The Best Sheriff in the Whole Shootin' Match

From Sunday's Times and News-Star

He had nothing to do with the nickname given to him by his aunt, who said as a baby he was the color of a red snapper.

I never could call him “Snapp,” though I love the name. It fit. I called him either “Sir” or “Sheriff,” a couple of the many handles he had to earn through his 84 years, including U.S. Marshal, chairman of deacons, husband, daddy, confidant, diplomat, problem solver, loyal friend, honest man. Maybe the one that brought him the most sheer joy was granddaddy. He wore all those well.

While those names live on, the man who served an unprecedented six terms as sheriff of Claiborne Parish died on January 9, the end of a remarkable life of nearly a half-century behind the badge and out of the spotlight. Sheriff Oakes didn’t talk about himself unless pressed, didn’t hold a grudge and didn’t keep score.

As sharp as he was, he was terrible at recognizing social standing or color or rank. He lived in ways that illustrated how life is not about any of those things, nor about intellect, but about relationships. With him, honesty and people are what counted.   

Through the years, I’d think of him so much it surprised me, all because of a day he stopped his world to step into mine. One August evening in 1978, a brown Chevy Nova pulled into the driveway of the parsonage where the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Homer lived. An 18-year-old got out, covered in concrete and mud after a day working at Beacon Gas Plant.

Right after that the Claiborne Parish Sheriff’s car pulled in, and a man leaned over to the passenger door, opened it, and said, “Get in.”

I was the teenager; Snapp Oakes was the grownup. And the sheriff.

I asked him if he wanted me to go inside and rinse off. “Just get in,” he said. And not long after that we were pulling onto the campus of Louisiana Tech in Ruston, where the sheriff was explaining I’d enroll in school and work. It was a ride and a day that changed my mind and my life. It might have been a “nothing” weekday evening to anyone else, but for me it proved to be a pivotal few hours that set in motion a series of events that gave me some direction and purpose, maybe even a little confidence. How many other lives he changed on otherwise long-ago forgotten days, only Heaven knows.

It must be that God moves people into your life for the purpose of doing things for you that you, at that point -- and no one closest to you -- can do for yourself. The sheriff, my sheriff, knew what to do that day. On his own time, he made time for me. With nothing to gain. I didn’t grow up in Homer; he’d known me less than a year. The risk that I would embarrass him was greater than the chance he was taking on trying to help me. It takes humility and grace to perform like that, to be an important man who’ll stop his watch and give a boy an at-bat, a chance, one I’d done nothing to earn.

Probably because of the setting and culture and era in which I was raised, Sheriff Andy Taylor has been, since I can remember, a favorite character of mine. The more I watched “The Andy Griffith Show,” the more I sort of always wanted to grow up to be Andy. A lot of us my age did.

And I love Andy. But there’s this, too:

It’s one thing to figure out which old lady is shoplifting at Weaver’s Department Store in Mayberry, or solve in another 26 minutes the mystery of the loaded goat. But when things get dicey in real life, as they did sometimes in Claiborne Parish, especially in the 1960s, when your family is threatened and somebody suggests it might be better for all concerned if your house burned to the ground, it’s a bit of a different ballgame.

It’s been my privilege to meet so many area lawmen and lawwomen; the sheriff loved them all. Their jobs are among the world’s most challenging, and public service, my sheriff believed, was life’s highest calling. I’m grateful for all who serve.

But I think every law enforcement officer who knew my sheriff -- our sheriff -- would agree with me that not only Andy Taylor but also every other upright upholder of the law, whether in fact or in fiction, are all playing for second place behind “Snapp” Oakes, who is, and will always be, my favorite sheriff.

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Getting a good read on 2013-14

From Sunday's Times and News-Star

Life’s too short to read bad books.

It wasn’t until a few years ago that I would bail on books that, after reading 50 pages, made me feel like I was getting poleaxed by Joe Frazier in his prime. Some sort of misplaced pride issue or deep-seeded need to finish what I’d started.

This was very dumb. Now I’ll bail in a heartbeat. Had to leave only a couple by the road this year, and didn’t feel guilty a bit. Progress!

You can’t judge a book by its cover, but you can judge most based on past experience and on opinions from friends who you’ve discovered have similar reading tastes. I’d thought about reading “1491” -- about the Americas before Columbus sailed the ocean blue, and because I was born on Columbus Day Eve – but was told by someone I trust that reading it was like trying to run up and out of a history ditch. Neg!

On the other hand, the best all-around book(s) I read this year was the Liberation Trilogy by Rick Atkinson, the North Africa/Italy/Europe part of World War II. Read like literature. He’s working on a Revolutionary War series now. Sweet.

Some people read Atkinson’s work because they “had” too, and that’s the thing about how books affect people. A friend of mine’s father read “The Day of Battle,” Atkinson’s work on the Italian Campaign, because his father had served in Italy and was Division Ordnance Officer with the 92^nd Infantry Division. This was a gentleman who grew up in northwest Arkansas, was a University of Arkansas engineering graduate, volunteered to return to active duty in 1940 as an Army Reserve 1^st Lieutenant and, by the fall of 1944, was a Lieutenant Colonel who would retire as a “full bird” colonel in the Army Reserve.

“He never talked about his experiences during his service in North Africa and Italy,” my friend wrote. “When I would ask questions about the 92nd Division, I usually got a two or three word reply and no other details! He left Shreveport for duty in North Africa and later the Italian campaign on April 1, 1943, on a Merchant Marine vessel. When he returned home in late November of 1945, I did not know who he was and sometimes referred to him to my mother as ‘that man.’”

War is hell, which some families know as others never can. A good historian can at least offer an educated shoulder to lean and to learn on.

“The Death of Santini” by Pat Conroy is the best “memoir” I read in 2013. It is depressing, at times dumbfounding, and a must-read if you love Conroy. He can be over-the-top here or there, but America has no more lyrical writer than this son of the Carolina coast.

“Light of the World” was my favorite fiction, the latest by south Louisiana-reared James Lee Burke, still my favorite at “earthy” writing, of the smells and sights and textures of Cajun country.

Re-read Paul’s letters in the Bible; plenty there to keep anyone occupied for a while, a while being defined here as “the rest of your life!” A book titled “The Insanity of God” by missionary Nik Ripken is not as convicting, but it’s still an attention-getter: few of us consider that Old Testament stories – only the names have changed -- are being played out overseas today. I’d recommend “Leaving Church” by Barbara Brown Taylor too, for beautiful and thoughtful writing.

“Wild Trees” by Richard Preston – I read his “The Hot Spot” about the Ebola virus years ago – “Winterdance” by Gary Paulsen (about the Iditarod), “The Big Burn” and “Worst Hard Time” by Timothy Egan are high on my pile. Still haven’t but must read “Rising Tide” by John Barry. And maybe “Isaac’s Storm,” by Erik Larson. And some Elmore Leonard and John D. MacDonald, to see what Travis McGee is up to on his houseboat in Slip F-18 in Fort Lauderdale.

And “Lord of the Rings”? Maybe this will be the year. But like you and most other book lovers, I’m already way behind…

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When he sang, Ray Price was always right

From Sunday's Times and News-Star

A lot of country music entertainers through the years have brought me much joy without being able to -- what you’d call in the strictest sense -- sing.

Not the case with a chosen few like George Jones, Larry Gatlin, Merle Haggard, Tammy Wynette and, the subject of today’s effort, Ray Price. Price, who passed away this month in Mt. Pleasant, Texas, could sing the sandspurs out of a cow’s tail.

Maybe it’s because he didn’t score a classic in the 1980s, as Haggard and Jones and Willie Nelson did, that he’s not mentioned as often as those three, who would comprise three-fourths of the male country music Mt. Rushmore. But he picked up the slack left by the death of his old roommate, Hank Williams, back in the day, then kept the ball rolling, adding strings along the way and hired for his band some now-familiar names like Willie, Roger Miller and Johnny Austin Paycheck. 

And all the while singing a hard-to-match country tenor. If you’re covering a Gatlin or Price song, you’d better buckle your chin strap.

According to Billboard, Price charted 46 Top 10s, eight No. 1s and 109 titles total from 1952-1989 on the Hot Country Songs chart. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996.

A Ray Top 10? That’s tough. In this bureau, it would go like this:

10. Faded Love (we always say “Faded” as if it rhymes with “Batted,” just because;

9. Night Life;

8. San Antonio Rose with Willie Nelson, a Bob Wills classic like “Fadded Love,” and also like No. 3 on this list;

7. Burning Memories;

6. Crazy Arms;

5. City Lights, written by Whisperin’ Bill Anderson;

4. Heartaches by the Number, a Harlan Howard classic;

3. My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You;

2. Danny Boy

1. For the Good Times, with thanks to author Kris Kristofferson.

Two quick Ray Price stories:

The night was smoky and the music was too in the little bar, either in Shreveport or right across the line in East Texas. It was late late and my old friend Speedy, a former all-American football player and now a young cowboy – the real kind – was relaxing with a cold one and minding his own when somebody said Ray Price was in the joint. Not only that, he was about to sing. Right there. In this little bar.

Speedy figured that would happen about the same time the cattle he’d worked that day started flying. Paid it no mind. Until the house band started playing again and the guest lead singer, at least for this set, was Ray Price, fresh off a nearby gig, still in his Nudie suit and fine voice.

Speedy stayed til past closing time.

The mid-December weekend that Price’s battle with pancreatic cancer ended, a Mt. Pleasant Justice of the Peace and friend of the Price family called my old pastor buddy to please come pay with the family. He went over and waited while the phone rang, friends calling to check on Ray. Larry Gatlin called, and Ray’s wife, Janie, put the phone to her husband’s ear. Gatlin launched into the old gospel favorite, “In the Garden.” Wow…

A few minutes later, Willie Nelson called. He didn’t sing; he was just calling to check on his friend. That was Sunday, Dec. 15.

Ray Price died the next day. My friend was called back to pray with the gathered family, and as he prepared to, another interesting moment occurred, one of those surreal times you know you’ll never forget. Willie’s Roadhouse XM station was playing on the television. Just before the family prayed, the station played Ray Price. He was singing “Danny Boy.”

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