Bum Steer Awards 1981
Who’s in charge here? Come on, identify yourself; we know that a year like 1980 couldn’t have happened by accident. We had the heat wave of the century, broken only by the storm of the century. Houston, sitting on top of the state’s richest aquifer, ran out of water. In Georgetown, the entire town got sick, and a local newscaster reported that the trouble was “orgasms in the water supply.” A giant sinkhole threatened to swallow West Texas, but just as people were trying to figure out whether this was a calamity or a blessing, the crater stopped growing. Eddie Chiles bought the Texas Rangers baseball team and then found that he really had something to be mad about. The Shah came and left, and Billy Clayton stayed — out of jail. Fort Stockton spent $6200 for a fiberglass bird, and Austin spent millions to widen the Congress Avenue bridge, then decided to narrow Congress Avenue.
It was a bad year for legends: Roger Staubach retired, Frank Erwin died, Tal Smith got fired, Babe Schwartz and Bill Moore got beat, and in San Antonio, some Mexican American protesters briefly reconquered the Alamo. But the biggest Texas legend of all survived the year intact. It was front-page news around the world. It began in the spring and built to a climax in November. It even spawned a beer named after a famous brother. It may sound like politics, but we’re actually talking about the winner of our 1981 Bum Steer Award: the mania over J. R. Ewing.
WE CONFESS. WE TALKED KRISTIN INTO IT. AND WE’RE GLAD
Who shot J. R.? That’s what the whole world wanted to know. In England, bookies posted odds on the likely suspects, callers deluged Scotland Yard on the night British television aired the final spring episode of Dallas, and the BBC sent the winner of a whodunit contest to the real Dallas. Things were no better there. A retiree named J. R. Ewing reported receiving abusive phone calls from all over the country, many of them collect. City officials volunteered Reunion Arena for the trial of J. R.’s unknown assailant, and Cullen Davis’s lawyer Racehorse Haynes offered to defend Dusty Farlow, boyfriend of J. R.’s wife, Sue Ellen, if he turned out to be the triggerman. The owner of the horse farm used as the Ewing family spread in the TV series was sued by a neighbor because the vicinity was overrun with sightseers. Nor was the mania limited to Big D. In Austin, the county attorney held a press conference to announce the discovery of a broad-based conspiracy in the shooting of you-know-who. In Lamesa, sixth-graders were instructed to compose get-well letters to J. R. as part of a creative writing lesson. In San Antonio, the Pearl Brewing Company announced it would market J. R. beer in cans stamped “Imported from Texas.” And in Fort Worth, actor Jim Davis, who plays J. R.’s father, Jock Ewing, said the show could just as easily have been called Boise. Now, that’s going too far.
MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU — EVENTUALLY
The Houston Police Patrolmen’s Union newsletter suggested that cops should take their time in answering calls because quick responses could undermine efforts to increase the size of the force.
LEAVING 19 ANTIQUE OFFICERS DEFENSELESS
A burglar broke into the Department of Public Safety in Austin, smashed a display case, and stole 19 antique pistols.
OR MAYBE ON A HOLIDAY
Asked if he could participate in “an endeavor in which the ultimate result might be death by lethal injection,” a potential juror in a Houston murder case said, “I guess I could if it was on a weekend.”
ABOUT THE SAME AS THEY GET IN COURT
Nineteen judges bumped from a flight to Houston retained a lawyer to sue Southwest Airlines. “What upsets the judges most,” their attorney said, “is that if an airline attempts this kind of conduct with lawyers and judges, what kind of treatment can the other passengers expect?”
WE UNDERSTAND PERFECTLY
After the Houston Independent School District released the unexpectedly high test scores of its students, other school districts in Harris County refused to reveal their students’ test scores, saying they were concerned that the public might misunderstand the results.
IF HE DOES IT AGAIN, FRY HIM
The Dallas Cowboys went to court to bar Detroit insurance agent Barry Bremen from Texas Stadium for life and force him to pay $5000 in damages for posing as a Cowboys cheerleader during a game with Washington.
WORK HARD, SON, DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO, AND GET A GOOD LAWYER
Cullen Davis opposed his ex-wife’s attempts to raise his child support payments to $15,000 a month because, he said, he wants his teenage sons “to grow up to have a proper set of values.”
NO SIGN OF INTELLIGENT LIFE HERE
Explaining that “it would be a great sight for space explorers visiting the earth to see,” the Amarillo Arts Center got a $2000 federal grant to plant a six-hundred-by-eight-hundred-foot section of prairie with kelly green wheat.
SUSPICIONS CONFIRMED
Two Baylor University dentistry researchers compared an “All-Natural Carob Hi-Proteen Energy Bar” to a Hershey’s milk chocolate bar and found that the carob was five times more likely to cause tooth decay.
OUT OF THE MOUTH OF BABES COME CUISINARTS
Two suppliers to the lunchrooms of San Antonio’s impoverished Edgewood School District were indicted for siphoning funds from the federal lunch program for schoolchildren after a grand jury investigated charges that the money had gone to buy appliances for private homes.
TWO HOURS LATER, HE REACHED THE EXIT
Larry Welch made an emergency landing in his light plane on Houston’s South Loop at 7:15 p.m.
WE GIVE UP. WHY?
Ten thousand North Texas girls ages four to twelve entered Sears’s contest to explain why they wanted to be Little Miss Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.
CRIMESTOPPER’S TEXTBOOK #290: CHECK OUT ARSON SUSPECTS WHO ARE LOYAL, HELPFUL, COURTEOUS, KIND, OBEDIENT, THRIFTY, BRAVE, CLEAN, AND REVERENT
A fire that caused $1 million in damages to national Boy Scout headquarters in Irving led to the arrest of a former Explorer serving as a security guard who had hoped to become a hero by putting it out.
UNLESS THEY WERE AGGIES
A Texas A&M sociologist studied drivers’ comprehension of traffic signs and found that people who had driven the most miles understood signs the best.
OH, THAT H. J. FLANDERS
Upset over a book presenting Adam and Eve as symbols rather than actual persons, Baylor University trustees barred its use as a primary text. The book as written by Dr. H. J. Flanders, chairman of Baylor’s religion department.
ASK ABOUT OUR UNADVERTISED SPECIALS
The Abilene telephone directory listed the Elliott-Hamil Funeral Homes under “Frozen Foods-Wholesale.”
THE CORPS PROTESTED
Texas A&M scientists raised female sheep who look and act like males.
IT WAS
Immediately preceding a presidential press conference, KLRU-TV in Austin flashed on the screen a warning that its next program would contain material that might be offensive to some people.
BUT HONEY, A GIRL CAN’T BE TOO CAREFUL
An Austin man refused to post bail for his wife, who had been booked for shoplifting birth control pills, because he had previously undergone a vasectomy.
WELL, GUYS, ARE WE MICE OR MEN?
A University of Texas researcher reported that although marijuana is thought of as an aphrodisiac, its active ingredient dampens sexual desire in male mice.
IT’S ONLY MEOW MIX FROM NOW ON
Texas Rangers first baseman Pat Putnam told a Boston sportscaster that he had given up eating dog biscuits.
ARNOLD 00:0
Arnold Burke of Temple was arrested on charges of felony theft for persuading investors to give him $800,000 to develop a perpetual motion machine he named Jeremiah 33:3.
THAT PUT HIM ONE OVER THE LEGAL LIMIT
An Abilene high school student shot himself in the foot during a class on hunting safety.
TOUGH CHOICE
Fort Worth judge Randell Riley initiated a policy of giving itinerant criminals a choice of going to prison or leaving Texas.
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