Big Mike Brown at the World Championship Barbeque Cookoff

One of Jim Goode's Barbeque Pits on the way to the Houston Cookoff, back in the day.

                          

     I passed another milestone yesterday.  On September 15, 2013, I became seventy-seven years old.  I don’t really celebrate birthdays anymore, but I do notice them.  One of the good things about having a lot of birthdays is that a long life gives you time enough to meet and get to know a lot of interesting people.  I have many friends because I have lived a long time and I like people and I like to hear what they have to say and laugh with them about this funny world we live in.  My only rule about friends is “Please don’t bore me.”

     “Stormin’ Norman” Hanks, “Big Mike” Brown, and Bob “Booger” Poland were among the friends I used to work the Barbeque circuits with.  We talked and we laughed and we cooked Barbeque together.  None of these guys could ever get near being boring.  When you’re seventy-seven, you think back and remember.  This is one of my memories:

      The Houston Livestock Show committeeman came by to enforce the rule prohibiting private vehicles at the team locations for the World Championship Barbeque Cookoff.   Mike Brown explained what appeared to be a pickup parked next to our area, was actually not a pickup, but a UFO.

     “Well now, I admit, in this light, it does sort of look like a white GMC pick-up.  But when it came down and landed, it was shaped like one of them discuses they throw in the Olympics.  Silver colored.  You shoulda seen it.  We watched them three olive drab fellas get out of it without opening the door.  Just stepped right out on the pavement through the side of the machine, like they wasn’t nothing even there.  Then one turned around and pointed at it and it quit being a silver discus-looking thing and started looking like a white pickup truck.”

     “Tell him what them green varmits did to ole Smokey Rawlings, Mike.  Tell him what happened to ole Smokey.”  Stormin’ Norman enjoyed adding reinforcement to Mike’s tales, even though Mike didn’t need any help.

     “You know Smokey, don’t you?  He was our committeeman.”  Mike drawled.  “Well, ole Smokey come up on them guys and told them to move that truck.  Like you, he thought it was a pickup, parked in the pedestrian zone.  One of them green dudes pointed at Smokey and lighting flashed out the end of his finger and ole Smokey went ‘pop’ and disappeared.  All is left is that oily spot on the pavement over there.  See the light shining off it, right there next to our front gate?”

     “Now wait a minute, Mike. He didn’t go ‘pop’.  It was more of a ‘poof.’  Smokey went ‘poof’ ‘fore he disappeared.”  Norman corrected.

      “You trying to tell me a little green man went ‘poof’ and Smokey disappeared?  What you all been drinking?  Smokey must weight two-eighty-five.  He’da left a bigger spot.  Which finger that fella use to do all that pointin’ with, anyway?” The committeeman was getting into Mike’s story.  He didn’t believe it, but was curious.  He wondered where it might go.  Mike was playing him like a trophy bass on a light-weight fly rod.

     “Why, he used his long finger.  Only had two on each hand, and one was a foot long.  His thumbs were short, though.  All of Smokey didn’t settle down on the street in that one spot, neither.  Most of him went up in smoke and drifted over there towards the supper tent.  People smelled it.  You could tell.  They’d get a whiff and look over here.  Pretty soon everybody was looking over here. I really liked Smokey—gonna miss him.” Mike’s story was taking on a life of its own. 

      Mike Brown prided himself on his ability to create Prime B.S. out of thin air.  He had decided that he was not going to move his truck.  The truck came in handy in a lot of ways, and all he had to do to keep it was B. S. a couple of committeemen into overlooking a silly rule.  That was no step for a stepper.  Mike was a salesman—he made a good living passing out Grade A B.S. 

      As the evening progressed, the team-members started to place bets on the action.  Odds were running eight to five Mike would succeed and leave his truck parked there for the duration of the cookoff.  Only ones that bet against Big Mike didn’t know him.

     “Ah’ll tell you what Ah’m gonna do.  Ah’ll take a turn around the grounds and be back here in about a hour.  Ah hope that truck is gone when Ah gets back.  Ah’d hate to have it towed.”  The official walked through our entry and out onto the street.  He carefully stepped around the oily spot.

      Mike fired a parting shot as the committeeman left. “O.K., sir, but I’m afraid to touch that UFO.  Ain’t no telling what might happen if them green dudes rigged it someway.  They can do anything—they made it look just like a pickup.  I wouldn’t get too close if I was you.” 

     The official passed near the truck and lifted his hand to pat the hood, hesitated, then stuffed his hand in his pocket and hurriedly strolled away.  No sense tempting fate.

      About two hours and several beers later, the committeeman strolled triumphantly back into our assigned space, with Smokey Rawlings in tow.  “Looka here who Ah found.  Now, let’s hear that bunch of crap again.  Start over at the part where Smokey went “poof.”

     “Oh My God, it’s a miracle!  A miracle!  Are you OK, Smokey?  You look good, considering.  Where’d them alien bastards send you?  Did separating all your molecules hurt?”  Mike was genuinely concerned.

     “They ain’t nobody done nothing with me.  I ain’t been nowhere, ‘cept here and over yonder, doing my job.”  Smokey’s porch light was on, but it was pretty dim.

     “Norman, get over here—it’s worse than we thought.  They hit him with a Amnesia Ray.  He don’t remember nothing.”  Brown was talking fast, constantly ad-libbing, letting his instincts guide.

      Norm, wide-eyed, said,  ”You don’t remember telling that chartreuse fellow to move that truck and him giggling and zapping you with that long finger?”

     “Nothing like that never happened—I’d remember getting zapped by a green dude.”  Smokey’s porch light flickered.

     Brown moved in for the kill.  “Not if they hit you with a Amnesia Ray.  I bet you don’t even remember how you turned on Miss Lake Jackson so much, she French-kissed you in the ear?  Do you remember that?  If you don’t, it was the A-Ray for sure.”

     “Miss Lake Jackson sure is purty, but she didn’t kiss me in the ear.  I know I’d remember that.  You sure that happened?” Smokey was glowing, remembering Miss Lake Jackson and hoping she had kissed him.  He rubbed his ear.

     “She told me she was just overcome with emotion while you was looking down the front of her dress, and she couldn’t help herself.  She just hauled off and planted her tongue in your left ear.  Who knows what it takes to turn on a woman like that?  Smokey dang sure found the way to her heart.  Look at that lipstick on his ear.  He needs a memory jolt.”  Big Mike was rolling.

     “Miss Lake Jackson says for you to go hang around the committee tent and she’ll be over later, when she can control herself.  She don’t know why, but when you stare at her with those little close-together eyes, she just has all these chemical reactions happening inside.  She said she’ll be by around midnight, if that’s all right with you?”

     The next morning, Mike Brown drove the truck into Houston, picked up 300 pounds of crushed ice and four dozen Shipley’s donuts, and waved at the security guard as he drove back in.  He parked in the same spot, right next to our space.  A truck comes in real handy at a barbeque cookoff.

Lubbock Has a History----Part Two

Springtime moves across the Tech Campus in Lubbock.

     Lubbock County was formed as an unorganized county on August 21, 1876.  Forty-seven other Panhandle and South Plains counties were formed by the state legislature that day and Lubbock was attached, for administrative purposes, to Young, then Baylor, and finally to Crosby Counties.

     By 1880, the census of Lubbock County showed twenty-five residents, most of them sheep-herders in Yellow House Canyon.  Ten years later, in 1890, the population had grown to thirty-three full time residents, but a boom was coming later that year. Texas was offering very liberal terms to homesteaders and many had discovered that farming was possible and profitable in Lubbock County.  By late in that year, a heated race was developing for County Seat.

        County Seat was big stuff back then and two factions in Lubbock County worked toward getting their town selected.   The competition was fierce and the rewards were great.  Lots in the County Seat enjoyed large appreciation in value and small fortunes were made overnight, with the potential for more speculative profits for years to come.  One of the towns, “Old” Lubbock, rested north of the Yellow House Canyon in the vicinity of the current Lubbock Country Club.  That town contained about thirty seven buildings and around fifty people.  The other contender, Monterey, was platted south of the canyon and contained about thirty two buildings and about forty people.  A third settlement, Estacado, was located near the eastern edge of the proposed county, where Paris Cox had settled.  It was a small, not very aggressive community, and had no ambition to be the County Seat, but its citizens could vote to help select the winner.

      As the competition heated up, the developers got “high behind” and gave away lots to any settlers willing to build.  Construction continued in both towns, with lumber and other materials brought in by railroad to Amarillo or Colorado City, then shipped by wagon to Lubbock County.  Neither of the warring factions could afford to lose and the odds were too close to call.  They took a tack unheard of in that time. 

     The developers sat down together and worked out a deal.  They would pool their resources, select a third site, acquire it, and move all the buildings to the new township.  After the site was selected, acquired and surveyed, the lots would be parceled out fairly, in a checkerboard fashion, to each party who participated in the agreement.  The existing buildings in each town would be moved to the new location within thirty days, and an election to formally organize the county and name the County Seat would be scheduled as soon as practical after that.  As to travelers and other visitors not being able to find the new town, that was no problem.  It was less than ten miles from either location.  On the High Plains, you could look over there and see it.

     These folks came up with an agreement in December of 1890, and a site very near the center of the county, south of the canyon, was chosen.  The site was acquired for less than $2000.00, surveyed, parceled out, and the buildings were moved.  On March 10^th, 1891, barely three months later, the election was held and the “new” Lubbock was named County Seat.

      This incident speaks volumes about the competence and energy of those pioneers.  It also may speak a page or two about the size and complexity of their early buildings.  If my math is right, they moved sixty eight buildings and about a hundred people in just a few weeks.  They made special provisions for the only two story building—the Nicolette Hotel—to be moved within two months.  All the rest of the buildings were moved within thirty days. 

      The enlightened self-interest and the willingness to compromise as demonstrated in this early agreement permeated the actions of Lubbock’s civic leaders from that day forward.  The ability to act intelligently and decisively has defined the character of the Texan in literature and folklore for as long as there has been a Texas.  These High Plains Texans possess all the characteristic traits of the legendary Texan of folklore in a more concentrated form.  They are truly “Super Texans”.

      By the 1900 census, 293 people resided in Lubbock County.  The City of Lubbock was incorporated in 1909.  Cotton began to replace grain sorghum as the principal crop, railroads came and Lubbock County started to out-grow the neighboring counties.   Texas Technological College opened in 1925.  Meat and dairy processing plants opened.   Hospitals and hotels built high-rise buildings.   Lubbock became “The Hub of the Plains.”   

The Lubbock High School building was built for $650,000.00.  The contractoe ran out of money and finished the project out of his own pocket, in time to open for classes in the fall of 1931.

   

      The unlikely combination of city government, banking institutions and local churches all cooperated for “the good of the city”.  This spirit was established early on in the city and was passed down through the years as the best way to maintain order and insure stability.  The churches wielded a tremendous influence on the affairs of the city, perhaps more so than any other like-sized city in the country.   

       From the very first, the city of Lubbock was bone dry—no liquor stores, no beer joints, no honky-tonks, no saloons, no cocktail lounges.  If you wanted a drink, you dealt with a bootlegger or you drove about a hundred miles in any direction to a “wet” town.  Lubbock’s churches were full every Sunday and most Wednesday nights.  The churches were strong, both morally and financially. Pastors of the larger congregations were as well known and influential as any city politician, and better known than most bankers.  Every protestant belief was represented, along with Catholic and a congregation of Jews.  There was not a lot of animosity or competition between the various congregations; there were plenty of sinners to go around.  They worked together with each other and the city for what was considered the greater good.

       When I came of age, in the mid fifties, the city of Lubbock was only about sixty years old, and was already approaching a population of one hundred thousand people.  It had been among the fastest growing cities in the nation for at least thirty years.  Lubbock had been voted “Cleanest City in Texas” so often that it dropped out of the contest.  Some few failures were offset by one success after another.  The agrarian mindset; hard work, frugality, “make do with what you’ve got” mentality, combined with self reliance and optimism made anything possible.  Progressive attitudes, willingness to take risks and “outside the box” thinking all combined to make progress not only possible but inevitable. 

Modern-day Lubbock at night.  Lake in foreground most likly photoshopped.