Dogs to Men

By Dr James T. Baker

In Dogs to Men, author James T. Baker recounts the escapades of a small-town football team that endures the hazards of growing up. He follows “the Demopolis Dogs" through pratfalls on the field, on the stage, and in their relationships, and on their twisting trail to becoming men. On its face, it is a coming of age simple story, but Baker makes you feel both the anguish and ecstasy of adolescence. An experience that turns out to be a muddy, painful team experience.

The group of boys , who refer to themselves as “Us Dogs” appears as a somewhat disjointed team. They always seem to come together in an “all for one, and one for all” spirit. As each member of the team uniquely arrives at manhood, the similarity to your own youthful struggle awaken long ago memories. By the end of the novel, you'll be reminded that we all have come to the same end point. As adults, we have the wisdom to realize that some complete their journey in better condition than others.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Grave Distractions Publications
• Release date: Mar 29, 2010
• ISBN: 9780966131710

Dr James T. Baker

James Baker developed his passion for history and religion while in high school, during his days as a Bulldog. He is a graduate of Baylor and Florida State Universities and has for many years taught at Western Kentucky University. Throughout his career he has been a prolific writer, authoring 22 books and over 60 articles. His articles have appeared in such places as Christian Century, Commonweal, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and The American Benedictine Review. His creative talents and his unique points of view and insights have also made him a highly sought after speaker. He has delivered addresses and papers in the United States, Italy, Korea, Taiwan, China, and other Asian countries. He often appears in a one person show-presentation of industrialist-philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. In addition to his teaching duties, James directs the Canadian Parliamentary Internship Program.

Book preview

Front Cover Dogs to Men WEB

Dogs to Men

James T. Baker

Green Hills Press

Nashville, Tennessee

© 2007 James T. Baker

Published by Green Hills Press with the services of Grave Distractions Publications www.gravedistractions.com

Smashwords E-book Edition, License Notes

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

ISBN 9780966131710

Table of Contents

Us Dogs

Donkey Basketball

The Dog House

Blood, Sweat and Miss Lynne

Dingos in the Dark

Pigs, Bulls, and Rosemary

John Wilkes Booth

Lobos and Miss Lynne Again

Jimmy

Us Men

About the Author

For Mary Ann

Always the Optimist.

She loved all dogs.

Even me.

Us Dogs

Ready set! Hut! One, two three. . .

Go, Dogs, go!

Eat Rabbit Stew!

It was the opening football game of my senior year in high school. September, 1957. I played six-man football for Demopolis High School, Christian County, Texas. The Bulldogs, Us Dogs we called ourselves, were opening our season at Allendale, home of the Rabbits, at the field they called The Hutch. A terrible place.

The big wooden clock at the end of the field, its black and white face peeling in the autumn breeze after a brutal summer of blinding sunshine, its hands as palsied as those of an aging drunk, said there were three minutes to go in the fourth quarter. The rough-edged numbers below the round clock face, hanging limply from rusty nails, read:

HOME 22 VISITORS 18.

Us Dogs were in a frenzy. We were only four point behind, and for us that was good. We had scored as many touchdowns as the Rabbits. The difference in the score was that the Rabbits had made two of their three conversions and we had made none. Conversions were not our strong point. We had few strong points.

Six-man football, as the name implies, was played with six men on each team. The field was just eighty yards long. We got four downs, but we had to make fifteen yards to get a first. We got two points for any kind of conversion. Lots of little schools played six man back in the days before consolidation. Demopolis High had less than fifty boys, and we were lucky in a given year to field twelve players. My senior year we had only eleven, six to play and five to sit on the bench and hope they were not called on to play.

We usually put three men on the line, a center and two ends. I was an end, a split end, the one that lined up far off to the side, the one the other team knew was going out for a pass, the one they keyed on, the sitting duck. Behind the center and tight end we put a quarterback shotgun style and a running back on either side and behind him. The quarterback could hand off, pass, run, do just about anything he wanted to do. He was the other sitting duck. Unlike the split end, though, he made all the difference in the game.

There was only one rule about lining up: stay on our side of scrimmage until the ball was snapped. Otherwise we could place from one to five men on the line, one to five in the backfield. Anyone could pass to anyone. Anyone could receive a pass from anyone. We had one play where the center dropped back, took a handoff from the quarterback, then threw a pass back to the quarterback. Six man football was wild!

Even wilder in our case because our coach, Bubba Flood, knew absolutely nothing about football. He was a local boy who quit school after the eighth grade, spent five years in the Navy, played second base for Fort Worth in the Texas League, and came back home at thirty to farm. When he failed at farming he took a job driving one of our school buses; and midway through my junior year, when our coach one day just disappeared, he took over. No one asked about any degree he might have, but he lasted out my junior year and was still there as I began my senior season. He knew his baseball and a little basketball, but in football he was lost. He just put us out on the field and told us to play hard.

Our manager that year was a twenty-eight year old midget named Shorty Monroe. Shorty quit school at sixteen to be a drunk. A decade later, after two near-fatal car wrecks, he went to a Pentecostal summer revival meeting and got saved. Now he was back in school trying to learn to read well enough to be a preacher. In August he showed up to watch us work out and we named him our manager. He knew more football than Bubba. He had lived in Dallas for a time, and he had seen high schools there play and even a few professional games on television. He told us that the boys on professional teams had arms as big around as our legs.

We were crazy that afternoon because the score was close enough for us to win, and we had not won a game for two years. Both my sophomore and junior years we had lost all six of our games. My career record was 0-12.

We called time out. The referee waved his stubby arms, ordering the clock to die at 2:45. Our cheerleaders tried to rouse the tiny clump of fans who had made the eight mile trip with us. They were only mildly successful. It had been a long afternoon.

Us Dogs were tired, but we had the scent of victory. A round September sun sat on the dusty, burned horizon as we huddled and bent together to listen to our quarterback Dee Reed.

Okay, Dogs, Dee barked at us We gonna take this bunch, whatchasay?

Yeah! we howled.

We gonna eat us some Rabbit Stew!

Hey!

But we can’t take ‘em ‘less we git the ball. So le’s git it! Whatchasay?

Yo!

Le’s git it then! Dee barked. His battered maroon helmet began to nod. We all began to nod with it. His enthusiasm was contageous. Arms linked, we bobbed up and down with Dee. Yeah, yeah, yeah!

We broke huddle as if a bomb had gone off. We went growling and snarling toward the ball, kicking dirt behind us, determined to git it. The trouble was we couldn’t git it. The Rabbits were too fast and tricky to catch, even for a bunch of blood thirsty Dogs. They had the lead, they were in our half of the field, time was short, and they were quick. All they had to do was frisk around and hang onto the ball and let the clock run out.

Their little quarterback, whose nose twitched as he called numbers, pitched out to a runner, who picked the ball out of the air and scampered toward the left side of the field, making little squeaky noises. Git ‘im! Dee commanded. We gave chase--Herb, Jonnie, Jack, R.C., and me--all Us Dogs--barking and howling. We blocked the Rabbit’s way. He circled and headed back toward the other side. We circled and followed him and trapped him on the other side. By the time we pushed him out of bounds, he had lost two yards and used up forty seconds.

Two minutes left, and we had to have the ball. Dee came around slapping us all on the seats of our pants. Come on, Dogs, git it! he yelped to each of us. We kin do it!

The Rabbit quarterback took the ball and scampered in a wide sweep around my end. I chased him down and caught the tail of his jersey; but he lateralled back to a Rabbit following us, and the second one made five yards before Herb shoved him to the ground. Another twenty seconds gone. Then they ran a reverse, and we chased one of them all the way across the field only to have him hand off to a wide end waiting out there for him. When we finally ran the second one to ground the clock read 1:03. We were desperate. We had to have that ball. Dee called time out, and we huddled.

We gotta git it! Dee barked at us over the noise of the small home crowd in the tiny stack of brown bleachers and the clump of our fans who had to stand along the side of the field. Again Dee perked us up. Gotta git it! Gonna git it!

Yeah!

Okay, then, who’s gonna do it? Dee looked from face to face. No one responded. We weren’t sure what he meant. Who’s gonna steal it? he made it clear.

We were stumped. Dogs didn’t steal. Dogs were honest and upstanding, they played fair and square. But we had never before been this close to victory. We were hungry.

Me.

We looked around. It was R.C. Roberson. We were surprised because R. C never talked. This was a first for him.

You will? Dee said.

R.C. nodded. He had said all the intended to say.

No one knew R. C. very well. No one had ever spent the night at his house. He lived out in the woods north of town. Every morning he appeared at the head of a foot path, caught the school bus, went to school, rode back and got off at the path, and disappeared, all without a word to anyone. No one knew much about his family. He was short and stocky with albino white hair. He ran like a bullet, hot and hard and straight ahead. Sweat poured down his face, but he didn’t blink. We knew he would get the ball.

We broke huddle and went growling back to the line. The Rabbits were already there. Small as they were, they showed no fear. We couldn’t even intimidate a bunch of hares. Their quarterback looked furtively from side to see to see if his cottontailed line was straight. He looked at us. Nearly over, Dawgs, he smirked and raised his twitching eyebrows knowingly. Near-bout over. We snarled and pawed the earth. Time t’go on home for supper. We howled and threw dirt into the air. Betcha’d like a bone, huh? We drooled as he looked at his crooked legs. He giggled and called out, Forty-eight, twenty-three, hike!

I didn’t see R.C. do it because a Rabbit threw himself at my legs and I went down. It took me a second to untangle myself from him and get to my feet. When I did the first thing I saw was the Rabbit quarterback staring at his empty hands, then glancing all around him, then turning to look upfield. I looked too, and there I saw R.C. with the ball, all by himself headed for the Rabbit goal. I let out a howl, Go, Dog, go! Then I saw something was wrong. He was all alone, he could score, but he was stumbling. No, Lord, no! I bayed. But yes, he stumbled once, twice, and fell face down at mid-field, digging up dirt with his free hand.

He sat up, pitched the ball away, and began to retie the shoe lace that had tripped him. I remembered the freshman class poem: For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe, the horse was lost. For want of a horse the messenger, for want of a messenger the war. Poetry made real. For want of a good double knot that great run, the score, the game was lost.

On the other hand, we did have the ball, which is what we wanted; and we were at the center of the field, which was better than we hoped; and there was time. The referee blew his whistle and waved his arms to stop the clock with the change of possession. We had to go forty yards in forty seconds. Dee got our attention. Okay, Dogs, you know what we gotta do! he barked. His blue eyes were cool and clear. He