Farmersville Tales-Part 10 

The Three Mile Road to Exeter High

1960 was a year of demarcation. 

Farmersville officially became an incorporated city.  And we graduated from Farmersville schools. The next year, every morning, we were on a bus to high school in another town.  Depending on what side of Farmersville we lived on, we had a choice.  Some went to Visalia schools.  Most of us attended Exeter High.

In many ways the bus ride to Exeter High was a crossing of our personal Rubicon.

It was a three-mile road. We sat facing East as the bus driver went through the gears gradually accelerating toward Exeter.  We talked and laughed and joshed each other, giving little thought to how our own personal roads were about to diverge. 

Along that three-mile road we passed Giant Oak Ranch where many of our folks, parents, uncles, and cousins, worked the fields, or “drove tractor.”  We also daily passed a yellow house on the south side of the road, which had a visible swimming pool.  A luxury few people had in those days.  To us Farmersville kids, it was a curiosity.  As kids, it was a special treat to be dropped off on a hot day at the Exeter “plunge.”  20 cents, two dimes, got us admitted and a bag of peanuts or popcorn to sustain us as we swam all day.  Even at that, we kept to our group, the few kids we knew. 

As we stepped off the bus at the high school, we weren’t exactly strangers arriving in a strange land.  Brothers, sisters, cousins, friends had gone before us.  As in all things, a few didn’t do so well.  Others, in athletics, in scholarship, student government, as well as socially were unquestioned successes.  My own brother Steve, always savvy when it came to matters political, corporate, or otherwise, had been elected Student Body President by cleverly maneuvering his opponents into splitting their base vote.

But we were new.  And those first days stepping onto the campus of Exeter High School did feel like stepping into a foreign land.  And in the looks from the kids native to Exeter you felt they viewed you as foreigners to their town.  Not just us.  Kids coming to Exeter High from Outside Creek, Cameron Creek, Lemon Cove, and other outlying districts experienced the same feeling of displacement.  

However, those feelings didn’t last.  Over the next few months, kids from both towns and all those outlying areas, mixed in ways that would change us all.  

Freshman Year.

Many of us arrived in Exeter with preset values that didn’t immediately fit in our new environment.  Much of our history was intricately tied up with the South, writ large.  Southern culture played a role in who we were and how we acted.  Music, clothes, language. Of course, none of us hailed from an elite line of Southern aristocrats resting in a rocking chair on the white pillared porch of a plantation drinking mint julips. More on the order of half-starved sharecroppers trying to eke out a living back in the hills and hollers of the Ozarks.  Did Race play a part?  At times.  Just as it had in Chicago and Boston.  But unlike in today’s world, it wasn’t an obsession.  

Other aspects of Southern culture were more prevalent.  Courtesy, manners, hospitality.  There was a Southern civility in how you were expected to act. 

If I was invited to visit a person’s house in Exeter, I was under clear admonition from my mother and father to ask for nothing, and only under specified conditions of decorum to accept anything to eat or drink, lest someone think me rude, a freeloader, putting on airs above my class.  

But then I met Ralph. 

Later he became my best friend, but those first visits to his house in Exeter, well, I didn’t know what to think.  He lived in a household that was wildly open, kids running in and out, yelling, fighting, slamming doors, raiding the refrigerator.  His parents, unaccountably, remained, of good humor in the midst of absolute pandemonium. I literally didn’t know how to act.  But I did love the less strict environment.  My buddy Ralph and I would have many laughs together. And a few strange adventures.

If you read at all, you will come across the hackneyed phrase describing someone with “a twinkle in their eye.”  Bad writing.  Nevertheless, it did apply to Ralph.  A girl, a teammate, a teacher would get too full of themselves or just do something mindlessly stupid, and we knew it was coming.  We would turn our heads toward Ralph and wait. He would get that twinkle in his eye, that little half smile on his face and inevitably out would come a clever, sardonic, extremely funny putdown.   

Weird, funny things happened around Ralph.  Like his little brother, wrestling in the back seat with Ralph, falling out of the back door of the car onto the streets of Exeter. And me sitting there waiting for Ralph to tell his parents who because of the usual din in that family, hadn’t noticed. And him, that little half smile on his face, not saying anything until his mother discovered her youngest was no longer in the car.

Or camping out in a riverbed and cooking a bird someone killed.  I had no idea why we were camping in a riverbed in the first place. Afterall, I had spent some of my formative years living in a tent and, frankly, never did develop any interest in “going camping.” And neither did I know why Ralph and his friends killed and then wanted to cook a dead bird.  And I certainly was not going to eat any of it. I’m pretty sure Ralph didn’t either.  Knowing him, he was probably secretly laughing at having set up the whole idea. 

The transition in other areas wasn’t always easy.  And held some surprises.

In those early days, new to the High School campus, I had the bad luck of having a girl from Farmersville I thought was my girlfriend get the attention of a senior boy also from Farmersville.  I knew who he was.  He had a reputation of being a tough guy.  And looked it.  He caught me alone at the gym one morning and started calling on me to fight. I was less than enthusiastic figuring I was going to lose.  I had lost fights before and figured this one was going to hurt.  A lot.  I was usually pretty good at arguing my way out of a fight unless I was cornered.  But he had me cornered. Couldn’t back down.  My stomach churning, I squared up.

Just then a coach came around the corner.  He had been listening to us from behind a wall.  What he did next would never have happened in Farmersville.  He made us go in to one of the rooms just off the basketball court, gave us boxing gloves and told us if we wanted to fight then go at it, adding, however, this would settle it and there would be no further conflict regardless of who won.  It turned out to be an advantage for me.  I was taller than my opponent, more athletic, and had longer arms.  He couldn’t get close to me. And he had to follow the rules of boxing, not his preferred method of battle. I won the fight. And the thug never bothered me again.  Alas, I lost the girlfriend, anyway.  He had a car after all.  A black Mercury, lowered all around.  I had a red Schwinn bike. Match over. TKO’d.

Football was the first real challenge. For the guys at least.  While baseball was second nature no one in my family had played football until our Snowden school finally fielded a flag football team in the eighth grade.  We had some very good athletes from Farmersville but no mentors or coaches to guide us in Tackle football.  

I and a few other kids from Farmersville tried out.  Some were weeded out early.  We had no experience with tackle football.  And while Exeter High wasn’t exactly the University of Alabama, it could get rough out there for someone not familiar with the sport, the coaches, or the boys on the field.  A couple of my Farmersville buddies, one, an incredibly fast runner and the other, a quarterback type, literally got knocked out with blind hits.  Neither came back out to practice.  Others persevered and made either the freshmen or JV team which was called the B team in those days. 

My turning point, came about as a result of a “Bull in the Ring” drill where one is put in the middle of a circle of guys who run at you from different directions to knock you down.  Ostensibly, it taught you how to fend off blocks.  But when it was my turn in the middle, I found myself surrounded by all Exeter kids.  They had a little fun with the new guy.  I got bloodied a bit, knocked a little dizzy.  We were an onery people and I kept getting up. Only to get flattened again.  Finally, the whistle blew and the drill and practice for that day was over.  

As we walked off the field, the other guys were laughing and horsing around as they did after every practice.  I, walking alone, holding a towel to my bloody nose, saw the coach who had been watching me get pounded, walk toward me.  He was the same coach who had intervened when I was getting dragged into the fight with the bastard who stole my girlfriend. I figured he would have something critical to say, since I hadn’t been able to fend off hardly any blocks.  Instead, he nodded, told me I had just made JV and would start the first game as linebacker.  Adding, of course, that it was up to me to keep the position.

That helped, but the dam broke wide open for me after our first away game.  

Pretty sure it was in Woodlake.  The Freshman team, then the “B” team, what we would call Junior Varsity now, played their games first and then watched the varsity game from the stands.  I didn’t know any of my teammates very well. After we changed, everyone left the locker room and headed for the stands.  I wasn’t going to go against my teachings and interpose myself without an invitation, so I just went back to the bus.  The bus driver was an old guy from Farmersville, smoking and waiting in the bus the way they did back then.  He just nodded at me as I got on and made my way a few rows back and sat down.  There were no cell phones to look at in those days.  Nothing to do but wait.  I felt lonely. 

It was then I heard, “Cline, what the hell you doing?  Come on!”  It was Nick Webb.  He got me I in tow and took me to the stands and led me to a place right in the middle of the crowd from Exeter High.  I was welcomed by most everyone.  He made me feel at home. I never forgot that gesture of his.  Nick remained a special friend. And, by the way, Nick was the original Joe Cool.  The hair, later the car (a real hot rod chopped coop) and the beautiful girl friend. The guy had it all.

Fortunately, I never felt I lost my connection or appreciation for the ways of my Farmersville people.  

Again, as a freshman, I sometimes hitchhiked home from Exeter after practice because I didn’t want to take the player’s bus.  Farmersville was the driver’s last stop after delivering rural kids out in the county areas. It took an hour to get home if you took the bus, even though it was just three miles.  

One evening, I got picked up by a group of guys from Farmersville. In today’s world, it would scare me to death to think of a kid of mine, or a grandchild, hitchhiking along a country road and getting picked up by a carload of toughs.  I just didn’t have any kind of fear of these guys.  They put me in the back seat between two other guys, and everyone was drinking beer and in a good mood, laughing and carrying on.  They offered me a beer, or cigarette if I wanted.  No offense was taken when I declined. They asked who I was, and about the football team.  They knew of my family and took me right to my house.  I wouldn’t have wanted to fight these guys.  I knew their type.  But did I feel I might be murdered and buried somewhere? No.  

The Rest of the Years.

There were other kids from Exeter who eased my way.  Bill Richards before he transferred.  Ray Strable and David Kloth on the Athletic field. Off the field, there was Delphine, and Kathy, Carolyn Powers, Sandi, Beverly and Mary Lou, the fairest maiden of all, inexplicably won by Gary Kunkel, the sardonic one, who seemed to know how everything worked, even understood Mrs. Veitch’s Algebra II lectures. Maybe that was his secret.  Tommy Hardiman, one of my best liked friends, who could cuss like no one I ever knew, who could launch a string of skin blistering expletives, colorfully put, and devastatingly appropriate when his ire was up.  Gary Hester, like me from out of town, but who was always a buddy and gave me rides home from football games when the away bus got in late. and others, too many to name.  All of them, always a smile, ready for a laugh, but more importantly, reliable, and, over decades, constant in their friendships.  

And constant were many friends from Farmersville who faced similar challenges starting high school years in a different town.  Successful in making the transition, they went on to extremely successful careers, never losing their own appreciation for the history we shared. 

There was Henry Garcia.  One of my best friends in grade school.  A natural leader. There was Ken Chris and Billie Staley, sincere guys, gifted talkers who, had they chosen, could have been elected to anything.  Hector Navarro who, if memory serves, became Postmaster, Ronnie Parton who lived down the street.  My neighbors, the Overackers, who were already showing the business acumen that would make them so successful. And Susie and Yvonne, all the smart, determined girls who remained my buddies. So many others.

There were also Special teachers that introduced us Farmersville kids to a deeper intellectual possibility in our lives.

Mr. Biggs who, though we didn’t treat him fairly introduced us to classics and philosophy from ancient world literature.  “Shaky” Shields, a good guy and a memorable coach who also introduced us to physiology and biology. And, of course, Mrs. Veitch, good humored in her teaching of ineluctable math classes.  

And speaking of girls.  Some girls’ fathers wanted better for their daughters than Farmersville boys.  Some even forbade them to have anything to do with us.  They found their way to us anyway.   For we were for the most part, a handsome lot, with a bit of southern charm.  And I have to say persuasiveness. When it came to girls, Farmersville boys could talk the fuzz off a ripe peach.

As for me, well, by age 16, I had my 55 chevy, Bel Air, two door hardtop, rims spray painted black with half-moon hubcaps, the car yellow and white, (not surprisingly Ralph named it the “Yellow Dog”). Well, it must have made me seem “irresistible.” (The wife made me insert the quotation marks.)

Automobiles and automobile parts were everywhere.  Frequently, in Farmersville, the hoods of cars were up and someone was working on the motor or under the car itself.  Changing oil, tires, spark plugs. It wasn’t so unusual to see an engine pulled and suspended on chain from a tree off to the side of a house.  The necessary maintenance for an automobile was largely done by the owners.  

Cars were plentiful and gasoline was cheap.  But the cars needed to work.  Most guys from Farmersville were good at fixing cars when they needed to be fixed.  I wasn’t. 

Cars were foundational to the culture. 

There was a freedom that came with the cars.  A man could take a job in Lindsay.   A woman could shop at Woolworths in Visalia and drop the kids off at the show on Saturday afternoon and pick them up later.

There was romance with the cars.  All the rituals of dating.  The “parking” out by the canals or up on Rocky Hill.  The Drive-In movies, two of them, one in Visalia, the other out beyond Farmersville not far from Linnell camp where many of our families lived when they first arrived in the Valley.  

And “Dragging Main.” Maybe in Exeter, maybe in Visalia, occasionally in Farmersville, and listening to the radio.

There was the music of two generations, 50s and 60s, coming from the car radios.  The music that gave rhythm to the day and the night.  AM stations, “Lucky 13” KYNO, and Number 1400, KONG “on your radio dial.”  The transition from Country to Rock and Roll, from The Everly Brothers to Connie Francis to Jerry Lee to Elvis: from doo wop to the Beach Boys to the Beatles, the great songs of romance by the great girl groups.  And, of course, sometimes the songs themselves glorified the cars.  And they glorified drag racing.  Little Deuce Coup, 409, Shut Down, Dead Man’s curve, Hot Rod Lincoln.

The mix of young people and the powerful engines and hot cars, was exciting, intoxicating even.  

And dangerous.

In 1965, some of my friends were hanging out at the Foster Freeze on the Main Street of Farmersville, which later became Santo’s. Some of the guys were in a Plymouth and others in an Oldsmobile.  A challenge was made. 

They went out to the country.  With peeling tires, they started the race on the old country road, side by side. After a short distance, one of the cars, started to swerve, the passenger reached over to the steering wheel trying to help correct, and it went off the road, clipped a tree and then went airborne rolling over three times. One of the Mason kids went through the windshield and was killed.  My friend in the backseat was pinned half in and half out of the car and it took some other guys actual lifting the rear of the car up off the ground to get him out.  The whole time he was screaming in pain.  It was unclear if he was going to survive and there was talk from Doctor’s about removing his leg.  He did survive but over the remainder of his life he had dozens of operations directly related to crash. 

Fortunately, those occurrences were rare.  Much more importantly, cars then, affordable to everyone, and fixable, gave us the ability to get to work and home again, to participate in the larger life across divides, at the end of a three-mile road in another community.  It helped us in to come of age during a very special time. 

A time after WWII and Korea.  

And before Viet Nam.

All during our High School years, our country kept getting deeper and deeper into the Viet Nam war.  The war was constantly in the background.  On T.V., news reports on the radio, in the headlines of newspapers.  We didn’t quite realize it at the time, but some of the innocence we had as a country was going to be lost being lost as many innocent kids from Farmersville and many from Exeter and the surrounding communities, were, in a short time, going to be leaving for military service.  

Some were drafted, others joined the service.  Some came back.  Some didn’t.  All were Heroic.  They had ideals.  Believed in what they were doing.  Especially those who didn’t make it back, like my childhood friend Harry Petty, who lived around the corner in Farmersville and my friend Terry Moore from Exeter.  And some of the others who did come back were gravely wounded, physically and otherwise. 

The War in ways, overwhelmed the innocence we all had.  And took friends of our youth from us.  

But not the memories.   

And not the Tales we could share.

Thus ends Farmersville Tales.

For now.

The Photographs are of the Eighth Grade flag football team, the Freshmen team (the one in white) and the “B” or JV team.

For other writings by Phil Cline, visit philcline.com or my FB page at PhilClinePage.

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