Curmudgeon in Corduroy : The Best of Jerry Flemmons' Texas

by FLEMMONS JERRY

• ISBN13: 9780875652177
• ISBN10: 0875652174
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-03-01
• Publisher: Texas A & M Univ Pr

Summary

In "And Flights of Angels Sing Thee to Thy Rest", the essay which opens this compelling collection, Jerry Flemmons displays an uncommon sense of both history and fun. When it was announced that angels would adorn the facade of the magnificent hall to be built in Fort Worth for the performing arts, the columnist, intrigued by the incongruity of angels in Cowtown, demanded, "Where in the hell did those angels come from?" He finally solved the dilemma by deciding they were the fallen angels of Hell's Half Acre, "Irish Kate ... on the right, and Big Birdie ... on the left".

With strong affection for almost all things Texan, Flemmons writes of the ordinary with an extraordinary sophistication and cleverness. His Texas is sometimes a place of sadness, even tragedy, sometimes a place of high jinks and great jokes, but most often, it's a place of vanishing traditions and long-ago days. It's all here in this collection ... and it's Flemmons at his best.

He was a pallbearer the day they buried Lee Harvey Oswald in Rose Hill Cemetery in Fort Worth. There was no one ar

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(6)
And Flights of Harlots Sing Thee to Thy Rest	7	(5)
Autumn, We Hardly Knew Ye	12	(3)
A Friend Falls in the Forest	15	(3)
Putting the Peas in Prosperity	18	(5)
The Shadow of Death	23	(5)
Of Dimple And Dixie And Dump	28	(4)
Dawn Comes Sunny Side Up	32	(4)
Out of the Frying Pan and into the Internet---Fry, Fry Again	36	(5)
A Boy's Life, before Litigation	41	(4)
Have Rubber Gun, Will Travel	45	(5)
On the Square It's Half Past Then	50	(4)
The Way the Cracker Crumbles	54	(4)
%&@!# and Stones May %&@!# My Bones	58	(3)
A Dance of Myth and Mane	61	(3)
More Do-Si-Do Than Pas de Deux	64	(5)
Death and Extra Innings	69	(3)
East Texas Brigadoon	72	(2)
Welcome to Culture Gulch	74	(6)
Before ``Dominoes'' Meant Pizza	80	(5)
Shades of Yesteryear	85	(4)
How Sweet the Sound	89	(5)
A Cowboy's Kingly Crown	94	(3)
Giddy Up---Way Up!	97	(4)
Makin' Bacon	101	(4)
The Lowdown on Hunkering	105	(4)
Mama Oswald	109	(18)
News You Can Use and Use and Use...	127	(4)
``Pee-Can?'' That's Nuts	131	(4)
Amon's Will Be Done	135	(4)
O, Say, Can You Secede?	139	(5)
The Twang's the Thang, Ya'll	144	(4)
Cleveland Colquitt, Where Are You?	148	(3)
Tiptoe through the Pigweed	151	(3)
The Eyes of Texas Were upon Them	154	(3)
Touchdown in a Small Town	157	(3)
If You Wish upon a Furculum	160	(4)
A Paradox in Pearls	164	(4)
West Texas Tree of Life	168	(5)
Jerry Flemmons, 1936--1999	173