Most outdoor recreation was unsupervised,
do-it-yourself. Boys who lived in town
and weren’t involved in varsity sports gathered after school most days to play
the sport then in season. Football was
played on the handiest vacant lot or large side yard; we often played on the
lot beside the Baptist parsonage.
Basketball and softball could be played on schoolground courts and
diamonds.
I participated in most after-school sports activities, but, oddly
enough, most other boys didn’t participate in all of them. Ray Hargrove, Rex Landry, and Buddy Dunlap
were nearly always among the group playing football, but I don’t remember their
playing basketball; similarly, the Warrington brothers (Jack and Heggie) and
LeGrande Dudley played basketball, but didn’t usually play football.
Many kids and adults began playing tennis after a court was built in a city park (about the time I entered
high school); a line of players often waited turns on court. We could play singles only if no players
were waiting; if players waited, we played doubles, “best two games out of
three,” with losers having to leave the court.
I’ve forgotten how many times winners could stay on court before they
had to rotate off. Nor do I remember
how the usage protocol was established – but we all complied voluntarily. Lights, turned on by a coin-operated device,
allowed night play (until ten o’clock curfew).
◊◊◊
I remember no commercial recreational facilities in La Feria – no
bowling alley, skating rink, or swimming pool. I
knew of no bowling alleys in the Valley.
Donna, three towns westward, had a skating rink, but I didn’t go there until we had lived in La Feria three
or four years. Harlingen had a nice
commercial swimming pool.
Boys and
girls usually camped at Rio Hondo separately, but, on those occasions when
members of both sexes were there together, girls swam at one time, boys
another; “mixed bathing” was a no-no in those conservative
days. Twila says girls wore raincoats
or other covering over swim suits while walking from cabins/dorms to the pool;
such modesty wasn’t required of the boys.
◊◊◊
The Valley’s canal system offered handy swimming
opportunities; a canal just southwest of town (between the Warrington’s house
and Graham’s Creamery) had a pretty good “swimming hole,” but the best canal
swimming was about five miles west on the “Mercedes Main,” a wide and deep canal whose water was
usually clear; we kids could go to the Mercedes Main only if an adult took us, whereas we could walk or ride our bikes
to the nearby canal.
[Mention
of the Warringtons reminds me that their mother was one of few single parents I
knew while growing up; Mr. Warrington died before I knew the family, leaving
Mrs. Warrington, who sold Avon products, to rear Heggie, Jackie, and Phyllis
alone. I’m sure they had little extra
money, but the boys seemed to have everything the rest of us had. Also, Phyllis must have had piano lessons,
for she played well enough as a youngster to accompany singing in BTU.]
◊◊◊
Popular inside recreation for pre-teens included board games such as
“Monopoly” and a similar game, “Big Business.”
Some of us took up chess as teenagers; I joined the high school chess
club, but never was adept at the game.
La Feria High School competed in most organized sports, but all games,
including basketball, were played outside, for LFHS had no gymnasium. The football field was across Main street
from the southeast corner of the high school campus; basketball courts and
softball diamonds were scattered around school property, enabling simultaneous
play of several games when La Feria hosted tournaments (also providing kids
places to play when facilities weren’t being used officially). Tennis was played on a court in a city park.
Basketball courts and softball diamonds had no permanent seating for
spectators, who either stood or brought their own chairs to games. The football
field had bleachers on both sides, but few amenities; its “press box” was a
table at the center of the top row of south-stand seating.
High
school football “Games of the Week” between smaller (Class A) Valley schools
were carried by a low-powered San Benito radio station. Games played in La Feria were seldom
broadcast (perhaps because of our primitive press facilities), but, on one of
the rare occasions when a game was to be broadcast from our “stadium,” I ran
home and told my mother to turn on our radio – that I would tell her “Hello!”
over the air. I then ran back to the
football field, went up into the south bleachers near the radio “booth,” and
yelled, “Hello, Mother!” Fans seated
nearby thought I was simply calling to someone elsewhere in the stands, so paid
no attention to me. When I got home
after the game I learned that Mother had indeed heard me call to her.
The LFHS student body included relatively few boys with the size and
ability to participate in varsity sports, for many kids dropped out of school
after finishing junior high; the four high school classes
(Freshman/Sophomore/Junior/Senior) had fewer than forty students each. Most good athletes participated in more than
one sport. Ed Cook, for example, played end
on the football team, forward on the basketball team, and third base on the
softball team; he probably participated in track and field events, but I recall
nothing thereabout.
I remember
Ed because he had both athletic ability and character. His favorite basketball shot was a running
one-hander from the right corner; in a day when most long shots were two-handed
from a set position, his running one-handers were novel. He played well at third base on the softball
team, but I remember him best for an error in a tournament. He dropped the ball for an instant when
tagging a runner trying to reach third.
Neither fans, players, nor the umpire saw the ball drop and bounce back
into Ed’s glove (because the play was right at the ground), so the runner was
called out; Ed turned to the umpire and told him the runner was safe, that he
had dropped the ball after making the tag.
I don’t remember whether the LFHS team won or lost that game; only Ed’s action
was burned into my memory. I suspect
the same is true for most of the players and fans in attendance that
afternoon. Those who didn’t know Ed
personally wouldn’t have known he was a soft-spoken, well-mannered, Christian
young man (he and his family attended the local Church of Christ) – but they
saw from his admission of error (when he didn’t have to) that he was something
special; his character showed.
We’re told
that character is what we are when no one is watching. Lots of people were watching that afternoon,
but no one saw what happened; Ed knew, however, and demonstrated his character.
Another
young Valley man of character was Tom Landry, the star quarterback of
the Mission High School football team; Mission was undefeated in 1941. Tom went on to be (1) a B-24 pilot in WW II,
(2) a star with the University of Texas Longhorns and the New York football
Giants, then (3) coach of the Dallas Cowboys, “America’s Team,” for twenty-nine
years.
◊◊◊
The only regulation football game in which I ever played was the annual
game between LFHS freshmen and sophomores the year I was a sophomore, when
non-varsity players were recruited to fill out the squads. I was the sophomores’ offensive center and
defensive safety.
All high school uniforms were in use by the varsity squad, so we
“irregulars” had to obtain uniforms elsewhere; I borrowed mine from Ray Foster,
a player on the Junior High team. Ray’s
older and much bigger brother, J.E., was a sophomore and the leading lineman on
the varsity squad. The freshman also
had a big lineman who was pretty good (he played right over center on defense,
so I had to block him; he could literally step over me, but I stopped him a
time or two by rising up between his legs to prevent his getting traction).
The sophomores won the game (we scored two touchdowns, the freshmen
scored one), so upheld the dignity of our more senior status.
◊◊◊
I won the 1942 Cameron County Inter-Scholastic League Junior Singles
tennis championship, and
still have the blue ribbon I was awarded.
The lowest I could have finished was second; the only other competitor
was a good-looking kid from Santa Rosa called “Apple.” Apple was the catcher on Santa Rosa’s
softball team, where his performance was better than at tennis.
I played
tennis better than softball, but I was nothing special
at either. I played on the school
softball team, but wouldn’t have been missed had I not been there. I don’t think I ever made any errors at my
“rover” (short center) position, but I got few hits when batting.
Sonny Browning won the Senior Singles championship; he was good, having
learned the game before moving to La Feria, whereas most of the rest of us
hadn’t played before the city court was built two or three years earlier.
Twila won the girls’ singles tennis championship, and says she and I
won mixed doubles. I have no ribbon to
evidence the latter, and don’t remember it.
◊◊◊
My best sports performances were at intramural table tennis. Both Twila I did pretty well one year; she
won girls’ singles, she and Bernard Ammerman won mixed doubles (defeating Ida Mae
Ritter and me in the finals), and I won boys’ singles. Tournaments were played in the hallway of
the lowest floor of the high school building.
That
lowest floor, partially below ground level, housed the cafeteria, rest rooms,
and the athletic dressing/shower room, plus business
(bookkeeping/shorthand/typing) and science classrooms; Twila recalls unpleasant
odors emanating from athletic/rest room facilities, but I have no such
olfactory memories. (The cafeteria must
have been “upwind” from odor sources Twila remembers, or I would surely have
noticed them at lunchtime.)
We also played table tennis (ping-pong) on our dining table at home;
its rounded shape and shorter surfaces at which to aim presented more of a
challenge than did standard-sized tables, but that challenge may well have
improved our accuracy and prepared us better for tournament play.
◊◊◊
Organized sports in La Feria were all
school-related, except for adult softball leagues. My dad played
softball for a time, until a wrong move one evening literally turned his thighs
purple; his day work, much of which was done in a squatting position, was hard
enough on his knees and legs, so he “retired” from softball.
Boys
(including me) occasionally filled in when men’s teams were short of
players. I ordinarily played in the
outfield, but had to fill in at shortstop one evening. Had the men known I’d never played any
infield position, they would probably have moved one of their regulars to short
and sent me to the outfield (if I’d used my head, I’d have asked them to do
so). Fortunately, I received no hot
grounders to tie me up; the only action I had was on an easy-to-field looping
liner and a play or two at second.