EARLY
years
the
Ah, the splendor of youth. If you could turn back the hands of time would you? What a concept, huh? Would you dare step back in time to relive yesterday? My guess is that a decision like that would be made based on an individual's personal perception of childhood. Was it a good childhood or bad? Possibly my recollection of being young has been distorted by time, but I remember childhood as a magical, wonderful, remarkable time! Life was simple. Life was safe. Sure, we grew up with the "big bomb" over our heads but we were young enough not to spend too much time worrying about it. There were more pressing things to do. There were trees to climb and clubhouses to build!
Life is a funny thing. Now, how is it that our parents just "happen" to pair up together? I guess fate is the culprit. My dad and his folks were living around the Merkel, Texas area back in the forties when my mother's parents just happened to move to Merkel. They came from far south Texas when my grandfather was offered a better job in the oil field. And, that's the short version of how the Hicks met up with the Casons.
This is a picture of my mom about the time she met my dad.
She (Neva) graduated high school in Merkel and years later went back to college and got her Associates Degree
Wayman and Neva were married in 1953. My mother was eighteen years old and my dad was about twenty-five. I was born a little over a year later in 1955. Dad made a decent living roughnecking in the oilfield. For those of you who don't know, this means he ran the machinery that drills for oil. A drilling rig. The drilling rig moved regularly upon completion of wells and we often followed. I remember living in several little towns around this state and in New Mexico. Mom and Dad might have had their worries, but I didn't have a care in the world.
Like all kids I had to get my yearly dose of Santa Claus. That's one thing I can say about my youth. When Santa came, I was THERE! I had just turned 3 when this picture was taken in Abilene, Texas.
After following the oilfield for awhile our little family finally settled in Merkel. My brothers Mike and Kirk were now in the picture. The family now consisted of Dad, Mom, and three boys. Poor mom. I remember at one point during this time our family was having financial problems so Mom started working as a waitress on the night shift at the Merkel Restaurant.
We lived north of Merkel just outside the city limits. We could only get two channels on the tv and the reception was bad on both channels. We children amused ourselves by spending endless hours in the woods and pastures behind our house. We fought lots of Indians and Germans out in those fields!
This picture was taken while we were living north of Merkel just before my parents broke up. My mother told me that this picture won a contest of some sort over in Abilene.
I can still remember waxing our hair down with that Butch Hair Wax stuff.
Dad and Mom began having problems about this time and their marriage didn't survive. Mother's mom, Maw Maw Cason invited us to live with her. I'm not sure where Dad went. I really can't remember. Mom continued working at the Merkel Restaurant at night and slept during the day while us kids were in school. Maw Maw kept us when Mom worked. I really did very well in school during that time and made very decent grades. Also, it was about that time I discovered I was a pretty good athlete. I found out I could run faster and jump higher than most of the other fellows my age. Also, during this time I discovered music. My grandmother had an old Baldwin piano in her living room. I remember making up songs on that old thing using the few chords that a neighborhood kid taught me.
Soon a truck driver that Mom met while she was working at the Merkel Restaurant won her heart. Our lives were suddenly and profoundly altered! The truck driver, Whit Whitaker, worked for a trucking company out of Dallas. He and Mom finally agreed on where we should live so we ended up moving to Weatherford, Texas. Weatherford was roughly the halfway point between Merkel and Dallas. That's why we settled there. It was close enough for Whit to get to work easily and it was close enough for us to head the other direction to go visit friends and family back in Merkel. It's funny, but I remember thinking how huge Weatherford was the first time I saw it. I figured New York City couldn't have been much bigger! I had lived most of my life in Merkel and it had a population of only about two thousand people. But, Weatherford was a "thriving metropolis" of around ten thousand! Seriously, it was a big change for Mom and us boys. I'll never forget the day we left Merkel to go live in Weatherford. With tears in our eyes, Mom, Mike, Kirk and myself headed east in a worn out 1959 Ford Fairlane to face the unknown. Onboard was also a calico stray cat that Mike had claimed a few days before. That cat rode all the way to Weatherford from Merkel with us in a wire bird cage. Almost three hours on the road! I still have memories of that journey down the highway.
Our arrival in Weatherford was pretty uneventful. Tibsy ran away for a couple of days when we pulled up to the house on 212 West Simmons and let her out of the bird cage. But, she came back. Cats always come back. We immediately made friends in the neighborhood because it was summertime and kids were out doing their things. We met people like the Holmes', Nolan Queen, Jimmy Oaks, and my best friend for the next couple of years, Bill Lamb. He was a very unique kid. His mother's brother was Jim Wright, the Congressman who was the Speaker of the House in the U.S. Congress for so many years. Bill's family was very kind to me and I'll never forget them for it. My family didn't have a lot of money and Bill's did. I was treated very well. They took me places I probably would have never gotten to go.
Soon school started. We got a lot of attention being the new kids in town. I was in the fifth grade. It was great. Mike and I started school at T.W. Stanley (I think it's a nuclear power plant now) on South Main. Kirk was was too young to go. In school I met and made friends with folks like Paul Escobedo, Jerry Fuller, Paul McLaughlin, Joe Bosley and Steve Hensley. Steve Hensley was cool. He lived on a dairy down south of Weatherford. He liked Science and he had a motorcycle by the time he was in the sixth grade. A couple of guys in our grade often spent pretty exciting weekends out there. Our parents knew we were there, they just didn't know what we were up to.
THE PICTURE ON THE LEFT WAS TAKEN THE FIRST YEAR I ATTENDED SCHOOL IN WEATHERFORD. I WAS IN THE FIFTH GRADE.
THE PICTURE ON THE RIGHT WAS TAKEN THE SECOND YEAR I ATTENDED WEATHERFORD SCHOOLS. SIXTH GRADE AT CENTRAL ELEMENTARY.
BOTH PICTURES WERE CROPPED FROM GROUP PICTURES TAKEN AT THE TIME MENTIONED ABOVE.
I REMEMBER THOSE KIND OF TENNIS SHOES VERY WELL.
Lots of changes were happening in Weatherford, Texas. They redid the square during this time. Also, the old High school became Central Elementary. Only the sixth graders attended. I read later (seriously!) that it was a government experiment. Lots of schools around the nation were using the achievement tests to determine which homeroom students would be a part of. Then, that group of students would only have classes with members of that group only. This placing of students was based on the individual's scores. I'm not sure how I ended up in the Section I class. The smartest people were in there. This experiment was supposed to create some friendly competition I guess. Anyway, people like Kenny Bierschenk, Tommy Bierschenk, Paul Escobedo, Dwayne Hoover, Jerry Fuller, Bill Lamb, and other people like that were in there. I think my old buddy Paul Burnett was in their, too. My most memorable event while at Central Elementary was when we were timed in the fifty yard dash. I beat all the guys! Unfortunately, a girl by the name of Ida Mae Gandy beat all the girls and had the exact time as me. For awhile around the school there was talk that there was going to be "a big race" to find out just who was the fastest between us two. It got so bad that a couple of teachers finally called Ida Mae and myself into an office to discuss the matter. They suggested that we not race. I had NO intention of racing her. Heck, as far as I was concerned, the honor of whole male gender was at stake here! I wasn't going to take on that responsibility! But, Ida Mae, if you read this, I'm ready for that race now!
The next few years flew by. I became interested in NASA along with some of my buddies. We used to write letters to NASA requesting information. We would get back packets and packets of high glossy photographs describing what was going on in the space race. My ambition at the time was to become an astronaut. I also started getting into playing the guitar a little and writing little poems and short stories as well. Football became important and I was doing well in that sport. Track was fun, too, and I did well at track meets. I also wrote my first "book." It was called "My Girlfriend the Quarterback." It was about a guy coaching a powderpuff football team (all girls). The hero invents a formula to make people super strong and supplies it to the team. Of course the girls are supercharged and beat a boys high school football team, then a college team, and eventually they beat the Dallas Cowboys. I still have a copy of it, I ought to put some excerpts here.......nah.......I won't do that, but I will show you an illustration I did. This is from the seventh grade version of My Girlfriend the Quarterback:
This is Bill, the hero of the book. This is the moment when
he first figures out that he's invented the strength formula.
Notice the mod look???
Junior High was great fun. And, we had a nice new building to have classes in. I remember my highlights there as mostly based around athletics. I did well on the football team and had the starting job at quarterback throughout Junior High. We had some great teams and some really good players. In the three years of playing football in Junior High we only had one loss! People like Danny Wiley, Donnie Byrd, Joe Brown, Bill Robinson, and Jessie Gilley are some of the names I remember. I just wish all the guys would have kept on playing football because we'd have had a killer high school team. I was fortunate enough to make lots of touchdowns and intercept a few passes, but what I remember most is an incident that happened when our bus broke down on the way home from a football game. Coach Charlie Cox was in charge. The guys got antsy so we were allowed to get out of the bus and walk around a little bit. A buddy of mine and I begin throwing rocks at a road sign. Coach Cox walked up behind us. I threw a rock. I missed the sign. Paul threw his rock and hit the sign. Coach Cox yelled, "Hicks, come here and bend over, I'm giving you licks for throwing rocks!" He gave me a hard, swift swat with one of those killer wooden paddles with the holes drilled in it. I said, "Coach, what about Paul? Aren't you gonna whup him?" "No," replied Coach Cox. "He hit the sign with his rock." The whipping hurt, but my pride hurt worse and I was in shock! Never in my life had I EVER been paddled by a teacher, coach, or principal. I was devastated. I'll never forget how worried I was on the bus trip back to Weatherford. What was I gonna tell my mom? I was so scared I had let her down. Of course when I did tell her, she just laughed and explained to me how funny this would be some day.
I wrote my first song during this time, too. I remember learning a few chords on the guitar and the songs just started popping out. I really wasn't interested in memorizing other people's songs, so I made up my own. It seems like I could hear a melody in just about every chord progression I stumbled upon. I remember sometimes going over to Paul Burnett's house to spend the night. We'd call girls up on the telephone and not tell them who we were. Then, I'd play my songs over the phone for them and Paul would quickly hang up! No sir, it didn't take much to entertain us in those days! I hung out a lot with Jerry Fuller, too, during this time. He taught me new chords on the guitar and he also sang harmony on the songs I was writing. He's still the best harmony singer I ever heard. He's also an undiscovered songwriter and witty as heck. I'll bet he's written over a hundred songs or so!
MORE COMING SOON......