Burl Bales - Growing Up Stories

My father was a great story teller.  I can still remember some of  his Bible stories.  For example, he told me that when Noah sent the raven out of the ark, the raven didn’t come back because ravens wouldn’t have had enough sense to find their way home.  I don’t think it reads quite that way in Genesis, but that does give  you some idea of his story telling skills.

Sometimes his storytelling backfired on him.  When I first started driving a car as a teenager, I received stern lectures about the handling of an automobile.   Any deviation from his rule was treated quite severely.    I didn’t received heavy punishment, but his lectures could last for days. I would have preferred punishment.   

Of course the lectures included opinions about the degeneracy of the younger generation.    Our transgressions were the worst things he had ever heard of.  I didn’t take that part of his lectures too seriously, because I remembered some of his stories.   It appears that he and and his twin brother Murl had more than  a passing interest in firearms, and they had enemies.   He told of automobile chases between Clyde and Abilene, with rivals shooting at one another from speeding automobiles.  They must have been terrible shots because they never hit anyone. 

All this time they were active in church.   According to one story, onne night Murl was called on to lead prayer at the church in Clyde.  As he stood up to pray, his six-shooter fell out on the floor.  Grandma finally got enough of the gun business and threw the six-shooter in the well.

During those early years, they settled in the Elmdale community and went to school there.  Daddy and Murl both played on the Elmdale basketball team.   In those days, you had to jump the ball at center court after every score.  They had incredibly low scoring games and the name of the game was defense.  Some teams would go through an entire game without scoring.   I can imagine how boring it must have been to watch. 

After completing the ninth grade, they said good bye to school and went to work.   Daddy went to Draughon’s Business College for awhile.  By this time Grandpa had acquired a car and his oldest boy had the privilege of driving the car to school.   Only problem was, the oldest boy had a habit of cutting classes.   Instead of going to class, he found a young girl to cut class with him and they went on a picnic.    On that same day Grandpa had business in Abilene and rode to town with a friend.  He told the friend that he wouldn’t need a ride home.  He would just walk over to Draughon’s and ride home with Burl.  Of course Burl wasn’t there and he had to walk home.  It’s about six miles from Abilene to Elmdale, so Grandpa wasn’t a happy camper.

Ah yes! Storytelling can get you in trouble.