The Hall of Fame Relative - Stories for my grandchildren

An item that my sister forwarded pointed out that today, January 29, is the birth date of one of our more famous relatives, Al Stricklin. I wrote about Al several years ago, but in honor of his birthday, I'll re-post a portion of that blog.

Al is a 3rd cousin on my mother's side, once removed. If you are a grandchild, he is your cousin too, but 5 times removed (and no, I don't understand the seconds and thirds and the removals, but my genealogy program does).

Alton Stricklin was born January 29, 1908 in Antioch, Johnson County, Texas, son of Zebedee Meeks Stricklin and Annie Lee Benton. He died October 15, 1986 in Cleburne, Johnson County Texas, just a few miles away from his birthplace.

There is a note in my mother's handwriting attached to the record: it says, "Al Stricklin played piano with Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, and was a professional musician for more than 50 years." There's a whole lot more to the story. In fact, I found that Al and I had a similar experience while in college. Here's a story from the Texas State Historical Association web site:

The "first commercial group" Stricklin played with was called the Rio Grande Serenaders. It was a standard Dixieland band with trumpet, trombone, clarinet, drums, banjo, and Al playing piano. After he graduated from Grandview High School in 1927, Stricklin spent two years at Weatherford Junior College near Fort Worth. In Weatherford he played with both the Rio Grande Serenaders and another jazz band called the Texans. After two years at the junior college he entered Baylor University, not to study music, but to major in history. [Needing] money to pay expenses at Baylor he began playing in a jazz band called the Unholy Three. When Samuel P. Brooks learned the Unholy Three had played for dancing at the Knights of Columbus Hall, "he suspended the band from the university." Dean W. Sims Allen interceded for them, and "Dr. Brooks let us back in," Stricklin remarked.

In 1930 Al Stricklin was the assistant program director at radio station KFJZ in Fort Worth. A frightened secretary cried out one morning: "Mr. Stricklin, will you please come in here a moment." He rushed into the reception room and saw "three guys standing there, and they were hungry looking, and they needed a shave. One of them had something in a flour sack; the other one had a guitar strapped across his back, hanging over his back like he was carrying a rifle or something." Stricklin was almost as startled as the secretary. "It was Mr. Bob Wills," he said, "with his fiddle in a flour sack." Wills asked Stricklin for an audition. Wills and his band then performed on KFJZ. "They called two days later from the post office and said there was so much mail for the station one man couldn't carry it, better bring a pickup or something." Stricklin had given Wills a break, and when the management of the Aladdin Lamp Company learned of the success of the Wills Fiddle Band on KFJZ, the firm sponsored the band under the name Aladdin Laddies over WBAP, a much more powerful station.* 

Stricklin went on to play piano with Bob Wills from 1935 until 1941 when the band broke up because of the WWII. Wills died in the early '70's, but not before the reunited band recorded a double album that received a Grammy award. After Will's death, Stricklin and other band members reunited as "The Bob Wills Original Texas Playboys" was named the band of the year by the Country Music Association.

Other honors received were Instrumental Group of the Year in 1977 by the Country Music Association and Touring Band of the Year, 1978, by the Academy of Country Music. Stricklin is in the Country Music Hall of Fame. After his death,  he was inducted into the Texas Western Swing Hall of Fame in 1990 and in 1999 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, honored as an early influence of the genre.

Interestingly, my sister says that my mother was somewhat embarrassed about her cousin, the piano player in a Western swing band. I wonder what she thought about Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd, a 5th cousin, once (and permanently) removed?

*Charles R. Townsend, "STRICKLIN, ALTON MEEKS," Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fstbx),  Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

Monday Meanderings - 1.25.2016

Maybe I should start titling these blogs "Random Synapses Firing." Of late, a series of long-forgotten thoughts have surfaced as a result of some passing reference or experience. Things I have not thought about in many, many years.

Like a post on social media of a person reflecting on a happy childhood memory - her family having dinner at a nice Fort Worth steak house, followed by a show at Casa Mañana. That's the new Casa Mañana- the one that was built in 1958, as opposed to the old Casa Mañana that opened in 1936.

The original Casa was built as part of the official Texas Centennial Celebration (along with Fair Park, in Dallas) and was largely the brainchild of the famous Broadway producer Billy Rose, who set out to produce a Texas-sized extravaganza, featuring an incredible variety of  talent and theatrical acts, and showgirls (including Sally Rand. Okay, some of you are going to have to Google her, I know).

It must have been something to behold. The world's largest revolving stage in an open amphitheater setting, "floating" on an artificial lake, with a curtain-wall of water fountains. The stage could extend toward the audience and retract as well, while revolving. There was a restaurant and seating for 4,000 customers - and its first and only season was exactly 100 days long.

It was supposed to open for a second 100-day season, but extravagant financial overruns  (and the looming war) doomed it to one and done. A number of years later, my father took me by the old site on West Lancaster, before it became fully established as the Fort Worth Cultural District, and we climbed around on the ruins of the revolving stage - at that point just steel beams , a circular track and remnants of the mechanism that moved the whole thing.

As I recall, the stage skeleton had been dragged into an open field - I don't think any of the amphitheater structure itself remained. I suspect that it had been demolished and the 9-foot deep lake filled in by then.

Or like the fact that the coyotes are making a comeback. There are open fields only a half-mile or so from our house, so we hear coyotes from time to time, but less so in recent years. Encroaching urbanization has reduced their territory, concentrating them into the nearby Pioneer Farms area, an Austin Park that provides a somewhat sheltered nature preserve.

The other night must have been a full moon, because the coyotes were yipping and howling. Like they were that night when, as a teen, I camped with my family near Bryce Canyon. The campground was primitive, and situated on a mesa. That was the night I realized what "howling at the moon" was really like. Coyotes - dozens of coyotes, many on our mesa - calling back and forth to coyotes on adjoining mesas for much of the night.We had already experienced bears in our campsite - I wasn't keen on coyotes wandering through.

And another social media post that asked if those who call the common kitchen appliance an "icebox"  knew why it was called that. By the time I came along, our family was up-to-date, and we had an electric refrigerator in our kitchen - but there was a real, honest-to-goodness icebox in the kitchen at our church. By that time, it was no longer used in the time-honored fashion, but was simply a storage cabinet. And the thing I remember most about it was the smell from within its tightly sealed interior; not a bad smell, but musty and sharp.

Or when the TV weatherman mentioned that lower terrain in the area would see cooler temperatures overnight. That's common knowledge, and often repeated on the weather cast, but the other night it made me think of the family driving along a country road to visit Uncle Marvin and Aunt Polly.

Like all other autos of that era, air conditioning was provided by rolling down the windows, and a favorite pastime was to hang out the window and "fly" my hand in the breeze. And as we traveled down that country road, we would - from time-to-time - encounter cool spots. Wonderful, delicious cool spots, no doubt caused by lower spots along the route.

What else is stored in the mysterious mind, just waiting for that nudge?

Monday Meanderings - 1.18.2016

Trust me. This is not about politics.

A local journalist made a statement this week about the current political happenings that jogged my memory. After the recent Republican Candidate debate, the writer commented that the here-to-fore amicable relationship between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz had come to an abrupt end.

"The breakup of The Donald and The Ted was inevitable. You knew it would happen. If it were a wedding, this would have been one of those where somebody would have been tempted to stand up and say, Now that you ask, I do in fact know a reason why this couple should not be joined together.”

One summer, back in the college days, I roomed with a guy who also worked in radio in Abilene. In fact, he went on to have a long and stellar career as a broadcaster, but that summer he was all about getting married.

He had met a "townie" and fallen in love. The feeling was mutual and the wedding was eminent. The only problem was that the roommate's mother was not happy. She did not like the girl and was dead set against the marriage. There was, to say the least, a lot of tension in the family. To make matters worse, the mother decided I could be her instrument of change, and she tried diligently to get me to persuade my soon-to-be-ex roommate to change his mind.

I couldn't, he didn't and on the day of the wedding, I was tasked with the role of escorting his mother during the service. That sounds nice, but my real job was to be by her side, so that when the minister said. "If there is any who has reason why this couple should not be joined together..." I was to physically restrain her from jumping up and shouting, "You betcha!"

Thankfully, I didn't have to fulfill that role. The wedding went off without a hitch, and the couple got married. Turned out that mamma was right, though; the bride dumped my ex-roomie in record time, but that's another story.

Monday Meanderings - 1.11.2016

Let me be among the last to wish you a Happy New Year. I have written 2 checks in the last few days and I successfully remembered to date both of them in 2016. As a bonus, I even dated this post correctly. So far, so good.

On a recent Southwest Airlines flight, the attendant announced there there was no WiFi on board, but that they did have 2 counselors available if needed.

More beeping in the middle of the night. I thought that I had identified everything in the house that could go beep, but a mystery beep the other night really had me puzzled, especially when I finally tracked it into the kitchen, of all places. Did you know that a cordless phone that is not charging correctly will beep? You're welcome.

Some time ago I made mention of the fact that Disney movies can be really depressing. I even listed a top 10 that I found somewhere:

10. Toy Story - Buzz Lightyear learns he's a toy
  9. Robin Hood - Skippy's coin gets tax collected
  8. The Fox and the Hound - Fox is abandoned
  7. Oliver and Company - kittens for sale
  6. Beauty and the Beast - Beast dies
  5. Dumbo - Dumbo visits his mother in the cage
  4. Bambi - the mother's death (traumatized since childhood)
  3. Wall-E - Wall-E's loneliness
  2. Lion King - Mufasa's death
And the number 1 most depressing Disney movie - UP - "Once we’ve all become emotionally invested in the couple, the writers rip the rug out from under us."

Somewhere in that list we need to add Inside Out. I was not prepared for Bing Bong, the discarded imaginary friend.

And here's a sign we encountered a number of times while visiting a bird sanctuary.

A statement about finances

During the endless Bowl games on TV each year end, I sort out the accumulation of various bills, statements and receipts needed later for taxes, and if I'm ambitious, clean out some of the detritus that has accumulated in the file cabinet. One document that came to light in this year's housekeeping was a copy of a "Personal Financial Statement" that I filled out for the Bank of Commerce in Abilene, Texas, way back in 1967.

I have no idea what motivated the completion of this statement - no doubt it was to enlist the bank's aid in financing some major purchase; maybe it was a washer and dryer - according to the assets listed we already had a house, 2 cars and a television. What else could one want?

Barb and I were 28 in 1967, Rob was 3 years old and Julie was 2 months at that time. According to the form, with my annual salary of $10,200 and equity, the balance sheet stated that our net worth was $9, 674. Probably the most telling entries, however, are those that stated that we had $82 in the bank, and the monthly payments for the aforementioned house, cars, and television totaled $155.  

I guess that is why I was making nice with the bank.

Monday Meanderings - 1.4.2016

My fearless predictions for 2016 -

• Starbucks will continue its strategy to have a store on every corner, and at year-end will introduce plain white cups, which will upset some.
• Donald Trump will say something that embarrasses all of humanity, save for those who think he should be president of a major nation.
• Despite politicians who pat themselves on the back for lowering our property taxes, our property taxes again will go up.
• Portions of Texas will endure heavy rains.
• You will buy something you absolutely do not need.
• A coach with a winning record will be fired.
• The government will decide that some things that used to be bad for us to eat are now okay.
• Chairs and tables will be attached to the Internet, so you can check an app on your phone to see if they are still where you left them.
• The Texas Legislature will do nothing to bring ridicule upon our state. (Note: prediction good for 2016 only.)
• Either the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General - or all 3 - will do something (else) to bring ridicule upon our state.
• The last living person not on Facebook will finally give in and sign up.
• Portions of Texas will endure a drought
• A collegiate athlete will make headlines for behavior off the playing field.
• 2016 will be one day longer than 2015, 2014 or 2013. 
•  The government will decide that some things that used to be okay for us to eat are now bad.
• Something will happen (probably in gymnastics) at the Summer Olympics in Brazil that will make us wonder about the integrity of the Olympics.
• A pro athlete will make headlines for behavior off the playing field. 
• The Texas football team will not win the National Championship.
• The Federal government will reverse itself after changing its mind.
• Apple will introduce a product that we simply must, without doubt, own.