Flight From Callahan County

When I was growing up on the family farm on the Callahan County side of Scranton, Texas in the ‘40s and ‘50s, we didn’t have a telephone. In fact, a lot of families there did not have telephones. One of the reasons was probably the economic status of folks suffering from a long drought and the decline of the family farm. But a primary reason to go without a telephone was poor phone service. Downtown Scranton, in Eastland County, was served by Southwestern Bell, which provided their customers with good phone technology. However, that company’s franchise extended westward less than a mile just over the county line into Callahan County. Thus, our area of the Scranton community was beyond that boundary and in the service territory of a small company situated in Putnam, later to be absorbed by another small firm in Baird, Texas. This phone company on the Callahan County side provided poor line maintenance and antiquated equipment. The phones in use on the rur...

It seems like every other product you find at the grocery store these days contains a label warning of manufacture at a facility where peanuts may be used. That’s because so many young children are allergic to peanuts. Back when I was growing up on a farm on the Callahan County side of Scranton, Texas, the term “peanut allergy” would have been a sacrilege. The peanut was our cash crop, determining our financial status for the next 12 months, and everyone – young and old – consumed peanuts. I was exposed to peanuts very early in life. Among my earliest memories as a little boy are those of following my dad to the field, where he would pull up sample peanut plants to determine if the crop was ready for harvesting. My dad, a second generation peanut grower on the family farm, would break open the shells even if the nuts were immature, giving me a taste. The peanuts were harvested – usually in October – by a “combine,” a mechanized machine pulled by a tractor. T...