A&M: The Shotgun Party

      When the AIC championship meet came around, at OBU, it was a two day event. Not surprisingly, I did not qualify for the final day, and Red Parker was telling us losers he was sending us home. I begged to stay for the finals, I wanted to see it. He thought a minute, then said, “There are two of us in my room, with two single beds. If you will go push the beds together, you can sleep on the crack.” I was happy with that, and I slept all night centered exactly over that crack. The next morning, I realized Red Parker was out all night, partying with the other coaches, and he never came in.

      At the end of the season, Red Parker put me on the letterman's list, and told my buddy and me he had letter jackets for us, coming in soon. Mine just never showed up, and I never quizzed him about it, because I just could see no way Red Parker could make a mistake. I would kinda like to have that letter on my wall now, though. Funny, he listed me as eligible for the Lettermen's club, letterless. I know, I know, I should have brought it out in the open. But that was not my nature at the time.

      In the early workouts the next year, I donated blood one day, a big mistake at that time. I dragged so far behind that day, along with the fact that I was deeply in love, that I just quit. My thought pattern was something like, well, I won't have track anymore, but it will give me more time to pay more attention to the tiny little girl I had fallen for, but as it turned out, then I had neither. She didn't fall for me in return. I think my size was my downfall. She was looking for a tiny little man, and I just did not fit that description.

      I tried to come back in mid season, didn't work. A distance runner beats himself down to nearly nothing for two weeks or so, in early workouts, and just as I was beat down the lowest, Red Parker told me I would be running the two mile at OBU tomorrow. After the first mile, the bear got on my back pretty hard, and twice Red Parker sent someone down to tell me to drop out. ( He was realizing his mistake, I was not even close to being ready yet.) I had never done that, and was not about to start it now. I was just about to finish the seventh lap when I heard the leader, a real hotshot on his way to running a 9:20 two mile, coming up behind me. I had never been lapped, and I had to sprint real hard to avoid that disgrace. The handwriting was on the wall. I could not come back in mid season. That was my last race.

      I got truly grilled by the police, my first and last time, Right after a lonely weekend at A&M. My buddy and I were visiting all the “hot spots” on campus, (where girls might be hanging out) and we dropped by Wesley Foundation. We opened the door, looked in, saw no likely prospects, and left. Somebody saw us, however, and Monday morning I came back to my dorm room after class and the police were searching it. Seems like Wesley Foundation had been broken into shortly after our visit, and my name was thrown out there by a witness. They hauled me over to the Ad building, started putting me through the wringer. All that was missing was the bright light in my face. After a few minutes, they realized that, the way things were progressing, I would be throwing tears all over them shortly, and they gave up and let me go. A truly dull life, mine, when that's the most exciting police encounter one can come up with!

      One little game we sometimes played on dull weekends involved a deer camp about five miles off in the woods. We called it a “Shotgun Party.” A couple of us would go hang out there early. The other guys would tell the would-be victim(s) about a couple of really wild girls who lived a few miles back in the woods. Their papa was bad news, very protective of his girls, but it was Saturday night and the girls promised he was always at a drunken party on Saturday nights. They were there all alone, and wanted company. I had never been picked as a potential victim for this. I wasn't bold enough, and everybody knew I was not into wild parties and wild girls. This time, I had the shotgun. I heard the guys, the “victims” approaching the house. I had no idea who the victims would be. Had I known, I would never have volunteered for this duty. I burst out, screaming about them “messing with my daughters!” and shot off a couple of rounds into the air. They scattered into the woods, and this particular time, we just didn't know when to let it lie. We got in our car, chased after them, and a half mile up the road the guys who had been slashing blindly through the woods were picked up by their buddy, who had gathered up their car. We followed, still trying to carry on with the scare, not knowing when to stop. Well, they led us to a spot out behind the stock barn on campus, and when we got out, ready for us all to have a big laugh about it, a football jock named Hardcastle (and he really lived up to his name,) stormed up to us with scratches all over him, not in a laughing mood at all. Hardcastle was big, strong, and mean, the type of guy who loved to hurt people for fun. Just before we were about to hit the woods and gather up some scratches of our own, somebody he knew, in on the joke, showed up and explained the whole thing to him, and convinced him this was all in fun. He never did really get into a good fun mood about it, though, and we got gone pretty quickly.