Searching for Judy Christian
By Hal Haralson
It was the Summer of 1955. There weren`t many summer jobs in Loraine, Texas (population 700.) My brother Dale and I needed to make some money to pay our tuition at Hardin-Simmons University in the fall. Dale would be a freshman and I would be a junior. Dale was studying to be a lawyer. I was studying for the ministry.
Our Uncle Dell had forty acres south of town with an irrigation well on it. We talked him into letting us farm it on the "halves", i.e. he got half of what we made. We moved in and began moving the water.
The shack we spent the summer in was made of concrete blocks. It had no windows, no door, and no floor. There was no plumbing. We moved the irrigation pipes at 8:00 p.m., 2:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. The ground was always wet so we bogged through the mud and fought mosquitoes.
Since we had no light, the 2:00 a.m. move was the most difficult.
It was a long, hot summer. But the cotton grew and we knew we would make money for college.
Sometime during August, a friend of ours named Lanny Curry came by to see us. Lanny worked as a recruiter for Hardin Simmons University and spent the summer calling on prospective students. He told us he had been in Littlefield, Texas, where he went out to the municipal pool and met the lifeguard who was to be a freshman at HS-U that fall. Lanny`s description of Judy
Christian in her bathing suit captured the attention of both the Haralson boys.
"You guys want to be on the lookout for Judy Christian when you get to school. She is really a beauty."
Neither of us said much about the conversation with Lanny. We were both planning our strategies to be the first to find Judy. Dale found her the first day and had a date with her that night. . . and the next night . . . and the next night. She was 5`2", very blond, with an enormous smile and contagious enthusiasm. I really fell for Judy, but there was nothing I could do since she was going out several nights a week with my brother. Judy and I became close friends, but it could go no further.
The Thanksgiving holiday was upon us and Dale and I headed toward Loraine in our old green 1952 Plymouth. The conversation turned to Judy and Dale complained about all the money he had spent on her over the past three months without getting his first kiss. He was obviously not very pleased with this situation.
"That`s not a very good return on your investment," I replied. I encouraged this line of thinking and on the way back to the campus, Dale decided he was going to date some other girls and gave me permission to go out with Judy. I was so excited I could hardly contain myself and told Dale to be sure because if I ever started dating Judy, she would be his sister-in-law. That may have been somewhat presumptuous on my part. Dale said go ahead.
Go ahead I did. I had my first date the first week of December and another the second week of December. I was invited to go to Littlefield (45 miles north of Lubbock) the day after Christmas. On December 27, 1955, I proposed . . . Judy accepted and we were married on December 27, 1956. Now, we celebrate that date 43 years later.
Judy laughs and says God called her to be a preacher`s wife and Dale was going to be a lawyer. She knew she could never be married to a lawyer.
Someone said, "You want to make God laugh? Tell Him your plans."
Depending on who is telling the story, it comes out like so:
Judy: "I dated both the Haralson boys and picked the best one."
Dale: "I dated Judy and decided I could do better, so I let Hal have her."
Hal: "I took Judy away from my brother."
It`s 43 years later and my search for Judy Christian became the beginning of that many years of marriage. She and Dale have been friends all these years. We all chuckle when we recall her saying, "I could never be married to a lawyer."
