I'm remembering an occasion in, I think 1983, when my friend Kirk Purcell invited me to what he described as an annual event. Kirk Purcell was a Rodeo Clown-turned-Texas personal injury lawyer I admired. Walk Tall America Night was the yearly coming together of a large group of (mainly) personal injury lawyers and writers and entertainers and a lampshade salesman—this latter individual’s place in the group I never quite understood.
Anyway, Walk Tall America Night was billed as “An Evening Dedicated to the Memory of Sheriff Buford T. Pusser,” the late sheriff of McNairy County, Tennessee, who you may recall, before his tragic death in a fiery crash of his Corvette automobile in 1974, gained wide fame as the subject of the movie Walking Tall and the sequels, Walking Tall: Part 2, and Walking Tall: The Final Chapter. Sheriff Pusser was a clean-cut All-American Hero who had been a high school football star, a professional wrestler, and had attended mortician’s school. During his career in law enforcement, he was said to have been shot eight times, knifed seven times, killed two individuals and destroyed upwards of eighty-seven whiskey stills. He is supposed to have once fought six men at one time, sending three to the hospital and three to jail. And all this from a man who had been discharged from the United States Marine Corps on account of his asthma.
The highlight of Walk Tall America Night—which was staged in an upstairs barroom and dance hall called The Friendly Club on Magnolia Street in a somewhat run-down section of Fort Worth—was the awarding of the coveted Buford T. Pusser Tall Walker of the Year Big Stick Award. The award itself consisted of a gold (painted) plaster-of-Paris bust of Elvis and a commemorative axe handle. The bust of Elvis was to be kept and proudly displayed by the Honoree for the year of his/her tenure and then returned to be awarded to the next year’s winner—I’m guessing that such a treasured object could not be duplicated. The commemorative axe handle—available at the Sheriff Buford Pusser Home & Museum & Gift Shop in Adamsville, Tennessee, for $15 (plus $15 shipping and handling) or at any feed or home improvement store—was the winner’s to keep in perpetuity as a reminder of the honor.
As I recall, admission to the gala event was a “$5 Love Offering.”
The 1983 Award went to Austin attorney Broadus Spivey and his wife Ruth Ann (a former cheer leader from Clarendon, Texas), neither of whom claimed to have any idea of why they were selected. (A former recipient (1979), the late Buck Ramsey of Amarillo, reported that some years “they can’t find anyone to accept the award” and that he himself had been honored only because he couldn’t get in touch with anyone in time to decline it.) Other past-recipients of the award include singer/songwriter-mystery author and soon to be gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman (1978), and Rodeo Clown Quail Dobbs (1981).
What especially pleased me, however, was the fact that one of my All Time Favorite American Heroes, Miss Molly Ivins had been the previous year’s winner (during the presentation of which she had been called a “World Famous, Fearless, Spirit-Filled Teller of Truth”) and so was in attendance to return the bust of Elvis. Careful research later led me to materials that indicated that “because of Sister Molly’s unsavory journalistic background,” the Board of Deacons for the Anti-UnAmericanism Crusade who were in charge of selecting honorees, “finally had to waive the morals test altogether.” I learned, as well, that among that year’s semi-finalists were Porter Waggoner, Senator Jesse Helms, and the Reverend Jerry Falwell.
The evening was as interesting as you're probably thinking. I confess I was a little surprised that no one was arrested or brutally mugged the entire evening—at least as far as I was able to discern. There were a couple of cosmic cowboys up from San Angelo who had towed a 1959 Cadillac outfitted with steer horns and a Texas flag in the hope of winning the “Best Float Award.” They wore tuxedo tops with their jeans, boots, and spurs and got down when Tommy Hancock and the “Supernatural Family Band” played rock and roll.
I remember later that night we were each sipping on a Pearl Beer when Miss Molly Ivins asked me was I a lawyer. I looked up at her (she was a long drink of water, you know) and told her, no, that I was trying to be a writer. It was then, somewhere during that conversation on a barroom dance floor, that Miss Molly Ivins proclaimed me to be a Freedom Fighter—a title I have always held dear and striven to live up to.
Several months later, in an especially lonely and likely boozy mood in my little adobe house on the banks of the Pecos River back in New Mexico, I wrote Molly Ivins a letter. I quote here the letter in its entirety, exactly as written:
Dear Miss Molly,
You are my favorite living arther next to William Shakespeer. As you can see from my return address in the upper right hand corner of this letter I live in New Mexico and not in Texas. But I hope that won’t stop you from reading this letter. I always look forward to reading your collum whenever the Sunday paper comes. Its the only reason I prescribe to the Sunday Dallas Times Herald and I have to pay top dollor to have it sent to me all the way in New Mexico because the Allsups in Santa Rosa which is the closest town only has the Albuquerque Sunday paper and I think those jerks who write that “rag” are all republicans if you know what I mean.
I really like that pitcher of you that is always on your collum in fact I cut one of them out and tapped to my icebox. I hope thats OK with you? The reason I’m writing to you is to see if you would send me a autographed one of you (it don’t have to be the same one if they need to keep using it down at the Dallas Times Herald.) You probly dont remember me but I saw you in person at the Friendly Club down on Magnolia street in Ft Worth on December 3, 1983. You were having to return that real nice statue of Elvis “THE KING” which I thought was pretty cheap of those guys who gave it to that cute couple from Austin Texas. Are those guys Indian givers or what?? To tell you the truth I couldnt figure out what the heck was going on anyway since I was just looking for a place to use the restroom and maybe get a cold beer and wondered into the Friendly Club. Anyway Ive thought about you every day since that fatefull night at the Friendly Club and have become your biggest fan and NEVER miss reading your collum. I really liked the one about the guys who are holding a conference on how to be a “nerd” (Ha Ha) I also like the way you always say that about “the only president we got” (meaning Regan)
Please send me a photo and sign it to.
As ever,
Ron Querry
p.s. Do you go to the Friendly Club ofen?
In reply Miss Molly Ivins sent me a newspaper picture and a hand written note addressing me as “Dear Querry” and saying she was moving to Austin and wouldn’t be getting to the Friendly Club except for special events, she guessed.
I always reminded Miss Molly, whenever I would see her over the years, of her Buford T. Pusser Tall Walker of the Year Big Stick Award—I remember she would laugh that great laugh of hers and allow as how she had to remember to put that on her resumé. I don’t know if she ever did.
Anyway, Walk Tall America Night was billed as “An Evening Dedicated to the Memory of Sheriff Buford T. Pusser,” the late sheriff of McNairy County, Tennessee, who you may recall, before his tragic death in a fiery crash of his Corvette automobile in 1974, gained wide fame as the subject of the movie Walking Tall and the sequels, Walking Tall: Part 2, and Walking Tall: The Final Chapter. Sheriff Pusser was a clean-cut All-American Hero who had been a high school football star, a professional wrestler, and had attended mortician’s school. During his career in law enforcement, he was said to have been shot eight times, knifed seven times, killed two individuals and destroyed upwards of eighty-seven whiskey stills. He is supposed to have once fought six men at one time, sending three to the hospital and three to jail. And all this from a man who had been discharged from the United States Marine Corps on account of his asthma.
The highlight of Walk Tall America Night—which was staged in an upstairs barroom and dance hall called The Friendly Club on Magnolia Street in a somewhat run-down section of Fort Worth—was the awarding of the coveted Buford T. Pusser Tall Walker of the Year Big Stick Award. The award itself consisted of a gold (painted) plaster-of-Paris bust of Elvis and a commemorative axe handle. The bust of Elvis was to be kept and proudly displayed by the Honoree for the year of his/her tenure and then returned to be awarded to the next year’s winner—I’m guessing that such a treasured object could not be duplicated. The commemorative axe handle—available at the Sheriff Buford Pusser Home & Museum & Gift Shop in Adamsville, Tennessee, for $15 (plus $15 shipping and handling) or at any feed or home improvement store—was the winner’s to keep in perpetuity as a reminder of the honor.
As I recall, admission to the gala event was a “$5 Love Offering.”
The 1983 Award went to Austin attorney Broadus Spivey and his wife Ruth Ann (a former cheer leader from Clarendon, Texas), neither of whom claimed to have any idea of why they were selected. (A former recipient (1979), the late Buck Ramsey of Amarillo, reported that some years “they can’t find anyone to accept the award” and that he himself had been honored only because he couldn’t get in touch with anyone in time to decline it.) Other past-recipients of the award include singer/songwriter-mystery author and soon to be gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman (1978), and Rodeo Clown Quail Dobbs (1981).
What especially pleased me, however, was the fact that one of my All Time Favorite American Heroes, Miss Molly Ivins had been the previous year’s winner (during the presentation of which she had been called a “World Famous, Fearless, Spirit-Filled Teller of Truth”) and so was in attendance to return the bust of Elvis. Careful research later led me to materials that indicated that “because of Sister Molly’s unsavory journalistic background,” the Board of Deacons for the Anti-UnAmericanism Crusade who were in charge of selecting honorees, “finally had to waive the morals test altogether.” I learned, as well, that among that year’s semi-finalists were Porter Waggoner, Senator Jesse Helms, and the Reverend Jerry Falwell.
The evening was as interesting as you're probably thinking. I confess I was a little surprised that no one was arrested or brutally mugged the entire evening—at least as far as I was able to discern. There were a couple of cosmic cowboys up from San Angelo who had towed a 1959 Cadillac outfitted with steer horns and a Texas flag in the hope of winning the “Best Float Award.” They wore tuxedo tops with their jeans, boots, and spurs and got down when Tommy Hancock and the “Supernatural Family Band” played rock and roll.
I remember later that night we were each sipping on a Pearl Beer when Miss Molly Ivins asked me was I a lawyer. I looked up at her (she was a long drink of water, you know) and told her, no, that I was trying to be a writer. It was then, somewhere during that conversation on a barroom dance floor, that Miss Molly Ivins proclaimed me to be a Freedom Fighter—a title I have always held dear and striven to live up to.
Several months later, in an especially lonely and likely boozy mood in my little adobe house on the banks of the Pecos River back in New Mexico, I wrote Molly Ivins a letter. I quote here the letter in its entirety, exactly as written:
Dear Miss Molly,
You are my favorite living arther next to William Shakespeer. As you can see from my return address in the upper right hand corner of this letter I live in New Mexico and not in Texas. But I hope that won’t stop you from reading this letter. I always look forward to reading your collum whenever the Sunday paper comes. Its the only reason I prescribe to the Sunday Dallas Times Herald and I have to pay top dollor to have it sent to me all the way in New Mexico because the Allsups in Santa Rosa which is the closest town only has the Albuquerque Sunday paper and I think those jerks who write that “rag” are all republicans if you know what I mean.
I really like that pitcher of you that is always on your collum in fact I cut one of them out and tapped to my icebox. I hope thats OK with you? The reason I’m writing to you is to see if you would send me a autographed one of you (it don’t have to be the same one if they need to keep using it down at the Dallas Times Herald.) You probly dont remember me but I saw you in person at the Friendly Club down on Magnolia street in Ft Worth on December 3, 1983. You were having to return that real nice statue of Elvis “THE KING” which I thought was pretty cheap of those guys who gave it to that cute couple from Austin Texas. Are those guys Indian givers or what?? To tell you the truth I couldnt figure out what the heck was going on anyway since I was just looking for a place to use the restroom and maybe get a cold beer and wondered into the Friendly Club. Anyway Ive thought about you every day since that fatefull night at the Friendly Club and have become your biggest fan and NEVER miss reading your collum. I really liked the one about the guys who are holding a conference on how to be a “nerd” (Ha Ha) I also like the way you always say that about “the only president we got” (meaning Regan)
Please send me a photo and sign it to.
As ever,
Ron Querry
p.s. Do you go to the Friendly Club ofen?
In reply Miss Molly Ivins sent me a newspaper picture and a hand written note addressing me as “Dear Querry” and saying she was moving to Austin and wouldn’t be getting to the Friendly Club except for special events, she guessed.
I always reminded Miss Molly, whenever I would see her over the years, of her Buford T. Pusser Tall Walker of the Year Big Stick Award—I remember she would laugh that great laugh of hers and allow as how she had to remember to put that on her resumé. I don’t know if she ever did.
