The Hillman Husky Story
The
Hillman Husky Story
We were living in San Angelo,
Texas in 1970 when I received a call from a
little church in Lockney, Texas up in the Panhandle asking if I would
come to Lockney and conduct a singing school at their church. I was to teach church music mornings and
evenings and then preach twice on Sundays.
Of course, I was eager to do that because I had conducted several singing
schools in the past but I had been away from teaching singing for several years
while we were living in the Northwest. My
singing school experience goes all the way back to when Mary and I were kids at
home.
My Dad loved gospel music and he made sure that Mary and I
went to every singing convention and singing school that was anywhere
nearby. The first singing school that I
remember was in about 1936 and was held at the old Mitchell Creek
Baptist Church
(The old church building has long since fallen down.) in the Pony Creek
community about 10 miles south of Stephenville, Texas. A man by the name of Spurgeon Sprawls (1890-1967)
was the song instructor. I guess he was
a good singer and instructor but my brothers said had the smell of liquor on
his breath every night at the singing school.
This didn’t seem to stop my dad.
As I recall we went almost every night.
The first time I ever remember leading a song was a little later, maybe about 1938 or 1939 after we moved to Arkansas. We attended the little Cedar Creek Church of Christ near Havana. We actually lived at Blue Mountain, Arkansas which was at the foot of Mount Magazine the highest mountain in Arkansas. We would catch a ride to church with a neighbor, George Hughes, on his old logging truck. This was just a pole truck, as I remember, that had no bed or place to sit on the back so Philip and Wyatt would ride on the running boards or stand on the 5th wheel all the way to
church. Mary and I would probably sit in the cab on Mom
and Dad’s laps for the trip to church.
It must have been during a singing school or a gospel
meeting that was conducted by the late Odell White. I know it was a Sunday afternoon during a
singing when it happened. I certainly
didn’t understand all the rules that little boys who were not baptized were not
supposed to have any leading part in a church service. But on that last Sunday of the meeting all
the men and boys were getting up and leading a song. I didn’t know if they were just getting up to
lead on their own or if someone was calling on them or just what, but when
there came a lull in the singing, I saw my chance. I jumped up out of my seat and announced my
number just like I had been hearing all the other guys do. Then I proceeded to lead my song. I still remember the song: “There’s a fountain free / ‘tis for you and
me / let us haste, O haste to its brink.”
I thought that was the prettiest song I ever heard. Everyone sang, I guess, and as I remember
nobody said anything afterward even though I had probably broken all the rules
of protocol in the book, but I didn’t care, I knew I could do it.
So I had lots of singing school experience beginning with
Spurgeon Sprawls. Homer Pendleton
conducted several singing schools in the little Methodist church where we lived
in the Selden community south of Stephenville. Dad would take Mary and me to Stephenville where
we would go to the singing schools of Ernest Rippetoe who was the pastor at the
Washington Street Baptist
Church in
Stephenville. Ernest was the brother of
Walter Rippetoe of the original Stamps Quartet.
He was also a song writer and singer.
I also took voice lessons from Mrs. L. D. (Hazel) Hufstetler. She was a voice instructor for the Stamps
School of Music in Dallas
and would come to Stephenville to teach voice.
And dad would always take us to the all night Texas State Singing
Convention at Stephenville.
Well, our son David was out
of school for the summer between his high school sophomore and junior years
with nothing to do for the summer. San Angelo was just not
exactly booming with jobs for teens in 1970.
So I said to him, “David, if you will go with me to Lockney and help me
with the singing school, I will give you half of everything they pay us.” This was right up David’s alley. You see, he had already been exposed to all
that I knew about music but he knew a lot more about it than I ever would. He was playing the trumpet in the school band
and, as you may know, school band music is a whole different animal than the
more docile church music—even what I thought was more up-beat music in the
Southern Gospel and Stamps Baxter style of music. David knew music and he loved to sing so I
knew he could be a great help at the Lockney singing school.
So David jumped at the chance to go with me to Lockney and
we had a blast. We were able to sing
with some of the very best singers in church music in the country, or at least
that we knew about. What a great week we
had, and when we were ready to go home they gave us a check for our
work--$400.00. That was more money than
David and I had ever seen in one pile in our lives. And when we got back home to San Angelo, even though it pained me to no
end, I lived up to my end of the bargain and gave David the $200, his half of
what we had received. He went straight
to the store and bought himself a brand new pair of cowboy boots that he had
been wanting for a long time and that he had been ogling for weeks. I think
they cost about $50 leaving him with about $150.
About that time of year we had decided to return to the
Northwest. The church that we had begun
in Spokane, Washington had fallen on hard times and was
in desperate need of help. Jewell and I
did not think we could just abandon the ministry that we had begun there so we
made the decision to return. Of course,
you guessed it; I needed money, so I borrowed the $150 that David had left to
help with our expenses and our move. I
did not know how, or if, I would ever be able to pay him back.
When we got back to Spokane
we discovered that Larry Cash had left an old car there for us to try to sell
for him. It was a 1941 Chrysler Windsor
two door coupe with a fluid drive transmission.
David sort of claimed that old car and drove it a little until I sold it
to Bob Mayhugh who lived at Kennewick,
Washington. Bob gave it to his daughter, Becky, to drive. That left David with no car at all. The only car we had was the 1964 Cadillac
family car. What were we to do?
As it happened, a friend of
ours, Gary Stanford, was being discharged from the Air Force. He had been stationed at Fairchild Air Force
Base which was the SAC base at Spokane. He and his wife were moving back to their
home in Virginia. And so, he had a little car called a “Hillman
Husky.” This was a 1959 model and was one
of the first SUV around. Somehow I was
able to get that little car. It was such a fun little car to drive.
And
so, what did I do? I still owed David
$150 that I had borrowed months before that was his part of the money we
received from holding that singing school in Lockney. So I decided to give David that little car for
the $150 that I owed him. That suited
him to a tee. He drove that little car
everywhere as did Jewell and I. Once,
Jewell was driving the little Husky with Bobbie Grow up a little hill on a
cold, icy winter day when it began to slip and slide and was not able to get up
the hill. Jewell and Bobbie each put
their foot out the doors on each side and gave the car a little push with their
feet and up the hill they went. When my
dad and mom came to visit us in Spokane in 1971
I took my dad high upon the mountains in Idaho
and showed him where we picked huckleberries in the fall. But as fun as the Husky was, it was not all
that David wanted or needed.
You
see, David had a school friend who had also fallen on hard times. His mother
was getting married again for the 6th or 7th time and was
moving to another part of town. Jim
Locke was David’s friend. He wanted to
finish going to school at Shadle High with his class so we agreed for him to
move in with us and live with us until he graduated. Jim was always having automobile
problems. At first he had a 1953 Plymouth that had one
green fender and one black fender. Then
he traded for an old 1959 Dodge. It
wasn’t any better than the Plymouth. Later he had a Renault Dauphine that had transmission
troubles. He also had a really good
looking ’64 Chevrolet Impala two door hardtop.
This was a really sharp car.
Wrecked! And finally he bought a
brand new 1971 orange Ford Pinto. I will
have to tell you about the Pinto later.
But
back to the ’59 Dodge. Jim was trying to
sell the Dodge and had put a sign in the window and maybe had advertized in the
newspaper. And as it happened Jim’s
Dodge and David’s Husky were setting out in front of our house when two men
came by to look at the Dodge. They
definitely did not want the Dodge but they ask about the Husky and if David
would sell it. David came running into
the house and wanted to know if he could sell the Hillman and buy the 1956
Chevrolet that was up on the blocks in our neighbor’s back yard. We told him to go ask the neighbor if he
would sell the Chevrolet so he tore out through the back door and down the
alley to the neighbors and asked if they would sell the old ’56. Sure enough they said they would. $100.00!
David could hardly wait. Back to
the front yard where the two men were waiting!
$150.00 for the Hillman!
Fine! David got his money. That was exactly the amount that I had
borrowed from him a couple of years before.
Jim Locke was livid. Here he had
been trying to sell his old Dodge and David took over his prospective
buyers. But David didn’t care. He took his money and bought the ’56
Chevrolet that same day. Did he get a
bargain?
I
know David really loved that car and that it pained him deeply to have to trade
it in when it would no longer serve his need. But we all remember the Hillman Husky with fondness and the fun we all had
with it. And I am so thankful for that
little car because it helped me to repay David the full amount that he earned
helping me with that singing school in Lockney.
But more than that, I believe it helped David become the man and the
person he is today.
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