Coach Kirk Summer 1968 Letter to Beat Dumas

Coach Kirk Summer 1968 Letter to Beat Dumas!

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Reunion Solves 50 year old Theft Case 

Last reunion (2010) Kenny Larkin and I greeted and reminisced a bit. It was good times. 

Around 1960 we both lived on NIX street about a block away from each other. I think we first met during trips to the “Little Store” (as it was known back then), at the corner of Nelson and 16th. Or we might have met going back and forth to Whittier Elementary School. Kenny and I played Kids Inc. softball in the summer. He was on the better ‘Grasshopper’ team, and I was on the lowly ‘Termites’ (along with David Wilson), so we might have first met on the baseball diamond, can’t really remember. I know we both loved baseball and we both saved our money so we could buy Topps Baseball cards and gum at the little store. 

Kenny, his older brothers and I would get together and play in their back yard from time to time. The highlight of our play was when Kenny and his brothers would wheel out their collection of baseball cards. Man did they have a bunch, I never saw such a collection. My collection had maybe ten cards, they had scores of cards, perhaps hundreds. His brothers were older, so they could acquire money to buy cards a lot more handily than me or Kenny. We’d all rummage thru the cards pointing out the ‘Mantles’, ‘Maris’ and ‘Yogies’ (all NY Yankees, my favorite team, then and now). 

I asked Kenny if he’d remember those days, he chuckled and said of course he did. I went on to describe to him one of my favorite childhood memories that involved me and his brothers… 

One day, as I remember, I was over at their house, for some reason Kenny wasn’t around, and his brothers were sorting thru their cards. There I was, in breathless admiration as they went from card to card, looking at the action pictures and reading all the heady stats. As I recall, his brothers were separating cards into stacks and filling boxes perhaps removing the duplicates which was a pretty common situation. This went on for a while, and It was getting late, so I knew I should head home. As I was getting up, to my amazement, one of his brothers turned to me and said “hey Doug, do you want this box?”. It took me all of a split second to say “you bet I do”, I was thrilled ! I ran home with a treasure. At that point in my life, It really didn’t matter what cards were in the box, the mere fact that I had just acquired fifty of anything was a pretty lofty concept. Months and years went by, I added to the collection, cherishing each card. 

(shortly after this event, my family moved over by Martin Rd lake, so my encounters with Kenny were greatly reduced) 

I finished my story, noticed that Kenny hadn’t said a word, even looked kind of pale. He finally cracked his voice and with big eyes said to me… “so that’s where my box of cards went”.  

Doug Lightfoot 






Bus Trips 

 Bus Trips. High School Bus Trips. High School Sports Male only Bus Trips… dynamite waiting to explode. 30 brawny guys (yes I said brawny), in a confined space of maybe 400 cubic feet spells disaster. 

 I can remember one trip my junior year going to El Paso for football. I sat behind Emmerson Bell and in front of Mike Hammock. I don’t remember who sat next to me. He was our token sophomore and curled up in the fetal position for fear of his life. Mike ate sophomores alive and Emmerson picked the bones. They were two tough hombres. 

The trip to Wichita Falls Rider was the turning point in our senior football season. Sure we had won three games previously but we really hadn’t played anyone very good. Rider if I remember right was good, they were ranked pretty high in the state. The trip there was somber, no horsing around, almost no talking, coaches and everyone really wanted this game. 

The high light of the game for me was Bobby’s quarter back sneak (I didn’t put his last name, you know who I’m talking about). We were on our 40 yard line, 4th down, a yard to go for a first. The game was pretty balanced up to that point. Then Darryl Johnson ran in with the next play and said ‘quarter back sneak’. “Quarter Back Sneak”, what’s that? What do we do? High school teams rarely if ever practice quarter back sneaks, so we really didn’t know exactly what we were going to do. Bobby looked across the huddle at me and said, Doug fire straight ahead, I’ll follow you. We ran up to the line as we usually do and to my amazement there was no defensive nose guard, no one in front of me that could stop us. Bobby immediately called for the ball. I hiked it, we both took off straight forward gaining the yard and more before we encountered opposition. I felt relieved we had made the 1st down, but also felt Bobby’s hand grabbing my shoulder pads behind my neck. He wasn’t satisfied with the first down, he was going for a touch down and using me as a guided missile into any on coming tackler. We raced down field and there was this one last defensive tackler, we approached one another and Bobby forcefully pushed me into him while he jutted the other way, all the way for a touchdown. Yeah! 

You know the game’s going good when the coaches are happy at half time. Coaches never smile unless they’re winning, and we were winning, big time. Coach James, the offensive and defensive line coach came over to me and said “good job Doug, way to take out that tackler for a touch down”. I didn’t tell him Bobby had pushed me. 

 My most memorable trip was to El Paso for baseball my junior year. For some reason the team met at Dick Bivins stadium to board the bus at 5:30am in mid March with a dusting of late snow on the ground. It was an 8 hour trip on a slow bus, with one lunch stop at sandy Santa Rosa NM. We arrived in El Paso around 3pm exhausted from picking at one another the whole trip. It was 62 degrees and sunny so what do we do… we immediately unpacked and went swimming of course. Our game wasn’t until noon the next day. I believe this was the trip where we circled the pool to watch Mason try to splash all the water out. He jumped in the pool and immediately either broke or severely sprang his big toe. He didn’t play the next day, and I think he didn’t play the remainder of the year. 

After the pool party we ate dinner then coach McElduff looked us in the eye and said, you’re free to roam, but stay close and be back at 10pm. Marty Keeler, Johnny Parker and I took off, we spotted some blinking lights across the freeway and headed in that direction. It was hilly, and the freeway had chain linked fences atop each of it’s three meridians. No problem, we dogged the traffic, climbed the fences and arrived somehow unharmed. 

We approached a rickety shopping center with a cinema. At the movie house there were no outside picture advertisements, but there were flashing bulbs stating… “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”. We had no idea, and could only imagine what this movie was about. We had money, they let us in, piece of cake. Once in the foyer we saw the ad placards, showing Dick Van Dyke and an old car. Johnny being completely disappointed immediately left. Marty hem hawed but I asked him what else have we to do, so he stayed… for a while. 

After about 30 minutes of intro and ads, and maybe 10 minutes into the movie Marty left. There I was frugal as ever, wanting to get my money’s worth. I sat thru the whole show never once looking at my watch. The movie was over, I was completely disappointed, and the clock said 11:15. I knew I was in trouble. I scrambled back across the freeway, ran up to the motel, everything was dark, no sound, but there right in front of me was a fuming coach McElduff. He grabbed my arm, read me the riot act, pranced me up to an empty room, closed the door, continued to shout and asked me where I had been. I told him I was watching “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”. He went ballistic. He had no idea what the movie was about and only assumed the worst, and was completely bewildered at his wrong assessment of my moral character. He marched out, slamming the door behind him. 

Probably about 30 minutes later there was a commotion. Lights came on, coach ran up the steps. Danny Reynolds had almost asphyxiated when someone squirted shaving cream down his snoring throat. After Danny recuperated and things calmed down a bit, Marty and Johnny reluctantly told coach I was missing. He told them I was locked up for breaking curfew and watching a jeopardizing movie. They laughed and told him it was a Dick Van Dyke family movie. Coach unlocked my door, came in, jokingly smoothed things over and told me to join my compadres. From that point on coach and I enjoyed a special memory. 

 PS – Harry Burrier, if we have a 2030 reunion, your bus trip episode is next 😊 

 Doug Lightfoot 






Table Talk  

Off and on during my high school and college summers I worked at Astoria Park Apartments (over where the old Sears use to be, Sun Set Center). I was a painter. I’ve painted every apartment out there, some several times. I could paint those walls in my sleep. I got good at it. I could paint an apartment in a few hours while the job log would credit me with a days work. So I had time on my hands. I’d sit around and think. Think about life, life at Palo Duro, sports, and oh yeah… dating. Well, there was this girl, I’ll not name her to keep her dignity in place but she held thoughts in my mind since the 4th grade. 

Remember back to when you were ages 16 thru 21, especially if you are male. The blood flows, the testosterone surges, you do things, you just do them, things might not be logical or appropriate, but you do them, thinking nothing of the consequences (sometimes those consequences can come back to haunt you). So there I was, sitting in those freshly painted furnished apartments, usually around the dining room table, waiting for my next work assignment. I had cans of paint in front of me, paint brushes, drop cloths etc. My thoughts turned to action. 

I’m thinking It was during the summer 1969, that I figured out how I would simply express my infatuation to the one who occupies so much of my thoughts. I’d scribble a short verse or phrase on the underside of every dining room table I encounter, a little love note to her, kinda like leaving my mark. And, when I was painting an upstairs bathroom, I’d etch a similar note inside the built-in dirty clothes hamper wall, no one would know, who would care, a perfect demonstration between me and God. Time passed, apartment after apartment came and went. As I was doing it, it seemed like no big deal, leaving my little legacy of love in paint. Seems like I painted 30 or 40 apartments that summer. 

Time marches on. In 1975 my summer job life was over. All my various jobs including my Astoria antics were behind me and forgotten. I had graduated college and mailed 70 resumes to companies over the US inquiring about a job. I got a few replies, most notable was one to go to Alaska to work on the Alaskan Pipeline, one from the Gates Tire Co in Denver, and another in San Antonio with USAA. USAA made me the kindest offer. They’d fly me to San Antonio for an interview and put me up for a night. It was a no brainer, I hopped on a plane for the first time in my life and took off. I was enchanted with San Antonio, interviewed, then took the job. Before moving to San Antonio, I paid my respects to all my friends including my working buddies at Astoria. We were all good friends and I hated to part from them. 

Over a year later, maybe the summer of 1977, can’t really pinpoint it, I finally got some vacation time built up from my SA job. I returned to Amarillo, made the rounds, and I particularly wanted to go by Astoria and refresh my friendships. I called one of my friends and sure enough, he was still working there. We agreed to meet at the apartments and go out to lunch afterward. He chuckled while he was on the phone, but didn’t disclose why, kinda strange. I drove up for our lunch appointment and was immediately greeted by my burly friend George (later worked for police SWAT team). We exchanged pleasantries and started walking around chatting about old times and my life in SA. We approached a new building I had not seen before. They were using it for furniture storage. If you didn’t have furniture, Astoria would rent you theirs. As we approached the fairly large new warehouse my old boss (former Navy boxer) joined us. He and George smiled at each other and then as if it were planned, they both asked me if I ever had a girlfriend with initials CAS. I smiled and immediately blurted out “well yes, definitely, how did you know?”. They both busted out laughing uncontrollably, “What? I asked, sheeesh”. Boss said, come on in here, we want to show you something. We continued to walk up to the building, boss took his key and proceeded to open the door. They were still chuckling and smiling, but I hadn’t caught on. We walked in, there was furniture everywhere, end tables, chairs, head boards, and up on the walls and hanging from the ceiling were dining room tables, maybe 20 of them, we pivoted around and saw nothing but the undersides of dining room tables… all with the note that read… “Doug loves CAS”. 
sheeesh

 Doug Lightfoot