The 1975 Bum Steer Awards
Here it is, Folks!
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THAT’S BECAUSE NUMBER 49 WAS A HORNY CAMEL
Forty-eight horsemen, re-creating the Pony Express, took a packet of letters from Pecos to Fort Stockton in two hours and 33 minutes. A letter traveling the regular mails took 23 hours to cover the same 54-mile trip.
DOO-DAH, DOO-DAH
The $50,000 state dinner at the Southern Governors Conference at Lakeway featured strolling fiddlers and a parade of white-gloved black waiters.
WIN ONE FOR E=Mc2
Rice University football coach Al Conover customarily employed such locker room inspirational tactics as ripping legs from tables, yelling “Throw a fit! Throw a fit!,” dragging in coffins, and tossing firecrackers in the shower. Big Al’s team finished the season 2-8-1.
REPORTS OF MY WHERABOUTS HAVE BEEN GREATLY EXAGGERATED
Dallas County Criminal Court Judge James Guthrie, absent from the bench for most of two years because of illness, lived in Colorado while still drawing his annual salary of $33,120.
WOULD YOU BUY A USED KARMA FROM THIS GURU?
The Astrodome Corporation has filed suit against teenaged Perfect Master Guru Maharaj Ji for skipping town without paying a $14,000 bill for his Millennium ’73.
THE RING WAS FOURTEEN CARROTS AND THE PREACHER SAID, “LETTUCE PRAY”
Kris and Susan Karl were married in the Dallas Seven-Eleven Store where they met when he was the manager.
GOD GIVES WACO THE BIRD
On April 13, ninety pelicans fell from the sky and were dashed on the waters of Lake Waco. Later that day, 33 more fell into a lake near Cranfills Gap.
AWWWW
No one wants to buy the town of Langtry, which is for sale for $750,000.
IMMEDIATELY AFTERWARDS, HE WAS EATEN BY AIRTRANS
Dr. James Parker shoulder-blocked another passenger in order to be the first passenger to deplane at the new Dallas/Fort Worth Airport.
WACO GIVES BURKA THE BIRD
Texas Monthly Associate Editor Paul Burka called in September for the private schools of the Southwest Conference to get out of the league and form their own, de-emphasized football competition. Burka used Baylor’s failure to win a conference championship since 1924 as the symbol of how the private schools no longer stood a chance against the large public institutions. Three months later, Baylor won the Southwest Conference title.
ONLY 3230 LOCKS MORE AND I’LL HAVE THE WHOLE SET
A lock of Napoleon’s hair was stolen from the “Collection of Hair” in the Humanities Research Center of The University of Texas.
WHAT’S THE EGG FOR?
A recipe from the San Antonio Light for sweet and sour meatballs calls for:
2 lbs. ground chuck
1 egg
1 26-ounce catsup bottle
1 32-ounce bottle of ginger ale (diet or regular)
1 handful of uncooked oat meal
TOO MANY CROOKS SPOIL THE BROTH
In Beaumont, City Health Inspector Sandra Pady filed a complaint against Police Chief Willie Bauer for operating the jail kitchen without a health permit.
NO, NO, YOU IDIOT! I SAID FLY INTO THE GARAGE
In Dallas, a police helicopter and a garbage truck collided behind the southwest county police substation.
WE KNOW BETTER
Editors of the Austin American-Statesman said their newspaper stank because the ink contained too much sulphur.
YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT
Barry Hegason ate live snakes at a Fort Worth carnival.
SURE IT GOT MAD. HE CALLED IT A COP
Paul Marshall of Van Zandt County was awarded $4146 in damages after a neighbor’s boar hog attacked him, bit him, and trapped him in his outhouse.
WHAT WILL THEY USE ON THE SPOONS NOW?
Thieves are stealing $6000 to $10,000 worth of grease from Fort Worth area cafes each week.
THIS KEEPS OUT EVERYONE BUT BARRY HEGASON
After business hours, San Angelo welder Ellis Motl hides rattlesnakes around his shop as burglary preventors.
DIDN’T YOU LEARN ANYTHING FROM WATERGATE?
University of Texas Chancellor Charles LeMaistre destroyed his notes on why he fired UT-Austin President Stephen Spurr. Then he claimed three months later that a tape recorder did not pick up a crucial conversation in which he allegedly tried to get UT-Permian Vice President Richard Thompson to take the blame for the questionable activities which led to the resignation of that school’s president.
EVEN YOUR BEST FRIENDS WON’T TELL YOU
An unidentified man walked into eight Amarillo bars, telling the bartender he had a COD package, and collecting about $30. When the bartenders open their packages, they each found a bottle of mouthwash.
TAKE A DAY OFF, FRED
While visiting the south of France, Houston Mayor Fred Hofheinz said, “The Mediterranean coastline is beautiful, but I like Texas. There is nothing like a sunrise over a rice field.”
MINING THE STORE
Neiman-Marcus will build its new San Francisco branch near Union Square after first demolishing the famous and historic City of Paris department store.
DAVY CROCKETT DIED FOR THIS?
The painting which hangs in the Alamo depicting its famous siege uses the faces of John Wayne, Richard Widmark, and Lawrence Harvey to represent the Texas heroes who died there.
WE LIKE NED FOR HIS CHARMING MANORS
Two Austin rent houses owned by County Attorney Ned Granger failed to meet minimum standards for plumbing, wiring, and construction.
BETTER LIVING THROUGH CHEMISTRY
Wayne Gindrup, a chemist for the Jones-Blair Paint Company, was fired after he was charged with using the company’s laboratory to make super-hallucinogenic drugs.
THE RICHARD NIXON “I AM NOT A CROOK” AWARD TO:
Governor Dolph Briscoe for calling a press conference to deny he was mentally ill.
POOR MOUTH
State Representative Paul Ragsdale qualified for food stamps because of his $400 a month salary.
CHEAP PSEU-VENEER AWARD TO THE MERCHANTS OF:
Grapevine, Texas, for their plans to renovate downtown Grapevine using Hollywood-type storefronts in Western, Early American, French, and English designs.
WRIGGLIN’, WRITHIN’, AND RHYTHMETIC
Twenty-five teachers answered this Dallas Times Herald ad: “Dancers wanted, exotic, topless, or go-go, make up to $400 a week, Dallas Independent School District.”
WELCOME TO ODESSA, CRADLE OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Odessa’s plans to celebrate the nation’s 200th birthday include 940 separate events outlined in a single-spaced type-written book that weights two pounds. Its celebration ends in December, 1976, five months after everyone else has ended theirs.
WAIT ‘TIL NEXT YEAR
Homicide Lieutenant C. E. Jordan had this to say about Austin’s crime rate: “I wouldn’t say we’ve had a high number of murders. It’s the law of averages just evening things out. Last year, some of those shot should have died. Several of them are in rest homes and wheel chairs. This year, the close ones are just getting called the other way.”
SO THAT’S WHAT THEY WERE DOING
At the start of the historic but abortive constitutional convention, Chaplain Carlyle Marney announced that “This convention is an opportunity for every delegate to prove his manliness.”
WE KNEW THE ENERGY CRISIS WAS GETTING SERIOUS WHEN:
Three prostitutes undressed in the downtown market of Nuevo Laredo and marched naked to the international bridge as a protest against being confined to Boys Town, where they said motorists would no longer drive because of the gasoline shortage.
CHUTZPAH IN UNIFORM
In spite of a rash of bad publicity surrounding their spying on Dallas pilot Robert Pomeroy, the Department of Public Safety is asking for $60,000 more per year for surveillance and for an additional twenty men in their intelligence section.
FARTHER MY GOD FROM THEE
George Havens of Dallas, topping out at four feet, eleven inches, claims to be America’s smallest evangelist.
HE PROBABLY WASN’T KOSHER
Scuba diving near Corpus Christi, John Withers was swallowed head first all the way up to his rubber fins and then spat out by a huge jew fish.
EH?
An ear specialist told an audience of the Texas Medical Association in Houston that heavy drinking, sexual intercourse, or a combination of the two can cause deafness.
TWO TIN CANS AND A STRING TO:
James Nowlin, a state representative from San Antonio, whose name was left out of the state governmental listings. The directory assistance operator lists him as “Jack,” and the phone company charged his account with $100 worth of calls that were made by Representative Jim Maddox.
HI, SNAKES! I’M JIMMY! I’M ANNETTE!
The Fort Worth City Council voted to buy thousands of “juvenile mice” to feed the snakes at their zoo.
MEANWHILE 23,970 MILES AROUND THE WORLD IN DALLAS
One out of two houses in Dallas has rats, according to the Texas Rodent and Predatory Animal Control Service.
LET’S DON’T
Mrs. Janet Nichols and Mrs. Paula King of Richardson have 1000 subscribers to their publication, “Let’s Gossip,” a synopsis of fourteen TV soap operas.
LINE ‘EM UP BY THE PALM TREE, DRESS ‘EM UP IN SWEATSHIRTS, CHECK ‘EM OUT IN THE SOCIAL REGISTER, AND GAS ‘EM. THEN SHRED THIS MEMO
The University of Texas system spent funds specifically earmarked for educational excellence on paper shredders, a decorative palm tree, social registers, orange sweatshirts, and tear gas.
I’M ELSIE. FLY ME TO MANILA
Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos personally welcomed a jet liner from Texas carrying 290 heifers and five bulls to expand his country’s cattle production.
AT LAST! A POLITICIAN WHO BACKS UP WHAT HE SAYS
Dallas mayor Wes Wise posed for this photograph to stimulate use of the city’s bus system. Shortly thereafter his only car, a 1966 Volkswagen, was seized to help pay off his debts.
OSCAR’S THE GUY WITH ONE BARE FOOT
San Antonio jail guards became suspicious when they saw a long pole hanging out a window, and more suspicious when a woman tied a sock-full of marijuana on the end. “Okay, Oscar!” she yelled before the cops arrested her.
THE BUM STEER AWARD
UT Regents accepted $50,000 from an anonymous donor to design, sculpt, cast, and erect a statue of Bevo.
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