Amanuensis Monday ~ The Stories That Should Be Told, Part 27

The following transcription is from a series of recordings my father made in the early 1990s:

I'm just having thoughts and remembering Ike Sinclair.  He was the bartender up at Charlie's Nite Club.  The first memory I have of him was that he was boarding down at Mr. Yancey's house.  Right down the street from here.  

Yancey House, 2011

He was a nice looking, distinguished looking man.  I know he was from Indiana.  They said he had been married and had a daughter about the age of my cousin, Evelyn Ogden who was a few months older than me.  The reason I know that is because he always paid attention to Evelyn. He would always bring her candy as he walked by the house.  He said she reminded him of his daughter.

I've always wondered how Ike Sinclair got to Sicily Island; why he came to this particular place. I don't know of anybody he was kin to but he stayed around here for a good many years.  He left here during the war and went off on one of those defense jobs.

Longhorn Army Ammunition Plant - Karnack, Tx

In the fall of 1942, my daddy was working for Ford, Bacon and Davis out from Marshall, Texas at Karnack where they were building some kind of arsenal or ammunitions plant.

I went to Marshall High School in the fall of the year.  I was up town one night and passed by a little shooting gallery.  I looked in through a big picture window and saw Ike Sinclair.

I went in and talked to him for a few minutes.  When he was here in Sicily Island, he always loved to hunt and fish.  He was quite a marksman with a 22 rifle.

I never saw Ike Sinclair again.  I think he ended up working in one of those plants down in Baton Rouge.  Even though I knew a few things about him, he was still a mystery man to me.

I might mention here that the first time I ever saw a football game was when I went to Marshall High School.  We didn't have a football program in Sicily Island when I was in school.  At Marshall High School, I sat right beside a fellow named Y. A. Tittle in homeroom.  I didn't know him that well.  I talked to him a few times.  

In the summer of 1944, I went down to LSU.  I hadn't been there but a week or two and was down in the field house.  I looked up and saw another dog, a freshman with his head skinned and wearing a little hat like me.  They called the freshmen dogs.  It was ole Y. A. Tittle.  

He seemed glad to see me.  We talked and said we'd have to get together.  I never saw him again except on the football field playing for LSU.  We all know he went on to become a famous professional football player.  That Y. A. stood for Yelberton Abraham.

I believe he had the nickname, The Bald Eagle, in professional football.  He was the quarterback and quite a passer.  There was a famous snapshot someone took of him when he was playing for the New York Giants.  It showed him down on the end of the field, down on his knees, with blood running down his head.

Y. A. Tittle

Note:  Parts 1-26 of 'The Stories That Should Be Told' can be found in the Tags List on the right-hand side of the blog.