JimBlackBooks.com
1960 - 1969 (Cont'd)
My mom and dad both went to Archer High. I was told (long after he died) that at his senior prom my dad, Newt O’Keefe, wore gloves . . . so not to leave any fingerprints!
My favorite memory was just sometime in high school (64-68) We had a big snow and Mr. Adams came on the loud speaker and told all of us to leave the building and come to the front yard. This was highly unusual, as I’m sure we had all been hoping school might be cancelled but it seldom happened, especially in the middle of the day. As we entered the front grounds, we were met with lots and lots of snowballs! Mr. Adams had made them before the announcement and started one of the largest and best snowball fights in the history of AC. We were allowed to leave school afterwards, so unusual, and everyone found their own way of playing in the snow for the rest of the day. I went with a group who pulled an old slide down a dirt road, but the fun of that huge snowball fight still delights me. I loved Mr. James Adams.
Kimbra (O’Keefe) Danley – Class of 1968
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A very good friend of mine in school had a very difficult time with History under Mr. Henderson. He was one of the smartest people I knew, but schoolwork was definitely not his forte and history was his worst subject. I never studied for anything in school, with the exception of English later on, but I tried to help my friend with History because he was making grades like 29 and 15 on his tests. We started with me spending the night with him before a test and studying together. That really did great things for me since I had never studied before and my grades immediately went from the 70's to the 90's from quizzing my friend the night before the test. Unfortunately, it still was not sticking for him so he devised the next step. He would break into the school, steal the test and I would fill out the answers for him to study. The school was a piece of cake to burglarize in those days. All he did was go to a window and open it, climb in and make his way to the file cabinet that held the tests. That night, I spent the night with him again and filled out all the answers on the test for him to study. Believe it or not, he failed the test the next day. His grade did go up to fifty-something as I recall but nowhere near where he wanted to be or where he needed to be. As I said though, he was smart and later in life he did run a successful business. Stage 3 involved another burglary of the school and theft of the next test. This time, he got two copies of the test and I filled one out that evening and he copied my answers onto the second copy in his handwriting. He took that filled out test to class the next day and about midway through the test, he switched his completed test with the new one he had been given. He knew there would be an investigation if he did too well on the test so he had intentionally missed several. When the graded tests were returned, Mr. Henderson complimented his efforts in front of the class. He had made an 80 something on that test. For the rest of that year, a burglary occurred each Thursday night before the Friday History test and my buddy moved onto high school with the rest of us.
To all of you who want to scold me for this, remember, I am 61 years old now and I know what we did was wrong. I have to blame it on that 14 year old brain again. For those very few who know who my friend was in this story you have to agree that extraordinary steps were necessary to get him through History and that he was worth it.
I have to share a story on my favorite Coach and Driver's Ed teacher, Coach Williams. It must have been 1963-64 when we were 14 years old, or about to turn 14, and ready to get our training for our licenses. There was not but a year or two window when kids, with Driver's Ed, could get their Driver's License at such a young age and I am convinced that we probably caused the repeal of law. Coach Williams took 3 or 4 of us at a time so you could get your required driving and observing time completed. I am not sure why he did it but I don't think it was limited to our group...every day, he would have us stop at some point and back up really fast. The faster we were able to go, and control the car in reverse, the better he liked it. He also had us back up to a curb and try to get both back tires to touch the curb without running upon to it. That is kind of hard to do but it was part of our driving. Weeks or months after finishing Driver's Ed, we all showed up at the Courthouse on the day the DPS Trooper was in Archer to give driving tests. No names again, but the first of our group, during his test, scared the hell out of the Trooper. During the test, the Trooper prepared him that up ahead he wanted him to stop the car rapidly, then the Trooper gave the command to stop. Our classmate complied. The Trooper then told him to back up on the roadway. Because of the training, our classmate carefully checked his mirrors, put the car in reverse, turned to look back, then rapidly accelerated in reverse. After the excited Trooper got him to stop, by yelling “STOP, STOP, STOP!” He asked him why he backed up so fast and told him that was normally enough to fail the driving test. After our buddy explained to the Trooper that his Driver's Ed teacher had taught him to back up fast, the Trooper let him continue and did give him a passing grade. By the time I took my test, I think the same thing had happened at least one other time and the Trooper told me, before I backed up, about the first incident and that he did not want to see how fast I could go in reverse but rather that I could safely back the vehicle up. Funny thing is that years later when I took a High Speed Pursuit Driver Training Course, I was by far the best driver in reverse maneuvers.
One more story with unnamed co-conspirators. Somewhere around our sophomore year about 4 of us hatched a plan to make home brew beer. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Obviously it was pre-Internet so it took some research to come up with the recipe but our project manager was resourceful and came through. We acquired all the ingredients and a 5 gallon water bottle and followed the recipe. I can't remember how long we were supposed to let our concoction ferment but something around 2 weeks, I think. The best we came up with for a location to store it while fermenting was a vacant lot, at the time, next to the Lumber Yard. We put a cover over the bottle and nestled it underneath a mesquite tree. This stuff looked exactly like beer almost immediately and we checked on it every day just to see how it was coming along. We just couldn't wait two weeks and convinced ourselves that since it looked and smelled like beer that it must be ready. I can assure everyone that its similarity to beer ended at the “looks and smell”. It was a nasty tasting liquid and even weeks later, it was not good. That is not to say that we did not drink it because that 5 gallons did disappear. We had agreed, when making this batch to keep its location secret. That agreement was broken shortly after hiding it and a lot of kids had the chance to taste our brew before the bottle was emptied.
My buddy Bob Gaines drove a 1950 Ford back in our youth and one night we were again out by the old iron bridge and decided to scour the area for “drip” gas around some of the many oil wells. For any young ones, “drip is a natural condensate of gas that occurs at the casing head of oil and natural gas wells” and the old cars did pretty well on burning the stuff. We found a 55 gallon drum at one oil well and thought we had found a great supply of drip gas. We filled Bob's Ford up with the stuff and headed back to AC. The old Ford did not have the zip it had before the fill up but hey, it was free gas. Bob drove the old Ford around town for the next couple of weeks and everywhere he went he left a trail of smoke. Interestingly, his gas gauge wasn't going down much so whatever we had put in the tank increased his mileage and put out a smoke screen. Worried about his car, he finally decided that we should drain the tank and start it over on a real gasoline diet. As we drained the tank we realized we had filled his car up with kerosene.
Growing up in Archer City included some traditions that seem a bit scary today. One was driving to our 8th grade graduation banquet. At thirteen or so, none of us had a license but on this night, everyone looked the other way as these kids picked up their dates and attended the celebration. I had been driving for a couple of years at the time so it didn’t seem unusual to me at the time to be driving but it was my first time to pick up a date and that was nerve wracking. The plan was that it was to be a double date that evening so I got an early start and drove to Scotland to pick up Pat Schlabs then back to AC to pick up the girls. We picked up Pat’s date first, Patricia Holder without any incidents and drove around the block to pick up my date, Carol Jane Harvey. At Patricia’s house, I had just pulled up in front of the house and parked on the street while Pat went to the door to get Patricia. When we got to Carol Jane’s house, I pulled into her driveway. Part of the tradition, at the time, was for the guys to wear a white jacket, which Pat and I complied with that night. Our two beautiful dates were in formal dresses and high heels. I was a nervous wreck at this point. Not because of the driving but picking up a girl was intimidating. I was driving a green 1956 Ford Fairlane and I had worked hard to get new seat covers installed prior to this big date. The old car was sparkling clean this evening as I opened the passenger door to let Carol Jane in. I walked around the car to the driver’s side and started the Ford up for our 2 block drive to the school. This old Ford was a standard shift (3 on the tree) transmission and it had occasionally had an issue where it got stuck in a gear. That’s exactly what happened. Right there in Carol Jane’s driveway, the Ford was stuck in reverse. No amount of jiggling the gear shifter was helping so, in my white coat, I got out to see if I could mess with the linkage under the hood to get it unlocked. I succeeded only in getting my hands greasy. The transmission was not coming out of reverse. Undaunted, we took off to the banquet in reverse. Remember, we are only a couple of blocks away so what can go wrong? Only three turns stand between us and a lovely evening at the banquet. Our first turn was uneventful and we continued backing alongside the football practice field. Our next turn to head towards the school cafeteria was a bit different. Something went wrong and I ended up driving us into the ditch. The ditch there was pretty deep and with the car stuck in reverse, it was not coming out easy. The angle of the car in the ditch was such that the passenger side was high and the driver’s side was low. Both the girls, in their formals and heels were sitting at about a thirty degree angle hanging on to what they could. It’s funny as obviously there were no cell phones but the Archer grapevine somehow got information to my Dad to come and rescue us. I’m not sure exactly how we got to the school, walked or caught a ride, but we made it. My Dad was able to get the Ford out of reverse which let him pull it forward out of the ditch. He was kind enough to leave mother’s car in the parking lot for us to have when the banquet ended.
Once we made our way back to town after being dumped by Barry Morrison and Barney Oliver, it was time to get with the girls again. A lot of the girls were spending the night just outside of town at the Maag’s place. Gayle Maag was in our class and she was hosting a slumber party of sort in furtherance of the graduation celebration. When we got to the Maags, we found the girls outside in a kinda of an open-sided barn. I’m not sure what they were doing as we arrived but I did manage to locate Carol Jane. It was such a magical moment for me but I was too damn shy to take advantage of the moment and maybe try to steal a kiss. Instead we just sit on the blankets that had been spread out, without saying too much. At some point, one of us got the nerve up to hold hands which far overshadowed my car issues and getting dumped 10 miles out of town. It had to be 2:00 a.m. or so when the girls had to go into the house and the boys all had to leave.
Charley Goforth – Class of 1968
