I am a huge fan of memoirs, in fact that is all I have been reading lately. I really love books that range from the depression to WWII. This is the best one I have read in a LONG time. Easily the best one so far this year. It does have a couple of slow spots but it's worth pushing through. What I really like is this book tells the authors whole story. Starts out growing up on the "Wing" and ends with his shoestring budget globetrotting. If you like memoirs seriously pick this up, you will not regret it! - TurboShadow
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Sport - August Dillard Dunnahoe
Sport was one of a kind. A man I will never forget. He was always ready
for a fishing, hunting, or camping trip when we got to Watson. Even as an old
man, it never bothered him a bit to sleep on the hard ground. If a catfishing
trip was in the offing, he hooked up the middle buster, plowed up a strip
across the old hog pen, and we picked up a gallon or two of huge buckshot
worms. Then we headed for the river.
If
there were games to be played by the children, Sport was always the ringleader. Even in his older
years, with arthritis in his knees from so many years of following a mule and a
plow, he could always keep up. Once, when he was about 65, we were playing
touch football. I was just a few years from running college track, and I
thought I was a runner. I went out for a pass. Sport was covering me. I just
could not shake him! He stuck to me like glue.
When
the children and grandchildren got rowdy in the house, Sport just looked at the
rowdiest one, stuck out his hand, and said, “Come round' by me, boy!” ( Boys
and girls alike were "Boy" to Sport) They never “came round‘ by him,”
they knew the danger in that. But they all exited the room pronto. Mission
accomplished. There were always plenty of rowdy kids. I've seen ten crawling
babies on the floor at once in his house.. And that was just in the living
room. Nowadays, Sport's offspring number over 130. And they most all come to the family reunion. Phyllis, Sport's youngest daughter, just sees to that.
Once, when Barbara and I were in California, we visited her cousin, Albert, who
grew up near Watson. He said, “When I was a child, every weekend, all us kids
showed up at Sport's house. Our own fathers were too tired to play, but Sport
never was. He demonstrated to us all how a father should play with his
children, and I am a much better father myself because of Sport. He influenced
an entire generation of boys, and they are all better fathers because of him.”
Although Sport was always loving and protective of his girls, He also
taught them to take care of their own problems. Once, just after Barbara
started driving, she ran out of gas a quarter mile from home. She walked home,
saw Sport in the yard, and told him the truck was out of gas, and started
walking in the house. Sport said, “Hey, wait a minute! Go out to the tank, get
some gas, and go get the truck. You ran out of gas, not me. Next time, be sure
there's plenty of gas in the truck before you head to town.”
The
one time Barbara remembers disobeying Sport, he had told her she could take the
truck to
Watson. Well, when she got together with her
girl friends, they wanted to go to Dumas, so she took em'. The next day, she
was torn by guilt, and she told him. He said, “Well, you shouldn't have.” That
was the end of that.
Sport was endlessly curious. If I showed up at Watson with some minor
car problem, the first thing Sport would say would be, “I wonder why a feller
couldn't -” and then, he would proceed to tear into the motor to see, stopping
when he found out. Or maybe, when the car wouldn't run at all. I soon learned
to keep my car problems to myself at Watson.
Watson, in the old days, not that long ago, was a lot like the old west.
A man had to look out for himself, and his family. Nobody else would. Sport had
a side to him that I never saw, or heard about, until after his death. Sport
protected his six girls from the ugly things in life. They never knew about
most of what I'm about to tell.
Continued in Four Days - Thanks for reading!
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