Hollis Baker’s Blog

            My folks kept telling me about Santa Claus. I was just a small kid, and I had never heard of him but he sounded like the kind of man I would like. They said he brought good kids candy, fruit, nuts, and toys. That got my attention real quick. They said he would visit Grandpa’s in just a few days, and we might go out there to see him.  I was ready to go.

            Grandpa’s farm was way out in the country, through seven other farm’s gates on dirt roads. A trip to Grandpa and Grandma’s farm was always exciting, but a chance to meet this Santa sounded great. I knew Grandma’s table would be loaded with all kinds of things little kids liked. Sure enough when we arrived I could smell fried chicken, biscuits, and gravy. I could imagine the sweet potato pie in the oven, and I knew she had her famous sugar cookies in the top shelf of her cupboard.

            “Merry Christmas,” Grandpa shouted when we arrived. “I haven’t seen Santa Clause yet. Come in and have some dinner.” I ran to Grandpa, dressed in his usual striped overalls, with a can of Prince Albert pipe tobacco peeking from a bib pocket, and he scooped me up.

            The house was all decorated nice and homey. Grandpa had cut a cedar tree and Grandma decorated it with colored paper strips and looped ropes. Right on the top she had fashioned a cardboard star and covered it with shiny tin foil. Grandpa bought a box of multi colored candles that fit into clamp-on-holders for the tree. I could hardly wait for him to light the tree. At dinner I wasn’t interested much in eating. I kept my nose to the windows watching for this man called Santa Clause.

            It got dark and he hadn’t arrived yet. The phone rang, and Grandpa answered it. “Mr. Rogers has a cow down and needs my help,” Grandpa announced. “I will be back as soon as I can.” I kept my eye on the windows, watching for our expected guest.

            Soon I heard heavy footsteps on the porch, with a loud Ho, Ho, Ho.  “That must be Santa Clause now,” my Dad said. The door swung open and in came a man with a red cap trimmed in white, wearing striped overalls.  He had a funny looking beard and smelled like pipe tobacco. He carried a burlap sack that bulged with something. “Is there a fine young man here named Hollis,” he asked.  I peeked from behind Mom’s skirt. “Well now, let’s see what I have for you,”  “Ah. He exclaimed.  Here is a sack of oranges. And another with nuts in it. And look here! Here is a sack of candy. Do you think you could use these?” Santa asked.

            Could I use them? You bet I could find a use for all that stuff.  Then he dug deeper into that sack and came out with a cap pistol with a package of caps to shoot bad guys with.  Wow. That was all I could think of to say. He wheeled around and left quickly with a hearty Ho! Ho! Ho!

            Grandpa came back soon from helping Mr. Rogers. “I am sorry to have missed seeing Santa Clause,” he said. I had a feeling who Santa Clause was…all dressed up in striped overalls and smelling of pipe tobacco.

            And until this day, I still think of Santa in striped overalls, a red can of Prince Albert tobacco in his bib pocket, and a funny looking fake beard.

            John Steel stopped by a few days ago.  The sun was shinning brightly with a gentle southeast breeze, and a forecast of more to come.  He drove across the little bridge in his battered pick up truck with that old spotted dog helping him steer.  As the dust settled the dog cleared the yard of cats and John eased his bony body down from the truck.

            “What brings you out on such a pretty day John?  I asked.  You need another cup of Alice’s coffee?”

            “No I don’t have time for any coffee.  You and me are going fishing.” 

            I didn’t remember promising him I would go fishing with him any time soon, but he easily convinced me I had.

            “I have everything loaded in the truck and time is wasting.”

            I grabbed my tackle, kissed Alice a quick good bye, and jumped into the already running truck.  I thought I would get to ride in the passenger’s seat, but that spotted dog had other ideas.  When I found John had not brought any breakfast fixings I was able to get him to stop by H.E.B.s for bacon and eggs.  John scooped up five pounds of bacon, three dozen eggs, and a big can of Folgers coffee.  On the way to the checkout counter he managed to grab a ten-pound sack of potatoes.  It wasn’t hard to get my billfold out and pay the tab before John could find his money.

            I was able to trick the old spotted dog to ride in the bed of the truck so I could sit in his place in the cab.  We turned south off county road 1174 onto a dirt road.  Well it looked like a dirt road once upon a time.  The county had not graded it in years and rocks and ruts littered the road.  Sure enough John managed to hit a rock and blew out a tire.  We were able to remove the flat tire, mount the spare only to find it was flat also.

            “Don’t worry about that.  I have a hand pump here some where.”

            I didn’t say anything, but I noticed there was a different look to the sky.  A low dark streak of clouds lay way in the northwest.

            John picked out a campsite and we put up the tent.  Well, it was once a tent.  He built a fire and put the coffee pot on.  I watched the streak of clouds turn dark blue and began its approach at a fast pace.  The storm hit in all its fury with rain, wind, mixed with a touch of sleet.  As the tent tumbled down the riverbank we raced to the truck.

            The three of us, cold and wet, filled the cab.  The spotted dog decided he wanted the middle of the cab after all and commandeered it.  Some how we managed to catch a few minutes of sleep, through the night.  About daylight the storm blew its self out and the sun broke clear, but cold.

            We managed a fire, but found the coffee can had spilled and scattered the contents over the ground.  Looking for the bacon and eggs we found that old spotted dog had already found them and ate them all.  We still had ten pounds of potatoes.  I guess dogs don’t like raw spuds.

            Alice had the coffee perking and bacon frying in the pan when we dragged our cold, wet bodies into the house. 

            “I’m leaving my spotted dog out there on the porch.  I only wish we could leave the weather bureau out there too,” said John Steel.

            Of course it wasn’t really THE OK Corral.  It was Dale Stapp’s father’s old hay and feed barn.  There were lean-to roofs added to the sides of the old barn all around, with plenty of pens and feeding stalls.  Gates on rusty hinges led to different parts of the maze of storage rooms and corrals.  Up a wooden ladder was the hayloft that now held only a few boxes of personal things.  The complex had long ago been abandoned. But to us kids it became, in our fantasy, a turreted castle on the Rhine, or a Roman fortification in England or a log frontier fort on the Mississippi River.  However most of the time it was “The OK Corral of Tombstone, Arizona.”  We each had made our own rubber shooting guns from apple box ends, mothers clothes pins, and car inner tubes cut into loops for ammunition.  We swaggered around shooting each other with our guns and having a grand time in and around that barn.  We had only one rule, “No shooting in the face.” 

             Charles, Roy, Donald, Dale Stapp and me were from the “east side” of the railroad tracks in our town.  We were kind of proud of that label, for we felt a little tougher, more rugged, and certainly dirtier that the boys from “down town.”  We played a mean game of “rubber guns,” and felt we could whip anybody.  

             The clean boys from the down town group felt the same way.  They had fancy store bought guns and pretty frontier hats and jackets.  It was not long before we got a challenge from them to a shoot out at the barn next Saturday.

            The day arrived and their leader, Jerry, a tall red headed boy and his buddies came in all their fancy gear and we had a few skirmishes just for fun. Jerry then announced   the next game was for the bragging rights of being the best.  We won the toss for being the defenders of the corral.  We all decided the hayloft was the easiest place to defend.  In talking about our defense plans we noted most of us had been shot in the face by Jerry.  We decided to do something about this flaunting of the rule of the game.

            In the loft we pulled and pushed the old boxes into a line in front of the place where the ladder came into our hiding place.  We agreed to stay hidden behind the boxes, and hold our fire, until Jerry entered the loft.  One or two of the “down town guys” stuck their heads up into the area. Seeing nothing, left.  Then Jerry climbed the ladder, and in his bold manner stood up; looking around.  At that moment Charles gave the command, fire! We all stood from behind our cover and fired at once…straight into the face of Jerry.  The rubber missiles found their target.  Jerry was stunned, surprised, but unhurt.  He turned with a cry and beat a hasty retreat, taking his crew back to town with him.

            I’m not sure we really won that shoot out.  We bragged about winning, and no one was there to challenge us. I know we taught a bully a lesson that day at the “Shoot Out at the OK Corral.”

            The flow of life moves us through the years in mysterious ways.  In the early 1930’s my Dad and Mom opened a little neighborhood grocery store.  They went to the big city and bought $34.48 worth of wholesale groceries, which filled the bed of their Model-A pick-up truck.   However those groceries also filled the shelves in their store.  The first sale was for a five-cent Baby Ruth candy bar.  Mom did not have enough money left to make change for the sale.  He promised to return the next day, and he did.  The store had few amenities of today’s “Convenience Stores.”  Summer sausages hung from nails on the wall.  A cheese wheel lay, uncovered, on the counter near the scales.  A wooden box of apples, and a crate of oranges leaned against the counter; the only ‘fresh’ items in the store.  Dried apples, peaches, and apricots sat in cardboard boxes on a shelf.    Only twenty-four and forty-eight pound sacks of flour were available. A few canned staples of pork and beans, sardines, Carnation evaporated milk, peaches and whole kernel corn lined the shelves on each wall.  The bread man came early each day with an arm full of Pan Dandy, factory baked bread.  The mixed aroma of fresh bread, apples, oranges, summer sausages, and dried fruit made us kids mouth water.

            The highway was rerouted through town and forced Dad to build a new store.   The new store had two Sinclair gasoline pumps.  On top of each pump sat a glass column that was filled with gasoline by us kids by pushing and pulling the lever of the marvelous new age pumping machine.  And the new store had a wonder of new items.  We had a ‘soda water’ case with crushed ice that made the drinks frosty cold.  Dad bought stalks of bananas that hung from a hook in the ceiling giving the store an up-town smell.  Perhaps most important was the candy shelf.  We had penny and nickel Baby Ruth and Butter Finger candy bars.  Bubble gum, big enough to fill our mouths cost one cent each.  A cream filled Daisy cookie, as big as your hand, was the greatest treat of all.  Most days Dad let us kids have a penny piece of candy, or a soda water, apple or an orange. Christmas brought ribbon candy.  The ribbon was about an inch wide, brightly stripped in many colors, folded into loops looked good, but was disappointing in taste.  The holiday also brought pecans, walnuts, and Brazil nuts for us to sample.  

            The men of the community enjoyed the assortment of tobaccos.  Dad stocked four brands of ready roll cigarettes; Camels, Lucky Strikes, Chesterfields, and Kools. Of course most men smoked Bull Durham or Duke’s Mixture roll your own tobacco.  They only cost five cents, and came in a little white cloth bag, which was great for carrying marbles, coins, and on occasions, live frogs.  Chewing tobacco consisted of Tensley, Days Work, and Brown Mule.  An assortment of snuffs, Tuberose, Honest, and Levi Garrett kept the ladies of the neighborhood happy.  Dad kept their secret secure all those years.

            That was the world I grew up in; everyday an adventure. Dad and Mom ran the store successfully for over 40 years, and eased into retirement.  But we went off to collage, fought wars, and built our own families in the big city, almost forgetting the past.

            However the flow of life continues. We are pleased and excited for our granddaughter, Brittney and her husband John, who have just bought a franchise for a real Convenience Store in the same town I grew up in.  That store has everything- cold snacks, hot food, and even electrically pumped gasoline.  The cold cases are full of drinks, and the hot coffee bar, with a half dozen flavors, is the freshest in town.  Hope you can stop by and say hello.  Have soda pop and tell Brittney to put it on my tab. 

Lucky  

            Our shop worked Austin and surrounding cities.  This put us on the road a lot of each working day.  One misty cold November day, returning from Manor, I witnessed a near fatal accident.  Crossing the road ahead was a small rusty colored dog.  Passing my pickup on the left was a sports car driving at great speed.  Almost in slow motion I could see the dog and car meet in the middle of the road.  The car sped on, but the dog was knocked into the ditch at the side of the road.  I stopped, backed up and ran to the dog.  He lay quiet, still, and bleeding.  I sensed he was alive, but in dire shape.  I picked him up from the wet, cold grass and lay him gently in the floorboard of my pickup.  He was still breathing.

At the shop we placed him near the fire on a mat.  In a few hours he moved, opened his eyes and gave us that look of, “What happened?”  He then lay still and we knew his life was in the hands of fate.  Fate won.

The next day he was awake, lapped up some water and a bite of food.  Looking at him lying on the mat of shop towels, we agreed he was one lucky dog.  And that is how he earned his name.

            Lucky was a small dog, hardly fifteen pounds, golden in color and frisky.  He became our “Shop Dog,” and was good at his assumed task.  Each morning he waited at the pickup to ride to the shop with me.  At the shop he would find the coolest spot in the summer and the warmest in the winter, to take up his task of being a shop dog.  Lucky greeted all guests that came to the shop with a sniff and quick tail waging, then resume his post.  Deliverymen were given the same hearty greeting, but with a more guarded personality.  A gentle pat on the head and he wagged his little tail and resumed guard duty.  Customers got the full warm treatment.  Lucky always had a friendly bark with plenty of tail wagging, which made them feel properly welcomed.

            Lucky had one annoying habit.  He refused to eat dog food.  The only thing he would eat was table scraps.  I guess he felt he was human, and we soon came to understand he possible was; Alice always fixed him a plate as if he were a guest at the house also.  He didn’t seem to mind taking his plate on the back porch, which was a surprise.  He even ate the green beans and carrots on the plate.  Often, when Alice wasn’t looking, I made sure he got an extra serving of vegetables from my plate.

            Those were idyllic times.  Lucky enjoyed riding with me to the shop, watching the traffic whizzing by and growling at fast sports cars.  Keeping his post guarded at the shop seemed to be a pleasant time for him. At about 4:30 in the afternoon, Lucky would stir from his nap to announce it was time to go home.  I usually agreed with him. He would happily run to the pickup and wait for me to open the door.  In he would hop and assume his stance by the window to watch his world slide by.

            But large, mean, dogs roamed our neighborhood.  Lucky tangled with one to many.  We buried him beneath the giant oak in the back yard with all the pomp and ceremonies a sad family could muster. Even Lucky’s streak ran out.  We still miss him.

Richard’s Eulogy

        We are here today to celebrate, honor, and illuminate a part of Richard Wear’s magnificent life as a builder of homes, acute observer of nature, hunter and photographer of deer, servant to his community, and as a family man.  Richard’s life was so large and covered so much area; we can only touch upon a small portion of it.

        Richard served 14 years on the school board at Liberty Hill Independent School District.  Richard always worked for the benefit of the children.  Moneys spent needed to be reflected to the good of each child in school.  Once Richard found a western belt with the name of Jack tooled on the back.  Fit him just fine so he took it to wear.  At a board meeting the members were discussing building something that Richard said cost too much.  They augured.  Richard stood, turned around, showed them the name Jack on his belt and said, “I am so poor I can’t even afford a belt with my name on it.” Richard won that argument. I remember Richard not going to the seminars and training classes out of town for the expense to the school district out weighed the benefits to the board members.  Yet he would work overtime to get programs and equipment that were good for the students.

        Family was important to Richard. Early on, when Beth, their daughter, was a young girl they bought her a Mo-Ped.  Richard and she would go to a gravel pit and both would ride over the dirt piles.  That pleased Richard.   

  Once his grandson, Tye, called from Kerrville needing help on a science project.  It wasn’t due until tomorrow.  Richard dropped everything he was doing and drove to Kerrville to help Tye build a catapult, a working scale model of a historic weapon.  They worked all night, finished the project and it proved to be the strongest and most accurate one of all.   Richard’s brothers and sisters benefited from Richard’s creative flair, and building knowledge.  And his many friend’s and neighbors homes reflect his handiwork.          Lyndon Sterns, an early childhood friend, said to me Richard made all their toys to play with.  He was just born to saw, cut, and make things.  He said Richard built them a wagon once from an old set of wheels.  They pulled the younger kids up and down the trails, which they survived with little more than a few scratches.  Maryann, Richard’s sister, said he pulled her in that wagon for many, many miles around the farm.    

        Hunting was close to Richard’s heart.  Not so much in killing a deer, but in being out in nature observing her beautiful handy work.  If Richard found a pretty or unusual rock, wooden log, or roll of rusty barbed wire, he would manage to get into his pickup and bring it home.  He had a sense of humor about hunting.  Once the deer lease did not have a cabin for them to use.  He loaded up scrap lumber, roofing, discarded doors and windows, took it to the lease and built a 24×24 cabin.  Of course he worked the other hunters to a frazzle, but they got it done.  Before he would let them quit for the day he insisted they finish the job by painting it.  The only paint in the truck was several gallons of Pink paint.  It is the only pink hunting lodge in history.  Richard enjoyed telling me the story of a hunting cabin that was inhabited with a hive of bees.  He said if you were careful in opening the door to enter, they would not bother you.  But some of the guys wanted them out of there.  They had a leaky butane bottle, so they placed it just under where the bees were and stood back.  Good thing!  In a few minutes, when the room filled with butane the pilot light on the cook stove ignited the gas.  The explosion blew out the windows, the door from the hinges, and ended up spinning around harmlessly in the yard.  The only good thing was the cabin did not catch fire…. nor kill the bees.

        But building homes was his passion.  I don’t think Richard ever built a house or did an addition without adding something a little extra for the homeowner.  Many homes he built required removing a few trees.  Richard saved the logs from these trees and built a shelf or bench for the owner to enjoy.  Some times where a window was designed he would insert a bay window, because it added beauty to the structure.  Richard’s eye was keen and saw that all lines, curves, and shapes were fair and pleasing.   Once I went with Richard to enclose the bottom of a lake house built on stilts.  We arrived early and went to work with little pomp and ceremony.  We ran to the lumber pile to fetch sticks of pine for him to nail into walls.  It was hard to stay up with his swift hammer.  I began looking forward to lunch and a chance to catch my breath.  Fifteen minutes after lunch we hit it again.  We nailed siding to the studs.  Boxed windows.  Hung doors.  Ran wire and plumbing then nailed paneling.  The shadows of evening came slowly, with what I thought would be relief.  No way.  Richard said, “You need a porch on the front of this house.”  We drug post, hauled decking, and sawed beams and soon had a porch.  Now I knew, as dark came we could go home.  Not quite yet.  Richard said, “Now we need steps form the deck to the ground.”  He built those steps by the headlights of his pick-up.  Finely I was allowed to crawl to the pick up and drag myself into the seat to go home.  However I found soon that was Richard’s normal day…from before dawn until after dark.

        Richard picked up a neat habit from one of his builder uncles, Roy Wear.  Each house he built, he left a note, memento, or message penciled on a rafter to be found years later.  Richard liked that and perfected the act.  He even sent one of his prized hammers with Paul Curtis, to the Ukraine to hide in a wall being renovated.  That pleased Richard.  Sherman Winters said Richard built their house in 1985.  Sherman, in remodeling just a few years ago, had to remove a bathroom window.  As he sat it down, there penciled on the bottom of the window stile he found a note from Richard from years ago, “August 10, 1985 9:PM I am tired and I am going home.”

        Thursday evening Richard was fighting valiantly for each breath. Paul Curtis said he could see in his mind Richard penciling a note on a rafter, “April 29^th, 2010, 75 degrees, 2:00 o-clock, wind from south, beautiful day. I am tired and I am going home.”

        And Richard went home.

Hollis Baker   1 May 2010       

      Paul Curtis, local citizen of Liberty Hill, and seven others from First Baptist Church in Georgetown were given the opportunity to go to the Ukraine to help enlarge and renovate rooms for a Protestant seminary in the Capitol City of Kiev.  Paul shared with Richard Wear what he was planning to do.  Richard said he wanted to send something with Paul to leave ‘their mark’  in the remodeling process.   In their talk Richard remembered a special hammer he had found hidden in an old house he had renovated back in 1986.  What made the ‘found’ hammer so special, Richard’s uncle, Roy Wear from Burnet, had built the house in the 20’s, and left a hammer hidden in the house wall for some future builder to find.  That would be the perfect ‘builders mark’ to leave in the renovation in the Ukraine.

            Paul and his seven fellow workers flew to the Ukraine on a Saturday, rested on Sunday, then went to work on Monday.  They awoke that morning to a 32-degree crisp, sun drenched day.  Their first task was to dig a foundation trench 2 foot wide by 4 foot deep for an expansion addition.  Can’t you see these eight, balding, desk jockeys with a little short handled pick and one rusty shovel surveying the task before them?  But they got it done in two days.  Sore muscles?  What muscles? Two temporary shed rooms needed to be removed next.  Paul asked for a hammer to pull roof nails.  They brought him a ball-peen hammer.  “No,” Paul said, “What I need is a CLAW-hammer.”  They did not have such a tool.  Then Paul remembered Richard’s hammer in his suitcase.  He retrieved it, and completed the task.   Paul shared with the local administration the odyssey of Richard Wear’s hammer, and his gift to the people of the Ukraine, as a token of love and respect.  They were moved with the presentation and gift.

            But Paul could see he needed more tools to finish the remodeling task than what the seminar had.  He got a member of the seminar to drive him downtown to a hardware store where he bought hammers; shovels, crowbars and an electric saw to cut masonry.

            Paul found the Ukrainians somber, but hard working people.  Most were living in modest ‘flats’ with limited incomes.  One helper was so eager to help he was always on the job, but sometimes in the way.  His dress told Paul he was a poor man.  The last day in Kiev Paul made him a gift of his Baylor University sweatshirt for “being the best worker” on the job. He is now the happiest Baylor Baptist Ukrainian in Kiev.  One elderly lady’s job around the campus was to sweep the sidewalks.  Each day she came and swept the walks with her home made broom, which was made of small branches from bushes tied to the end of sturdy stick.  However the homemade broom kept the walks clean.

            One small room at the seminary had two windows on a wall.  They wanted to convert this area into a prayer room. They removed the windows, secured mortar and bricks and began to fill the holes in the wall.  About half way in filling the space where the  windows were removed, Paul and his co-workers had a great idea.  Since the hammer had been hidden in the wall of a house in Texas and found, perhaps they could leave the hammer hidden between brick walls in Kiev, Ukraine for some future builder to find. And so it was done.  Some where, half a world away, mortared behind a brick wall of a seminary Prayer Room, is an old hammer with a hand made handle, labeled:  Richard Wear, Liberty Hill, Texas 2010 A.D.  

A few years ago Lee Hayes and Pete Seeger wrote a melody and lyrics to a song that swept across this land of America over night:

If I had a hammer

I would hammer in the morning

I would hammer in the evening

All over this land.

I don’t think Paul Curtis and Richard Ware are going to write another song, but they just might inspire some men and women half way around the world with a modest carpenter’s hammer.

The story begins in the early years of the 1920’s.  Richard Wear’s uncle, Roy Wear of Burnet, built a house in this community.  Roy Wear had a neat habit of leaving a note, memento, or old tool hidden in the walls of the homes he built.  The owner of the homes rarely, if ever, saw them.  But carpenters remodeling the homes years later would come across the hidden “treasures.”   In 1986 Richard Wear was remodeling the home that his uncle Roy had built years ago.  There hidden in a partition wall was an old hammerhead.  The head had no handle.  The tool was rusted and pitted and had been discarded before Roy hid it in the wall of the house.  Kind of a mute note, left for a future carpenter to find and say, “I built this.”  Richard showed his good friend, Odis Buck the old hammerhead he had found.  Mr. Buck asked Richard’s permission to make a new handle for the old hammer.  He carefully whittled a handle from a piece of hard wood from an abandoned wagon wheel, fitted it to the head and returned it to Richard.  Richard has used it some, but realized what a treasure the tool was, put it away for safekeeping.

Paul Curtis, working with a group from First Baptist Church of Georgetown, is going to the Ukraine in just a few weeks.  There in the city of Kiev, they will help the local members of a church remodel their building.  They plan to work in Kiev for two weeks, and then return home, a worn, ragged group of men.  But before they leave Paul will present, as a token of love and respect, Richard’s hammer.  Paul will share with the Ukraines the history of the hammer with the hope it will be a memento of good will and encouragement for future building projects.  The handle is labeled, “Richard Wear, Liberty Hill, Texas, 2010 AD.

Richard’s generosity of giving a treasured carpenters tool, and Paul’s hard work may inspire a young Ukrainian to write a great song…or build a better home.

          I mentioned making tamales last week, but I failed to explain how.  If you all would like, we will do that now.

          Someone needs to get a hand full of corn shucks.  We used to go to farmer Brown’s corn patch or corncrib to get our shucks, but now we just stop off at H.E.B. and buy a package.  When you get home, put them in a pot of water and boil for a short while to make the shucks soft and pliable.

          Now we have two choices for the meat for the tamales.  Traditionally the Santos family, our neighbors at the farm which you met last week, cooked a pork head in a big pot, and then pulled all the meat off for the filling of the tamales.  We did not have the grit to go that far.  We just went to the grocer and bought two pounds of beef hamburger, and made a pot of chili.  The Santos family gathered spices from their garden to flavor the chili.  Our garden does not have all the spices needed so we usually bought a package of “Wick Fowler’s Two Alarm Chili Mix.”  While you are in H.E.B. for the shucks you may as well get the hamburger, and chili mix.  If you don’t have any Crisco and yellow corn meal at home, get those items also.

          Now it is time to cook the chili.  Don’t follow the instructions on the box.  In a big pot cook and scramble the meat until it turns gray, and then add 2 quarts of water and all the dry contents of the chili mix.  Simmer until done.  This will produce a watery chili.  That is just what we need.  Drain the liquid from the meat and reserve the liquid to make the masa.

          I don’t guess I mentioned the masa did I?  That is the light colored stuff that the meat of the tamale is wrapped in.  The Santos family made their masa by first making hominy, which is a task in its self, then grinding it by hand with a stone pestle on a stone base.  We have learned to take the easy way and use yellow corn meal for masa.  This next step is the most important part of making tamales.  Measure 4 cups of the reserved juice from the chili into a pot.  Bring to a fast boil and slowly add 2 cups of the corn meal, stirring briskly all the while.  The masa will stick to the sides of the pot you are using. Add Crisco shorting while stirring and cooking until the masa pulls away from the sides of the pot.  There, that does it. It now takes on a well-cooked mass of corn meal we call masa.  Add salt to taste.

          Call friends and family in to help with the next step.  Take a wet, soft shuck and spoon onto the large end of the shuck a layer of masa about 3 inches by 4 inches and about one fourth inch thick.  Pass this on to the next helper who will add a finger size portion of chili meat in the middle of the masa.  This is passed on to the next helper who rolls the shuck around the emerging tamale.  The guy at the end then folds over the small end of the shuck and places it into a steamer.  If you don’t own a tamale steamer we need to beat it back to H.E.B. and buy one.  Steam the tamales for a couple of hours.  Alice makes a big salad at this time and wrangles me to set the table.  Chips, crackers, and pinto beans make a great side dish for a meal of tamales. 

          If you get lost, or turned around following these instructions, call me.  I’ll be right over.

Making Tamales

          When my Dad was a young man he worked on a farm in the eastern part of Burnet County.  One of the crops that most farms grew was oats.  Oats were an important crop for they were needed to feed the horses that pulled the plows, that cultivated cotton, that was the cash crop of most of the farmers in that area.  Harvesting oats was an important social event for the farmers.   Before the days of combines the oats were harvested with the use of a monster machine called a thrasher.  The machine was expensive, and required many men to make it work.  The oats were cut with a mower pulled by two horses, raked into rows by two more horses, then bundled by men, and stacked in the field to dry.  Then came the thrasher down the dirt road, huffing and puffing, making a glorious noise with its iron wheels grinding the road base, going from one farm to the next at about three miles an hour.  The thrasher set up in the oat field and the neighbor farmers came and worked all day separating the oat seed from the chaff and straw.  It took a crew of about 8 to ten men to operate the thrasher.  At noontime all was shut down for the ladies had an enormous dinner ready for the working hands.  It was a point of pride for the lady of the host farm to spread a full, hearty dinner, with plenty of iced tea, and milk for them to drink.  After the dinner she brought out the cakes and pies, served with good hot, black coffee.  This was the social all looked forward to in the threshing season.  Then it was back to the fields to finish the work, then make its way to the next farm to thrash that farmers oats.

          The next farm over was the Senior Eduardo Santos family.  Mr. Santos was a big man with a silver main of hair and a handsome mustache. He had a gentle voice that carried authority and respect from all. And he was a good farmer.   All the farmers in the neighborhood wanted to help harvest the Santos oats for the ladies served the best dinner in the area.  Mexican food was as popular then as it is today, but difficult to find.  Mrs. Santos made the best tortillas, beans, and hot tamales in the world.  The tamales are what caught my Dad’s fancy.  Only modesty kept him from eating to many of the delicious tamales.

          After the harvesting season, my Dad visited the Santos family and asked Mrs. Santos to teach him to make tamales.  Dad spoke no Spanish and Mrs. Santos spoke little English. Some how the common language of food was able to bridge the space between the two cultures and Dad became a champion “Santos Tamale” maker.

          Over the years Dad made tamales about two or three times a year. We all looked forward to those days.  He usually picked a cold, rainy day when the temperature hung at about 35 degrees, and a light breeze from the north at ten to fifteen miles per hour.  He would send me to the country to find corn shucks to wrap the tamales in, while Mom was dispatched to the meat market for fresh, fat, hamburger to make the filling for the fabled food.  All the family was called in to make the tamales and whet their appetites.

          Who would have thought the harvesting of oats would lead to learning how to make “Senora Carmen Eduardo Santos tamales.”  And that is one of the traditions we keep in our family…cold, wet days, hot, tasty tamales.