Cranky Old Fart

When I was young, I had a little run in with a cranky old fart. Now that I am a cranky old fart too, I wish I had been a little nicer to the the guy. Here’s my story of my run in with the old codger.

 

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Cranky Old Fart

 

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When I got out of the army in late 1970, I found that my ex roommate Bob had gotten married, and Rocky had moved to Seatle, Washington. So I moved into some apartments in Borger, Texas by myself. Phillips gave me a 20% raise and assigned me to the treating engineering group. We took care of all the treating for all phases of The Exploration and Production operation in the Texas Panhandle Region.

 

The apartments I moved into were on the corner of Second and McGee Streets. They were constructed of concrete blocks. Each apartment had a living area, one bedroom, a kitchen, and a bathroom. The bare necessities only. The refrigerator was always stocked with beer and crunchy peanut butter. I had purchased a stereo system before I left Viet Nam to avoid taxes and get the GI rate so I had a 300 watt system with speakers that had 90 pound woofers in them.

 

Next door to me there was a cranky old wrink butt that pretty much kept to himself. One evening I was playing a little Goose Creek Sympathy ( kind of funky mod bluegrass type music) and having a few cool ones when I hear a loud Loretta Lynn song, “Coal Miners Daughter” coming from the cranky old farts apartment. I was feeling pretty good so I cranked mine up a couple of notches. In a minute, I hear his volume go up again. He cranked his volume up to what must have been his maximum setting, so I eased mine up a couple more notches. My volume was barely at 25% so I could do this all night. In a minute I heard his unit go off and he must have left because the door slammed so hard it knocked a picture off my wall. The cranky old fart moved out the next week. I thought about giving him a Goose Creek Sympathy recording as a going away present.

 

The Goose Creek Sympathy album I was playing that evening. With songs like “The Corn Won’t Grow, So Rock And Roll” and “Uncle Penn ” how could  he not like it?

 

I Googled “Cranky Old Fart” and this guy showed up. Surprisingly, he looks a lot like my neighbor at the apartments. I wonder if he likes Loretta Lynn?

 

 

That winter, we had a 26 inch snow one night and I checked in the fridge. As usual all I had was a jar of crunchy peanut butter and beer. I had an old 1963 GMC pickup truck with a camper she’ll on it, so I tried to get out and see what I could find that was open. The snow was wet, so it just pushed up in front of the pickup until it wouldn’t move anymore. So I just lived off the peanut butter and beer for a couple off days. I walked to work, but I found out they had shutdown, so I walked back home. In a couple of days they got the roads cleared off and I was able to get real food again.

 

The snow storm that caused me to eat only crunchy peanut butter and beer for two days.

 

 

I was tired of apartment living, so I bought a house in Arroyo Verde in Fritch, Texas, and moved out there not too long after the snow storm. My closest neighbor was a block away, so I played my music as loud as I wanted and no one ever complained. I was living there when I met my future wife Pam.

Thanks for reading Cranky Old Fart,
Hawg Jaw Bill