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Texas Standard commentator W.F. Strong has met a lot of Texans throughout the years. Some have shared bits of history from the Lone Star State. Some have recalled old family traditions or news of certain oddities.
But others have imparted on him some unique problem-solving skills. This story tells of two old friends and their quick thinking.
The full transcript of this episode of Stories from Texas is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
W.F. Strong [00:00:00] Some years ago, I was visiting with a couple of 90-year-old sisters, both widows, who were living out their golden years alone on a remote farm in South Texas. I’ll call them Belle and Lea because, well, those were their names. They weren’t by definition my aunts, but I felt like they were. They had been married to very successful farmers who had predeceased them by 20 years. But left them financially secure, very secure, I might add. Belle told me that when her husband passed, she sold off everything, a thousand head of cattle, land, tractors, combines, all nature of farm equipment. She realized she no longer had to live in the 1,500 square foot, three room blocky house she and her husband were unnecessarily squeezed into for 50 years. One room was the bedroom, the living room, and the dining room, all in one. There was a small kitchen and a simple bathroom with a small shower. Finally, she said, I could have my dream home. So she took her checkbook, this was 1978, with its multimillion dollar balance, and she went over to Corpus Christi where she bought for cash the finest double-wide mobile home she could find. She had it set up on her land where she could see the farm to market road. 100 yards away. She and Lea would sit there for hours at the dining room window and watch the world go by on that quiet road. They would comment on the passersby, too. Looks like Mr. Simpson has a new pickup. That’s a beautiful color red. That suits him just fine. I approve. Over the years, they added porches for enjoying the evening air and the starlight. There was a time when they had a water heater removed and relocated to an outdoor porch. This left a hole over in the corner of the living room that was about three and a half feet deep. It had a sturdy bottom, but it was a fairly deep hole. Belle said they had planned to put a large potted plant there, but before they could do that, Lea managed to back up and fall into the hole, where she was unhurt but trapped. Belle said Lea is short, you know, only about five foot tall. She used to be taller like me, but she settled a bit. So it seems silly, but he couldn’t get out. Her legs weren’t strong enough for her to step out, and my arms weren’t enough to pull her out. She wasn’t tall enough to sit on the edge and throw her legs over. We were both amused and confused. Here we were, two old women, out here by ourselves. How were we gonna get her out? We could have called 911 for help, but we didn’t want to bother people. And where would be the fun in that? Hardly an emergency, might be in a day or so, but I was willing to wait. Belle added, it was then that I remembered the story of the farmer and his mule. You know that one. The farmer’s mule fell down into the silo, about 30 feet, it wasn’t hurt, but it couldn’t get out, of course, and the farmer had no crane to lift it out. So he got his front loader and started dumping dirt in there. The mule would shake it off of himself and then tamp it down. The farmer kept on dumping dirt in there and the mule kept tamping it down and slowly, slowly, the mules got elevated up to the ground level and stepped out. I went to the couch and I got some throw pillows and I put them down there on Lea’s feet and told her to step on them. But they were a little unstable for her. See you then. I got some bigger pillows from the bed and she stepped up on those. I got more and she step up on them. She made a pretty good mule. She did. We had her out of there in a jiffy. Never underestimate the power of the good old fashioned horse sense of farm women. I’m W.F. Strong. These are stories from Texas. Some of them are true.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
