Thread: Wayne Baldwin's Amazing Story: Baldy's Eual Eldred Baldwin

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    The spring semester had started, so two of the girls in our group were gone during the week because they were attending St. Mary's, a Catholic High School in San Antonio. Susan Turcotte and Jean Marie Huff had been attending Incarnate Word in Corpus Christi, which was a Catholic middle school. We would see them on weekends and sometimes they would bring down friends they had just recently made. I seem to remember both Catholic schools were women only, but that may have changed by now.

    In the meantime Bud Turcotte was a senior finishing his final year as a Riviera Seahawk in Riviera, Texas about five or six miles north of the Turcotte "three story haunted house" at Sarita, Texas. I was still commuting from home in my freshman year at Texas A & I University in Kingsville. A & I stood for agriculture and industry where they had great programs for farming and ranching as well as civil and petroleum engineering. There were a lot of students there from Iran.

    A couple of months into the spring semester I was driving down the street that led to the Administration building looking for a parking space. This particular street was actually just a long drive with a ten foot wide grassy median separating the lanes. Where the northbound lane reached the Administration building there was a large one way traffic circle around a very large fountain. The circle was about one hundred twenty feet in diameter including pavement, and the drive was wide enough for people to stop and left off or pick someone up at the front of the building. It was made so you could drive around and around the grassy circle with the fountain, but if the campus security saw you make a U-turn to go down the south drive lane, you would be pulled over. You were supposed to go all the way around to catch the south lane and head out from the Administration building.

    As I was looking for a parking space, I glanced to my left to see if there were any empty spaces on the other side as I was not seeing anything in the northbound lane in front of me. I just happened to get a glance of a very tall lanky guy with a familiar gait walking south. I took a second look, then hollered "Hey Joe!" He stopped to look in my direction, then I yelled across the median that I was coming back around. He waited until I drove around the circle, and came back. There were no parking spaces, but I stopped in the road and rolled the window down. He came up to the car and said "What are you doing here?" I replied "I was going to ask you the same thing!"

    In the weekend Joe Bowlder had just spent hunting with us in December just a few months earlier, neither one of us had talked about school. Joe didn't know I was a freshman at Texas A & I, and I didn't know he was a Sophomore who had transferred there for the spring semester. He got in the car and I took him to his apartment which was very close and within walking distance to the campus. We had a short visit as I had to get to class, but we both had a great feeling that we would now be able to spend more time together becoming friends and talking boat racing. It was one of those "cloud nine" moments as I headed to class. Not quite like meeting a new girl who would soon become a girlfriend, but close.



  2. #522
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    I added some commentary and photo to post number 85 in panel number 9. My Epson scanner won't scan film right now, so I switched it out with my Canon which I haven;t used in a couple of years. It also has large format capabilities more than the Epson so I tried it on one of my 645 B&W negatives. I will probably be adding more pictures to previous posts since some original photos were lost or destroyed, but I still have the negs. Just takes searching now. The new photo is the last one "Elvira".

    ADD: I added a photo and commentary on post number 507, panel 51. And Bill Van....this is proof that Baldy wasn't just picking on you. This happened approximately two to three years before we all first met.



  3. #523
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    The World Fair was scheduled to open in April 1968 and it was situated on a 92 acre site near downtown San Antonio. The famed San Antonio Riverwalk was somewhat refurbished, and cleaned up to recieve visitors to the World Fair. It would still be another decade before it became what it is now. At the time of construction though, the local druggies, and pimps were run off a few blocks while the site was built up. It was downtown San Antonio, and a haven for drugs at night.

    The Alamo was just a few blocks away. A center for Texas Cultural History was built on the site, and featured exhibits from all the countries that had ties to the history of Texas. It is a remarkable and very interesting building with very old artifacts, and stories from many countries whose immigrants came to Texas.

    Months before the opening of the World Fair famed astrologer and predictor of the future, Jean Dixon foretold the collapse of the Hemisphere Tower. It was built way before the space needle in Seattle, and was a unique tower topped with a rotating restaurant. Jean Dixon was supposedly very accurate with her predictions, and this one was pretty bold. She didn't say when....but I can remember that the presumption was that it would be during the run of the World's Fair, which went I think until October of 1968.

    All us kids had been thinking about going to the World Fair, but none of us had thought about making plans, or even asked our parents if we could go as a group. I'm referring to the Pernitas Point bunch of kids. And in fact, we really didn't plan things out. We just did what came up at the spur of the moment. But, it had probably been in the back of our collective minds for months after all the news about it neary completion, while Jean Dixon claimed the tower would fall. Most of the time, kids of our age never paid attention to the news, but this stuff we were listening to and paid attention.



  4. #524
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    I had forgot to mention that at the end of January the boat dealers in Corpus Christi always held a boat show. For many years it was held at the Memorial Colliseum on Ocean Drive overlooking the T-heads and Corpus Christi Bay. Memorial Colliseum was just a big quonset hut with bricked front and back walls. Johnny Cash played there in 1974. But in 1968 Baldy was a newcomer in the marine and motorcycle business.

    Emmord's Marine had a prime location on Lexington Boulevard which was on the way to Flour Bluff, and crosses the intercoastal canal to get to Mustand and Padre Islands. I mentioned previously that Emmords sold Evinrude Outboard motors and Honda motorcycles with a wide variety of boats, water skis and all sorts of accessories.

    Mark and I spent one day manning the Emmord's booth which was in a prime position the the front of Memorial Colliseum. There was a guy with us who looked a lot like Tom Jones the singer. He had long thick sideburns and wore his shirt half open, so he probably acted the part. He had some really cool shoes that were more like a boot with a zipper. He really wasn't a jerk like you might think that type might be, and so I took a liking to him, and ended up later on buying some boots like his. I think he was a sales rep for Honda or maybe Evinrude.

    Right across the aisle, Baldy had arranged to have a booth promoting MX-237 THE MASTER OIL. It was manned by a guy named Ramsey. He had a lot of spray cans, pints and gallons on display with some posters and advertising material. Back then the cans had been changed from black letters over a silver background to red and black logo with black lettering all on a white background. The eleven ounce spray cans were also tall and skinny like a Tom Collins glass.

    Ramsey also had a vat that held about a hundred gallons of seawater which he collected down at the L head across the street from Memorial Colliseum. In it he had immersed two shotgun barrels, one having been treated with The Master Oil, and the other with another popular brand. He also had a couple of rod & reels with the reels immersed. When he got a crowd around he would pull the items from the sea water and show them how much different the items with Master Oil were than with the petroleum based competitor oils. He would swab the shotgun barrels to get the film off, and the one treated with Master Oil was as bright and shiny as it came off the assembly line. The other was already showing signs of pitting, and rust buildup. He had been soaking them when he first set the booth up a day or two earlier. The "splash zone", where the air and water meet, were really obvious on the barrel with the other brand of oil.

    It was a long two days, but I enjoyed it. It was the first of a number of boat shows that I manned a booth, but the only one I ever did for Emmords. The rest were a few years later, mostly in Houston for the Lone Star Boat Racing Association.



  5. #525
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    One of the weekends that Susan and Jeanie came down from San Antonio the subject of dancing came up. Don't ask me how, because it surely wasn't from any of the boys. Anyway, one or more (can't remember) asked me if I knew how to dance. I made it clear I didn't and had no intention to learn. Well...three pretty girls were determined that I was going to learn, and pretty determined they were going to succeed. How could I resist. To this day I believe it was a planned conspiracy. They wanted to go to dances, yet I was the only one they picked to teach. I think they thought if I learned how, all the other guys would be forced to learn and well, and off the the dances we would go on a Saturday night.

    So Susan Turcotte, Jean Marie Huff, and Mary Jean Sanford all piled into my red and white Dodge Polara with surf racks on the top and we drove to the Kat's Korner in Premont, Texas. It was a little over an hour to the south on Highway 281. The Kat's Korner was a small brick building with a very high ceiling and a courtyard on the north side with an eight foot brick wall surrounding it. It was hot and crowded inside, so they took me outside to learn to dance. Susan's older brother Bud already knew how to dance country and western, so he was not brought in on their scheme.

    I didn't get a break. I had to dance every song, while they took turns. I'll have to admit it wasn't as bad as I had expected it would be. Having spent a couple of hours in lessons, we headed back to the lake. Soon Susan and Jeanie would be bringing some of their new found friends back home for the weekend, and we would end up going to a dance somewhere on Saturday night. So, I somehow believe this plot was concocted in some rooms in a dormitory on the grounds of St. Mary's.



  6. #526
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    It was about this time that Roy Swann, outdoor editor for the Corpus Christi- Caller Times gave Baldy a phone call. Lake Corpus Christi was filled to the maximum level after the normal boating activity took place the previous summer. It was now spring and Roy thought a tour of the lake, and certain hot spots might make a good story for the upcoming spring, and all the watersports. Roy wrote about hunting, fishing, water activities, rules and regulations coming down, and just about anything to do with the outdoor sporting activities when it came to firearms, fishing poles, tents and propellers.

    He had gotten acquainted with Baldy in the past year both because of the purchase of Emmords Marine, and the race recently run in the State Park at Mathis several months earlier. Baldy was the one promoting the race and got with Roy Swann on the upcoming race for publicity purposes. The Sports editor did football, basketball, baseball, etc, and did not have the prestige and name of the long time, and well known Roy Swann. Therefore, Roy was the one to publicize the race.

    Also, Roy Swann knew Ralph Emmord. It might have been Ralph that introduced Roy and Baldy, although Baldy knew long before he met Roy who he was.

    As a partner in Emmords, Baldy became the contact with Roy for the boat business. So in very short order they came to know one another. Not intimately or friends, but each one could help the other with information. It was with that in mind that Roy called up Baldy to see if he could give him a personal tour by boat of Lake Corpus Christi filled to the brim. Roy knew from their brief encounters that Baldy knew all the places Roy wanted to check out. Baldy told him to come on. Bring his camera and note pad and he would drive him wherever he wanted to go.

    Roy Swann showed up early at our lake house at Pernitas Point. Baldy and Roy walked down toward the pier, but went underneath it to where Mark's Mustang was parked. I'm not sure why it was there in the water and not on the trailer, or in the cove closer to the house, but I remember very clearly that that is where Baldy and Roy climbed aboard.

    The Mustang was a 17 foot version of the "sea sled" that Pete DeLackner built and has been featured previously in this thread. The motor was the inline six cylinder Mercury that Freddie Goehl and Arlen Crouch had bored out more than a year eaarlier and installed 35 hp Mercury pistons in it. They did some other tricks too, and it basically made that 110 Merc into the 125 that became the next generation of Merc a year earlier.

    The battery was low for some reason, and when Baldy went to fire it off, it the starter didn't turn quickly enough. Baldy was very familiar with this engine's temperament so rather than run the battery down, he had Roy remove the engine cowling.

    That set aside in the back seat, he told Roy to crank the Merc. Roy was about six foot, but was slim. It was apparent he never cranked a six cylinder motor before. The rope was in a plastic bag inside the cowling for an emergency, but most people would consider that just for show. There would be no way to start a big motor with a wimpy starting rope like provided. I've tried it myself on the Merc and also on an Evinrude with the 50,000 volt CD ignition systems with the "polar gap" plug. I've been able to start both, with a rope, but they are a stiff pull. I think Roy Swann looked at that flimsy starting cord and had in his mind he couldn't do it.

    He made a couple of wraps around and tugged on the rope. He tried it a couple of times more, but he was playing tug of war instead of trying to snap the flywheel like an old automobile crank was turned or a propeller on an old biplane was pumped a couple of times than pulled hard over.

    Baldy then told Roy to put the rope back on and give it to him. The Mustang had a divider seat that went from one side of the cockpit to the other, and the front and back seat used a common back rest. The rope was long enough that Baldy told Roy to unwrap all he had wound around the flywheel. There was really only a small groove and Baldy just wanted less than a full wrap to snap the motor to compression, but Roy apparently did not understand. When he first wound the rope around the starter plate, he either missed the notch, or when he unwound it to give the handle part to Baldy, he did not notice that the knot was not in the notch of the starter plate.

    Baldy wound up his full strength of body, muscle and energy and was fully prepared for a recalcitrant motor, that would give, and then fire under the sudden compression. That did not happen. What did happen was a three quarter wrap of the rope slipped easily through the groove of the starter plate because the knot was not set in the notch. Baldy's body twisted violently and unrestrained to the right and at the same time fell backwards over the deck.

    Roy learned that Baldy could talk Navy talk as he swore while getting back up. After Baldy made sure that Roy inserted the knot in the proper place, he got the Merc cranked up, and headed off for the tour. I'm not sure he had Roy fasten the cowling down with the motor running, because he might not have trusted him to get it right.

    They made the rounds where Roy wanted to go, but it was somewhere in the range of 55 to 60 miles per hour to get it over with.



  7. #527
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    I really felt sorry for Baldy. His back started hurting while he was still on the lake, and the boat ride probably just made it worse. After Roy both apologized and thanked Baldy, he came back to the house and laid down on his bed. That made it even worse. As anyone knows who pulls a muscle or hurts their back, when you cool down everything stiffens up, then it can be extremely painful to get moving again. Baldy hurt laying down. He hurt sitting up. He hurt if he tried to walk it off. There was nothing he could do to stop the pain.

    After a day and a half he had one of us get him a couple of big sticks so he could walk. He very gingerly made his was down to the lake and walked slowly across the bottom until he was up to his neck. He hoped the bouyancy of the water would help relieve some of the pressure on his back. I guess it must have to some extent because he stayed in the water until he started getting waterlogged, then slowly made his way back to the house. Baldy built the house for kids to run in and out all day with sandy feet and wet clothes, so it didn't matter he came inside dripping wet. After he changed, he laid back down again, and his back didn't seem to be getting any better.

    This went on for several days and we all felt very bad for him because there was nothing we could do to help. I suppose he took aspirin or something, but he was never into medication, and he didn't complain either, He just laid there in pain.

    On about the fourth or fifth day Curtis Dumesnil rode up to Baldy's house on a motorcycle with a friend of his tagging along on another one. I don't remember if they were Harley's or not, but most likely they were. It was Curtis's motorcycle I believe that was a deep burgundy with chrome, and the other was a very clean, shiny black and chrome that looked just about the same size and model of the burgundy. The both had large saddlebags and for lack of what the name is, they both were equipped with what I would describe as "roll bars" for the shifter and pegs. Very nice machines and they both looked brand new.

    Curtis' son Curtis Dumesnil, Jr. was two or three years older than me, and they raced out of Port Arthur, Texas. Curtis drove both A and B Hydro and Runabout. Curtis drove the PA10 Morton runabout with a Quincy looper hanging on the transom. I don't recall if Mr. Morton built the hydro as well, but he ran the same A and B loopers on it.

    Curtis didn't win any classes at the November State Park race, but Baldy made it clear that there was a standing invitation for boat racers to come visit anytime. Since the boat racing season was just upon us, Curtis Sr. figured this was a good time to go on a road trip to Mexico, and decided to stop off and see Baldy on the way. They were sorry to find him in such bad shape, and Baldy was equally upset that he was not able to offer them his regular hospitality.

    The friend of Curtis (don't recall his name), pretty much immediately sized up the situation and began asking questions. Baldy told them how he had wrenched his back trying to pull a big Merc over that gave no resistance, and then tumbled backwards onto the deck. This gentleman then told Baldy that he was a chiropractor and should be able to help relieve the pain. Baldy told him no. The man asked why? Baldy explained he had tried chiropractors before, but it was a total waste of money. He was too big, and they were not able to do anything at all to help. Curtis' friend then asked "You don't think I'm big enough?" Then Baldy took a second and real look at him and realized he was just about the same size as Baldy...just over 6 feet and around 300 pounds. Baldy thought, what the hell, it wouldn't hurt to try.

    He got Baldy to lay back down on his bed. If you remember some time back, I had explained Baldy had a twin bed underneath the stairs just off the kitchen where he could hear us coming in from our nightly rounds.

    The Chiropractor felt around Baldy's back, sides and especially lower back with his expert hands. He felt tight places, and probably some warm spots. Then he got Baldy to lay on his left side, his knees bent and his back facing out on the edge of the bed. The bed itself was not very high. The tapered legs were only about four inches tall so the bed was not too high. The chiropractor still had to be able to put enough weight in the right place though and he did not have his usual tools, or beds to work with. What he did was judge where on Baldy's hip he needed the most pressure, then without warning he turned his back, facing outward from the bed, and leaped into the air so that his butt with his full body weight would land on Baldy's right hip. He judged it just right. He landed on Baldy, the legs of the bed collapsed and Baldy and the chiropractor both tumbled in a mass.

    Baldy bellowed, "Hey...get off me you son-of-a-b!+ch!" They both rolled around until they got separated. Curtis was afraid Baldy was hurt, but then after the chiropractor started laughing so did Baldy and Curtis. They helped Baldy to his feet and they pulled up a chair for him. After a little bit Baldy walked around and it seemed he felt better. The chiropractor followed up with a little massaging, and Baldy applied some more aloe vera to his back, which was the only treatment he had up to this point. After another hour, Baldy's back was decidely better. He was still sore, but the realignment eliminated the sharp pain that had been keeping him down. Now he was in excellent spirits because he knew in a few days he would be as good as new.

    He told Curtis and his friend that they were going to spend the night before heading off to Mexico. Baldy knew the chiropractor would not except any money and didn't offer, but damned if he was going to let this guy get away without having one of Baldy's ribeye steaks, baked potato, avocado salad, and some beer. This was one of Baldy's staple stories about the time the chiropractor broke his bed.



  8. #528
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    This was in a spring edition of Roostertail.
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  9. #529
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    I don't have any proof, or anyone to ask, but I think Baldy was a moving source in getting Lone Star Boat Racing Association to do dual sanctions.

    When we started racing, all we wanted to do was go where the racers were. The first races, the closest races, and the most races we went to were all Lone Star. The Lone Star races were all on the Texas Gulf Coast. There were a number of racers that came from Dallas and Fort Worth area to race with us. In our first year we raced the Fourth of July Weekend in Dallas on the third and Fort Worth on the fourth. A lot of Lone Star boat racers were there as well. It was an NOA sanctioned race.

    Lone Star had been doing dual sanctioned racing before we started, but it was kind of like the elephant in the corner. The racers from up around Dallas/Fort Worth came down, and we went up there even though some rules didn't match. It was kind of overlooked by all the crossovers, but some diehards didn't like some of the rules. I think the majority of dissent came from long time Lone Star Boat Racing members that liked it just the way it was. I guess it was the winter LSBRA meeting that it was passed that the Lone Star Commodore and District 15 Chairman became the same. At that time, there was no NOA Chairman that had any active members to help. Ben Posey was doing all the work, but with no backup. So by combining resources, we brought the NOA group in the Dallas area into the Lone Star circuit, and made the rule changes to make dual sanctions officially be handled by one person....the Commodore of Lone Star Boat Racing Association and the Chairman of District 15 of the National Outboard Association.



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    More evidence of my suspicion of a conspiracy. The next time Susan Turcotte and Jeanie Huff came home, they brought with them three friends from St. Mary's. Ginger Lowery, Gail English and I forget the name of the third. Somehow that Saturday night, all the previously mentioned girls plus Mary Jean Sanford all met up with Bud Turcotte, my brother Mark and my pit man and high school friend Bob Burnham at a dance on the Texas A & I campus. It was the first time the BeeGee's hit it big time. When their first couple of songs hit the airways, "New York Mining Disaster 1941" and "To Love Somebody", there were rumours going around that it was the "Beatles" recording under a psuedomym. I don't know why anyone would think that, but I guess the falsettos weren't that prominant then. The latest release had hits like "Smile", " I got to get a Message to You', and "Massachusetts". Some people just remember the disco craze they helped create, but in 1968, these were some of the songs we danced to.

    I kind of took an instant liking to Ginger Lowery, and that dancing business that Susan, Jeanie and Mary Jean put me through came in handy. There were more girls, than boys, so we had to swap around, but I spent as much of my time with Ginger as I could. Bob Burnham took a liking to the girl whose name I can't remember, and soon we were planning a trip to San Antonio. They couldn't come down every weekend, so Bob and I took my Dodge Polara up to San Antonio, and spent the night parked in front of the house of one of the girls. We got their in the early morning hours so we could spend the day with them.

    It might have been the girl Bob liked who was from San Antonio, and the others spent the weekend with her. We went to an old fashioned soda shop and pharmacy for lunch and just visited for a couple of hours while we waited for an afternoon movie we wanted to see. It was Susan, Jeanie, Gail, Ginger, the girl whose name I can't remember and Bob and myself. We went to see an iconic movie. The debut of Dustin Hoffman in "The Graduate". I really liked the movie, and later The Turcottes, The Huffs and myself all bought the soundtrack which we just about wore out when they were home.

    I was kind of uncomfortable sitting next to Ginger watching the interplay between the characters of Dustin Hoffman and (was it?) Ann Baxter. But I'm pretty sure that if the lights were turned on you could see my face turn red when the stripper began spinning those tassles like a propeller. All in all we had a lot of fun and returned home to Alice that evening.



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