We were just a couple a young bucks having fun. Back in the day, Uncle Raymond and I worked together for my dad at Five Points Gin in Seagraves, Texas. I was still in High School, and Raymond was an actual grown up guy who worked full time for Dad. It was summer, and I was helping Raymond with the repair work that had to be done between ginning seasons to the old worn out cotton gin. I guess we felt like we deserved a break from our hard work so we took a couple of days off, while still being on the payroll, and still showing up at work everyday, to build a dune buggy.

Now really we didn’t build anything. What we did was more like destroy something. I had bought an old Ford Fairlane from somebody, and wanted to cut it down into what we called a dune buggy. In reality it wasn’t a dune buggy in the sense that it could go places that a normal car couldn’t go. It probably couldn’t even go a lot of places a regular car could go. We didn’t put balloon tires on it, or jack it up for better ground clearance. By stripping it down the way we did we took a lot of weight off of it, something that caused the breaks not to work as well as they should. I found that out one day when driving home from work. I was on a dirt road with the peddle to the metal when I rapidly realized that I was approaching an intersection. Standing on the break I swiftly came to the conclusion that I might be about to meet my maker, cause I was simply gliding across the washboard caliche road on locked up wheels. Two things saved me that day, the first was no traffic on the intersecting road, and the second was the continuing road on the other side of the intersection, which meant no sharp dead end of a three-foot deep West Texas bar ditch.

Anyway, we went about our business of cutting down this Ford Fairlane. By the time we were done all that was left of the car was the frame, drive train, the front seat, and the windshield. The mighty two-ninety-two six cylinder engine was exposed to the world, striking fear into..the..oh, never mind a two-ninety-two never struck fear into the hearts of anybody. In fact a kid today wouldn’t even recognize it as an internal combustion engine. Something else they wouldn’t know what to do with is three-speed column shift lever. Isn’t it sad to think of all the things this generation of kids is missing out on? OK, back to the story. Which by the way, I’m not sure ever existed. Yup, you just read right, I’m not sure there was ever a story here, at least not one with a point of socially redeeming value. Hummm…let me think about this a minute. …UREIKA!!! I’ve got it! I’ll turn this into a story about controlling you emotions. (read temper)

Since I’ve already wasted your time I’ll just cut to the chase as I somehow try to give you something worthwhile here. We finished cutting down the car, and were ready to the thing to the road for a little test run. Now at the time, Raymond and I both liked to start, and end our adventures with a nice hit of tobacco. His choice of poison was roll your own Prince Albert smokes, while mine was a nice juicy bite off of a plug of Days Work chewing tobacco. Now that we were ready to roll we hopped in and took off across the gin yard with tires spinning and us bouncing with every bump. We didn’t have a plan, and we were happy about it. We were just two contented guys enjoying the moment, and the fellowship. I hit the black top and headed east for a ways until we came to field we felt like we could tear across without upsetting anyone, and spent a while just having fun. I took us back to the road and headed back to work (lol) when the testing of his temper took place. As was my custom in those days, the foot-feed was fully compressed as we zoomed down the road. The windshield was keeping the wind out of faces while we held our caps in our hand so they wouldn’t fly off our heads. I turned toward Raymond to say something when I abruptly came to the conclusion that I needed to spit before I could say a word. Still turned toward him, I let’r rip, a good full mouth worth of tasty brown juice erupted between my puckered up lips, and seemed to just hang in mid air while trying to determine where it wanted to go. Once the decision was made by the wind swirling over the extended windshield, the gob of goo wrapped around my Uncle Raymond’s face about three and a half times. I would have killed me at that moment if I’d been him, but he just laughed while wiping the gross gunk from his mustached face.

I worked with Raymond off and on for many years, and I can honestly say I never saw him mad. I never saw him loose his temper, or go off on anybody. Raymond Wright was a gentle man. A man who enjoyed life, and relationships, a man who controlled his emotions. 

Friends, I told this story while speaking at my dear friend, and Uncle’s funeral service a few years back. I’ll tell you this right now. I would be a better man, husband, dad, friend, and Christian if I controlled my temper the way he did.

Till next time,

Grump