The Great Key Caper and Other Escapades

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The Great Key Caper and Other Escapades
By Hal Wingo

[As a working journalist, a foreign correspondent, and an editor, Hal Wingo was associated for nearly four decades with the Time-Life publishing enterprises. Before his retirement last year, he was the international editor for People magazine, carrying the editing responsibility for the Australian edition. Since moving from New York to Richmond, he has been teaching a journalism course at the University of Richmond. Active in his local church, he has been organist, choir member, Sunday School teacher, moderator, and deacon. He is a Regent at Baylor University, his Alma Mater. This address, published here, was given on June 8 at the Sesquicentennial Celebration of the First Baptist Church of Gonzales, Texas where his father was pastor when he was a boy. That celebration under the general direction of the Pastor, Bradley Russell, and with the music leadership of native son Robert Reid, Houston Baptist University music professor, was a marvelous and memorable experience.]

It`s very nice to be back in Gonzales. No, it`s much more than that. It`s wonderful, it`s exciting, and it`s inspiring to be here on such an historic weekend.

Ever since Thomas Wolfe penned what may be his most famous line, declaring that "you can`t go home again," people have been arguing about what he really meant and if it were even true or not. I`ll leave it to others to continue that argument, but I know I speak for both my sisters tonight when I tell you that we feel very at home in Gonzales.

This place is the first home I was ever aware of; and everything I first learned about life, family, the world, and human nature was shaped right here on this block. It is no exaggeration for me to suggest that this well-known "church square"-as it was designated in the original plans for the development of Gonzales-represents the ground zero of my existence.

The first book I remember reading as a child with which I felt any personal identity was a little autobiographical volume called "Papa was a Preacher." In that book, the author told stories about what it was like to grow up in the parsonage of a small southern town, and I experienced a wonderful sense of identity with everything being written. But truth to tell, I also felt that most of those stories paled compared to my own memory of growing up in this southern town and in this Baptist parsonage.

As tonight`s assignment has forced me to think again about my early years here and some of the scrapes I got into-with lots of help from my sister Mancie and David and Judy Minter, the twin children of the Methodist pastor next door-I marvel that our father managed to last eight years in Gonzales. He must have been a very good preacher or this must have been a very forgiving congregation. I suspect it was both.

I`m going to relive a few of those experiences tonight and if I still owe apologies to anyone in this room, please see me later and I will be only too happy to ask for your forgiveness.

As I said, this block was my whole world, and it seemed to contain within it everything a child could need in life. Oh, there were a few tentacles that reached out beyond our borders occasionally, maybe a half block away to the home of Ada and Claude O`Neall. At least I think that was their name. I only knew them as O`Meal and Lala. Or the tentacles sometimes reached across the street from the Methodist parsonage to the Crystal Theater. Ah, the dear old Crystal. I`m sure that much of my fantasizing throughout life, and my over-active imagination, had their roots in the Crystal where I would sit with eyes transfixed on the screen, sometimes through two or three showings of the same picture until my mother sent someone to jerk me out of my seat and back into reality.

And sometimes our extensions of life on this block reached all the way out past Person`s Flower shop to Oscar Thompson`s house (which I am shocked today to realize is less than half a mile away) or across the square to Alice Marie Marett`s, that`s the Alice Marie of the stand up bows in her hair. I don`t know how Mrs. Marett got those bows to stand up straight or firm, but I`m convinced if we had spun Alice around in circles, she would have taken off like a helicopter.

These were big trips, eclipsed only in my mind by what seemed like intergalactic travel to Scarborough`s Department Store in far away Austin or Joskes`s in San Antonio, where our mother loved to shop.

But for most of the first eight years of my life, my world was defined by events within shouting distance of my voice right now.

The only four structures on the block were the Baptist Church and parsonage and the Methodist Church and parsonage. I had hoped to say tonight that fifty years later that`s exactly how things still are, but I noticed this afternoon that the Methodist parsonage has been turned into the church office. Isn`t that just like the Methodists? They can`t keep anything straight. This wonderful old building we are in tonight has been altered through the years, and I`m sure all to the good, but the two-story Baptist parsonage I grew up in was torn down long ago and replaced by that nondescript rambling brick ranch number next door.

Never mind: The old parsonage is still etched in my memory as clearly as the face of my own children. And oh, what a house it was for a child to ramble in. If our blessed mother were here she would probably say, yes but the kitchen was lousy and there weren`t enough bathrooms; but hey, what does a five-year old know or care about such things?

To us, it was a castle of delights with a sweeping front staircase, a back staircase just right for sliding down in cardboard boxes and a large screened-in upstairs front porch perfect for sleeping on a summer night. It even had what we called a junk room at the end of the second floor hall where mysteriously, each year in early December, beautifully wrapped packages would start to appear in what my parents no doubt thought were safe hiding places in the room. I could tell you what I was getting for Christmas two weeks ahead of time almost every year. I could also have told you what Jean and Nancie were getting, but they would have used it as an excuse to kill me. No one could tell me Santa came from the North Pole. I knew that he came from the junk room.

Jean had her own private room in the house which was strictly off limits to Nancie and me. She was very organized and kept everything in perfect shape at all times. We should have known then what an eye she would develop for perfect harmony in decorating. The best Nancie and I could do to get a peek at her world was to sneak around on the upstairs porch and look into her room through the window which faced the porch-especially when she had any of her girl friends over.

We were always curious to know what such sophisticated older people would have to talk about. Jean, I can tell you we never really found out.

It fell to Nancie, David, Judy, and me to be the Gonzales version of the Little Rascals and our hardy band is the group that stirred up most of the mischief I recall invoking on the good people of this community.

For all of you who grew up In the age of television, it may seem strange to hear that we had to create our own entertainment, but I can tell you there were never enough hours in the day to act out all the crazy ideas and schemes that came into our minds. And you can file that one under hidden blessings for the good people of Gonzales.

One of the characteristics of this wonderful house I have described is that, like other preachers` houses I`m sure, our father often conducted weddings in the parsonage. It was routine in our house to see a young couple standing in the living room exchanging wedding vows with only our mother or perhaps one other couple as witnesses. Nancie and I often watched these proceedings with our heads squeezed between the banisters on the staircase.

David and Judy must have often witnessed the same kind of thing at their house because we all agreed that "getting married" was the thing to do at least three or four times every summer. And so we did. We made the likes of Elizabeth Taylor and Kenny Rogers look like rank amateurs when it came to counting trips to the altar. But no mere living room ceremony was good enough for us. Hey, we had access to the big church and we made the best of it. The reason I said we did this in the summer is because I can recall so vividly that the crepe mrytles growing on trees that used to be along the street right outside were always the flower of choice for the bride and maid of honor. The way we did it was that Judy and I would be married, with David performing the ceremony in the Methodist or Baptist sanctuary, and Nancie would be maid of honor. Then Nancie and David would get married with me as the minister for the ceremony and Judy as maid of honor.

After that the four of us would take off on our honeymoon, which you will be relieved to know consisted of a few trips around the block in our wooden wagons, with the brides waving their flowers at the passing cars. And oh, yes, whoever wasn`t the bride of the moment was obliged to sing a solo at the ceremony in the church. We had the ritual down to a gnat`s eyebrow. And come to think of it, our commitment seems at least as genuine as Elizabeth Taylor `s.

Now, when we weren`t marrying each other, we were often beating up on each other. Do those things go together?

Those were the days of cowboy kings in the movies and of Saturday serials which were the precursors of the television soaps. My personal hero was Hopalong Cassidy, while David`s was usually Gene Autry. Judy and Nancie were pressed into service as faithful sidekicks and we managed a strange combination of cowboys and war games, since this was all happening during the days of the second World War. I`ll never forget the day I heard on the radio that Gene Autry had enlisted in the army. I started running down the street telling anyone who would listen that the war would be over in a couple of days because Gene Autry had just signed up and he was such a good shot that the Germans didn`t have a chance. See how the Crystal corrupted my thinking?

Our block seemed big enough to provide hundreds of hiding places when we divided up two by two and pursued each other relentlessly. Anytime one of the enemy was captured, he or she (we were equal opportunity tormentors) was forced to hang from a tree limb safely hidden behind the Minter`s garage and switched unmercifully with tree branches until our legs were red with welts.

Hey, at least we weren`t sticking up filling stations. Well, there was the Crystal theater hold up.

David and I got a little carried away with our cowboy personae one summer and decided the time was right to pull a job on the ticket booth at the Crystal. My peers will recall that in those days theater tickets were nothing more than the little paper tabs pulled off a huge roll not unlike what you might still see at a county fair. The roll of tickets was kept on a spool just inside the glass window where the attendant sat.

The irony here is that the preacher `s kids were allowed into the theater for five cents. All we had to pay was the state and federal tax. But even five cents back then was not always falling into our hands every time we stretched them out in front of our parents, so David and I decided to raid the box office and help ourselves to that full roll of tickets.

The theater was just across the street from the side yard of the Minter`s house and for some reason there was a hole in the ground in that side yard just deep enough for two little boys to jump in and, if they crouched down, be just below the surface of the ground. Of course the hole was in full view of the ticket booth and was not much of a hiding place.

On the day of the heist, with our six shooters placed firmly in our holsters, we sauntered across the street and one of us-happily I can no longer remember which one-reached in and grabbed the entire roll of tickets. We fled across the street, jumped in the hole-and waited. I guess we thought we were waiting for the shootout to start, but all that happened is that the theater manager called Mrs. Minter to report what we had done and that we were hiding in a hole in the ground not more than 75 feet from the scene of the crime.

Our parents were properly upset and we were duly punished, but I think the thing that worried them most was whether or not to send David and me to some remedial school for the terminally dim. We had pulled the job in broad daylight, escaped to our hideout in full view of the theater, and didn`t even have the common sense to run away.

It`s been interesting for me to realize how remembering one misdeed of my youth leads to remembering another. I really should be too embarrassed to tell this one, but in the spirit of full disclosure, here goes.

Something happened once in Gonzales that have not seen anywhere else and have only read about once in a book. Back then, when anyone was seriously ill to the point of not being expected to live, and yet being cared for at home rather than in the hospital, the town fathers often felt that it was appropriate to block off the street in front of the house with wooden police barricades so that no noise from automobiles would disturb the suffering patient.

In her wonderful novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee describes a similar scene in a small Mississippi town. When I read it, I thought at first that she must have been from Gonzales too.

It happened that a fine young man was terminally ill in his family`s home directly across the street from this building. When Nancie and David and Judy and I saw the barricades on either end of the block I asked my mother what was up. She of course did not tell us that the young man was dying but that he was very ill and was not to be disturbed.

The four of us sat around the yard for awhile thinking about that and wondering what wonderful thing we could do to cheer the patient up. And then we decided. What could be better than a rhythm band? We sneaked into our kitchen and pulled out every pot and pan we could hold, took wooden stirring spoons for drum sticks and assembled on the sidewalk up at the corner of the church. Then with nothing but the purest intentions for good cheer in our twisted little hearts, we began marching down the sidewalk, hard by the street that had been blocked against any traffic, and banging dents into those pots and pans with all the fervor we could muster. We hadn`t made more than one pass down the sidewalk and were started back for a second run before my mother came flying out of the house looking as white as a sheet, grabbed us all by the nape of the neck and dragged us inside. At the young man`s funeral a few weeks later I felt particularly uncomfortable.

Now you see why I say I am amazed our father lasted eight years in Gonzales?

I mentioned the O`Nealls, or O`Meal and Lala. He was my father`s associate pastor and Nancie and I used to love going over to their house. They had no children of their own and for some reason decided that we were the next best thing. Any trip over there was always good for an all-day sucker, as we called the candy balls they gave us. But they had very strict rules and we were forced to leave our guns on the porch, if we happened to be wearing them that day, before we could enter the house.

O`Meal and Lala often sang duets at the church and it was not unusual to hear them practicing around their piano at home. I don`t know why we spared them on the day we decided to send little notes of instruction to all our neighbors on how they should behave. Isn`t that a howl? We were the ones constantly getting into trouble and here we were taking it on our selves to tell others the errors of their ways. Looking back at it now, I think this little letter writing campaign was prompted by our smug satisfaction that we had learned to write and therefore had something to say to everybody (a curse which has followed me most of my life). The worst of the notes we sent was addressed to Mrs. Taylor. The Taylors lived directly across from the Minter`s house and Mr. Taylor was the main soloist in the Methodist church choir. He also practiced a lot at home and frankly, we had gotten tired of listening to his warbling day in and day out.

So the note we sent to Mrs. Taylor said simply, "Will you please keep the man you love so much quiet?" We sneaked over and put the note in their mailbox and of course it didn`t take long for Mrs. Taylor to figure out who the anonymous senders were. On that occasion, I remember we were forced to go over and apologize and that was more painful than hanging from a tree limb having our legs beat into a pulp.

Now, I have saved the biggest caper for last. There may even be some of you here who remember the great stolen car keys event.

It happened during one of the summer revivals when outdoor meetings were held on the property between this building and the Methodist church. A large wooden platform was constructed for the piano, the pulpit, and the choir and from where the visiting evangelist could hold forth as he preached his heart out to the assembled crowd.

Services were held inside the church in the morning and outside in the cooler air in the evening. One summer morning David and I managed to skip the service. I`m not even sure how we pulled that off, but we were sitting around the grounds over at the Methodist church and thinking what fun it would be to have a collection of some kind, a hobby that we could start, like stamp collecting. But stamps didn`t do it for us. Both David and I were fascinated by cars. We could see any car two blocks away and tell what year and model it was. He knew we couldn`t do much at our age about our yearning for cars, but it dawned on us that morning that it would be great fun to at least own a lot of car keys. In those simpler, more trusting times, people who drove to church, or anywhere else in town for that matter, parked their cars head first into the curb and left their keys in the ignition switch while they were away from their automobiles. Isn` t it shocking to realize how far mankind has fallen from such innocence?

David and I took a look at the long line of cars parked all the way around the block for the morning service, and a little light went off in both our heads at the same time.

We were sitting on a gold mine of car keys, just ripe for the picking.

We ran to my house, got a brown paper grocery bag and while the service was going on inside, started down the street, plucking the keys from every car and throwing them in the bag. We were almost to the last car when I heard the strains of "Just As I Am" coming from the church and we both realized for the first time what a hopeless thing we had done. There was no time to figure out which keys went in which car, so we started running back down the block tossing any set of keys on the front seat of any car. We didn`t even get that finished before the music ended and the people started pouring out of church. Wouldn`t you know it would be a morning when no one got converted or at the very least came forward for rededication, giving us a little more time?

David and I made a dive for the safety of darkness underneath the back porch of the Methodist Church from where we could watch as the puzzled parishioners came out and realized the devil had been at work while they were worshipping.

For some reason, we were immediately seen as suspects and the Methodist janitor–traitor that he was-pointed out where we were hiding.

The next thing that I can remember is that my poor father had to collect all the keys from the various cars, add them to those still in the brown paper bag and stand up on that wooden platform in the boiling heat, holding up each key one at a time while the members of the church walked by to see if that was their key.

It took more than an hour to get the mess straightened–and the mess that was David Minter and Mal Wingo probably never got really straightened out. Although I must point out that David went on to become a distinguished scholar and professor at Rice University. At least one of us redeemed himself.

My father did leave Gonzales a few months after that incident (surprise, surprise) and we moved to San Antonio, which was certainly more convenient for my mother`s trips to Joskes.

In collecting my thoughts for this evening, I found myself wondering why I couldn`t think of any truly wonderful and good things we did as children. I have to hope that there were some, though nothing registered itself firmly enough in my mind to call up more than 50 years later.

But to be sure, there were wonderful moments and my memory of these years is anchored by a sense of security, and belonging, and being loved, and most importantly, learning about the love of God for the first time as only a child can think of God. My memories of being in this church building on Sunday and Wednesday and every other time the doors were open are strong and fresh to me even now. It seems that I can close my eyes and still hear my father`s clear and certain voice in this place.

And I know that all the good things that have happened to me in my life, all the opportunities that came my way, were initially shaped by the days that I was introduced to life, and knowledge, and believing right here.

Jean and Nancie and I have spent these last three days revisiting friends and places of our earlier years all throughout south Texas. We have called it our ROOTS trip and it wouldn`t have been right for it to culminate anywhere else but Gonzales.

Earlier this year one of America`s best known newspaper columnists died. His name was Herb Caen and for more than 50 years he wrote a daily column extolling the beauty and appeal of the San Francisco Bay Area. He was the area`s most unabashed and unapologetic promoter. About six months before he died, he was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize in recognition of his lifetime of work, and when he was presented the award on the steps of city hall, thousands of people turned out to witness the ceremony and to honor him. He told those people that day that he knew when he died and got to Heaven he would look around and say, "This is really nice, but it isn`t San Francisco."

Now, I know that is not theologically correct, but grant me the license for a moment. I have had the great privilege of living in, or working in, some of the most important and interesting cities in the world, and I can tell you that there was never a time in any of them when I couldn`t think to myself, "This is a great place, but it sure isn`t Gonzales."

So you will understand me when I tell you that there is no place, absolutely no place, I would rather be on this historic and beautiful weekend than

In this town,
On this block, and
At this church,
l iterally awash in precious memories.
Thank you for letting me share some of mine.