by Frank Felton
Milam County’s economic savior was on the march.
Where he got this information, I couldn’t say. He would later tell me that it came to him in a dream. Possibly, but I doubt it. Hank was not beyond spinning a yarn. I would wager a bet that Guthrie’s well-placed father had connections, and they picked Hank as their point man to lay the groundwork locally.
A new process had recently been developed whereby lignite coal could be carbonized and used as a cheap fuel source. The Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA), a Pittsburgh-based steel company, utilized the same aluminum smelting formula developed by Charles Martin Hall in 1886. ALCOA would begin to build a large ingot smelter near Rockdale in the early 1950’s. It would be ALCOA’s largest smelter in the nation.
This company rode into town to take advantage of the abundant lignite, which they’d turn into electricity. Electricity is created, basically, by nothing more than boiling water to create steam. The steam turns a large turbine. Boiling water requires heat, which requires fuel. Most generators use a fossil fuel, others harness the water, wind or sun, and today, some even use nuclear fission. The entire process is far more technical than I can describe, and is best left to a power engineer.
Hank was set to take full advantage of this massive opportunity. He knew that the ALCOA plant would bring hundreds of millions, if not billions, in infrastructure changes to Milam County. Power plants and smelters are massive undertakings. It would require new roads, a cooling pond, railroad spurs, conveyor systems, and thousands of tons of steel to erect the smelter and power plant. He positioned himself to be a prime subcontractor, and went to work securing bids on any job, large or small.
All he needed was manpower. He needed people he could trust. Fortunately, he was a fairly solid judge of character. To him, that was the only thing that mattered. If a man lacked a certain flavor of character, Hank simply wasn’t interested.
15. On the Farm
And he said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes. – John 21:6
This new challenge sounded like it might become even thornier that the one I faced with the Nazis. The goose-stepping Gestapo was easy to spot, and I had the weight of an entire nation behind me. When in doubt, I simply fired my weapon and followed the sound of gunfire. Life in the civilian world has consequences for such actions. Civilian life can be much more treacherous and difficult to decipher.
At times, I hated it.
Excited as I was at the ALCOA prospect, reality soon set in. This was going to be a ton of work. I thought Hank might have bitten off more than he could chew with this deal, but he was a master of dicing the largest tasks into manageable chunks. He fed them to me bit by bit. I consumed my share, and then some, so my portions grew steadily in size. Hank was a wunderkind, if not a genius, when it came to operational management. He was simply flawless in his approach to business.
I rarely worked less than 60 hours a week. Quite often it would grow to 80 hours. Sometimes, work never ended, and we would retire to Hank’s farm to drink beer, go over schematics and work up bid proposals late into the night. He had half a dozen foremen, but I was his chief deputy and trusted counsel. I was the ear he would bend, and since he did most of his thinking out loud, my work never stopped.
Hank made sure each job was completed on time and under budget. As profits from smaller bids rolled in, he left his money on the table. He doubled down to secure even bigger jobs. Hank never took money out of the company, rather he re-invested it to grow and secure more business. By the time the breaker tripped on the main power feed when the ALCOA plant went live in 1952, Benson Construction Company did almost $12 million in gross revenue for the year.
As the sole owner, Hank began to amass a small fortune. He put nearly every penny of it into purchasing land to adjoin his farm. I once asked why he chose land, to which he replied; because they ain’t makin’ any more of it. Yet, with his fortunes on the rise, he never even bought himself a new truck. Rarely would you see the man in anything but blue jeans and a pair of dusty cowboy boots. Money never mattered much to Hank, and his tastes for the finer things in life were limited to Lone Star beer, whiskey, and mountain oysters.
It’s not okay to love money, but it is okay to love to make money. – Hank circa 1954
~~~
Hank was a third generation Texan. His great-great grandfather fought in the American Revolution and his grandfather in the Civil War. As odds would have it, he owned the very land upon which the Snively legend existed. The site where the San Francisco Xavier de Horcasitas stood was on a hill overlooking a little cabin Hank built next to the San Gabriel River. Hank blossomed into an avid reader of history as he neared his 30’s, and he verbally relayed to me nearly everything he read of any interest.
Since Hank never stopped talking, I would become familiar with the San Xavier missions in the many fishing trips down at the cabin, and excursions on his land to shoot at deer as we discussed business. We rarely actually shot at deer unless Claude was in town, but the act of deer hunting was a primal pastime to remind us that we descend from the hunter-gathers. Or so we told ourselves. To me it felt like the old adage; because that’s the way we’ve always done it. We much preferred to grill steaks from the Forbes Meat Market in Thorndale.
Now, with Claude, it was a different story. We’d be up at 0-dark-30, full camo face paint, and end up skinning a freezer full of venison steaks. Claude was a high strung individual. He and I eventually found a mutual respect for each other. I remember his funeral like it was yesterday. A fitter man I’d rarely known, yet he died at only 42 years of age from a massive coronary.
Some things just don’t make a great deal of sense.
~~~
Hank’s grandpa had farmed and ranched nearly 1,000 acres in Milam County. He came to own the land under bizarre circumstances. He owned all the land on the east and south side of the Gabriel, an area of several thousand acres. The Carters owned the land to the west. The Carters and Bensons had been neighbors since the late 1800’s.
Hank loved the land. His second love would be the airplane. This is why he also came to love ALCOA, not because it made him wealthy, but because it made aluminum. Aluminum is the principle element of an airplane. The uneducated yet engineering-minded Hank had a lifelong obsession with silver-winged beasts. The ALCOA plant could produce enough aluminum to make almost 10,000 airplanes each year. It also made an atomized aluminum powder, used as a solid rocket propellant; another engineering marvel which Hank came to study in his spare time.
While Hank would forego the day-to-day luxuries of his money, he did indulge his sweet tooth at times. When he did, his tastes could be quite expensive. He purchased himself an airplane in 1954 and started taking flying lessons. It was his 26th birthday present to himself; a brand new Cessna 180 Skywagon that had entered production that very year.
Now, before most folks buy a bicycle, they learn how to ride. Hank had never flown a plane the day he bought his first one. He just decided one day; why the hell not? This particular Skywagon rolled off the line about the same time as the Spirit of Columbus, the plane that Geraldine Mock would pilot to become the first woman to fly solo around the world in 1964.
According to Hank, the Cessna was a business asset, not a toy; a somewhat true proclamation. The new “company” plane was used to ferry he and I down to San Antonio at first, where Benson Construction had now formally partnered with Claude’s larger outfit. More routinely, it ferried us down to the Gulf of Mexico, where we’d take his boat out into Baffin Bay and other ports of call for a weekend of sea fishing. Boats were Hank’s only other vice, which isn’t too bad, I presume.
Once the ALCOA plant came fully online, the work slowed considerably for me. Business was still booming, but we’d essentially built an empire from the ground up in less than five years, and the really difficult challenges were behind us. Hank’s business was now a major profit ce
nter, a day-to-day business that ran like a well-oiled machine.
Life working for Hank became a true pleasure. In fact, some days I forgot what I was doing here in the first place. I had to consciously remind myself from time to time just exactly what my mission in Milam County was all about, but in the meantime, I had settled into an actual life. It was one I came to enjoy.
I admired his magnanimity with the workers, his vision, loyalty, and ability to get people to do just about anything he needed done, and like it. Though I can’t remember which, Patton or Truman had a quote along those lines, defining leadership. To me it wasn’t a job, it was my destiny. I was just along for the ride.
Around the time of my 30th year in this body, he made me Vice President of the Benson Contracting Company, now incorporated. Nothing changed but the job title. We still spent many hours down at the farm, drinking whiskey, fishing, and working out business matters. The San Gabriel River was full of catfish, in between the gar, turtles, and water moccasins. He made me the VP because I think he had the idea to step away from the company, but ultimately he couldn’t relinquish total control; even to me.
Catfish were wonderful creatures. I could sit for hours just watching them eat grasshoppers that landed on the surface of the river, unaware that their doom lied just beneath. Catfish is a dish best served fried. The name derived from the long whiskers on either side of its mouth, giving the appearance of a cat. A catfish would eat anything it could get its mouth around, which was quite large in proportion to its body.
Our days fishing grew fewer and fewer over time. The climate of Milam County was undergoing a cyclical change. It stopped raining in Texas sometime in 1947. Over the next 10 years, the worst drought in six centuries would take hold of the state. For many men in Milam County, the new ALCOA plant became the only option for work.
Stock tanks dried up, the rivers stopped flowing, and the pastures became barren patches of dust where green fields of hay should have grown. By the time the rains returned, the number of Texans who sought their livelihood as farmers and ranchers had fallen by nearly two-thirds. As a result of the drought, many new reservoirs were built to stockpile precious water resources. Underground aquifers were exploited, increasing their utilization five-fold. Yet the absence of rain to maintain the soil’s moisture would ensure that farming and ranching remained a gamble.
Despite the ongoing drought, large downpours came in 1951 and 1952, providing water to the San Gabriel River. This was important, because it meant we could still go fishing, if you could time it right. The best time to fish was when the water flowed at about one-third up to half bank, meaning the tiny Gabriel River became a torrent of energy as the Gabriel watershed funneled runoff en route to the Gulf of Mexico. This generally happened about three hours after a good two to three inch rain.
It was the perfect outlet for a construction company crew, because when there was a large rainfall, outdoor work had to be called off anyway.
~~~
Hank listened intently to the radio.
“Everybody. Shut up!” He yelled.
It was the noon weather report. Seems a cold front was en route, bringing with it a plethora of moisture. The meteorological elements were conspiring to bring a host of rainfall to Milam County:
The front should arrive about sunset, expect temperatures to drop into the low-to-mid 50’s overnight, but the big story is the rain. We’ve been waiting for this one. This is one of the few times we’ll ever predict a 100-percent chance, but you can guarantee it’s going to be wet out there tonight. Widespread one to two inches in Williamson, Milam, and Robertson County, and up to three inches further west to Austin and the hill country. Showers will continue overnight and clear out in the late afternoon tomorrow.
As the report went on, Hank’s smile slowly grew. When the meteorologist signed off, he was beaming. He couldn’t care less that work would have to be cancelled tomorrow. The river would be up, and we were going fishing.
We departed the cabin in our two-man fishing boat just after 8 a.m. The rain gauge showed 1.8 inches, which was about perfect. The river wouldn’t be raging, but it would definitely be navigable. We made our way upstream to the best fishing hole on the Gabriel, a deep murky straightaway covered overhead by a row of massive cottonwood trees draped as a canopy.
Old timers in the area said this hole went all the way down to the aquifer, at least 30 or 40 feet. The aquifer provided life-sustaining fresh water keeping the deep holes full even in times of drought. It was the same aquifer all wells in this area tapped, including the San Xavier mission two centuries before. The remains of that mission lie just 200 yards up a hill from us.
If old Snively really existed, he had certainly been down this way before, and no doubt the Spanish missioners caught catfish from this very same hole.
No one really knew how deep the hole was. We’d never known anyone who could swim that far down. Deep holes are good for finding catfish, as they are primarily bottom feeders. They love the dark, cool waters, but they’ll come up to the surface in search of food if they sense a commotion such as the kicking of a grasshopper’s legs or a worm on a hook. The long whiskers make them very perceptive even in zero visibility.
We pulled in a decent haul by noon. Hank was half drunk, drinking beer most of the day. I had a few as well. We often had to relieve ourselves right there in the river. At one point, we both had to go about the same time, so Hank stood off the front side and me off the back, to keep the boat from tipping over. We commenced our restroom break.
“Damn, this water’s cold,” Hank said, giggling drunkenly to himself.
“Yep. It’s deep too,” I replied wittily, one-upping him as always.
I guarantee you he’d been planning that witticism for some time, just waiting for the right moment to use it. Now he’d spend the next two days trying to come up with an even better reply to get me. He hated the fact I was always quicker on the comebacks than he was; it pissed him off.
This is the same hole I suspect George Sessions Perry wrote about in his novel, when his characters Sam Tucker and Clappy Finley first spotted the monster catfish Lead Pencil. It was a yellow cat so large, its whiskers were as big around as a lead pencil, hence the name. Folks around here knew the novel was based upon real observations by Mr. Perry, as the entire book was a direct examination of life along the San Gabriel River.
It was while they were walking along the bank beside the long hole that they saw something that stopped their hearts beating. A catfish of the most gigantic proportions floated to the top for a moment, and then with a gentle, undulant motion of his great tail went back down. And now in their little world there was a new being, an incredible monster, and one to scheme against on sleepless nights. For to whoever caught Lead Pencil fame would be assured. - Hold Autumn in Your Hand, Chapter 12, pages 103-104
Catching a large catfish can grant one near fame in Milam County, and that’s as true today as it was during the Great Depression. In the book, Sam and Clappy vowed to keep their sighting a secret, in the hopes that one of the duo would land the big fish without attracting a horde of fishermen to compete for it. As Sam Tucker would soon come to know, you must be careful whom you trust. Despite assurances from Clappy that the fish would remain a secret, he clandestinely went about his own ambitions to catch the prized fish.
So that flappy-mouthed Clappy had been with Henry last night telling him about Lead Pencil, and Henry was trying to get rid of the boat at once, before it could be used in fishing for the big fish. If Henry was going to be fishing from the bank, he wanted you to also, despite the fact that both the boat and Lead Pencil were your own discoveries. Flappy Fin had told their secret for a mess of momentary awe. - Hold Autumn in Your Hand, Chapter 12, page 105
Sam would inevitably hook the large fish, but he would not be able to lay claim to it. You see, he traded it away to Henry in exchange for a first pass at his Henry’s lovely garden. Henry wanted what Sam had, the respect and notoriety as a capable fisherman. Wh
ile Sam wanted what Henry had, enough food for he and his family to survive through winter.
Again, as life imitates art, many locals who couldn’t read, or hadn’t bothered to peruse Mr. Perry’s book, often took the story to be true. The legend of gigantic catfish, 70 pounds or more, was spoken of as if it were from the Bible itself. Myths of large catfish continued unabated and likely will as long as the Gabriel flows.
Late night beer joint conversations and card games are notorious for giving life to these tall tales. Hank had his own share of sightings, though he had never hooked a large fish. He was a fan of Mr. Perry, and in homage to Sam Tucker, Hank referred to his seeming nemesis as the offspring of Lead Pencil. He appropriately named the uncaught fish Dick Pencil. Suffice to say given Hank’s maturity level in that day and age, it wasn’t long before Dick became the surname.
Our personal drought in hooking the big fish was headed for a change. As the day went on, our haul of respectable five and six-pound channel cat would include an eight-pounder. It was nothing too spectacular, but the sun was just now beginning to set. The cold front was clearing out and rays of sunshine could be seen darting through the clouds.
The freshness of the crisp air was splendid, and this is the time of day when the big fish come out to eat. We baited up our lines with larger portions to attract, with any luck, a 20 pounder. We were required by the fisherman’s code to report it accurately, so 25 would sound about right.
Hank caught sight of the shadowy outline about the same time I did. It lurked just below the surface. The gigantic whiskers were all that was visible as it investigated our presence. It zigzagged back and forth underneath the boat, lazily, and then darted below quicker than a flash of lightning, spooked by something on the surface.
