Memoirs? I got your memoirs.
Let me just say, I debated whether I wanted to post this or not. It was planned before Chuck's recent outpouring and I've even had to go back in an edit a few things because, it seems, Chuck and I have been connecting with the same muse. At any rate, I knew it was going to be lengthy and I would have to do some background research to confirm my more fuzzy memories. I didn't want to have anybody's eyes glaze over about half way through and click elsewhere so, I'll try to keep it interesting. It's the off-season so WTH, here goes....grab something to drink.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Preface:
Washington state, November 1963. Kennedy had just been shot while my dad was packing the 1960 Rambler station wagon to go to our new home in Houston, TX. The station wagon was stuffed to the gills with suitcases, clothes and necessities. The people in said vehicle would be me (age 10), my older sister (age 15) and my little sister (age 6 months) and the parents. We were headed to the state that had just shot the president. :/
After making it to Houston and staying with an aunt (dad's sister) and uncle for a few days, pops found a rent home off of South Park Boulevard. This was an area that was street after street of post-WWII housing - 3 and 4 bedroom one-story jobbies all built about 15-20 feet apart. We were quickly enrolled in our new schools, me at Mading Elementary and big sister at Jones HS. Sterling HS might have been closer but it had not been built, yet. Talk on the street was that some of the AFL Houston Oilers lived in the neighborhood. I didn't doubt this as pro football players were far from the multi-million dollar players they are today. Some players had to supplement their football pay with an off-season job and many were just regular Joes.
I loved baseball and was good at it (if I say so myself) so, in the spring, I signed up with the Edgewood American Little League. The teams were made up of kids from the surrounding South Park/Bellfort area. I was assigned to the Cardinals. In 1964, the Edgewood American Little League All-stars would go on to become Texas state Little League champions before falling to Alabama in the South Regional. Was I on that team? No, I was a 10-year old and caught up in the whole majors/minors division thing... Do I have a picture of the 1964 Edgewood American Little League Cardinals, my team? Thanks to an ongoing deep closet cleanup, why yes,
yes I do. (standing, 4th kid from the right).
South Park Boulevard would, of course, later be renamed to Martin Luther King Boulevard and not many white folk are around that area these days....
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Last thoughts on Camp Touchdown
By 1965, our family had relocated to the Clear Lake area. At some point, I was approached by the parents about attending a summer camp run by a couple of the Oilers, Charley Hennigan and Jerry Fowler. According to the ad in the paper, it was a full-time summer camp (not like today's 2 or 3 day affairs) with concurrent two week sessions. Attendees had to be between the ages of 7-14, if I recall correctly. It was called Camp Touchdown and had a football theme but included many other activities including basketball, archery, swimming, water skiing, etc. It was located in the tiny town of Bryceland in northern Louisiana. If you google-map Bryceland, the nearest "city" is Arcadia, La. about 8 or 9 miles away. (Bonnie and Clyde met their end near Gibsland, La. also about 8 to 9 miles away, in fact, Bryceland/Arcadia/Gibsland compose an 8-9 mile equilateral triangle).
The camp itself was housed in an old abandoned high school. It had a basketball court in the center with 8 or 10 classrooms surrounding it in a "U" shape - all in the same building. I found a 1941 picture of the building
here. I'm guessing it was still new or brand new in the picture. You can see the highest part of the roof over the basketball court and each classroom was about five windows wide. Meals were served in a cellar-like area and you can see these cellar windows underneath the classrooms. Looking back, I have questions about who built such a large structure out in the boonies and why was it abandoned but in 1965 (12 years old), I wasn't concerned with this. It was built BAC (before air conditioning) so cooling in those days was solved by building with lots of windows. Cots were set up in the classrooms boot-camp-style and one large (4 ft.?) box fan was set up on the floor to push the air down the aisle. At night, with the (screened) windows open, it actually wasn't too bad but take a nap in the afternoon and you could expect to wake up soaking wet.
The camp counselors were (mostly football) athletes from a mix of Louisiana colleges - seems like one or two from LSU, one guy from Northwestern St., one from La Tech, one from McNeese St., etc. I suppose some of them had aspirations of becoming pro athletes but who knows how that turned out. I will say they were pretty good at organizing us campers for the day's activities.
Charley Hennigan was, of course, one of the Houston Oilers early stars. A wide receiver, his name still gets mentioned in "best season" statistics. In 1961, Lionel Taylor of the AFL Denver Broncos was the first to hit 100 receptions in a year. Hennigan came along in '64 and had 101 (both, 14-game seasons). That stood until the NFL went to a 16-game season in '78 and not till '84 did Art Monk top the record with 106. Further, it was not till the 90's when 100 receptions a year started to become commonplace. He also had a record of 1,746 yards receiving in a season, broken by Jerry Rice in 1995, standing for 34 years.
Charley was officially a "director" of the camp and could be seen mingling here and there. He looked like one of the Mercury astronauts with his buzz cut - just like you'll see in the old photos of him. I recall sitting in on a session outside where he and the counselors were tossing the football around and he was showing them how to have your
feet just so when the ball arrives - not just for sideline routes, but for all routes - sort of an Advanced Receiving class.
If I recall correctly, I believe it was he that spoke to everyone on the first day of camp and gave us orientation (where to sleep, where to eat, etc.) I do recall him also encouraging us to brush our teeth with the baking soda in the bathrooms as the water in the area was high in minerals and would darken your teeth over time. Probably a good idea since, I'm sure, they didn't want to have parents come pick up Junior at the end of camp and have him sporting a happy hillbilly smile.
Jerry Fowler was the other director of the camp and I guess what we would call today a "fringe player" for the Oilers. An offensive guard/tackle, statistically, he only shows up as having played in four games in 1964 although he may have been
around the Oilers in other years. I suppose he and Hennigan met through the Oilers and having shared the same college (Northwestern St. in Natchitoches, LA) although, there was a five year age difference - Fowler was the younger one. Perhaps they were old family friends, not sure. Large, chubby, gregarious, he was around quite a bit and would join us in pickup basketball games and the like. Yep, the expression "good ole boy" would fit. (I also recall he had a beautiful young fiancée/wife who would visit the camp and chat with some of us campers. And that just goes to show that large, chubby O-linemen can do quite well in that department).
Probably due to advertising in the Houston papers, attendees from the Houston area were well represented. I would say the rest of the attendees were from all parts of Louisiana. In my estimation, the camp consisted of roughly one half Houston "city boys" and one half Louisiana "country boys". And we all got along swimmingly. There were a lot of rich kids from Houston, doctors sons, private school kids and the like. Tuition was not cheap - I want to say it was around $400 per 2 wk/session which would translate to what, $3000 today? Now, my parents weren't rich but they both worked so there was some extra money.
I remember one set of three brothers from Houston that were "veterans" having attended the camp before. One guy was from the Kincaid HS area. Another guy was the son of the owner of KILT 610 AM radio. 610 radio was THE radio station back in those days. If you wanted to hear rock 'n roll, you tuned it to 610. New Beatles songs? 610. FM radio was just getting going in earnest and was no competition at the time. I saw this same fellow maybe a couple of years later after a rock show in the Sam Houston Coliseum. He was up on the stage scarfing up "souvenirs" (no doubt, allowed because of who his dad was - KILT sponsored rock shows back in the day) and I called out to him. He motioned me to come on up and after a few how-ya-doings, he gave me one of the leftover drum sticks (now since lost).
The Louisana boys were from all parts of Louisiana - Sulphur, Natchitoches, DeRidder, Opelousas and a lot of other places I can't pronounce. I remember one of them was a day late to camp because he was busy completing the sale of a cow to pay for his tuition. They had names like Vernon, Purvis, John Charles (JC), Cotton...... those were the first names.
(wow, 10000 character limit, cont'd)