|
|
THE
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO SPUNKY FLAT
by George
Lester |
 |
Spunky
Flat in the thirties was not exactly the center of modern culture.
We were cut off from the world. Newspapers were not delivered there
and nobody could afford them anyway. Radios were not in the budget
of most and television was not to come along for another twenty years.
The only way we got news and information was by word-of-mouth. The
more mouths passing it along, the more distorted it became.
For some reason, there was only one automobile produced in the United
States according to local authority. No matter what make, size, design,
or color, they were all "Ford V-Eights". Every car dealer in Marlin
sold only Ford V-Eights. The highways around the area were traveled
only by Ford V-Eights. As we walked the gravel road to school, every
car that went by was greeted by "Boy, look at that new Ford V-Eight!"
I remember one lad informing every one that his uncle had just bought
a brand new Chevrolet. When asked to describe it he said it was a
Ford V-Eight model.
Once I sat around with a bunch of my friends and listened to a conversation
about "that horse all the western stars rode in the movies". One sage
in the group informed us that all of them rode the same horse. Buck
Jones, Charles Starett, Hoot Gibson, Ken Maynard, Tom Mix, Gene Autry,
and Hop-along Cassidy, all shared the same white horse. According
to our "expert", this was not speculation on his part, but an honest
fact. He had read it somewhere in a magazine article. All agreed that
it sounded logical to them and one even suggested that of all the
cowboys, Buck Jones handled the horse best. He could make him do more
tricks than any of them.
On a Monday morning at school, one of the students held us spellbound
by telling us what he had seen ... next page |
|
|
