The Great Houston Fog War of 1960 Cover picture of newspaper reporter talking to Johnny with a little fog visible on the ground. Newspaper reporter has HOUSTON CHRONICLE badge and hat with paper sticking out. Reporter has little pad and is taking notes. Reporter's car has bumper sticker "Scoop the Post!">>>
The Great Houston Fog War of 1960 picture of grandpa writing letter to Chloe.>> Dear Chloe, I thought sometime you might hear about the great Houston Fog War and I wanted to tell you how it came about because I, your old Grandpa, was there. In fact I actually started the Great Fog War! The Great Houston Fog War actually took place in a small suburb of Houston named Deer Park. The war started on Peggy Street where I grew up. My big sister Gayle was 12. My little sister, Barbie, was 8 and Jean Ann was just a gleam in your great granddad's eyes. And I, your old Grandpa wasn't even old or a Grandpa back then. I was just ten year old Johnny. picture of Deer Park from an aerial view with just the tops of the buildings showing through the fog... Chloe, you may have heard about the rain down in Houston. It rains more than 40 inches a year I guess. It hurricanes too sometimes. And it gets so humid that the dogs have to stop barking. But what it really does down there, especially around Deer Park and Baytown is to fog. We had heavy fogs and light fogs. We had fast fogs and slow fogs. We had deep fogs and shallow fogs. The shallow fogs you could see through. The deep fogs took away chunks of your memory. One old man in Deer Park named Darrell Applestand had gone out in the fog with his head uncovered so many times that he had forgotten why he had ever moved to Deer Park in the first place, so of course he had to stay. But most people knew exactly why they lived in Deer Park. It was to work in those big chemical companies along the Houston Ship Channel. The chemical companies LOVED the fog. The chemical companies could dump their excess chemicals into the air and no one could tell in the fog which one had done it. We all figured it was pretty much all of them, even my Dad agreed. But when the air stunk my dad would say, "That's the smell of money, Son". <<<<picture of Mr. Hayre (Great Grandpa) talking to Johnny. Johnny is holding his nose..>> And most of us in Deer Park were pretty well off because of the money our Dads made working for those chemical companies. But there were exceptions. We had one family on our street, the Pedmars, who were so poor they never even had fog in their yard! Now, Chloe, that's what your old grandpa calls poor! In a thick fog the Pedmars' was the only house on the street that you could see. Unfortunately, it was also the only house that Momma said you really didn't want to see. They had lots of neat stuff out in the yard. Momma said it was an eye sore, but I don't know why she said that. It never hurt my eyes to look at their yard. <<<<picture of the street with houses in the fog barely visible and the Pednar's house with no fog showing clearly and with the junky yard and dead tree. Two washtubs are in the yard. A window is broken and car on driveway needs paint and has bumper barely hanging on the car. Chimney on roof is bent.>> One of the thickest fogs we ever had came in late October of 1958. It came in the early morning. That fog was so deep and thick that none of our fathers could get to work that morning. The cars would start up, but when they tried to ram through the fog they just got stuck! Corkey's father's foreman, Bill Morse, got caught in the fog down at dead man's turn near the cemetery. He worked the hoot owl shift at the Shell Oil Refinery on the Houston ship channel along highway 225. He was coming home when the fog set it. His car got stuck so tight that the fog bent up the light beams from the headlights. One of them was pointing strait up and the other light beam made a loop right over the top of his car. He tried to open the door and walk home, but the car was so tight in the fog that the door wouldn't open. Finally old Bill took out his hunting knife and inching the window down he started cutting into that fog. Soon he had enough fog cut out of the way to push himself through the window. Then he climbed out the window, and crawled right out onto the hood of the car. From there he cut a path to the front of the car hood. On the hood he cut enough fog out of the way to stand up. Then he grabbed the light beams one at a time. He twisted those light beams back till they pointed forward. He used duct tape, (the handy man's secrete weapon), to tape his hunting knife to the little hood emblem. Finally he crawled back along the top of the car hood and squeezed back into the driver's side window. He started the car up and when he gunned the engine - sure enough, his old car started cutting a path right through that fog with the help of the hunting knife. picture of Mr. Morse standing on the hood of his car (car is 1950-1960 model) in dense fog with his arms around a headlight beam, bending it back to face the road. His glasses are half off his face. He's sweating. You can see his hunting knife in his belt and a roll of duct tape attached to the belt….>> As old Bill Morse drove home, every time he passed someone who was stuck in the fog, they just got in his wake and followed along because that was the only way you could go through that fog. So when Bill arrived at his house there were 16 cars behind him. Luckily Emma Morse was the kind of wife who acted like it was just as normal as Tuesday for Bill to come home with 20 or 30 people that they didn't know. She ran into the kitchen and whipped up seven pans of her semi-famous almost award winning cherry strudel. Everyone stood around with their coffee and cherry strudel and talked about the Houston Oiler football team. Chloe, I will tell you something that I learned from experience. People in Houston aren't like people up here around Dallas. People in Houston never talk about the weather. In a hurricane the people in Houston will be talking about the Houston Astros or something. I think that is because in Houston they really do have interesting weather. Here in Dallas the weather is so predicable that any little change is interesting and so we talk about it. Well anyway, old Bill Morse achieved near celebrity status and the next day the Houston Post newspaper ran his story in section 2B. The story had interviews with the eyewitnesses and friends. Everyone had a nice word to say about Bill and no one mentioned his 2 ˝ years in the Huntsville State Prison. But Bill Morse was one of the lucky ones. We never did see the widow Jennings after that night. Most people figure she is still stuck out there in the fog somewhere. Her story has become one of those scary ones that you hear around campfires on foggy nights. It always ends like this: "And she is still out there to this very night. On a foggy night like this if you listen carefully you can hear her moaning, "Where is my head? Where is my head? Wherrrrrrrre is my heeeeeeeeeead? Oooooooooooooh I've lost my head in the fog! The fog is taking my brain. I need a hat. I need a hat. I need a haaaaaaaaaaaaaaat". I'll tell you what, Chloe, a story like that gives you the goose pimples. It makes you want to keep your hat on in the fog! The day after the big fog I heard Corkey's mother, Mary Lee, telling someone on the phone that Jennifer Jennings had run off with Willie Snortfinder that very night and that they must have got lost in the Bay Town fog. (I know this is hard to believe, Chloe, but Bay Town has a tunnel that actually goes right under the Houston Ship Channel. I have been in that very tunnel in a car. It is against the rules to honk your horn in that tunnel, so of course someone always does. It is loud and irritating. It's great fun.) Anyway, Mary Lee claimed that the reason that she knew that Jennifer ran off with Willie Snortfinder is that she had seen, right in the newspaper, a picture of an abandoned '57 Chevy found near the Bay Town tunnel later that week. And everyone knew that Willie Snortfinder drove a '57 Chevy - so there you are! It had to be his. And Jennifer must have been with him. Where else would she be? Mary Lee Cottrell knew stuff like that. She knew lots of stuff about everyone - and some of it was right. She liked to talk on the phone. Dad said that is all she ever did, but I know for a fact that sometimes she did other things. Why I remember once when I was over at Corkey's house she was vacuuming the house. Now anyone knows you cannot hear the phone with the vacuum cleaner going! Dad said you had to have a pretty good filter when you listened to her. I don't know about that. I didn't have a filter. I wasn't even allowed to touch a cigarette. But I'll tell you what, Chloe. I didn't believe everything she said, even if she was a grownup. <<<<picture of Mary Lee Cottrell talking on the phone….>> Anyway, as you can see, Chloe, the Deer Park fog was really something! It's sort of like the Dallas summer heat. It's something you have to understand and plan for or you could get hurt. Well, anyway, one Saturday morning it fogged real heavy and so my sisters Gayle and Barbie and me were stuck inside the house. After playing hide-and-seek for about an hour my Mother told us all we were going to have to go and play outside. She said she was afraid that we were going to break her last matching vase. I thought about explaining to her that technically the vase wasn't a "matching vase". We had already broken the other three so this last one didn't have anything to match. But sometimes it is better to keep your mouth shut. I figured that this was one of those times. So out we went - after putting on our hats. Momma would never allow us to go out in the fog with our heads uncovered! "Remember Darrell Applestand!" she would say. It turns out that we weren't the only kids who had to go out that morning. It seemed like the whole neighborhood was there. There was Mickey Vann, and his little sister Christy, Corky Cottrell, Dick Masterson, little Davy Masterson, Joe Anderson, and Bill Ervin. Everyone had a hat or hood on because all our mothers loved us. picture of all the kids standing around moping (with nothing to do but stand in the fog with their "FOG GEAR" (everyone had a hood or sock hats on his head).>> The Smith kids, Gary and Alan, were still inside. They were very rich and so there was a thick layer of fog around their house. I think it was Mickey Van who first thought of having a fog fight. That little runt was always thinking up things like that. Gayle, my older sister with the great brain, explained that you couldn't throw fog like you could throw mud. And that pretty well put an end to the idea. Everyone knew Gayle couldn't be wrong. After all she read real books like Little Women without pictures or anything. She read Heidi four times and she cried every time. I'll tell you what, Chloe; anyone who can sit down and read a book that makes you cry and everything has got to be plenty smart! <<<<picture of Dick looking up at nothing in particular with tongue touching lips. Gayle (wearing glasses in the background). Some kid sitting down - can only see the top of his hat.>>> But my best friend, Dick Masterson, just kept looking up in the air and running his tongue around on his lips. I knew he was working on a good idea so I kept quiet - sometimes it is better to keep your mouth shut and I figured this was one of those times. Dick was looking over at the Smith's house. We didn't hardly play with Gary and Alan Smith that much, although I really don't know why. It seems like they were always too busy with "real" games. Our own games were pretty much spur of the moment, make up some rules, and change them as you go along. For example we had made up this game we called "hide-and-go-seek-with-the-ball". It was part "hide-and-go-seek" and part "dodge ball". After about a year, the rules were just about right. Of course we still changed the rules now and then just to keep in practice. Gary and Alan on the other hand usually wanted to play "real" games such as baseball or something. Games with lots of real precise rules that never changed. It sort of saddened the heart to see those boys with so much potential just wasting their lives like that. Well, I'll tell you Chloe - after waiting for Dick to tell us what he was thinking I finally blurted out, "WHAT?" because sometimes it's hard to keep your mouth shut for too long. "You know", he said, "if anybody could throw fog it would be Gary Smith." Dick was right about that. Gary Smith could throw anything. And he generally hit what he threw at. Gary could throw baseballs and footballs. He could throw mud balls when it rained. He could throw water balloons anytime he had the money for balloons. He could throw snowballs, but it only snowed once. Everyone remembered what grade they were in and what they were doing when it snowed (except my little sister Barbie who is a little foggy about the details). It was Friday. I had planned to sleep in my new two-man tent in our back yard. It was already set up. I was in third grade. And yes, Gary Smith could throw snowballs. He hit me in the hand as I ran around the fence to get away. Then he hit my best friend, Dick Masterson, in the back of the neck. We had a big snowball fight that lasted until all the snow was gone a couple of days later. Corkey Cottrell "organized" it - so it was every man for himself. We stopped only to eat and sleep and stuff. And I slept out in the little pup tent in the snow that Friday night. But I'm getting off the subject. So anyway, we all sort of meandered toward the Smith's big house. We had never knocked on their door. They were too rich for us to just go up and knock on the door. Instead we did what we always did when we wanted to play with Alan or Gary. We just sort of hung around closer and closer until Mrs. Smith noticed us and sent Alan and Gary outside. Picture of kids standing near an EXTREMEMLY foggy house. You can just see the word "SMITH" on the mailbox Dick got right to the point. "Y'all wanna have a fog fight?" They looked at each other and then at us. Gary was looking at us as if we were some Martians who had just landed in his front yard. But Alan was thinking. Suddenly Alan asked, "Who against who?" We hadn't gotten that far. Corkey said, "Everybody against everybody!" That was how Corkey did everything - even if there were teams. Joe Anderson said, "If we can figure a way to throw fog, then we can come up with teams." That seemed to please everyone so we all started thinking about the problem - how do you throw fog? Suddenly Alan said, "Let's get that old washtub out of the Pedmars' yard". Gayle began to explain that we couldn't just take something without asking, but everyone else knew that the Pedmars wouldn't care since they would have to actually notice in order to object. And what were one or two washtubs more or less from the Pedmars' yard? So Bill Ervin went over and got a washtub and we started trying to scoop up enough fog into the tub to make a fog ball. It wasn't easy. The fog just pushed itself back out whenever we put some in. Finally Alan got an idea. He grabbed one handle, got me to grab the other and we began to run through the yards with the washtub between us so that the washtub open end was cutting through the fog. picture of Johnny and Alan running through the fog with the washtub capturing fog - leaving a trail of NO FOG behind them…>>> It worked. Soon the tub was stacked high with fog and you could see the path through the yards where we had run. Then my little sister, Barbie, got an idea. (She'll fool you sometimes!) Barbie snuck into our house and got our huge ice cream scoop that Mama Gene had given us for Christmas 1958. When we dug the ice cream scoop into the fog it just sort of dribbled out the scoop. Then Corkey tried it. Except instead of dipping it out of the tub and then trying to throw it, he did it all in one smooth motion. He dipped and threw in one swift movement and he was able to cause a fog ball to fly in an arc. Joe Anderson tried it next, but at the end of his arm movement he stopped his arm suddenly and the fog ball flew strait where he was aiming. He hit my sister Barbie right in her left ear. So we had a way to throw fog balls, but we had another problem. One that would have stopped the fog fight before it started. We had only one ice cream scoop. So we all sat around thinking. My little sister Barbie couldn't think very well since she had gotten hit on the head by a fog ball. "It sort of makes you think slowly and imprecise" she later said. "Imprecisely!" Gayle corrected. My big sister Gayle really knew her verbs! Finally Bill said, "We need to make our own scoops somehow". "What about newspapers?" little Christy asked, "I heard that a newspaper is always getting a scoop." Everyone started laughing except my brilliant sister Gayle who started patiently explaining to little Christy what a "newspaper scoop" meant. But suddenly I had what was to this day my only great idea. "Wait a minute", I said, "It will work!" Everyone got quiet (except Corkey - but even he got as quiet as he could manage). I explained my idea. I got Dick to go get me an old newspaper out of the Vann's trashcan. I showed them that if you rolled up one end and held it with your hand, but left the other end open you could make sort of a large scoop out of a newspaper. picture of Johnny's hand holding the "newspaper scoop"…>>> And Chloe, it was his newspaper scoop that started the great fog war of Peggy Street which was later described as the Great Houston Fog War of 1960. I reached down with my newspaper scoop and tried to scoop up some fog, but it didn't work. But then I remembered you had to do it quickly. So I ran and reached down like a baseball player snagging a grounder and the fog scooped right up into the newspaper. While still running I flung the newspaper forward and a large ball of fog wopped Alan Smith aside the head. Alan Smith, never short of what to say immediately hollered, "I got Bill". (I later realized why he didn't pick the best athlete, Joe Anderson, first - Alan was already a little fog-headed from that 1st fog ball!) "I'll take Dick", I replied (Even though Joe Anderson was the best athlete, Dick Masterson was my best friend). "I got Mickey". "I'll take Joe". "I got Bill." We both knew that I automatically got Gayle and Barbie and Jean Ann (even though she was just a gleam in your great grandfather's eye). And we knew that Alan would automatically get Gary. And of course Christy went with Mickey. We also knew that whoever got Corkey got a mixed bag because you never could tell what he was going to do with that boundless energy of his. Corkey was just Corkey. Finally I said, "I guess I'll take Corkey", and so everyone was on a team, the first fog ball had been thrown and the great fog war had begun. Not only that, but the captains of the two teams Alan and me had been chosen by default. It didn't take 10 minutes for us to all have a newspaper. And then the fog war was raging. I ran right between the Smith boys who both tried to hit me but missed and hit each other. Both my sisters, Gayle and Barbie ran attacking the Smith boys. Gayle hit Gary in the arm but Alan hit Barbie on the head (again). In the mean time Mickey and Christy had both sneaked up on me and I got pounded in the back while I was watching my sisters attack Gary and Alan. In about an hour a lot of that fog had been cleaned off the sidewalks and streets and we were going into the yards to load up. It was sort of like a water balloon fight, only faster. It doesn't take as long to scoop up a fog ball as it does to fill up a water balloon. Gayle got hit right in the mouth when she was trying to explain something to Joe Anderson. She said it tasted like cotton candy, only without the sugar. Bill got hit right behind his knee and couldn't run very fast since he had to run stiff legged. I had fog all over me, but especially on my back. picture of the neighborhood aerial view with paths where kids had already scooped out most of the fog.>> After a while Mickey's mother whistled which was her signal for Mickey and Christy to come in for lunch. After that we all sort of stopped. The next day the Houston Chronicle (not to be out scooped, so to speak, by the earlier Houston Post article on Bill Morse) came by to interview me and all my friends and other eyewitnesses. I achieved near celebrity status and everyone had a nice word to say about me, and no one mentioned the broken window at the schoolhouse. And even though my little sister Barbie lost the nice ice cream scoop, she just blamed it on Jean Ann who always took the blame in our family even though this time it could really be said that Jean Ann wasn't even there. And that, Chloe, is my story. And I'm sticking with it. Love, Grandpa P.S. The next time it fogged we all got together with our newspaper scoops and put fog around the Pedmars' yard. Mrs. Pedmars came out with tears in her eyes saying that this was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her. The next day Mr. Pedmars went into Pasadena to the alcoholic's anonymous and has been sober ever since. Within a month all the neat stuff was gone from the Pedmars' yard and ever since there have been flowers and roses and stuff like that in that very yard. It was my big sister Gayle's idea, but it was a neat idea just the same! <<<<picture of Pedmars yard with flowers and "STUFF" Pedmars' name on the mailbox? Tree is miraculously alive and well now, and window in house is not broken, chimney is now NOT bent. Same car as in previous picture, except it is now shiny and bumper is straight…>>>>>>>