One of the great characters I’ve ever run into in my life and certainly the biggest character I’ve ever worked with is a man named George Hine. I worked with him from the mid 60’s to the mid 70’s when he was Sports Information Director at Howard Payne. He was promoted from that but stayed at Howard Payne for many, many more years. Always called me, ‘Dallas Boy.” Here’s my favorite George Hine story.
In the late 60s we are in the hills of Tennessee. George originally came from North Carolina and he was having a ball taking people around showing them everything there was to see in Kentucky and Tennessee. When we flew in there, he said, “I’m not coming back until I get one of those great country hams from the mountains of Tennessee”. They were cured in actual smoke houses and the smoke would char them until they were almost black on the outside, but boy did they ever taste good! So, George gets one and it’s probably a fifteen pound ham. Of course we had to get it back to Texas and he flew back with a towel wrapped around it. He took two seats on the plane, one for him and one for the ham. He was so proud of it, showing everybody, calling it his little baby. Eventually we got back to Texas. Needless to say, he entertained all aboard the air plane, including the stewardesses and the pilots.
When we departed Love Field late that night, we got in the vehicles and headed back to Brownwood. George and his wife lived in an apartment complex and I took him home after we got back on campus. We pulled up, it was around three or four in the morning, and I said, “George, I know you are excited about that ham, but you’re not going to wake your wife up to feed her are you?” “No” he said, “I’m just going to put it in the fridge.” The next morning his wife got up not knowing about the ham and she took off to work. George, about mid morning, woke up and also went to work. That afternoon their housekeeper came. When George got off work that evening he was excited about the ham! He got to the apartment, went in, and opened the fridge and there was – no ham! He went to find his wife and he said, “Hey, where’s the ham in the fridge?” She said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about”. So, George explains the whole story to his wife and his wife is totally baffled but finally says, “Let me call the housekeeper”. She called the her and says, “Do you know anything about a ham that was in the refrigerator?” The housekeeper said, “Oh, Mrs. Hine. I did you a favor! That thing was black and nasty and it just looked terrible so I saved you the trouble and took it out to the trash bin and dumped it!”
To say George was devastated would be an understatement. He told me he went out and sat by that trash bin until the wee hours of the morning, looking in there at that ham on occasion, shedding a tear or two.
George was a good guy! He was a funny guy! My memories are always great when I think about him. By the way, the night after we got back, I was planning on dropping by to try that ham out. Oh well…
Until next time, so long everybody!
***
‘Out of the Box’ with Dallas Huston is published each Monday morning at BrownwoodNews.com. Dallas was the radio voice of the Brownwood Lions and Howard Payne Yellow Jackets for more than 55 years. He currently is Pastor of Center City Baptist Church and hosts a Men’s Bible Study in Brownwood on Monday evenings. Your comments are welcome at lindalh2@verizon.net.