The Facts of Life Read online

  So they stripped off all their clothes. She said, “Honey I want you to know that my nipples are just as hot for you today as they were fifty years ago.”

  He said, “I don't doubt it, Honey. One's hanging in the oatmeal and the other one's in the coffee!”

  THE SAME COUPLE had played golf every day for the past fifty years, and so on this day as they stood on the tee box, she said, “Honey. We've been married for fifty years today, so why don't we start off the next fifty years with a clean slate and confess all our past wrongs?”

  He said, “OK. If you're sure that's what you really want. Do you remember seventeen years ago I had that blond secretary? Well, I had an affair with her.”

  The wife said, “Oh, that's nothing, honey. Before we met, I had a sex change.”

  He said, “Why, you lying whore! All this time you've been hitting from the red tees!”

  KINKY AND LANA MADE A LIST of things for me to write about. Here they are:

  RELATIONSHIPS—Yes, I've had some.

  PAST LIVES—Yes, I just finished one.

  KARMA—We deserve everything we get.

  RELIGION—All roads lead to the same place.

  POLITICS—Bullshit personified.

  DAILY HEALTH REGIME—Keep breathing.

  MUSIC BUSINESS—Very large.

  FATHERHOOD—OK, but I think sometimes the mother should wear one, too.

  THE ROAD—Which one?

  SONGWRITING—No time. Too busy writing this fucking book.

  GOLF—If you never have a bad lie, you never have to tell a bad lie.

  MONEY—You will need some.

  WILLPOWER—You will need some.

  PERSONAL LOSS—You will have some.

  MORALITY—A personal problem.

  FAMILY—Absolutely necessary.

  FORGIVENESS—Easy. Forgetting takes much longer.

  PRIDE—One of the best country singers I know.

  HAPPINESS—A state of mind.

  My first girlfriend, Ramona Stafford

  LONGEVITY—I come from a line of long-livers. My grand-mother's liver was…never mind, just keep breathing.

  USA—Still the best place on the planet earth.

  SUCCESS and FAILURE—Same number of letters.

  MOTHER NATURE—Has a way!!

  When we talk about the earth and the environment, we must remember the earth is a living entity. And just as our Bible tells us, “Physician, heal thyself,” the earth is doing just that. It is healing itself. We shouldn't worry if the earth will survive or not. We should know the earth will take care of itself, and we will be the ones to strive for sur-vival—by way of earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and tornadoes, washing away the poisons, the pesticides and chemicals that we put there. Our thoughts should be on our survival and praying we are not in the wrong place at the wrong time. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Whatever measure you hand out, that's how much you get back. The earth may be collecting old debts.

  Other than that, we have nothing to worry about. But for some, it's already over.

  Wednesday, March 14

  TONIGHT IS OUR SECOND NIGHT IN TULSA. It went very well with another wonderful crowd; a whole lot of young people, and a few my age and older. The bus ride to Victoria is long, about six hundred miles, I think. Rough miles. I used to think Texas had the best roads in the USA. No more. They're just as bad as everywhere else. I used to be able to tell when the bus crossed into Texas from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, or New Mexico, from any direction. I could tell by the feel of the road the minute we crossed into Texas, but no more, not now. All the roads are about worn out from the traffic.

  Chet Baker is singing “My Buddy” from a cassette given to me by Jackie King. He knows how much I love Chet Baker. The other side of the cassette is Hank Garland, so I'm set till we get on down the road or I get sleepy. I think that might be soon.

  Did you hear about the cook that caught his finger in the dishwasher? They both got fired.

  It's getting late.…

  Buddy

  Laugh with me, buddy

  Jest with me, buddy

  Don't let her get the best of me, buddy

  Don't ever let me start feeling lonely

  If I ever needed you, buddy

  You know how I really do, buddy

  Don't ever let me start feeling lonely

  I cry at the least little thing, buddy

  And I'll die if you mention her name, buddy

  Talk to me, buddy

  Stay with me, buddy

  Let's don't let her get the best of me, buddy

  Don't ever let me start feeling lonely

  Me and Zeke

  Let's talk about things as they were, buddy

  Before I got mixed up with her, buddy

  Laugh with me, buddy

  Jest with me, buddy

  Let's don't let her get the best of me, buddy

  Don't ever let me start feeling lonely

  Zeke Varner was one of the best friends I ever had. From the time I was fourteen until he died last year, we were the best of buddies. We drank together and gambled together. Zeke played all games, from pool to poker to dominoes. He was an expert at them all.

  The first time I remember meeting Zeke was at the Nite Owl in West, Texas. He was always one of my biggest fans. When I played with Bud Fletcher and the Texans at the Nite Owl, Chief 's Bloody Bucket, Shadowland, the County Line, all the beer joints around Waco and West, Zeke was there every night.

  For a long time Zeke and I worked for the Asplundh Tree Company, a company that trimmed the trees from around the high line wires for Texas Power and Light Company. My job was usually running the chipper, a machine designed to grind up all the brush from the trees we'd trimmed. One day, the boys up in a tree wanted a rope, so I climbed the tree and took them a rope. This was to be used by the tree trimmers to climb down after they were through, and to hand down any limbs that might be too large to just drop from the tree tops.

  We were about forty feet off the ground, up above the high line wires. I decided to climb down the rope to the ground, which was usually a piece of cake. Ha! About four feet down the rope, and just out of reach from any possible help, I became tangled up in the rope. The rope was caught around one hand and I was stuck. I couldn't go up or down.

  Bud Fletcher and the Texans, (left to right) Willie, Bobbie, Linda Turner, Jody Andrews, Laurence Dukas, Gerald Perkins, Bud Fletcher, and Ira Nelson

  After a lot of arguing, I talked Billy Bressier, my good buddy, just above me, into cutting the rope with his pocket knife. He didn't want to do it because we were forty feet up in the air, above some very hot high line wires. He knew that I could fall on them and die like the fucking idiot I was. However, since my fingers were leaving my hand, and the pain was unbearable, I decided on gambling that I'd fall between two high line wires.

  Billy cut the rope. I fell exactly between two high lines, hit the ground, got up, and walked away from that job and never went back.

  ZEKE AND I HAD BEEN out drinking, and stopped at Scotty's Club, one of the nicer beer joints on the highway. In West, Texas, the band played there every weekend. Guy Scott, the club's owner, was also a great friend and employer.

  Scotty was watching a prize fighter on TV, the Friday Night Fights, I think. This night there was a guy at the bar that I recognized as a local gambler. Dominoes were his specialty, but he would bet on anything. So would I. The fight was in the fifth round, with five to go. “I'll bet thirty dollars on the guy in the black trunks,” the hustler at the bar said.

  I said, “You're covered!”

  The only problem was I didn't have thirty dollars. I didn't have one dollar in my pocket. I could see Zeke's face flush a little. He knew I was broke. My guy won the fight and the hustler paid off like a slot machine.

  On the way home, Zeke asked me what I would have done if the fighter in the black trunks had lost. “I'd have thought of something,” I heard myself say. But I never gave losing a thought. I fel
t lucky and I was. I still am. They say, “Give a man a little luck and shit will do for brains.”

  Me, my first wife, Martha, and some of the band at Scotty's

  I have had more dumb luck than anybody I know. There must be a covey of guardian angels working twenty-four hours a day looking after me. I know I've given them a few anxious moments.

  Like the night when I first got to Nashville that I laid down in the middle of Broadway, waiting to get run over. It didn't happen. Not a lot of traffic at 4:00 A.M. I could swear they were keeping me alive just to see what I'd get into next. I'm glad they feel that way. I'm trying to help them a little more these days.

  No Place for Me

  Your love is as cold

  As the north wind that blows

  And the river that runs to the sea

  How can I go on

  When my only love is gone

  I can see this is no place for me

  The light in your eyes is still shining

  It shines but it don't shine for me

  It's a story so old

  Another love grown cold

  I can see this is no place for me

  Zeke had a place in Hillsboro, Texas, just ten miles north of Abbott. We all played poker there—Carl Cornelus, Steve Gilcrest, Johnny Holman, Albert, and Caroline, a gal from Malone who ran a poker game of her own but loved to play at Zeke's Westside Social Club. It was after one of these all-night poker games at Zeke's that I got busted.

  I had pulled over in Hewitt, just south of Waco, to sleep an hour or two. There was a lot of fog that night and it really wasn't too safe to drive. The next thing I know I'm on my way to the Waco jail.

  Two local deputies had seen my car parked and decided to check me out. They said they saw me asleep in the backseat, and then saw something that looked like a joint in the ashtray. Later in court, it was proven they had no probable cause to search the car. One of the arresting officers didn't even show up at the hearing. He had already been fired for other reasons. Then my good friend Sheriff Jack Harwell spoke up for me. I could not have had a better character witness.

  The jury decided there wasn't enough reason for a search, and dropped all the charges. I felt like I was well treated in Waco.

  Zeke, Steve, Carl, Albert, Johnny, and Caroline all showed up for every minute of the ordeal. They were, and still are, my friends.

  Once, Zeke was working as the night manager of a twenty-four-hour truck stop on Interstate 35, just south of Waco. He had a bad back and needed an operation but didn't have the money. But he had a plan.

  He would pretend to fall off the stool at the coffee bar and collect enough insurance to get his back fixed. There were a few people down at the other end of the counter, and Zeke's plan was to wait until one of them was watching and then fall off the stool and pretend to have hurt his back, all with an eyewitness to the whole thing.

  Just as Zeke saw someone start to turn his way, he fell off the stool. Unfortunately, no one saw him fall, so he had to fall off again. They saw him the second time and he successfully sued the insurance company and collected the money. He never did get his back fixed.

  Sister Bobbie Lee and me, 1946

  Years later, he went to the doctor for some pain pills. The doctor said he had some pills that were pretty good, but these red ones over here, they are the best. But they can be addictive. Zeke said, “Doc. I am seventy years old. I'm addicted to nicotine, alcohol, caffeine, and a dozen other things. What's one more?”

  We were really good domino players, especially as a team. We would challenge anybody anywhere to a game. We seldom lost. Except that time we were invited to play in the Luckenbach World Champion Domino Tournament.

  They had heard Zeke and I thought we were very good. We went over there with a pocket full of money—wanting to bet it all—knowing we would win. We played two gentlemen about seventy-five or eighty years young. I asked one of them how long he'd been playing dominoes. He said, “I ain't never stopped.”

  I asked how much he wanted to play for, thinking at least a hundred dollars a game. One of the old guys said, “We play for fifty cents a game, and pay off after every game.”

  They each had their wives with them. One sat in between me and the gentleman on my right, her husband. She could see my hand, and his. I'm not saying she did anything wrong, but it seemed to me that every time he would pick up a domino, she would nudge him, ever so slightly, under the table with her knee.

  It was a three-game series, and they won three in a row and a dollar and a half. We had been beaten by the best. I had to admire the way they all worked together. Other married people could learn a lot from those sweet folks, especially how to beat the pants off two younger, would-be hustlers.

  Oh well. You win some and you lose some, and some get rained out.

  On the way back to Austin from Luckenbach, we got pulled over by the highway patrol. When I got out, smoke just kind of rolled out with me. Lots of smoke. The officer was writing me out a ticket for speeding. After he stopped coughing, he said, “Willie, when are you gonna grow up?”

  I guess I never will. I hope I never do. Amen.

  Next day … Victoria, Texas

  SO FAR, VICTORIA IS NICE AND UNEVENTFUL. My kind of day. The TV show is about chain gangs and how they used to sell their urine to leathertanning companies. I've heard that some of the leather from Mexico, saddles and belts, etc., have been treated with burro piss. Kinda makes you think. I could have picked up a little more money when I was a young saddle maker at Ozark Leather Company in Waco. Oh well. Maybe it's not too late. The age of the urinator may even make it stronger and serve as a better and longer-lasting protection for the leather. I guess storage could be a problem on the bus. Maybe all the band buses could empty everything into one huge tank somewhere, maybe around Abbott. Or even better, we could go to all the farmers and ranchers and pee directly on their cattle. Now if all the bands all over the country were to do this, the farmers and ranchers could sell their cattle as already-seasoned leather. The extra income would be staggering.

  On anger and abuse of a friend …

  ONCE YOU HAVE YELLED and screamed at your friend on an unimportant matter or even an important matter, you must admit that you are a fucking idiot and apologize immediately. Sorry, Mark!!

  Joe Massey and the Frontiersmen (I'm fourth from left)

  We are almost to the gig—I'll talk to you about this later. I'm reminded of a joke.…

  This guy was in Alaska driving through the snow when his fourwheeler broke down. He left it with a mechanic while he went to get a sandwich. When he returned, the mechanic said, “Well, it looks like you blew a seal.”

  The guy replied, “Nope, just a little mayonnaise on my lip.”

  March 16

  TODAY IS FRIDAY, so it must be Billy Bob's. We are about an hour out of Fort Worth. Last night in Victoria was fun. Horace Logan, my old friend, came by. At one time Horace was one of the most powerful DJs in America as far as country music goes. KWKH in Shreveport, Louisiana, was the hot spot back then, and Horace ran the Louisiana Hayride, a very popular country music show. KWKH became one of the first fifty-thousand clear-channel watts that would reach all of America and beyond.

  The difference between the Grand Ole Opry and the Louisiana Hayride, according to Horace, was the Grand Ole Opry would only hire known acts while the Hayride was known for discovering new talents. Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, Jim Reeves, Webb Pierce, and Faron Young were all members of the Hayride at one time.

  In the late '50s, after the Hayride, Horace went to Dallas and ran the Big D Jamboree, another popular country music show at the time. That's where I first met him.

  Horace is looking good for an old guy! He always told me to keep trying because he thought I was a little different. Different enough to have a chance to make it. I always appreciated his effort and admired his talent, as an MC and a country music professor. His knowledge of the record business and his ability to speak about it with dignity and class made hi
m one of the greatest. A bunch of us owe a lot to Horace Logan.

  One of my favorite stories of his he used to tell was about a young singer-songwriter trying to get on the Louisiana Hayride. They would hold auditions on Friday night for the Saturday night Hayride show. This guy came in looking kind of poor and scared. Horace listened to the guy and told him he thought he had talent, but that in order to get on the Hayride, it would help to have a record out, and he should try and improve his appearance a little, but please come back and try again.

  The next Friday, the guy came back with a box of records he had made himself and a cowboy suit that Horace said also looked handmade. Horace said, “OK, come back tomorrow night for the show.” Saturday night came and Horace introduced the guy onstage, told the whole story to the audience how he came in first and he told him to come back with a record. In the meantime, the poor guy is backstage waiting and waiting, getting more and more nervous, and by the time Horace said, “and here he is,” the guy was so scared that he ran out onto the stage with his guitar, hand-made Nudie suit, and an armful of records. The first thing he did was start throwing his records out into the audience, one at a time. Folks were ducking and dodging the flying records, trying to avoid decapitation. Horace never did say what happened to the guy.

  I lived in the Portland, Oregon/Vancouver, Canada/Washington State area for awhile in the mid '50s when I was a disc jockey at radio station KVAN. My mother had moved to that area, and I followed. I really loved it there. “Cactus” Ken DeBorg, Shorty the Hired Hand, and all the folks at KVAN were great. I still miss them all.