Divorce Court or # 1 in the Trooper Bob Chronicls

November 07
Divorce or #1 in the Daddy Chronicles
I’m going to start a new segment called “Daddy Chronicles” because that is what they are. My whole life growing up I heard the stories of my Daddy’s life. He is an accomplished story teller and would wind us through the allies and paths of his life, work, friends and adventures. Sometimes they would be stories of his childhood other times they would be of what happened as a young patrol officer and often they were what happened yesterday. Some of these stories may only be of interest to my family and some those who wonder upon my writings will enjoy. You see in our family the art of the story is huge and my daddy can paint a picture like Monet or Renoir. Here is my first installment of the Daddy Chronicles.

My daddy in one of his early careers and the one that he had during most of my growing up years was a Texas Department of Public Safety Officer. In other words Cheese it boys, it’s the cops. Here in Texas they are called troopers or DPS officers. He was stationed in south of San Antonio in a small little burg and was teamed up with an older more seasoned officer named Homer. Now Homer didn’t get real upset or excited about much and was a perfect match for my low keyed daddy. They became great friends and great partners.

Back in those days the officers were respected and revered. They had complete say-so over almost every issue. The public that they were sworn to protect were often uneducated or back-woods or better said country folk. The other thing is that back then an officer and his partner may be assigned to a whole county and in Texas that could mean over a thousand square miles. They had to cover a whole lot of territory. While the people in their district knew who they were they may only see them once or twice a month and in some of the more remote areas once or twice a year.

After only being on the job a month or so Trooper Homer and Trooper Bob, my daddy, were called out on a domestic disturbance. They arrived at a small house out in the country to find a husband and a wife fighting. The wife had thrown the husbands things out in the yard and had banished him to sleep in the barn. Their fight was probably about the fact they had 8 kids and he wanted to get frisky again, but whatever the reason they were about to kill one another. Elmer, the irate husband, runs out to the car as the two officer drive up the drive and says “Mr. Homer, she has done gone plum crazy. She’s crazier than my mule and that is pretty damn crazy. I want to deevorce her! Will you deevorce us so I can have some peace?” About that time Bernice, the incensed wife yielding a two by four, runs out to the car and says “Mr. Homer you better deevorce us or Ima gonna kill that son of a biscuit eater!”

Homer slowly exits the car spits a chew of tobacco out and in his hometown Texas drawl says “Now you two calm down, let me get my deevorcin book out of the trunk and we’ll take care of this. Bernice you don’t need to be a killin anybody who would take care of dem kids? And Elmer, you need to jest calm down. I don’t know what you did to get Bernice all riled up but you need to knock it off. Now I’m gonna get my book out and I’m gonna deevorce you but you had better realize jest how serious this is. If I deevorce you I don’t want to have to come back out here to pick up a daid body nor nuthin. You got me?” With that Homer went around to the back of the car and my daddy went around with him. He looked at his partner a little worried and whispered “Homer, we don’t have the authority to divorce those two. They need to go to a lawyer and to court. I never heard of a divorce book.” Homer smiled a knowing smile put his hand on daddy’s shoulder and said “Son, out here we ARE the law to these people which is all encompassing. I’ll get the manual out say a few words make them put their X on a piece of paper and that will be that. Trust me they will want to be back together again before we get back to the station.”

Homer got his book out walked around to the front of the car and did just what he said. He said a few words, made them understand that they were to go nowhere near one another and with an X on an old ticket book they were divorced. Happy as clams, Bernice went back in the house to tend to her brood and Elmer went to the barn to take care of his crazy mule. Daddy and Homer went on to other adventures.

A couple of weeks passed with more adventures and excitement Homer and my daddy forgot about the couple. They arrived at the station one morning to find Elmer and Bernice all loved up waiting out front. Homer got out of the car and greeted the couple and asked what he could do for them. Elmer spoke first and said “Well, we got so lonely without each other and we talked it over and decided we don’t want to be deevorced no more. We want you to undeevorce us.”

Homer smiled and agreed and told them to come into the office. He instructed my daddy to retrieve the old ticket book out of the trunk. Once inside Homer took the deevorce paper out of the book and held it up and said “Now y’all sure you want me to do this? You’re not gonna be callin us in a couple of days to come undo this?” Bernice and Elmer excited bobbed their head up and down in agreement that this is what they wanted. Homer took the paper and tore it up in little pieces and said “Alright now your un-deevorced. You go home and take care of one another and don’t be callin us again.” They thanked Homer and my daddy and ran out of the office to live a happy life together. Well not really because Homer then told my daddy they did this once or twice a year.

That’s how my daddy learned to deevorce and undeevorce people. Can you imagine that happening today?