1977 Bum Steer Awards
(Page 3 of 3)
THE WARWICK WAS BOOKED
Thomas Smith, after falling asleep in a Houston trash dumpster, awoke inside a garbage truck where he managed to survive ten mashes by the trucks compactor before the driver spotted him.
HE COULDN’T HAVE FOUND IT ANYWAY
Almost ninety years after it was built, the Texas State Capitol was designated a historic landmark at official ceremonies to which Governor and Mrs. Dolph Briscoe were not invited.
THE OTHER 238 HAD REDEEMING SOCIAL VALUE
Twelve of 250 pornographic films were stolen from the Houston Police Department property room.
THE REST HAVE TO SAY “MAY I?”
In Houston the majority of the first 135 impotent men who had a hydraulically operated penis erection prosthesis implanted can now achieve erections and have sexual intercourse whenever they wish.
AS FOR RED RIVER DAVE, HE’S “BANANAS”
San Antonio singer Red River Dave McEnery announced plans to give America’s first sermon in CB slang from his Little Country Church for Country Music People, whose slogan is “Roping ‘Em in for Jesus.” Women would be called “Beavers,” said Red River Dave. As for God, he’s the “Big Breaker in the Sky.”
WHO SAYS JUSTICE IS BLIND
After an Odessa high school coed was convicted of theft, District Judge R.L. McKim released her on three years’ probation on the condition that she return to high school and wear a bra.
WE’LL BITE. WHAT WAS THE CONTEXT?
After Dallas Police Chief Don Byrd was quoted as saying, “If you put two women together in a squad car, they fight. If you put a man and a woman together, they fornicate”; and “The niggers have to wear badges to keep themselves from killing each other,” Byrd said the quotes were taken out of context.
IS THAT A PISTOL IN YOUR POCKET OR ARE YOU JUST GLAD TO SEE ME?
Leslie Smith invited Killeen police officers to a free screening of Deep Throat at his Roaring Twenties Club. At the conclusion of the film, they filed obscenity charges against him.
THERE WAS A THUNDERSTORM IN THE ROTUNDA
State Representative Tom Cartlidge complained that it took seven days for a letter to go 350 feet from his Capitol office down the hall to the Secretary of State’s office.
WHEN IN DOUBT, PUNDIT
Analyzing the chances for Lloyd Bentsen to win the Democratic presidential nomination, Texas Monthly political writer Al Reinert warned that “perhaps ‘lightning will strike,’ as the phrase goes in Washington, and someone—Udall or Jackson or Bayh, or even Fred Harris, will catch the national fancy and emerge from the early primaries.” Reinert did not mention Jimmy Carter.
THEY GOT DISGUSTED AND LEFT
Protesting bad housing conditions in Dallas, Charlie Young loosed a box of cockroaches in a city council meeting.
BIG DEAL. WHERE WAS HE ON JUNE 3?
Bill Adams of Wichita Falls has attended Sunday school for 3642 consecutive Sundays, beginning on June 10, 1906.
HE LEARNED FAST
Lubbock Republican Joe Franklin Robbins was arrested for public drunkenness while he was celebrating the end of an Austin orientation class designed to inform freshman legislators about their duties.
BUT SKIP, ALL SHE WANTED WAS A SET AND COMB-OUT
Skip Bagaley of Houston set a world hairdressing record of 123 hours, 50 minutes.
FIRST THINGS FIRST
Two Fort Worth area CBers, Dirty Bird and Blue Goose, got into an argument on the air, cursed each other, and agreed to fight it out. The ensuing shootout left one dead and the other critically wounded. Later, the widow of Blue Goose got on her own CB and broadcast to the killer: “I hope you’re satisfied. You have killed a fine CBer and the father of my children.”
SO ARE VICE DETECTIVES
Austin Police Major Burch Biggerstaff outlawed neck jewelry such as puka-shell necklaces and gold chokers for detectives, saying, “Beads are for girls.”
ONE E. HOWARD HUNT PLUMBER’S FRIEND TO:
Pasadena Rayburn High School orchestra director Dr. Jay Dunnahoo, who obtained a pass key and entered honor student Katherine Sicard’s hotel room while she was participating in a school orchestra trip. She was “sentenced” to thirty days in a discipline center and barred from further music competition after he found two unopened bottles of cherry vodka.
STEER BUM AWARD
David Krause and B.J. Brown of Austin began selling framed Longhorn manure, dipping the chips in lacquer to make them look moist, and including on each box a short history of the chip—at $29.95 per dump.
THAT’S NOT BAD. BUT WE’D HAVE PREFERRED THE TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
After resigning as secretary of the Texas Senate and pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge in exchange for the dropping of five remaining felony indictments against him, Charles Schnabel took another state job with the Texas Department of Rehabilitation.
AT LEAST HE WASN’T EATING
Floyd “Fatboy” Johnson broke the world record for consecutive hours performing as a one-man band by playing electric piano, drums, cymbals, guitar, harmonica, xylophone, and kazoo for 17 hours, 57 minutes at a Houston bar.
WAKE ME WHEN WE GET TO CUBA
Joe Garcia, Jr., hijacked a Houston city bus, robbed the driver of $12, took a seat, and fell asleep.
HANDS UP! THIS IS A MISTAKE
After his agents terrorized three innocent persons by breaking into their apartment with a sledgehammer, Amarillo Police Lieutenant Jimmy Davis said, “As far as I know, no one’s done anything wrong except make a mistake.”
HE CALLED HIM A SON OF A BEECHCRAFT
After a routine Texas Aeronautics Commission meeting, Rex Cauble punched out fellow commissioner Jack McCreary.
HE NEVER SHOWERS WITH LESS THAN EIGHT
At a late-night Austin party, seven women beat, robbed, and stabbed a 20-year-old man when he refused to take a shower with one of them.
NOW WE KNOW. THE AGGIES REALLY CAN’T TELL IT FROM SHINOLA
Texas A&M University, which offers courses on the operation of sewage plants, was cited by the Texas Water Quality Board for discharging effluents into nearby Shinola Creek.
TOO BAD HE WAS OUT
While out picnicking one Sunday evening in an Austin park, David Andrews and his family heard a lot of sirens, which they decided to try to locate. After searching ten minutes they gave up and headed home to find their own house in flames. It had been struck by lightning.
OH. WELL, THAT’S EASY
The Bryan Eagle wrote that the Unitarian Fellowship Class was going to review the book How to Say No to a Baptist and Survive. The correct name of the book is How to Say No to a Rapist and Survive.
WE WARNED YOU LAST YEAR. USE SAFEGUARD, NOT DOVE.
For the second straight year, prisoners escaped from the Cameron County (Brownsville) jail brandishing a pistol carved out of soap.
WHEN THE SMOKE CLEARED, THERE WERE ONLY THREE OPPONENTS
Marsha Richardson challenged her six opponents in the Dallas County sheriff’s election to a target-range shootout and demonstrated her skill by putting eight of twenty shots into a human silhouette fifty feet away.
FOR NEXT YEAR’S SHOW THEY’RE BUYING OVENS
The Confederate Air Force in Harlingen reenacted the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, complete with a simulated mushroom-shaped cloud and the pilot who flew the Enola Gay in 1945 at the controls.
VY VEREN’T DER VIPERS ON DER VINDSHIELD?
The Houston thief who stole Martin Powell’s car got not only a 1970 gold Fiat, but also two deadly two-and-a-half-foot-long rhinoceros vipers that were in a box on the floorboard.
GOOD NEWS TRAVELS FAST
After editors of the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal announced that readers could come by and read privately the comments that led to the resignation of Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz, a Yoakum County farmer and his wife drove seventy miles, copied the statement, and returned to spread the word among the farmers back home.
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