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Hal Haralson Vignettes
Anything
Exciting Happen in Anahuac Today?
By Hal Haralson
[Hal Haralson practices law in Austin and
contributes frequently to Christian Ethics Today.]
My "international law practice"
has taken this country lawyer to a lot of out of the way places.
Once upon a time I had a divorce case scheduled for trial in Anahuac,
Texas.
A splendid story comes out of this case. Anahuac is in the swamps south of
Beaumont.
You can go to Anahuac but you cannot go through Anahuac.
The other lawyer and I met in the courthouse that morning and worked out a
settlement agreement in a short time.
The judge asked us to prepare an order and we went to the lawyer's office
and dictated the terms to his secretary.
We were in an old house across the street from the courthouse in
surroundings that were something less than ostentatious. I could tell that
his was not a "booming" law practice.
"Anything exciting ever happen in Anahuac?" I asked, half
seriously.
He replied, "Yes, as a matter of fact, something exciting did happen
about two weeks ago."
"My secretary buzzed me and said that a Mr. Abraham Schwartz was
calling from New York City."
"I knew no one by the name of Schwartz and I had never had call from
New York City. My curiosity was aroused. I picked up the phone, saying,
'This is Gene Wilson, may I help you?'"
"Mr. Wilson, my name is Abraham Schwartz. I'm an attorney in New York
City. Do you represent the Chambers County Water District?"
"Yes," I replied, "I'm their attorney. I've represented
them for several years."
"Good, you're the man I'm looking for. My client is working on plans
for a deep water port off the shore near Anahuac. We are having a meeting
at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow in New York City and we need you to be
present."
"You can't be serious," I replied, somewhat irritated by his
demanding tone. "I have to be in court here tomorrow and I have
clients who have appointments…"
"Mr. Schwarz sounded a little put out as he said, "You don't
seem to understand. I said we have to have you here for a meeting in the
morning. How much would we have to pay you, Mr. Wilson?"
"I decided to put an end to this nonsense and replied, 'Mr. Schwartz,
you would have to pay me $5,000.00 per day to get me to your New York
meeting.'"
"That's a fair sum, Mr. Wilson. If you will stick your head out the
door, I think you will hear our jet circling Anahuac. My assistant will be
at the door with cash in hand. You'll need clothes for about 5 days."
"I went to the door," he continued, "and sure enough, I
heard the roar of a low flying jet. Since Anahuac isn't on a scheduled
airline route, I figured Schwartz was for real.
"The man at the door of the plane handed me 25 $1,000 bills and took
my luggage. He took his seat and the small jet lifted off the runway and
headed for New York City.
"The next 5 days were spent listening to Schwartz talk about a super
port. They talked in terms of billions of dollars. I regretted that I had
not told them $10,000 a day. I don't think it would have made any
difference.
"I was rarely called on and had little to say. What they wanted was
me, so they could say someone from the Chambers County Water District was
present at the meetings.
"The hotel was elegant. There seemed no end to the variety of superb
cuisine.
"After 2 days, I became bored and longed for the quiet, calm routine
of Anahuac.
The
Saga of Old Red
By Hal Haralson
It's hard for me to let go. Old age causes me to mellow and cherish the
experiences shared across the years.
In 1970 my father died. I was thirty-five years old and a second-year
student in law school at the University of Texas.
I inherited his old Pontiac which was stolen from our house and wrapped
around a tree in Austin. After months of fierce negotiations, I settled
with the insurance company for $600.00.
With this and another $600.00, I purchased a 1967 Ford Pickup. It was
bright red, six cylinders and no air conditioner.
Now, twenty-nine years later, "Old Red" is beat up and scarred
with faded paint and one black fender.
Old Red is like one of the family. Jill, Brad, and David learned to drive
in her. Operating the clutch and manual gearshift taught coordination that
would come in handy in many ways in the future.
The gearshift was originally on the steering column. Now it's on the
floor.
It happened about twenty years ago on the deer lease at Junction. I hit a
big rock and the pickup wouldn't come out of low gear.
I drove 20 miles into Junction at 5 mph and the guy at the filling station
showed me how to raise the hood and manipulate the elbows of the gearshift
and put it in the gear I wanted.
I placed the elbows so I was in high gear (there are only three forward
gears) and drove the 100 miles into Austin.
This continued for nearly a year. If I wanted to change gears, I lifted
the hood, manipulated the elbows, and put it in reverse, or another
forward gear.
I found this had an advantage. When people called and wanted to borrow my
pickup, I told them they were welcome to use it…then explained the
method of shifting gears.
"I think I'll look somewhere else," was the usual reply.
I suppose I would still be lifting the hood and manipulating gears but for
the man who issues inspection stickers. We didn't pass. That's how the
gear shift got to be on the floor board.
Old Red's horn is a small black button on the dash. The one on the
steering wheel doesn't work.
One cold winter night, about 3:00 a.m., Old Red's horn began to honk. I
couldn't get it to stop, so I got a hammer and beat on it until it quit.
The inspection guy at the filling station came back later that year,
"You are going to have to have a new horn. That one won't work. It
looks like someone's been beating on it."
I rather sheepishly told him the story and he installed a new horn.
The front bumper is bent forward about 15 degrees on the passenger side.
David was learning to drive and got a tree between the bumper and the
fender.
After much maneuvering, he got Old Red separated from the tree but not
without significant alteration of the bumper.
The head light on the driver's side has no chrome cover.
Brad, David and I were sleeping in our tent on our deer lease at Johnson
City. We had covered the sacks of deer corn in the back of Old Red and
were sound asleep in our bed rolls.
Our slumber was interrupted by the shrill whinny of a horse. The rancher's
horses had discovered the corn.
They kept fighting each other over the corn and making all kinds of noise.
Brad says, "I heard the zipper of the tent. Then I heard Old Red
start and there were horses whinnies, the sound of glass breaking and
hoofs hitting metal."
"Pops zipped the tent flap back up and got into his bedroll and went
back to sleep."
The next morning we saw what had happened. One of the horses had kicked
out Old Red's head light while fleeing the charging pickup.
The same year I got Old Red, I had traded a used deep freezer for a used
john boat.
The boys and I fished Onion Creek, near Wimberley, many times during those
law school years. We would load the john boat into the bed of Old Red and
we were off.
Judy and I made many trips to Laity Lodge this way. I caught my share of
bass (two five-pounders) in the Frio River under the great hall.
I parked Old Red down by the river so I wouldn't embarrass the
participants at the conferences.
One of Brad's buddies from Laity Lodge youth camp told him he was
returning to Austin from camp and came up on an old man driving an old
pickup with a john boat in the bed of the pickup.
Charlie Duke said, "I pulled up along side the pickup and this old
man was reading a book while driving down the highway. Then I recognized
him. It was your father."
I could buy a new pickup but it wouldn't be the same. There is something
about the pride of survival.
Old Red has paid her dues. I figure in pickup years, we are about the same
age-mid sixties.
I think we both have some good years left in us. You don't discard
something just because it's old.
The
Private Was a Preacher
By Hal Haralson
The first thing Judy does when we get home
from work is turn on the answering machine.
She is a psychotherapist. The calls are usually her clients. My law
practice doesn't generate many calls at home, so I'm seldom the subject of
the request.
Today was different…very different. The voice on the machine said,
"If you are the Hal Haralson who lived in Las Cruces, New Mexico
forty years ago, please call this number."
I called the next day and the lady who answered the phone identified
herself as the secretary for Westside Baptist Church in Las Cruces.
"We are planning our 40th anniversary celebration. The church records
indicate that you were our first pastor. Can you come speak for us?"
I told her I would talk to my wife and call the next day. (That's how you
stay married for forty-four years.)
I called the next day and told her we would be there.
Talk about past history…40 years ago.
Following graduation from Hardin-Simmons University in 1957, I volunteered
for the draft. We had been married six months and Judy followed me to Ft.
Riley, Kansas, Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri and then to "advanced
individual training."
The wisdom of the U.S. Army placed me in Ft. Gordon, Georgia where I went
to MP school. I learned how to shoot a 45-caliber pistol and direct
traffic. I can still make it flow with the best of them.
Our permanent station was White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico. We lived
in Las Cruces because there was no base housing.
We hadn't been there long when there came a phone call one Saturday night.
"My name is J.W. Ray. I'm a member of Westside Baptist Mission. We
are sponsored by First Baptist Church. There are twelve members. We meet
in a Oldfellow Hall. Could you come visit us in the morning?"
I assured him we could. This was exciting. I had been preaching for about
five years and we hoped to be involved in a mission.
When J.W. Ray introduced me the next morning it was obvious he meant more
than "visit." He intended for me to preach!
All of us who have preached have two or three "sugar sticks" we
can deliver standing on our heads. So preach I did.
They called us as pastor and wife at a salary of $25.00 per month. This
was later doubled before I was discharged.
There was only one problem with this arrangement. My military police
duties called for three day shifts. I wasn't off on Sunday but 1/3 of the
time.
I went to the Colonel (base commander) and explained the situation and
asked to be assigned to an 8-5 job. He was not sympathetic at all and said
emphatically that he would not make an exception on my account.
I did some research. (Probably my first legal research…and my last.)
Army regulations said if an enlisted man's duty assignment interfered with
his worship, he must be reassigned if there is an opening.
I found an opening. An MP was making security badges and was about to be
discharged. It was an 8-5 job.
I typed a memo to the Base Commander that cited the regulation. I attached
the letter from the associational missionary that authenticated my claim
to being an ordained minister.
Also attached were letters to two Congressmen and a United States Senator.
(I didn't have to mail these.)
The Colonel read this as I stood at attention. He was furious. The
transfer was made.
What we needed was a revival! I called my mentor, Leonard Hartley, and he
agreed to come.
I took the information about the coming revival to the base newspaper. I
was in my MP gear and the man at the paper asked what I was doing bringing
this story about a revival. I told him I was the pastor of the church.
He asked some questions and took notes. Then he asked if he could take my
picture in the pulpit of the base chapel…with a 45-caliber pistol on my
hip.
Two weeks later the story came out in daily papers in El Paso,
Albuquerque, and Alamagordo. "White Sands GI Pastors Church."
That was the boost we needed. The revival was a success and we were off
and running.
When Judy and I left Last Cruces on June 11, 1959 with my DD214 (discharge
papers) in hand, Westside Baptist Mission had become Westside Baptist
Church. We had baptized 75 people and bu8ilt a building that would handle
200 in Sunday School. It was full. All of this in 18 months.
We called a full-time seminary graduate as pastor. He stayed 17 years.
When I met the lady who called, I asked her how she found us.
"Through the Internet."
After being introduced as the first pastor, I spoke to the congregation. I
told them that some of them would be very disappointed, and some would be
elated.
I wasn't going to preach a sermon. I have not been a preacher in 35 years.
I've practiced law for the past 27 years.
It was a memorable occasion for us. There wasn't many things I helped
begin 40 years ago that still exist.
This is one Military Policeman who is thankful he was given more to do
than direct traffic.
The
Night Cometh
By Hal Haralson
[Hal Haralson practices law and religion
in Austin and is a regular contributor of Christian Ethics Today.]
Lanny Henninger could have passed for John
Wayne's brother.
He was over six feet tall. Lean and rumpled in appearance. This was topped
off with a thick head of wavy brown hair.
Lanny was a student at Abilene Christian College in 1955. I was attending
Hardin-Simmons University with a minor in agriculture at ACC.
We were both studying for the ministry.
Our paths didn't cross until forty years later when I was a member of the
Downtown Rotary Club of Austin.
Lanny was President of the club. He was a very effective communicator and
had a gift of making people feel at ease around him. He was pastor for 26
years of the University Church of Christ on the campus of The University
of Texas. His health was excellent.
Lanny was a writer…a good one. He kept a journal. The following appeared
in his journal October 5, 1997.
For reasons I dare not divulge, I find
myself thinking of time's passage. And of the milestone's with which we
mark it. Like birthdays and anniversaries.
Baseball's regular season ended last Sunday. The Dodger's Brett Butler
closed out a 17-year career at age 40. He remarked "I'm surprised
at how fast it went." So say we all. One of Neil Diamond's old
songs has it: "Done too soon." And in somber measure the New
Testament intones: "You are a mist that appears for a little while
and then vanishes" (James 4:14)
So what to do? Two things, it seems to me. At least two. One: Use up each
day. Fill it to overflowing with good. Deliberately enjoy. And two: Begin
now. Mend a fractured friendship. Mail an overdue letter. Correct a
misunderstanding. Repair a broken heart. Lay aside a grievance. Act on a
noble impulse. As we all know, "The night cometh."
Lanny Henninger died of a heart attack the
next day, October 6, 1997 while driving on the expressway in Austin.
Gotta go. I have a couple of fences I need to mend.
Fill your day with good.
Updated Thursday, December 28, 2000
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