1978 Bum Steer Awards
Five years ago, dear readers, we brought forth a magazine promising “no Bum Steers or bluebonnets.” Goodness knows we tried. No bluebonnets have yet graced these pages, but with Dolph, Farrah, Aggies, and all the rest . . . well, sometimes even Jimmy Carter has trouble keeping his promises. Speaking of whom, we’ve found a spot for him too.
IF YOU GOT THE MONEY, I GOT THE TIME
Just before President Carter said he was too busy to meet with Texas farm workers who had walked 1500 miles to see him, the President met with singer Willie Nelson.
DROP THAT GUN OR I’LL SHOOT
While practicing her quick draw, a Dallas policewoman shot a mirror in the women’s locker room.
MURRAY THE SAVIOR IS BORN
Baytown School Superintendent John Clark ruled that if Christmas carols were sung in school, the name of Christ could not be mentioned.
WE STILL CAN’T FOLLOW IT, DALE. WOULD YOU SHOW US AGAIN?
In a speech on U.S. defense policy, Congressman Dale Milford of Grand Prairie explained how Russian roulette works: “One loads up the cylinder of a revolver with bullets in all cartridge holes except one.”
WAKE ME WHEN IT’S OVER
A Scholastic magazine survey of 14,000 junior and senior high school students found that America’s youth consider Farrah Fawcett to be their number one personal hero. . . . the Houston Art Directors Club auctioned off a framed red satin powder puff once used by, yes, Farrah Fawcett. . . . A Farmers Branch junior high school assistant principal suspended 29 students after they walked out of school to protest his ban of T-shirts showing, sigh, Farrah Fawcett in a swimsuit. . . . Bertha Isabell, you-know-who’s aunt, said in Corpus Christi, “Farrah is so sweet. She will not do a movie that calls for any parts of the body to be shown.” . . . And last, after suing comedian Redd Foxx for $7 million, the Queen Mother said of her daughter, “She’s never really done anything. No one knows why people like her. They just like to look at her.”
THOU SHALT NOT STEAL, BUT THOU MAY COPY
Billy Graham’s new Waco publisher admitted that 17 per cent of Graham’s new book was lifted from a previous Graham book put out by his old publisher in 1965.
HOW COME THIS NEVER HAPPENS TO KOJAK?
After stopping Kateri Ewing for a traffic violation, Dallas policeman C.W. Cottongame dropped his cigarette butt on the ground and Ewing charged him with littering. He paid a $15 fine.
THEY MEANT SWEET AND SOUR DOG
The El Paso Times ran a retraction after they printed a classified ad for the Moon Garden Restaurant seeking a Cantonese cook who could prepare barbecued dog.
GOOD THING HE DIDN’T GO ON A SLOW
After Dallas State Representative Sam Hudson went on a 68-day fast to protest that his 92 bills were bottled up in committee, the House passed two of them.
PROMISES, PROMISES
Dallas followers of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation said they had learned to float in the air, pass through solid objects, and disappear.
FILL IT WITH EMBALMING FLUID AND CHECK THE OIL
Socialite Sandra Illene West was buried in a San Antonio cemetery seated in her blue 1964 Ferrari.
WE KNOW WE DID IT, BUT HOW?
Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt announced he would pattern his respectable new magazine, Ohio, after Texas Monthly. Flynt accepted Christ 11 weeks later.
ENOUGH OF THIS PUSSYFOOTING AROUND! TEAR OUT THEIR FINGERNAILS, PUT ‘EM ON THE RACK, DRAW AND QUARTER ‘EM, BOIL ‘EM IN OIL. THEN SLAP THEM ON THE WRIST
Objecting to a bill to change capital punishment from electrocution to a lethal injection, State Representative T.H. McDonald of Mesquite said he didn’t believe in giving criminals just a slap on the wrist.
DON’T WORRY. THEY’VE BEEN TRYING TO DEVELOP A SMART AGGIE FOR YEARS.
Church’s Fried Chicken asked Texas A&M researchers to take the heat out of jalapeno peppers.
WHERE IS GERALD FORD WHEN WE NEED HIM MOST?
Austin Mayor Carole McClellan, helping kick off a campaign to renovate a downtown theater, swung a sledgehammer at a tile and smashed the glass in the theater’s ticket booth. At subsequent ceremonies, she shattered a pane of glass at Goodwill Industries and knocked a gong out of a tree at Scholz Garden.
THAT’S NO ACORN. THAT’S A NUT.
Dallas County Sheriff Carl Thomas put gold filigree fronds and acorns on his cap and a cluster of five stars on his uniform collar.
BULL SHEET
The Ku Klux Klan announced it would patrol the U.S.-Mexican border in an effort to apprehend illegal aliens.
FLY ME, I’M SADISTIC
After the State Department inadvertently issued visas, twelve Ugandan police helicopter pilots, described by a former U.S. ambassador as Idi Amin’s “handpicked henchmen and killers,” enrolled in a refresher course at Bell Helicopter in Fort Worth.
AND IF HE DID, HE HAS TO GO TO JAIL
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals must decide whether Duval County boss George Parr skipped bond when he committed suicide.
WELL, WHAT ABOUT THE FUNNY-LOOKING FOOT?
During the Cullen Davis murder trial in Amarillo, Fort Worth socialite Priscilla Davis was shown a picture of her former boyfriend W.T. Rufner, who was nude except for a candy-striped stocking over his genitals. Priscilla said, “I recognize the face. I don’t recognize the sock.”
SURE. HERE’S 2 SPEECHWRITERS, 25 GENERALS, AND 153 DEPUTY ASSISTANT UNDERSECRETARIES. AND WE’LL THROW IN BERT LANCE
After Hondo was refused federal aid because its unemployment was too low, Mayor Woodrow Glasscock asked President Carter for a list of 180 welfare-collecting loafers he could ask to live in Hondo.
ALSO GIVE ME THIRTY MINUTES
Asked if she could identify a man who stood naked outside her apartment whistling to her, a Dallas housewife told police officers, “Only if he was nude and standing fifty feet away.”
OTHERWISE HE WAS COMPLETELY UNQUALIFIED
Edward Williams, Jr., who pled guilty in 1968 to faking his death and burial in a scheme to defraud a finance company, was appointed to the San Antonio City Planning Commission.
FIRST THEY HAVE TO LEARN TO TELL TIME
Texas A&M lost to Arkansas 26-20 when the Aggies ran out of time on the Arkansas 15-yard line because they had forgotten to use their last two time-outs.
TOMORROW I’LL BE FOGGY AND BALMY
Testifying against a new probe into the assassination of John Kennedy, Congressman Dale Milford told colleagues he was part of a TV news team providing round-the-clock coverage. When, in response to a question, Milford said he participated in the newscasts as a weatherman, the hearing broke up in laughter.
AT LEAST HE DIDN’T SHOW THEM WHERE MOMMY WAS BURIED
A Fort Hood soldier, stopped for a traffic violation, was talking with officers when his three-year-old son produced a .38 caliber revolver and told police, “My daddy has a gun just like yours.” Then, pointing to a paper sack, he added, “He keeps his dope right there.”
FORTUNATELY HE SURRENDERED BEFORE THEY HAD TO NUKE OAK CLIFF
Dallas officials opened 20 fire hydrants and emptied five million gallons of water into northwest Dallas streets in an effort to flush out a fugitive believed to be hiding in a storm sewer. The fugitive was ten miles away in Oak Cliff.
THE RINGERS GAVE THEMSELVES AWAY WHEN THEY REFUSED TO BEAT UP THE MEXICAN BATBOY
Travis County Sheriff Raymond Frank’s softball team was disqualified from a law enforcement league after it was discovered that he had stacked his team with five ringers from the UT varsity baseball team.
WE LIKE OURS CRUSTY ON THE OUTSIDE
Two Girl Scout leaders in Austin burned their uniforms to protest the organization’s support of the Equal Rights Amendment.
HE’LL GIVE IT A TRY, THOUGH
Asked if he preferred grass or AstroTurf, pitcher Tug McGraw said, “I dunno. I never smoked AstroTurf.”
TRUE, BUT IN THOSE DAYS HE WORE A PARACHUTE
The defense attorney for two Houston policeman charged in the drowning death of Joe Campos Torres told the jury, “Jumping off the bank into the bayou was no big thing for a former paratrooper such as Torres.”
BUT YOU SHOULD HEAR THEM SING SOPRANO
Laboratory-raised sterile flies, developed by UT zoologists to mate with and eradicate screwworm flies, turned out to be useless because they were lazy, slept too late, and couldn’t fly as well as potent ones.
IT’S NOT WORTH A DIME. HE WAS AIMING AT A SPECTATOR.
A Dallas family paid $15,000 for a golf ball former President Ford had hit for a hole in one.
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