Page 4
THE BATTALION
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1974
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1974 TB ^B
Town compares to JJ Walker s Desperado
Plenty of beer-drinkin , little dominoes
By BRUCE SUBLETT
Special to the Batt
“There was old men with
beer guts and dominoes,
lying bout their lives
while they played. ”
—Jerry Jeff Walker
It was hot and clear in
Hearne on October 1. The lit
tle town was quiet, like
everyone was inside for an af
ternoon nap. The Chamber of
Commerce office was closed in
spite of the sign that says Open
8A-5P. The highway patrol and
Western Union offices were
closed too, because they share
the same tiny building.
Right across the street is an
oasis for a hot and thirsty travel
ler. The Hearne Domino
Palace is a perfect example of
the legendary Texas beer joint.
It’s dim and cool inside, even
though there is no air con
ditioner.
Henry Sadler, the barten
der, says what will you have
and you tell him a cold Pearl.
He pulls a frosted mug from the
freezer and draws off a cold
One of the other customers
has gone out to the movie thea
ter and brought back three car
tons of popcorn. For a while,
everybody is busy eating the
salty kernels. Henry smiles be
cause he knows everybody will
have another beer after the
It's getting about supper
time, so you get up to leave.
Henry says you boys come
back, now, and somehow you
get the feeling he means it.
Out of the cool dark into the
hot bright street and two
tough-sounding street rods
rumble past, soul music pour
ing out the windows with ear-
splitting volume, welcominJ
you back to the real world. Anil
then you know: the HeanJ
Domino Palace isn’tjustabetl
joint, it’s Escape.
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FLOWER & GIFT
209 University
846-5825
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West Screen at 7:30 pm
“Challenge” (PG)
Tonite at 7:30-9:15
“Black Godfather” (R)
one.
There is just one other per
son at the bar, an old man with
one arm in a cast. He’s drinking
Budweiser, pouring it out of
the can into a seven-ounce
Pearl glass. He methodically
crushes each can when it’s
empty with his one good hand.
H e doesn’t bother to call
Henry for another beer, he just
goes behind the bar and gets
one. While he’s back there he
asks if you’ll have one more.
None of the other five men in
the place are playing
dominoes, but the tables are
ready and a sign on the wall
gives the prices: 20 cents a loss
for two players, 15 cents for
three and 10 cents for four.
Henry looks up from watch
ing nobody playing dominoes
and notices you’re empty. He
gets you another beer and you
start talking about how hot it is
and how there’s sure not any
doves in the country. Henry
says yes it is and no there’s not,
but old Jim over there has been
doing pretty good on squirrels.
Sure enough, old Jim is put
ting 13 squirrels in a pot of salt
water to soak overnight. He
says he’s going to make stew
tomorrow in the bar’s little
kitchen. Old Jim looks about
35, in hunter’s coveralls and a
red baseball cap.
In the process of filling the
pot, old Jim has spilled some
water on the floor. Henry tells
him he’ll whip his ass if he ever
does it again. Jim says he’ll mop
it up and that will be the only
time the floor has ever been
clean. Everybody laughs.
popcorn.
Three more men come in.
Two of them order beer, but
one gets a small can of grapef
ruit juice. He goes outside and
returns with a big insulated
mug of ice. Six ounces of
grapefruit juice shouldn’t
begin to fill the mug, but he
only pours in half of it before
the mug is full.
Inevitably, talk turns to the
recent double murder in
Hearne. Each man acts as
judge and jury, pronouncing
sentence on the suspect. They
all agree that he is guilty. The
man with the powerful grapef
ruit juice explains that trouble
has been brewing since the
suspect ran off to Mexico with
the victims’ daughter. Most of
them think the police should
have killed the suspect instead
of wounding him. One says it
would save the taxpayers a lot
of money that way.
When most of the patrons
leave about 6 o’clock to go
home and eat supper, Henry
comes over to gripe about his
life and hard times. His red,
leathery skin shows he hasn’t
worked inside all of his life.
He’s down on the owner of the
place, whom he hasn’t seen
since the previous Friday. He
says this would be a real nice
place if the owner would put in
an air conditioner, but then he
says he wouldn’t do it if he were
the owner because of the elec
tricity bill.
Henry says he usually closes
up about 9, since all the night
business goes to the three
honky-tonks up north of town.
Justice survives transition
from railroad to ghost tou
By VK
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Adviser discusses
‘'contrasumers
At 9:15 pm
“The Cheerleaders” (R)
By KANAYA MAHENDRA
Staff Writer
Dr. Albert J. Fritsch, former ad
viser to Ralph Nader, spoke Thurs
day night on the topic, “The Con
trasumers: A Citizens Guide to Re
source Construction.
According to Fritsch contrasumer
means against consumers.
Fritsch said that people should
find out how much energy each in
dividual is using and find out what
they are doing. Sighting an example
Dr. Fritsch said that people give up
colored toilet paper but drive big
cars and think they are saving
energy.
Dr. Fritsch compared the con
sumption of energy in 1876 to what
is projected for 1976.
It is better to conserve energy
than to expand the sources of
energy, said Fritsch. A hundred
years ago people were heavy con
sumers of energy but they had a
slower life. Today it’s pretty good
where we are, we have made prog
ress. It is difficult to pin down the
quality and quantity then and now.
Fritsch further commented that
increased consumption of energy
has dropped the net energy and we
must change to environmental
energy sources, like solar energy or
windmills.
1876
Fuels in Trillion B.T.U.
Mineral Fuels . . . 1,600
Water 182
Fuel 2,868
1976
Fuels in Trillion B.T. U.
80,000
3,650
275
Total 100,000,000
387,161,000
horsepower per per
son
93 horsepower per per
son
By STEVE BALES
Special to the Batt
It was hot in Millican at two
o’clock in the afternoon. The sun
had finally come out of hiding after a
week of record-breaking rain in
Brazos County and making up foi
lost time.
No one was in sight, but the sign
in the tiny post office said open. In
side, behind the one-window
counter, stood a woman about 40.
The only person in town that
knew anything about the history of
Millican was Fletcher L. Pool, the
justice of the peace, she said. But he
was in Galveston for back surgery.
All she knew was what she had read
in the newspaper articles from time
to time, something about Millican
being a Confederate railhead in the
Civil War. Something like that.
Oh yes, Mrs. Dora Langford
might help. Better stop at
Dockery’s store and try to call her
first to make sure she’s home and to
get her to lock up her three dogs.
Dockery’s store was a small place
with few goods and high prices. The
lady there said that the phone could
only be used on local calls. Just dial
the last four numbers to get a ring.
No one answered at Mrs.
Langford’s. The lady at the store
said that Mrs. Fletcher Pool was at
home and she knew as much about
Millican as her husband did. Her
number is there on the wall above
the phone, along with the a dozen or
so more of the people here.
A small, frail voice answered the
phone with a “hello ”. She said she
knew a little about Milliean’s history
and that she would be glad to talk
about it. She said to just come back
to the post office and turn right on
the gravel road and go along till you
get to the old, white house on the
right. You can’t miss it, it’s been
here for more than 130 years.
The Pool’s place was old allright.
The sandstone and mortar chimney
attached to the house looked as if it
had seen better days. The mortar
had turned to powder in places,
leaving large holes in the chimney.
The front door opened and an el
derly woman walked out on the
porch. She said she was Mrs. Pool
and to come on in and sit a spell.
The old house had a musty smell
of rotting wood and dirt that had
been ground into the floor over the
years. From the living room you
could see four other rooms and the
front porch. The fireplace had been
boarded up and there were a few
nick-nacks on the mantel.
Mrs. Pool sat down and picked up
East Screen at 7:35
“Our Times” (PG)
At 9:25 pm
Jane Fonda
“Steelyard Blues” (PG)
Tonite at 7:30
“Walking Tali”
at 9:30 pm
“Road Hustler”
Coming Oct. 23rd
“The Sting”
We're talking to over 10,000 success-
oriented college seniors on campuses all
over the country.
We'll hire 936.
Yes, /Etna Life & Casualty is choosy. We want winners. College-trained people
whose personal qualities give them the drive and maturity to succeed. We're
prepared to offer them action-oriented careers both at our Hartford
headquarters and in /Etna offices in 115 leading cities.
And the choice of careers is as broad as you'd expect from one of the world's
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A dozen other areas. In fact, we can offer just about any college-trained
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All /Etna's career areas have one thing in common. For the individual willing
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Convince us that you've got what it takes. We'll take it from there.
If all this sounds good, you've already started in the right direction. Contact:
Texas A&M Placement Office
before Tuesday, Oct. 29, 1974
You get attion with >Etna
LIFE & CASUALTY
An equal opportunity employer and A Jobs lor Veterans Company
an envelope with a bunch of yel
lowed newspaper clippings in it.
She said she had been keeping them
for a long time. Most of the clippings
had Fletcher Pool mentioned in
them somewhere because everyone
that came to Millican looking for its
history talked to him. The old
woman smiled and said she knew
most of what her husband had been
able to find out, how Millican got its
name and what life here used to be
like. She sat and thought a while and
then she started her story.
Millican was named for Elliott M.
Millican, the son of Robert Millican
who was one of Stephen F. Austin’s
original 300 colonists, who came to
Texas from South Carolina. Elliott
was given title to two citios of land
(which equals about 8,857 acres) by
the Mexican Government in March,
1831. He served as sheriff of
Navasota County in 1941. Brazos
County was created that same year
but wasn’t organized until 1843; the
name was changed from Navasota to
Brazos in 1842. Elliott also served as
a representative and later a senator
of the Texas congress.
In 1853 the first Texas railroad
had been completed from Alleyton
to Galveston to Beaumont to Hous
ton and by 1859 to Millican. The
second leg of the railroad from
Houston to Millican was called the
Houston and Texas Central (H. & T.
C.)
With the outbreak of the Civil
War the railroad couldn’t be ex
tended any farther north so Millican
became the northernmost terminus
of the H. & T. C. As wagons and
traders poured into Millican from all
around the population boomed to
6,000. Sanger-Harris department
store in Dallas first started in Milli
can during the Civil War.
Confederate soldiers came to
Camp Speight, located at Millican,
for training and then to march over
land to Louisiana and Arkansas.
Others went by train to Houston
and Galveston and then from there
by boat to New Orleans to be sent
up the Mississippi river tojoijj
trans- M ississippi campaign.
After the war the railroad i
northward taking with it manydj
people and merchants of Mil
In 1866 a cholera epidemic!
the town and claimed aboutl
lives. A year later a yellow
epidemic struck and took morei
ilose anc
aulds, a
ily is clo
spent hi
ie district
A&M
aster’s t
[e’s con
mty schc
350 lives. Mrs. Pool saidthati Srural sch
times whole families diedandi
houses were burned down will
bodies still in them, tokeepthei
ease from spreading. The
tion dwindled quickly; mostoli
people that hadn’t got the di
packed up and left before
caught it.
By 1868, the population!
dropped to about 1,200. Theti
didn’t change much until £
World War I when the traflico:
main road that ran from Navason
Bryan, through Millican, nw
eastward to the new Highwij
With the loss of the traffic iw
the remaining merchants movd
more prosperous locations
Millican now has the postofe
one small store, two churches
about 1(X) people.
|a science
;h school
iition sin
t over t
iOol distr
aulds r<
d ones
iblems.
The '
peron,
The i
im Cam
Thosi
II be sol
La Petite
Academy of Dance
REGISTER NOW
CLASSES START SEPT
3 Yr. Olds Thru Adults
TAP-BALLET-JAZZ
Classes Limited
JAN JONES HAMMOND
Teacher
3406 S. College 823-8626
(
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The
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Our gang
THE
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Meet our gang of delicious hot dogs.
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We make ’em to order with your favorite topping. And we
make ’em fast so there’s seldom any waiting. Send some
one for a sackful tonight.
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OPEN SUNDAY-THURSDAY UNTIL MIDNIGHT
OPEN FRIDAY AND SATURDAY UNTIL 2 a m.
FI
North Texas Avenue (at 30th Street)
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