It’s October. My favorite month of the year. It was a very long hot summer. For that, I refer you to the 1930s. The thirties had all sorts of bad features such as the Great Depression. My dad often said, “there wasn’t any money.” Where it went off to no one seemed to know. During those hot dry days my dad worked for Taylor Bullard here in Allen (no relation) in his grocery store. Taylor would sometimes buy a beef from a customer farmer.

So, Taylor sent the butcher (his brother Jack) and his faithful employee (my dad) out to Lula to kill and dress out this steer he had bought from a farmer named Misenheimer. As my dad and Jack readied the store’s gallant Dodge Ram pickup a guy (a man usually just hanging around) decided to go out with them. He had a bottle. The poor steer was penned up and after they got a rope on him, the nameless man full of bravery, stamina and his bottle, told his friends “I’d like to ride that animal.” Dad and Butch told him okay, helped him onboard, and away our hero went.

The animal quickly tossed our fearless rider high in the air. He hit the dry-hot barnyard dirt and didn’t move. Dad and Butch slightly alarmed, examined the man and after they determined that he was actually okay, dragged his inert body to the shade of a big tree and went back to their main job of slaughter and dressing out the steer.

Finally, they finished their job. The same hot dry Oklahoma heat that had assisted so well in felling our main street cowboy just about did the two grocery boys in too. Their cowboy companion was still in deep sleep when a fresh idea came to them. They had plenty of guts to work with and work they did. Undoing the intrepid rodeo’s overalls, they slid cow guts down around his groin, leg area and the chest. Then splashing some water on him encouraged him to wake up and he did. “Don’t move buddy, they said, you’ve been bad hurt. We’ve sent for help and an ambulance is coming out of Ada.”

The “injured” man raised up, undid his gallus and began screaming. He didn’t like what he saw. Besides the guts, blood and flies, he may have caught a glimpse of the “Death Angel.” It was several minutes later he got suspicious. His attendants had ceased their comforting words and instead had gone back to work. Getting ready to return to Allen. And where was his ambulance? And how come he had no pain? But still, there were effects. Later, upon their return to town, the man decided to quit drinking. He joined his wife at church Sunday and rededicated his life, confessed his sins to his church.

My dad said that Taylor was not happy with what they did. He did not think the “cow-guts” story was all that funny. The weather was so very hot, he worried about the quality of the meat. Was It still good? A few months later, Taylor had more problems. His store ran out of cash and he had his going out of business sale. My dad said that Taylor quietly sang “Jesus Paid it All” as he tore up and trashed the tickets of his old customers who couldn’t and didn’t pay their grocery bills and were now in California.

What happened to Taylor and Butch Bullard? Right before informing my dad and the other employees that they no longer had jobs, Taylor loaded up his wife and “stuff” in his Dodge Ram and went to California, put in a grocery store and did okay. Later we heard Taylor retired in Arkansas and Butch was in Alaska. I was too young to remember Taylor, but I did see him once in 1974. It was on a Sunday afternoon and I had opened up my drug store to take care of an emergency—and I saw him. I really didn’t know him but I had seen a picture of him once. He stood out on the sidewalk, shading his eyes, peering in.

I went out as soon as I could, but he was getting into his big Cadillac Deville and backing out. I raised my hand in a wave, hoping he would pull back in. He didn’t. And that was the end of that. Taylor and his wife lived at 206 N. Baltimore in 1935, just three blocks from where I now live, on 601 E Lee. I was born just across the alley at 206 N. Cleveland -- and the house still “stands” but Taylor’s old rock house is gone. But they always said I would not go far. They were right.

Be sure and go to church next Sunday.

Wayne Bullard, DPh cwaynebullard@gmail. com