Before Texas Changed: A Fort Worth Boyhood

Chapter 4

4. Despite some of these extracurricular problems, I was actually doing fairly well in school and was even encouraged to enter the spelling bee competition. This was no great honor. Most students were given the same encouragement but, nevertheless, I did try. I studied the long list of words we were given, many of which I had never seen and did not even know existed in the English language. I didn’t last long. A fellow classmate quickly eliminated me and the rest of us and then represented our room in the school finals that determined who would advance to the larger, city competition. He was a good speller and, I figured, had a realistic chance to win. He almost did. With all of us gathered in the auditorium, the contest came down to him and a girl from another classroom. Some long word finally stumped him, and she got it right. He did not take this magnanimously. “She cheated,” he said. “I know she cheated. Somehow she knew that word was going to be asked. Someone gave it to her ahead of time. No one knows how to spell that word. No one. It’s impossible. I’m telling you, she cheated.” I seriously doubted that. This guy had simply met his match and had a hard time losing to a brainy girl. If she had cheated, we could have expected the cheating to continue and for her to go all the way. She didn’t. Some other girl quickly eliminated her, and all of us became spectators. Being a spectator at a spelling contest was one thing, but at a fist fight, quite another. Leo’s size and strength made him the perfect target of some older guys who wanted to challenge him and put him 51 “in his place.” He had resisted the taunting until, finally, someone pushed him too far and he agreed to fight. “I’ve got to do this,” he told me. “I’m tired of this guy. I’ve got to stand up to him.” “You really think you can beat him?” I asked. “He’s pretty big.” “I don’t know. We’ll see.” The fight was to happen after school, just the two of them, in a corner of the playground. Leo asked me to come with him, so he wouldn’t have to undergo this ordeal alone. “If you’ll just be there, it’ll help.” I wasn’t sure how but agreed. At the appointed hour, in jeans and T-shirt, quiet and obviously nervous, Leo walked out to meet his fate with me striding beside him. No sooner had he and his opponent squared off than this guy began pounding him. Larger and stronger than Leo, he never let up. In fact, he not only pummeled Leo but, even more humiliating, stomped his Lone Ranger lunch box flat. This was the ultimate degradation. I picked it up and handed it to him as we left the playground and walked under the sycamore trees toward home. “I never had a chance,” he said, rubbing his face and moving slowly. “That guy was way too strong. I should’ve known.” “Don’t worry,” I tried to assure him. “You landed some good blows. He’s not doing so great himself.” “Yeah, but I’m worse. Look at my lunch box. It looks like I feel.” This would be the last fight challenge Leo accepted. By this time, when summer came, some of my companions were shipping off to camps of one kind or another. There were a number of camps around Fort Worth, but I had never gone to any of them, because I had not really wanted to or cared about it. I usually had enough to keep me entertained and also had probably developed more of a fondness for home and routine than I realized. In the summer of 1954, before I entered sixth grade, that routine changed when, for the first time, camp entered the picture. My parents said camping would be a great experience, that I would be gone only a few days and would learn all kinds of wonderful outdoor things. b e f o r e t e x a s c h a n g e d 52 My destination was to be Camp Carter, just outside Fort Worth, named for Amon G. Carter who was Mr. Everything in our town...