"Digging Deep into My Memory Bank!" - Time Out #187

Not sure just who gets credit for saying "Give'em (the public) what they want!"

My BFF, Mr. Rollo, always tells me people love nostalgia, so for this installment, your humble Sunday scribe, will attempt to go with the flow.

How about a nice story from a mid-October, Fall Break Week, that happened long, long ago, dear readers in Our Town and far beyond?

So, let's travel back in my time machine to the C.E. Donart (Stillwater) High School football season of 1964; yes, friends, almost 55 years ago.

This was my senior season playing for the local Bronze and Blue, our team certainly had the raw athletic talent to win every game, but finished the season, 7-4. For a couple of weeks, the newspaper polls had us ranked #1 in the state, I believe. In fact, 9 of my senior teammates were good enough to earn football scholarships at the next level. Sadly, I wasn't one of them, but I did begin my 52-year football officiating career 3 years later, enabling me to re-connect with the game I have always loved. So, in an odd sort of way, I continued "playing: the game without a college athletic scholarship!

How quickly I regress, so back to the fall of 1964, where icon Jim Harris was our head football coach, and his assistants were C.D. Mihura, "Earthquake" Earl Lunsford, John Roberts and Charles W. Hetrick. We were in Class 2A then, but we scheduled a Class A opponent, the Guymon Tigers, during that previously stated "Fall Break Week. Not real sure who initiated the idea for us to play each other, but it certainly provided a wonderful (?) experience, and an special story for this week's writings.

Guymon geographically is located in the part of our great state formerly known as No Man's Land (currently, The Panhandle). Therefore, our team's legendary driver, Cotton Davidson, had to drive our Blue Pup activity school bus forever, and then some more miles, to get us there. It was no surprise, we left EARLY on a Thursday that week, since school was officially out after Wednesday due to the Fall Break I vividly remember the outbound bus trip as being incredibly long, but am sure I made good use of all 277 miles of highway time by chattering with my peeps, probably nonstop. Remember. we were all a close knit team of football players!

When we finally arrived in Guymon, we unloaded at their large hotel, which also served as our home base that evening and most of the next day. I remember eating the team supper in the hotel restaurant, probably close to 100 people present, counting all the players, coaches and team support personnel. I also recall our team's presence in town attracting quite a local crowd, especially the Guymon teenage girls who were certainly curious to see these out-of-town, "big city" boys from the popular college town of Stillwater.

Bright and early the next morning (a Friday), following our team breakfast, our bus took us a few miles outside town to the iconic Hitch Family Compex. This was a grouping of ranching structures and homes, all occupied by the famous Hitch Ranch people. We had a guided-tour of their massive ranching operation for several hours, before returning to our hotel and having lunch. As a young man, I remember how I was absolutely amazed one family was able to accumulate so much land, livestock and buildings.

Now, for the real reason we came to Guymon, the Friday night high school football game. I remember even though our team had much larger and faster players, the smaller hometown Tigers played us even for the first 3 quarters of the game. I also recall the game condition winds in the flat panhandle were very strong that evening, and the high winds adversely affected our team's great passing and kicking areas. However, in the 4th quarter, we did find a way to secure a victory, and we felt extremely fortunate to do so.

Off the field, into the visitor dressing room, showers, and all re-loaded into our activity bus, along with all our football equipment. Next was the 6-hour bus ride, throughout the night, back to Our Town. There was only one more hitch to tell you, dear readers. Not very far outside Guymon, and in a very desolate location, our always (?) faithful Blue Pup bus broke down, and stopped. So, what did we do? Somehow in that situation, our adult leaders contacted the Guymon school officials, and told them of our dilemma. Guymon sent one of their yellow school buses to our rescue, and we had to offload EVERYTHING from our large bus into their small bus. Yes, we were absolutely like the proverbial "cramped sardines in a small can" for the entire drive back to Our Town. Too, their bus was unable to drive as fast as ours, so I remember watching the sun rise in the eastern sky as we entered Stillwater city limits that memorable Saturday morning. Once back home, with almost no sleep, I went to the annual OSU homecoming parade and football game. This was the year the visiting Kansas Jayhawks defeated OSU on a controversial touchdown pass that did not count.

My mind's eye still holds that epic Fall Break experience, and it was/is absolutely priceless!!!