This article appeared in the Corpus Christi, Caller Times at the end of August announcing the upcoming races. Baldy had already known the sports editor Roy Swann, but the fact that Baldy was partner in a marine business meant advertising dollars for the Caller Times, and Roy gave us publicity whenever we wanted. He didn't get it exactly right with the cancellation at Forest Lake, but in the column with several subjects, he gave us the headline.
Since there was a local boy in the race, and Baldy had been a prominent businessman in Alice for many years, we got good coverage in the Alice Daily Echo as well. Baldy did not use any of the photos Claude Fox sent because we were hoping to get some of Jerry Waldman, Jerry Simison, Billy Seebold, Jim Schoch, etc. We used some of the many Baytown photographer Tamborini took.
This one back in the Caller Times.
A few days later this was in I believe the Alice Daily Echo. I don't recall anything on television, but I do believe we had some press. We didn't establish good T.V. contacts until four or five years later. We did have information going out on the local C&W station in Alice, Texas though.
Some teams are here, and others are arriving the same day this article appeared. The locals, that is to say the Lone Star Boat Racing Association and NOA District 15 racers already knew how to get here and where to stay. Needless to say Baldy was very excited to host this event and he had much in the way of greetings prepared.
This last article is an example of a journalist who either didn't pay attention, or couldn't take notes fast enough and just made stuff up. We were definitely glad to have the publicity, but more than once, journalists trying to spice up a story got us in trouble.
Baldy never used a typewriter, nor did he write in script. It was always handwritten in print, and if he was in a hurry misspellings were common. Some of the misspellings could be due to that, or if the guy was taking notes, he didn't hear correctly. I know that Baldy would not have told him there were drivers coming from all 50 states because in our three years of racing so far there were some states such as Idaho, Montana, Utah and Wyoming that we never heard of any alky drivers living there, and we were sure there would not be any from Alaska or Hawaii. I think this guy was just trying to build his story up, but the worst was what he wrote about Jack Marshall. Baldy knew Jack, and that Jack lived in Tennessee during the summer while he raced over here. So this part was all made up and I'm wondering if it was a journalism student from the high school that wrote it. As far as I know only Santa Claus could cable Baldy the night before that he would be flying in today from Sidney, Australia with his equipment.
Anyway, we got coverage and notice to the public. Jack Chance stayed at our house in Alice, and Baldy opened up his lake house for guests. There was a master bedroom, Baldy's bed under the stairs, a couch on which two people could sleep and a dorm style bedroom with bath upstairs. There was a bunkbead and four single beds upstairs. The Seebold family came down early and arrived on either Tuesday or Wednesday before the race. Bill and Baldy were fast friends and hooked up early at every race where both were present. Baldy talked Bill into coming down early so they could have a good visit before the racing activities would take up all his time. Billy and Lynne liked to open upstairs and the bar surrounding the grill in the kitchen, that when they built their own lakehouse, they used the basic layout of Baldy's house for their model. That is not to say it was built to look like it, but the layout was the same idea. They had a fine time there with Baldy being host and having several relaxing days before the racing activities began.
Before Bud Turcotte and I started classes at Southwest Texas State University we always traveled to and from in my red and white Dodge Polara. His Camaro was too small, and I liked to drive anyway. For this race we both drove down in separate cars because we were both going to need transportation.
When I got to Baldy's in the early afternoon on Friday there were cars at his house and lots of people. I don't recall whether Baldy was at the house or at the race course, but I went over there and found a pit full of people, and many were testing. The weather was good. I knew we would have a good race because I could see drivers coming from all over. Somebody had gone to the airport to pick up Armand Hebert that day or the day before, I don't remember. It was a big party atmosphere and Baldy was all over the place making sure everyone had everything they needed and were taken care of. He was in his element. Baldy loved boat racing and all the people he had been meeting along the way. Now he had to be the host, and he did not want anything lacking. I don't really remember talking that much to my Dad at that time because he was all over the place and it was up to me and Jack Chance to see that everything was ready for racing.
At this same time, Clayton Elmer was in the process of moving his family to Corpus Christi. We were all very busy. There was no sleeping. Or not much. We went to bed late and got up early. Boats were already in the pits from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio, Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Tennessee, California, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and maybe a couple of states I forgot. The local Texans were still coming in that afternoon.
Scott Smith was already there and had plenty of Konig parts, but for some people a shop was also needed and so I went to Alice to open it up for not only our repairs, but others that needed to use some of the power tools, lapping block, or just a clean bench to lay everything out to work on. We also had a lot of Konig stock down to wrist pin spacers and an assortment of dump tubes for carbuerators. Baldy was successful in getting tops racers from across the U.S. and including a Canadian and Australian to come down to finish off the 1968 NOA World Championships. There was nothing Baldy would stop at to make sure it was a success and everyone left with a good feeling about the race and hospitality.
I made a bunch of wooden signs with arrows pointing the way toward the entrance to Barbon Estates where the race would be held at the foot of Baldy's yet to be contructed house. This was a brand new edition. The road had only been recently paved. No houses were built yet and no one knew where Barbon Estates was. So we had to have signs made for the public to find out where the race would be held.
I don't recall exactly when I made them, but it would have been one of the two weekends prior to the race. We had lots of wood scraps in and around our woodworking shop. I made most of them out of solid wood cut off pieces of 1X6, but some were also 1X8. These were short pieces left from building the shelves for our building behind the wood shop next to the back fence. That was our motor shop where we had 2x12's with mounting brackets to hold motors. Cabinets and benches all around, with multiple storage shelves. It was from cutoff pieces I used to make the signs.
About four years earlier I had built a twelve room birdhouse for purple martins, and it was a big success. 100 percent occupancy during the season. I had painted the rooms white and the roof Plymouth Green. There was much paint left over from that quart, and that's what I used to paint the wooden signs with. Actually not the best color to attract someone to a boat race, but I have always had some sort of recycling gene in my nature. I painted the wood for the signs first to let it start drying, then I started on the stakes. We had a lot of wood to use, and all I had to do was just cut it the right length and sharpen the end to be driven into the ground. These stakes were made of split yellow pine 2X4's because South Texas soil requires some pounding in certain places, and the stakes need a solid head and body.
Being I was in a college now that was far enough away, I couldn't just drive home in 45 minutes to do something, Baldy decided he would help me paint the signs. We had white paint that we also needed to get rid of, so that's how our boat racing signs were colored.....white on Plymouth Green. I had straight bristle brushes that would do about a 3/4 inch stroke. They would be close enough to the intersections to be read well enough. The wooden pieces weren't big enough for a larger stroke, but these would work just fine.
I had painted all the signs on our boat trailer us to this point starting with Baldwin Racing Team and all the changes with Alice Specialty and Master Oil. I was not anywhere near what a sign painter could do, but if I took my time, it would be nice. So here I was painting signs, and Baldy was running around doing all kinds of things to get ready. He of course had four businesses going, and arranging for portable toilets, ambulances, Texas Parks and Wildlife control of the race course, Pickup boats, advertising, publicity, etc. But he always had some breaks in activity. He came into the shop while I was painting signs, and saw how many I had painted the Plymouth Green. They were dry already, but there was a lot to do. I was getting interrupted by things myself, so Baldy decided he had some time to help me. He got one of the thin brushes for the white lettering and started painting "BOAT RACING" with the white arrow pointing in the right direction. We had already figured out where to hammer the signs in, so we knew how many we wanted for the arrow on the right side, and how many on the left. One of the main problems I have always had is I think I can finish something a lot faster than it ever turns out. Baldy had other things to do so he got high behind painting signs. I had less than half done when he finished the rest and went about his business.
Nowadays with all the nostalgia and flea markets, Baldy's painting would be fantastic. His lettering was something out of Huckelberry Finn. Done very fast, and sometimes advertising people do that today for the old fashioned home spun look. I didn't particularly care for it at the time because I was trying to do my signs more like a professional sign maker. I knew we were running out of time though and so let it go. The only problem was the last three he did had an arrow and "BOTE RACING". Like I mentioned earlier, Baldy was not the best speller, but he was fluent in all the common words. When he got in a hurry though, he would print fast and write what the word sounded like. I was kind of put off that I would have to take time to paint over those signs and let them dry some before I could finish, but I would love to have one of his original signs today to hang in my boat racing museum.
Baldy had a bunch of cardboard signs printed up to nail onto telephone posts, fence posts, tape on buildings, and anywhere we could to notify the public about the upcoming race. I don't know how many Baldy had printed, but we had all the local boat racers help put them up. This one was saved by one of my pit men Bob Burnham, our first non family pit crew, and the same guy that saved the program Tim Chance had put together for the first half of the 1968 NOA World Championships that I posted earlier. I thank Bob for saving those two items and sending them to me last year. This race and the one the following weekend were probably the last two Bob was one of our pit men.
It helps brush away cobwebs when you talk to other people about certain times or things that happened. I talked to Billy Seebold yesterday and as I result I had to change a little bit of post # 720. Not much, but a little. Both the Seebolds and Dortch's had stayed at one of Baldy's lakehouses more than once. I had thought that Johnny and Liz Dortch, along with Bill and Pauline Seebold had stayed at the lakehouse on Pernitas Point, and I wasn't sure about Billy and Lynne. After talking with Billy, it started coming back. They arrived on a Tuesday or Wednesday, and the whole Seebold family from Grampa Seebold down to the grandkids stayed there. When Billy and Lynn built a lakehouse, they incorporated the large open area upstairs and the bar and grill layout that Baldy had at his lakehouse. Billy said they all loved that house and enjoyed it for twenty years before selling it.
I also talked to Denny Henderson and Bobby Wilson Sunday to confirm some of what I remembered and add somethings I had forgotten or didn't even know about. All that is coming up.
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