4 - H Club (3)

Meeting Curly Hays

At Texas A and M, we were also-rans in the contest, although the scores were actually pretty close from top to bottom.   We were chagrined when we learned that our Fisher county rivals won second place.  We were thinking, “Anybody but them.”  It was also a personal disappointment.   After the contest, we went to Kyle Field and sat in the bleachers while Mr. Werst reviewed our scores.  I went from being the high point man on our team in the district contest to the low point man in the state contest.  I wasn’t as good as I thought I was.  As I reflect on that experience, I think dairy judging consists primarily of the ability to see cows the same way the officials see them.  Besides that we had to consider production records, which were stated in a confusing way.  I had never seen those before and didn’t know what to do with them. 

The ride home was memorable.  We didn’t ride back in the little club coupe.  Mr. Werst needed to stay over for a county agents’ meeting.   He got us a ride with Curly Hays (no relation to Bob), a representative for West Texas Utilities in Abilene.   Curly was a celebrity of sorts.  He refereed a lot of high school football games.   Some years later I watched the Cotton Bowl on television, and Curly was the referee.

All the guys except me rode in the back of the pickup.  Nobody thought anything about riding 250 miles in the back of a pickup in those days.  I rode up front with Curly and a boy who was preparing to enter Texas A and M on a football scholarship.  We had a great visit.  Every time I saw Curly after that, he remembered who I was.  He was a great guy.  If I remember right he had once played football for the University of Oklahoma.

One other thing stands out in my memory about that trip.  Curly stopped in Temple at a gas station.   We stared at an object inside that station that we had never before – a television set.   The set was not on, but we all knew what is was, and that turned out to be quite a conversation piece.

It’s hard for today’s young people to imagine a world without television.  My children used to ask, “Dad, what television programs did you watch when you were a child?”   When I would tell them that we didn’t have television in those days, they would look at me as if I were a fossil.