TEXAS A&M (1946-1949)
I returned to Texas A&M when the Summer Session began in June, 1946. The plan was for me to go to summer school, after which we would decide whether Pat would leave her good job with the Humble Company in Baytown and try to find work in College Station or I'd forget getting a college degree.
The first course I signed up for was the first half of Comparative Anatomy, a potentially academically suicidal move. Comparative Anatomy was the bane of all Wildlife Management majors. It was required for graduation and some took each of the two courses several times. It was taught by Dr. George Potter, whom all Wildlife majors were convinced discriminated against us. Why I started out with that killer course rather than something more reasonable, I have no idea, but it was a real test of both my ability and desire.
That first six weeks term I slept in a nearby dormitory, but I ”lived” in the Comparative Lab in old Science Hall. I received a C+ for the first course and was convinced I had earned a B. However, I had learned a couple of worthwhile lessons: I could cut it in even the tough college courses, and Potter wasn't the ogre I had been told. After seeing my grade, I went to see Potter. "Dr. Potter", I said, "I guess I deserved that grade, but I didn't do better because I was scared of you. I'm not scared anymore and I'm going to make an A in the next course." Potter smiled and said, "I hope you do, Sparks".
By the time the second summer session began, Pat had already quit her job in Baytown and moved to College Station. I was able to really concentrate on the comparative anatomy and I aced it. I led the class the entire course and was off and running academically.
During the next two semesters, I took almost all the advanced Wildlife courses, including Ornithology, Mammalogy, Herpetology, Ichthyology, Ecology, plus such crib courses as Systematic Botany, Advanced Technical Writing etc. One semester I got off 26 credit hours -- 22 hours plus making up a four-hour incomplete from my last semester before reporting for Active Duty in WW II. I also accumulated more grade points that semester than in my entire prewar career. I was in class between 40 and 44 hours a week (we had classes on Saturday mornings). My mother had given me a typewriter for my birthday and I typed up all my day's notes every night.
Those Wildlife courses were excellent! At one time I could identify on sight every species of vertebrate native to Texas and correctly spell it's scientific name. I could also do the same with most of the native plants. I was particularly fortunate in taking Herpetology from Hobart Smith, one of the top Herpetologists in the US and the author of the definitive book on lizards, and Mammalogy from Bill Davis, one of the leading Mammalogists in the country. Gary Soule taught the fish courses and Bill Haight taught Ornithology. Both of the latter were there for only a year or so and I haven't heard anything about either for at least 40 years. Hobart Smith left for the University of Illinois after a few years where he taught Comparative Anatomy and Herpetology for years and eventually moved to the University of Colorado as Chairman of the Department of Zoology.
Our decision for Pat to remain in Baytown was not viable. We had been separated for so long by the war, over which we had no control, we found we could not accept a self-imposed separation. I went to Baytown or Pat came to College Station every weekend, always by an interminable bus ride. On one of her visits to College Station she interviewed for a job with Dr. Paul B. Pearson, Professor of Biochemistry and Nutrition. She was offered the job as a Laboratory Technician in Dr. Pearson's Lab at about $165.00 per month. That was a pay cut of about $20.00 per month, but we jumped at it. With the $105.00 per month I received from the G.I. Bill (plus tuition and books), we could manage, but we were on a tight budget.
Pat was a meticulous bookkeeper and I reported every cent I spent. For years, she was never off more than 10 cents for a month. We were frugal, but not stingy. We both smoked lots of cigarettes (a pack each every day), but spent little on food or entertainment. Pat had not discovered booze; I had a beer or two every evening, but a bottle of whiskey was for a party. We seldom went out because she was tired, I had to study, we didn't have any money, and no car to go anywhere to spend it if we had any. Nevertheless, I believe that is where we developed our basic philosophy and family expression, "if you can't go First Class, stay home" We didn't do anything we thought we couldn't afford, but if we decided we could, we didn't try to do it on the cheap.
If, in retrospect, those times seem austere, it's probably because they were. However, neither of us had ever had it easy and, most importantly, we were together after almost four years of separation. I could see that I was going to be the first, and probably the only, member of my family to get a college education and I possibly could become a professional (”somebody”) instead of a worker. I don't remember us giving each other inspirational speeches, we were too tired or busy most of the time, but it must have been in the back of both our minds or we wouldn't have done it. I didn't have any doubts and if Pat did, she kept them to herself. In view of my High School and previous College undergraduate under achievement, she was either blindly in love, saw something in me that no one else (other than my mother) had or didn't know how to get out of a bad situation. Whatever the reason, I'm glad she stuck with me.
Next Step into Academe: MS and Bass
In early 1947, several professional Boy Scout executives put on a three-day course to train people to be Scoutmasters. I had benefitted so greatly from the Boy Scouts I thought I would eventually want to be a scoutmaster, so I signed up for the course. The professional executives were so impressed with the knowledge that Bill Delaney, another Wildlife Management major, and I had of natural history, they offered the two of us appointments to the Boy Scouts of America training school for professional scout executives. We were selected for a session in September, but sometime in the spring I was invited to an interview in Okmulgee, Oklahoma for a position as the Assistant Regional Scout Executive following completion of the training program.
Pat and I rode a bus to Dallas, flew to Tulsa, then another bus ride for the fifty or so miles to Okmulgee. We stayed at the home of Ken Strong, the Regional Scout Executive, and I met all the local volunteer Boy Scout leaders. I was offered the job and accepted.
One day during the Summer Session I was walking from class to meet Pat for lunch and, to get out of the hot sun, walked through Science Hall. Dr. Potter was in the hall and I spoke to him. He had encouraged me to apply for admission to Medical School after I did so well in his Comparative Anatomy course; he was the Premed Advisor, so his recommendation virtually guaranteed acceptance. "Aren't you about to graduate?" he asked.
"Yes Sir, in August" I replied.
"What are you going to do?"
"I have a job as a Scout Executive in Okmulgee, Oklahoma" I answered. His response to that was "What a God Damned waste of brains". He asked me what my salary would be and I told him I was going to make $200.00 a month.
Dr. Potter then made me an offer I could not refuse. "I have never had a Teaching Assistant in my Comparative Anatomy courses because I never trusted anyone to handle the labs, but with all the veterans returning I'm going to have to set up two lab sections. The assistantship pays $110.00 a month, you get $105.00 a month on the G.I. Bill, so you'll be making $15.00 a month more than you would in the Boy Scout job and working towards a Master's degree. Besides, your wife has a good job with Dr. Pearson in Biochemistry and I don't think there are many jobs for chemists in Okmulgee, Oklahoma."
When I told Pat about Potter's offer, she was ecstatic. She was not thrilled with the prospect of living in Okmulgee, but, in the role of supportive wife, hadn't said so. There was one problem: even though I had made almost all A's in my postwar academic career, I was still a little shy of the B average required for admission to Graduate School. Dr. Potter assured me that if I applied he would see to it that I was accepted. Sure enough, I did and he did.
In September 1947, I began the most intellectually stimulating and academically rewarding two years of my life. Somewhat to my surprise, Dr. Potter gave me complete freedom to teach the Comparative Lab. On the rare occasions that he needed to enter the lab, via the connecting door to his office, while my lab section was in session, he would always knock before entering and ask if it would disturb anyone if he came in. I also assisted Dr. Arthur Schipper in the two Introductory Zoology courses that were prerequisites for Comparative Anatomy. That was ironic; I had D'd both of them (the second a going away to war gift) under Art Schipper in my illustrious prewar academic career.
Although the idea of becoming a college professor had never entered my mind, within a couple of weeks I was hooked. Never reluctant to be the center of attention, having a captive audience that had to not only listen to you but also memorize what you said was a real ego trip. Almost from the beginning, I was completely at ease, enjoying, I'm sure, the teaching far more than the students taking the courses.
Knowing nothing of graduate school protocol, I informed Dr. Sewell Hepburn Hopkins that I was his new graduate student and that I was going to do my Master's Thesis on the helminth parasites of the largemouth bass in Texas. I'm sure he was appalled at my temerity. Sewell Hopkins was a true Southern Gentleman. He was born and grew up in "Tidewater" Virginia, on the banks of the North River in Gloucester County. Katherine Hepburn was a first cousin and a frequent visitor when he and his brother were growing up.
Dr. Hopkins earned his Bachelor's Degree from The College of William and Mary and was a graduate student for a year at Johns Hopkins University, named for his great uncle who left the bulk of his fortune to found the University and Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. He then "went west" to the University of Illinois to do graduate work under Dr. Henry B. Ward, the "Father of American Parasitology". Ward was Head of the Department of Zoology, other faculty members included Harley J. Van Cleave (Systematics, especially of the Phylum Acanthocephala, and Invertebrate Zoology), Waldo Shumway (Embryology), Charles Zeleny (Genetics), L.A. Adams (Vertebrate Anatomy), Victor Shelford (Ecology), and Richard Kudo (Protozoology). They were then and continued to be for many years, the leaders in their respective fields.
Equally stimulating were his fellow graduate students, whose names read like Who's Who in American Parasitology. Justus Mueller had just left, Sewell was awarded the research assistantship vacated by him when he received his Ph.D. Fellow students were H.W. Stunkard, George LaRue, William Cort, Harold Manter, George W. Hunter III, Wanda Sanborn Hunter, Paul Beaver, Harry Bennett, and John G. Mackin.
Sewell, who was Ward's research assistant from 1928 to 1933, described Ward's character as complex, even contradictory (Parasitology at Illinois, 1928-1933. unpublished, privately circulated essay.). He was quite proud of his "New England conscience," but he frequently lied without shame, even delighted in it. He was also vindictive and demanded absolute loyalty from his staff and students. However, he was fanatically loyal to his students, even long after they left Illinois. Hopkins noted that there was no such word as "former student" in Ward's vocabulary. To him that would have been equivalent to "my former sons and daughters". He often referred to his students as his "intellectual sons" and their students as his "intellectual grandsons". In that perspective, I am one of Ward's "intellectual great-grandsons" and my graduate students are his "intellectual great-great-grandsons".
If one of his students experienced financial difficulty, a frequent occurrence in those depression days, Ward loaned or gave them money, insisting that he had obtained it for them from a special fund even though Hopkins knew the money came from Henry B.'s own pocket. Despite the fact that he was well off financially, Dr. Ward was proud of his frugality (part of his "New England" heritage). He had a succession of large powerful cars, all of which were bought second hand. He freely loaned his car to his favorite students, but they knew better than to return it without at least replenishing the gasoline they had used. He also frequently took students with him on trips, most of whom were too poor to travel on their own.
With his students, Ward maintained the kind of warm relationship he had with his professors during his graduate study in Germany. He entertained them occasionally in his home and frequently at picnics, always at his own expense.
Despite my brash, and probably offensive Texan ways, Dr.Hopkins agreed to be my major professor. The other members of my graduate committee were Dr. George Potter and Dr. Richard Turk, Head of Veterinary Parasitology. Turk was a fine parasitologist, even though he insisted he was "just a country veterinarian who's interested in worms". He was "deaf as a post" and couldn't afford a hearing aid until he graduated from Veterinary School. He got through school reading lips and as a professor took great delight in reading the lips of whisperers in his lectures and, especially, during exams. "Johnson", he'd say to a student two thirds of the way up the Veterinary Medicine Ampitheatre, "if you want to know the answer to the fourth question, don't ask Jackson, ask me, he doesn't know any more than you do". That usually put an end to any collaboration in that particular course.
I shared an office in Foster Hall, across the street from Science Hall, with E.H. Hughins. Ernie was from Bryan, but had graduated from Baylor. He was also a student of Sewell Hopkins so we took many courses together. He was an excellent student but a worrier. I would finish an exam in about forty minutes and Ernie would keep going over his paper until the professor took it away from him at the end of the hour, or later if the prof was not assertive. When we got the tests back, Ernie would have a 98 and I would have a 95; I just couldn't see that the extra three points were worth the additional twenty minutes.
Together, we took George Potter's graduate course in Comparative Anatomy (I worked out the anatomy of the largemouth bass and Ernie that of the cotton rat); Parasitology and Protozoology from Jim Mangrum; Helminthology from Sewell Hopkins; Vertebrate Histology and Advanced Invertebrate Zoology from Jim Mangrum; and I took Embryology from Howard Gravett.
Ernie subsequently got his Ph.D. in Parasitology under Lydell Thomas at Illinois, with his dissertation on the life cycle of a trematode parasite of the double crested cormorant. He has been a professor at North Dakota State University for many years and visited us while on active duty in the Naval Reserve at Sand Point Naval Air Station in Seattle.
Ernie did his Master's thesis on the helminth parasites of the cotton rat,” Sigmodon hispidus; I occasionally suggested to Ernie that he work on the parasites of the common Norway rat. There were enough of them in Foster Hall for a thesis; collecting them would eliminate both our rat problem (they came out and stared at you when you were working at night) and the need for field work. I thought Ernie's thesis problem was boring, perhaps because of my experience in rodent collecting and control in New Caledonia.
The research for my thesis was a lot more fun. I, most of the time accompanied by Pat, drove all over the State of Texas fishing for bass, unfortunately at our expense. Early on I explained to Pat that you had to collect bass by angling because conventional methods such as seining wouldn't work. The bass would swim faster than people could pull a seine and, when driven into a cul-de-sac, would jump over the top of the seine. The only recourse was catching them on hook and line; artificial lures were much more effective than bait and top water plugs or fly rod floating bass bugs were the most effective of all collecting devices. Relatively early in the project, Pat (to whom research consisted of analyzing some substance –petroleum hydrocarbons, blood, urine, etc -- in the laboratory) decided, or perhaps realized, she had been had. I was going to get a Master's degree for fishing all over the State of Texas. She really thought I should work harder and suffer more rather than enjoy doing my field work. I've always, then and now, believed that if you had fun doing research you could stay with it longer and do a better job. Although I have not always succeeded, I've tried to become involved only in research that I really wanted to do and would enjoy doing.
My modus operandi went something like this, we would arrive in a small town in a locality from which I needed material. After checking into a motel, I would go to the local Sporting Goods store, or to the Hardware or General store if the community was too small to support a separate Sporting Goods store. "I'm doing research on the largemouth bass and need to catch some. Who is the best bass fisherman in town?" I would almost always get one name, rarely two.
I would ascertain where he worked or lived and find him. "I'm doing research on bass all over the State and I need some from here. I understand you are the best bass fisherman in this part of the country and I'd sure appreciate your help." It never failed to work. They would take me to their favorite spots, frequently saying "I ain't never brought nobody here before, but this is the best place in these parts." "I'll never tell" I'd say --and I never did-- but I did have some fabulous bass fishing, oops, bass collecting, experiences. Once, while fishing an oxbow lake with a local expert near Silsbe in deep East Texas, I saw the biggest largemouth bass of my life.
I had walked out over the water on a large fallen tree for better access to potential locations of bass; casting with a bait casting reel and underwater plug to tree stumps and other "fishy" sites. I had retrieved the lure to within a foot of the log on which I was standing and, just as I was about to lift it out the water for another cast, the monster bass came out from beneath the log and engulfed the lure. With the rod tip down and less than a foot of line, she simply took the bait, rolled over and snapped the line, all in slow motion. However, I clearly saw that the characteristic stripe along the side was wider than my extended hand-- palm to middle finger-- and it was at least three feet long. I made my way back to the bank and sat down on a log, still shaking. My "guide", realizing something was amiss, joined me and asked what had happened. "I just lost a world record largemouth bass", I replied quaveringly. Two cigarettes later I was no longer shaking, but I had no desire for further fishing. That fish had to have weighed over twenty pounds; I've caught a lot of big bass since, but none were half the size of THE EAST
TEXAS MONSTER.
Another time I parked by a tavern below the dam at Eagle Mountain Lake near Ft. Worth (I have no idea why it was named Eagle Mountain, there were no mountains within 500 miles and no eagles in the last 100 years) and went to the nearby fish hatchery to try to talk the hatchery superintendent into letting me catch a few of his brood stock. I frequently tried that ploy, but it seldom worked; the superintendents were emotionally involved with their brood bass. However, when I could talk one out of a four or five pound mature fish, it would be loaded with helminth parasites. Most superintendents would turn me down, then offer to let me catch all the younger fish I wanted. It was not very challenging, one cast into the hatchery pond, one fish, whether five pounders or ten inch yearlings, but it did provide data and beat seining by a wide margin.
In that particular incident, the superintendent allowed me to catch a half-dozen juveniles but would have killed me if I had thrown anything with a barbed hook on it into the pond with his precious brood fish. I put the small ones on ice in a cooler in my car trunk and thought "what the hell, I'll go up on the dam for a few casts and maybe get lucky". Carrying my casting rod with a Heddon Pumpkinseed on a swivel at the end of the line (and nothing else), I trudged up the wall of the dam. Like most artificial reservoirs in Texas, the lake side of the dam was covered with a layer of imported rocks. As usual there was a typical Texas fisherman on the dam: blue overalls, 12 foot cane pole and live minnows. (I'm not being condescending-- that rig can be deadly on both bass and, especially, crappie under the proper conditions).
I asked the cane pole fisherman if he minded my making a few casts and was welcomed to the fishing. I made a long cast as near the rocks as I could and, after about three turns of the reel, had a solid strike. The fish hooked itself and, after a short but powerful fight, I landed it by wading out and grasping it by the lower jaw as it lay on its side on the surface. I didn't bother to take the lure out of its mouth there and started back over the dam to the car. The resident fisherman asked "aren't you going to fish anymore?" "No, I just needed one", I replied.
After depositing the five-pounder in the ice chest, I went into the tavern for a beer. The cane pole fisherman was there, having a beer and enlightening the other customers. "I just seen the God Damndest thing I ever seen in my life. This guy with one of them short poles with a reel on it and a artificial fish on the end of it throwed it out one time and caught the biggest damned bass I ever saw. He knew exactly what he was doing! When I asked him if he was quitting", he said " I only needed one". Fortunately, I was in a booth in a dark corner and he didn't notice me so I didn't have to explain how the world’s greatest bass fisherman knew how to catch a five pound bass on the first cast at a new site.
The best fishing of all, however, was at Lake Texhoma, a new reservoir created by damming the Red River at Dennison, Texas. The Red River is the boundary between Texas and Oklahoma for most of northeast Texas and southern Oklahoma, hence the name Texhoma. The biologist for the Texas Department of Fish and Game was Homer Buck, a fellow Wildlife major and classmate at A&M. He fished the lake every day and knew all the best fishing spots. I think I limited (10 bass) every time I fished with Homer. My most memorable experience was a Sunday morning on Platter Flats, my first Lake Texhoma fishing trip.
I spent Saturday night at Homer's apartment and we were up well before dawn. While we were having breakfast at a local cafe, Homer mentioned that he would like to get back for 9:00 o'clock Mass. I had a sinking feeling that I was facing a shortened fishing trip, but I did not realize either the numbers or voraciousness of the Texhoma Bass nor Homer's knowledge of their whereabouts.
We put the boat in the water and headed out, at top speed, into the darkness. After a run of 20 minutes or so, Homer cut off the motor and we glided into a surrealistic, almost erie, scene. Wisps of fog were rising from the water and clinging to numerous emergent dead tree limbs; in the half-light of dawn, it looked like the opening scene of a black and white horror movie. "This is Platter Flats", Homer said, "it's shallow and these drowned trees provide a fantastic habitat for bass. We'll catch a lot of them, but you have to fish for them in a special way."
Homer handed me a bass plug (artificial lure) I had not seen before, a Heddon Chugger Spook. "Cast this out as far as you can, jerk it hard, and reel in as fast as you can." I knew he was putting me on; everybody knew you cast a topwater bass plug to an appropriate spot, let it sit while you lit a cigarette, then gently twitched it to entice any waiting bass to attack the crippled creature. Therefore, not taken in by Homer's con, I cast to a likely spot by a protruding tree limb, let it float while the ripples from its splash slowly expanded. Meanwhile, and before I could light the mandatory cigarette, Homer cast into the open water and began threshing the water with the Chugger, sending up a plume of water three feet into the air. Just as I was thinking "that's the craziest thing I ever saw", I saw several V-shaped bow waves converging on the rapidly moving lure. The first to arrive intercepted it, engulfed it, and when the hooks were set erupted into the air.
I immediately got the picture and began "horsing" my own Chugger, with the same result. We got back to Denison with plenty of time for Homer to make 9:00 O'clock Mass and two limits (20) largemouth bass, all looking like littermates at almost exactly three pounds each.
Upon returning to College Station with a collection of bass, I would move them from the cooler to a refrigerator until I could "post" them. The postmortem examination was initiated by an incision from beside the anus to the gills. The entire digestive tract was removed and placed in a vessel containing Ringer's Solution (a salt solution at about the salinity of blood). After examining the body cavity for encysted or free-living worms, the urogenital system (kidneys, ureters, and urinary bladder; gonads and gonadal ducts) were treated similarly. Then the gills were removed and placed in Ringer's. Finally, the skin, fins and muscles were examined for encysted helminths. All organs were opened, the G.I. tract from esophagus to anus, and examined with the aid of a stereoscopic microscope. All helminths, of which there were many, were carefully removed, "fixed" in appropriate fixatives for subsequent staining.
Looking for the helminths was even more fun than the fishing. There was nothing in the literature on the parasites of the largemouth bass in Texas, so everything I found was new information. I had carefully assembled all the published reports on bass parasites by requesting reprints from the authors after locating the original articles in journals in the library. At Sewell's suggestion, I wrote a personal letter rather than using a printed reprint request form. That was prior to the days of Grants, so everyone had to pay for reprints out of their own pocket. As Sewell pointed out, someone would be far more likely to send you an expensive reprint if you explained why you needed it for your own research. An important side benefit was that I became acquainted, via the U.S. Postal system, with some of the foremost parasitologists in the United States.
Several times in early 1949, Dr. Hopkins said "Sparks, you'd better get started on your thesis, it's going to take a lot of time and you're not going to finish in June if you don't get
busy". I would always answer, "I'm working on it"; I was. I was thinking about it, but the truth was that I hadn't put the first word on paper. I did have Camera Lucida drawings of each species of worm, and my postmortem records on each fish I had examined.
One Friday afternoon in the Spring of 1949, I took all my records and drawings and a couple of pads of lined paper home with me. I sat down at the dining room table, in the Joham's house on Chocolaco we were leasing, and told Pat I was going to write my thesis. Mid-afternoon on Sunday, I said, "would you like to go to the movies? I’m finished".
I took the pencil copy to Mr. Richardson, in charge of Equipment and Supplies for the Biology Department, who had agreed to type my thesis at a reasonable fee. The G.I. Bill paid most of the cost of thesis typing, but some came out of your pocket. He looked at it and said, "This is in pretty good shape, if you want to gamble we may be able to save you some money. I'll skip the rough draft and type it in final form, with all the carbons (photocopying had not been invented, or probably not even thought of in those Paleolithic days. You'll break even if I have to retype half of it, anything less and you're ahead." A few days later he brought me the original and required number of carbon copies on onion skin paper.
I took copies to Potter, Turk, the Graduate School member of my committee and Hopkins. Dr. Hopkins appeared surprised. "You really have been working on it", he said. In less than a week I had all copies back. George Potter insisted on some picky change that necessitated the retyping of one page; everyone else returned with no changes requested. I learned an extremely valuable lesson that helped me immeasurably with my own graduate student's theses and manuscripts: People are reluctant to deface a pristine page that appears to be in final form. The same reviewers, editors, etc will savagely attack a document with even one penciled-in correction on it.
I was particularly amazed that Hopkins did not find more to change; he was a real scholar and savored the English language. I never told Sewell Hopkins, or anyone at Texas A&M, that I wrote my Master's Thesis over part of a weekend and had the final draft typed from the handwritten first draft. Neither he nor the other members of my committee would have believed it, but Pat knows it's true.
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