March 5, 2018 - When I was pastor of The First Baptist Church of Hemphill, Texas, a Pulpit Search Committee from the Hillcrest Baptist Church of Amarillo visited our morning service. Immediately afterwards we met in the Pastor’s Study. When Committee Chairman George Coffey handed me three hickory nuts and asked me what they were, I knew they were not from our part of Texas. “We found them under a tree at the motel last night and had no idea what they were,” he said. Two weeks later I made my trip to Amarillo and became the pastor of Hillcrest Baptist Church.
Within my first few weeks at the church, I was asked to assist a Catholic priest conduct a funeral service in Turkey, Texas. When Deacon Doyle Huckabee and I got to the cemetery, I introduced myself to the priest. “I’m Doug Fincher”, I said. “I’m Father Rex”, he responded. “I don’t guess you want to call me “Father” so just call me “Rex“, he laughed. “I can’t call you Rex, either,” I replied. “’Rex’ is Latin for ‘King’ and I can’t call you Father… or King”, I laughed. The West Texas wind had all the cemetery trees leaning in the same direction… and I noticed that the wind was blowing everyone’s hair (except mine) straight up and right back down. When I asked a man how they kept their hair from blowing to pieces, he said, “Hair spray, son…plenty of hair spray.” I’d always figured that men should never use hair spray but since that day in 1970 I never leave home without it.
The funeral service in Turkey was the first one I’d conducted with a Catholic priest. He delivered a good message and afterwards we ate barbecue at the Turkey Hotel. The food was great… … and we drank our tea from quart (!) fruit jars.
I returned to Turkey about a year later to hunt quail with Deacon Doyle Huckabee… and we later hunted turkeys in Quail.
