the gig would spring and claws would capture the frog. The stick on a frog gig was about the length of a mop handle, so it was fairly easy to reach out quite a distance to a frog.

Upon capturing a frog, we would disengage him from the gig and put him into a “tow sack.” Sometimes we would get fifty or more frogs in one night. Cleaning them was simple. Just cut them in two at the waist and skin the lower part. The legs were all we were after. Mother would fry them up for a very good meal. They tasted a lot like fried chicken. It always bothered Mother to cook them, for as they fried, the legs kicked in the skillet. She never quite got over that, but loved to eat them, as much as the rest of us.

We always had a gun along for the trip. One time we heard the ghostly hooting of an owl from up in the trees. Shortly thereafter we saw a silver fox slinking away into the darkness. As we continued to walk through the woods, Bobby was behind me, carrying the gun. The gun went off and shot exactly where I was about to step. I spun around to clobber Bobby when he said excitedly, “Look!” …and he pointed at the ground. I looked, and though he had shot from the hip, he had killed a coral snake. I would have stepped on the snake in another fraction of a second.

Mother and Pop first moved us boys to the red ground-level duplex in Old Ocean. Pop drove and Mother was in the front seat with him. Allen Brown (one of Pop’s brothers) was up there, too, if I remember correctly. We boys,–Jimmy, Bobby and I were all crowded into the back seat. Pop’s younger brother, David, was in the back, too. I know, for he sat in my lap all the way–252 miles! He was a few years older than I, AND HE WAS HEAVY! I do remember!

It seemed like Pop drove all night, but it was only five or six hours. On the way, we stopped to get a bite to eat at some roadside store/cafe. As Pop was paying the bill, he saw some candy bars with peanuts in them on sale real cheap and bought the whole box of them. Later, on the road, we ate several before discovering that they were all full of wiggly worms. Pop had also found some BB’s on sale there for a nickel a tube and bought me a whole dollar’s worth of them for my gun. It was a kindness I will never forget; for, I loved my BB gun.

My first memory of seeing Old Ocean the next morning is one of disillusionment. It was a conglomeration, or, rather a series several rows of one-story red brick houses (maybe duplexes; I don’t remember) with a backdrop of a huge oil refinery a couple of blocks away,–maybe a little farther. The refinery had several tall pipes that emitted smoke or steam, and there were several other tall pipes burning gas flares day and night. The terrain was completely flat and grassy all around, but it was only a short walk to the nearest woods. There were no isolated trees nearby. Why it was called Old Ocean was a mystery to me. We were about 25 miles from the Gulf of Mexico., as the crow flies. It was explained to me that where we were used to be on the beach of the Gulf. Though, how long ago, I never learned. We were still only a few feet above sea level.

Mother and Pop left the same day and went back to Waco to get the rest of our things. And, Peggy. We must have pulled a trailer that first trip, because I think we had beds to sleep in from the beginning. But, I don’t remember a trailer.

Our first meal in our new home was a bachelor affair, just us boys. We had coffee and a can of peaches. The coffee was cooked in the peach can. I must have eaten all the peaches, because I was the only one that got ptomaine from them and I became very sick. I slept as though dead for a long time. When I awoke it was almost dark, or so I thought. They told me I had slept all day and all the next night and it was almost morning again. Well, at least I wasn’t sick anymore.

I think it was a Saturday. At least one of our first days there. We decided to walk to Sweeny, the nearest town, which was three miles south of us. I don’t recall why we went there. Perhaps to get some groceries or to see a movie or just to see what the town was like. Anyhow, it was a six-mile round trip, and was a welcome activity. Nothing of significance seems to have come of it.

Mother and Pop came back soon with all our stuff and with Peggy, and we set up housekeeping. It was our new home. We all found things of interest to keep us occupied and learning.

Having lived most of my life at 2000 McFerrin Street in Waco, one day we kids were told that in a few days we would be moving to Old Ocean. I was stunned, numbed, as though my roots were being yanked out of the ground. Of course we had never even heard of Old Ocean. It was one of the saddest days of my life. I was ten years old.

Mother was walking home from North Waco Elementary School with me. This was the only time I can recall Mother ever coming to school to get me. I still had no idea why. As we approached Summer Avenue we stopped at the curb to look for any oncoming cars before crossing the street. As we stood there, I noticed she was fighting back tears. I knew then something was wrong. She looked down at me and said in a soft voice, “_________ was killed by the Germans.” Suddenly I got a lump in my throat and fought back tears. I blurted out, “I HATE HITLER!” Mother’s said quietly, “No. Don’t hate Hitler; just hate what he has done.”

As she spoke, those words were indelibly marked in my mind; and since then I have never really hated a person,…(oh, well,–with possibly a couple of exceptions which I may have to face up to on Judgment Day. And, with that on my conscience, I find it’s more convenient to hate the action(s) rather than the person. But, even if I can forgive, I cannot forget, lest I be duped again by “another of those ruthless ones.” Also, I recall that we will be forgiven even as we forgive. I still have a bit of a problem there.)