1984 Bum Steer Awards
(Page 3 of 3)
READING, ‘RITING, AND ‘ROTICISM
“Tonya,” the pseudonym of a junior high teacher in Dallas who works for a telephone sex service, said in a newspaper interview, “I find the work fascinating. Since I work out of my house, I can grade students’ papers between phone calls.”
SO WHAT?
The world will little note nor long remember that:
• Bob Hope was declared lifetime distinguished visiting professor at SMU.
• The Port of Beaumont loaded the largest cargo of bagged flour ever to be placed aboard a single ship.
• The Lyndon Baines Johnson Library in Austin added George Foreman’s heavyweight championship belt to its permanent collection.
• Merle Haggard set a world record by buying a round of drinks for all 5095 patrons of Billy Bob’s Texas.
• At a Las Vegas-style musical extravaganza, the Northwest Dallas Chamber of Commerce proclaimed that the towns of Addison, Carrollton, Coppell, and Farmers Branch would henceforward be known as the Metrocrest.
• The California-based International Chili Society and Dallas chili parlor owner Frank X. Tolbert engaged in a court battle over the right to use to phrase “World’s Championship Chili Cookoff.”
THIS IS DALLAS
Deity Does Dallas
Dallas Morning News editorial writer William Murchison proposed Dallas as a suitable place for the Second Coming. “Dallas,” he wrote, “could manage it with aplomb and dignity, and, doubtless, an appropriate turnout.”
DON’T WORRY, ANNE. IF THEY SHOW UP, WE’LL NAIL THEM FOR RWI
Anne Morris of University Park wrote a letter to the editor protesting the building of a library in her neighborhood: “I worry that a library might attract a bad element to our friendly little city. It is a well-known fact that winos practically live in libraries.”
HE SHOULD HAVE PELTED HIM WITH MARASCHINO CHERRIES AND THEN STABBED HIM WITH HIS LITTLE PLASTIC SWORD
Charles T. Terrell, a former member of the Dallas City Council, was sued for battery by real estate executive William Randall Ackerman after a dispute over seating at the exclusive Dallas nightclub Nostromo.
THAT’S BECAUSE THEY GREW UP IN PALACES TOO
After hostessing Prince Albert of Monaco, Trisha Wilson of Dallas said, “He is so totally normal that it is hard to remember that he’s a prince that has grown up in a palace. He is more like an SMU student.”
YOU SAID IT. WE DIDN’T
Developers of the InterFirst Plaza in Dallas beamed a computer-guided laser image of their planned seventy-story building into the night sky to the tune of an original music score. An executive said of the all-but-invisible show, “The opening deserves Dallas and Dallas deserves the opening.”
NEXT SEMESTER: HOW TO DIVORCE EVEN BETTER
Sally Blanton taught an independent adult education course called How to Marry Wealthy, which included such topics as the happiest hunting grounds (the car wash on Preston Road near Lovers Lane; a box at Texas Stadium) and potential pitfalls (prenuptial contracts; resentful children afraid of losing their inheritance).
THIS IS HOUSTON
COME ON, BABY, LIGHT MY FIRE—OR ELSE
A Houston data processor admitted setting more than fifty fires out of frustration after visiting singles bars and leaving alone.
WELCOME TO HOUSTON, HOME OF CLEAN AIR, SWIFT TRAFFIC, FULL EMPLOYMENT, AND WINNING TEAMS
Richard Hite formed Pro-Houston, Inc., with a goal of raising $1 million for an advertising campaign to improve the city’s image.
WISH WE COULD SAY THE SAME FOR EPIDEMIOLIGISTS
Justus Baird, chief of the epidemiology division of the Houston Health Department, said, “Unless rats bite you, they really don’t cause much of a problem.”
HE WAS DETERMINED TO BE STRONGER THAN THE ONIONS
Following an altercation at a downtown hot dog stand, Houston police officers discovered that state district judge Felix Salazar was carrying a .380 semiautomatic pistol, a .22-caliber derringer, and two knives.
GOTTA HAVE SOMETHING TO OPEN THE CAN AND THE BOTTLE
Anita Lee Deal was searched in the Harris County courthouse and discovered to be carrying a bottle of wine, a can of snuff, and a tomahawk.
THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON’T INVITE THE PRINCPAL
A Houston junior high school teacher was fired for throwing a beer party in her classroom for seventh- and eight-grade students.
OUR FRIENDS THE ANIMALS
THEN DOGS FOR THE CATS, THEN GATORS FOR THE DOGS
Building managers at Medical Park Tower in Austin stationed cats on a narrow fifth-floor ledge around the clock to ward off pigeons.
FOR THE SOLUTION, CALL MEDICAL PARK TOWER
Twenty-five thousand cattle egrets took over the town of Avinger, outnumbering humans forty to one. Townspeople who complained about the ammonia stench were told by federal and state officials that anyone who harassed the birds would be fined.
SPEAK, OSCAR. ROLL OVER. NOW FETCH
Lynn Sakowitz Wyatt, talking about her husband in an interview in W, said, “If it were up to Oscar, he’d stay home like a big Labrador every night.”
THEY LOVE WATCHING THE BIG SILVER DOES JUMP
White-tailed deer, accustomed to the noise at Houston Intercontinental Airport, often wander onto runways and will not budge. Attempts to shoot them with tranquilizer guns and to frighten them with recordings of mountain lions have failed.
WAIT! THE MIRANDA WARNINGS!
A woman visiting Austin was attacked by a “killer squirrel” that climbed up her coat and bit her shoulders. A policeman looking for the squirrel found it chomping through his boots and stomped it to death.
NEXT TIME WE’LL DO TO YOU WHAT WE DID TO THE SQUIRREL
It took Lake Jackson police more than three hours to subdue an elderly, one-eyed, almost toothless eleven-and-a-half-foot alligator that had wandered into town.
GOD WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS
• Hundreds of people came to Mary Ibarra’s house in San Antonio to see what they took to be an image of the Virgin Mary, which appeared when the Ibarras' porch light cast a reflection off their car onto the house next door.
• Hector Flores of Laredo built a shrine in his living room after plaster fell out of his wall, leaving what he said was a silhouette of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
GOD WORKS IN NOT-SO-MYSTERIOUS WAYS
• Walter Rode, owner of the Severne Apartments in Houston, charged some tenants no rent, claiming God would solve his financial problems. The apartments were sold at a foreclosure auction.
• The City of Houston awarded unemployed construction worker James Scott $1.4 million in cleanup contracts after Hurricane Alicia even though he had no office, no dump trucks, no equipment, and no phones. Scott said “Lord Jesus” would see him through, but many of the workers are still unpaid, two subcontractors have filed writs, and one contract has been cancelled altogether.
BUM STEER GIFT GUIDE
• The Dallas Diet (Perrier martinis and a week at the Greenhouse? No. Fiber bars), by Care Free International, Irving
• Firm Believer, an exercise album for Christians, by Dayspring Records, Waco
• Support capital punishment T-shirt, by three police officers doing business as Grim Reaper Products, Beaumont
• Your Housekeeper CAN Cook, basic recipes (fried chicken, frozen Green Giant corn, spritzers) translated into Spanish, by Nancy Levicki, Houston
• “Tenny Lamas,” rubber-soled athletic shoes for bootophiles, by Tony Lama, El Paso
• “28 Men & a Woman,” a calendar with beefcake photographs, by Gray Hawn, Austin
• Amorous armadillos, a 100 per cent brass objet d’erotica, available from—oh, you don’t really want to know
A PUBLIC OFFICE IS A PUBLIC BUST
Jim Mattox
Texas Attorney General
Indicted for commercial bribery after threatening lawyers from Houston’s Fulbright & Jaworski law firm.
Gib Lewis
Speaker of the House
Paid $800 fine for failing to disclose his business ties to liquor distributors and a horse-racing lobbyist.
Humpy Parker
San Jacinto County Sherriff
Sentenced to ten years in prison for civil rights violations after subjecting prisoners to water torture.
Don Yarbrough
Former Supreme Court Judge
Arrested as a fugitive from justice and returned to Texas to serve prison sentence for perjury.
Bernardo Eureste
San Antonio Councilman
Mugged in park at 3 a.m. while “fooling around”; fled scene, leaving companion to be assaulted; later called mugging a “police assassination attempt.”
My Library
