Dial the clock forward to the fall of 1979. My brother had joined me in 1976 in the construction business after he finished a six year stint in the Army. We had contracted to build a nice housing subdivision on RR 2222 in west Austin, The Cliff’s Over Lake Austin. Kenny & I walked down through that heavily wooded piece of property and found a wealth of great straight cedar trees that was perfect of harvesting cedar posts for fence building. So rather than send a dozer through to clear we decided to put a crew of chainsaw wielding Mexicans together to maximize our profits. Kenny ran onto Glenn in Marble Falls and struck a deal with him to come be a foremen over that crew. Something he was very familiar with. His job was to keep the guys lined out, the saws running and the chains sharp.

They had been working on that project a few weeks when Christmas came along. Back in those days it was customary to give all the guys a small Christmas bonus check, a frozen turkey or ham and a bottle of whiskey to celebrate the season with. The Cliff’s Over Lake Austin was a fairly central location, so we sent word that at an appointed time we would all meet there. Kenny and our bookkeeper Woody, an elderly fellow, gathered up everything and I along with about 50 guys met them there. 

They pulled down inside the cleared site so everyone could have a few beers out of sight of anyone. I stopped along-side of the highway, I was driving a new 80’ Buick Riviera and didn’t want to scratch it up. I walked down a path to join the others. We stood around, everyone visiting with chainsaws still running far off in the background when Kenny walked to the back door of his pickup and retrieved a big box. It was my Christmas present that all of the employees had gone together to buy. In the box was a beautiful 1000x beaver cowboy hat. That is the best quality hat known to man. Even that long ago, it still cost around $500. I proudly removed it from the box and with its perfect crease and shape put it on my head. Every man in attendance couldn’t have been prouder. With the sound of the saws going silent, Glenn and the guys came up out of the brush to join us. Glenn was mostly unknown to all the other hands, as he had been hired and put on that project away from all the others.

As Glenn walked up he started admiring the new hat. He knew a good hat when he saw one. The thinner the felt of the brim the better quality. This hat seemed almost paper thin. He said “here let me see it”. I said no way, because his hands were filthy grimy from working on chain saws all day. He walk over to a truck and got some go-jo hand cleaner out and carefully cleaned his hands using water from a drinking can. Seeing his hands were clean I handed him the hat. He turned it this way and that way admiring it. He still didn’t know that I had been given the hat by my loyal employees. Suddenly he started wadding the hat up, rolling it in against his oily dirty jacket that covered his belly. Within seconds the hat became a ruined mess. 

Everyone was stunned, especially me. I grabbed the hat from him and stormed out of there in a huff, getting in my fine automobile and left.

A couple of miles down the road something exploded inside me. I turned around and headed back. As if it were in a movie, me driving as fast as I could going back, I hit the shoulder of the road, locked up my brakes and slid right up to where I’d been previously parked. Kenny & Glenn at the same moment appeared out of the brush with many others behind them. In a huge cloud of dust I flung my door open, stepped out and immediately grabbed to back of Glenn’s big heavy denim jacket, pulling it up over his head, locking his arms in a fully upward position. He was helpless to move. One hand tightly holding on to the jacket, the other made into a tight fist I went to work on his face, completely transforming it. That lasted for a short while, with him finally tripping me up (at the time he would go 260 lbs. to my 165 lbs.) we tumbled to the ground. At that point Kenny any others stepped in to separate us. I’ll always remember how Glenn’s face resembled a package of raw hamburger meat more than it did and human face.

With my shirt torn almost completely off, I headed across town to home. It was the evening we were hosting a Christmas Party for Madeline’s family. They were all there when I arrived. Even Alice Sayers. All I had to do was tell them it was something Glenn Lewis was involved in.

Glenn left that day and didn’t return. He really wouldn’t have been welcomed back. We didn’t speak again for a few years. Soon afterward he married, took a job on the Arrowhead Ranch and lived out the rest of his life without nearly as much calamity. He was building fence along a highway one day a few years later. Seeing him I turned around and went back. We stood on the side of road for a long while remembering the many different memories we had. We visited many other times until his passing in early 2012, each time jokingly the hat incident was brought up. I’ll never know whether that afternoon on the side of RR 2222 changed him or getting married did it. I suspect it was some of both, but he undoubtedly was a changed man for the last half of his life.

Footnote: Kenny sent the hat off to the Resitol Factory for me and they cleaned, blocked and made it look completely new. That my friend is why good quality hats are well worth the money.

Glenn and the Hat Story:

Dial the clock forward to the fall of 1979. My brother had joined me in 1976 in the construction business after he finished a six year stint in the Army. We had contracted to build a nice housing subdivision on RR 2222 in west Austin, The Cliff’s Over Lake Austin. Kenny & I walked down through that heavily wooded piece of property and found a wealth of great straight cedar trees that was perfect of harvesting cedar posts for fence building. So rather than send a dozer through to clear we decided to put a crew of chainsaw wielding Mexicans together to maximize our profits. Kenny ran onto Glenn in Marble Falls and struck a deal with him to come be a foremen over that crew. Something he was very familiar with. His job was to keep the guys lined out, the saws running and the chains sharp.

They had been working on that project a few weeks when Christmas came along. Back in those days it was customary to give all the guys a small Christmas bonus check, a frozen turkey or ham and a bottle of whiskey to celebrate the season with. The Cliff’s Over Lake Austin was a fairly central location, so we sent word that at an appointed time we would all meet there. Kenny and our bookkeeper Woody, an elderly fellow, gathered up everything and I along with about 50 guys met them there. 

They pulled down inside the cleared site so everyone could have a few beers out of sight of anyone. I stopped along-side of the highway, I was driving a new 80’ Buick Riviera and didn’t want to scratch it up. I walked down a path to join the others. We stood around, everyone visiting with chainsaws still running far off in the background when Kenny walked to the back door of his pickup and retrieved a big box. It was my Christmas present that all of the employees had gone together to buy. In the box was a beautiful 1000x beaver cowboy hat. That is the best quality hat known to man. Even that long ago, it still cost around $500. I proudly removed it from the box and with its perfect crease and shape put it on my head. Every man in attendance couldn’t have been prouder. With the sound of the saws going silent, Glenn and the guys came up out of the brush to join us. Glenn was mostly unknown to all the other hands, as he had been hired and put on that project away from all the others.

As Glenn walked up he started admiring the new hat. He knew a good hat when he saw one. The thinner the felt of the brim the better quality. This hat seemed almost paper thin. He said “here let me see it”. I said no way, because his hands were filthy grimy from working on chain saws all day. He walk over to a truck and got some go-jo hand cleaner out and carefully cleaned his hands using water from a drinking can. Seeing his hands were clean I handed him the hat. He turned it this way and that way admiring it. He still didn’t know that I had been given the hat by my loyal employees. Suddenly he started wadding the hat up, rolling it in against his oily dirty jacket that covered his belly. Within seconds the hat became a ruined mess. 

Everyone was stunned, especially me. I grabbed the hat from him and stormed out of there in a huff, getting in my fine automobile and left.

A couple of miles down the road something exploded inside me. I turned around and headed back. As if it were in a movie, me driving as fast as I could going back, I hit the shoulder of the road, locked up my brakes and slid right up to where I’d been previously parked. Kenny & Glenn at the same moment appeared out of the brush with many others behind them. In a huge cloud of dust I flung my door open, stepped out and immediately grabbed to back of Glenn’s big heavy denim jacket, pulling it up over his head, locking his arms in a fully upward position. He was helpless to move. One hand tightly holding on to the jacket, the other made into a tight fist I went to work on his face, completely transforming it. That lasted for a short while, with him finally tripping me up (at the time he would go 260 lbs. to my 165 lbs.) we tumbled to the ground. At that point Kenny any others stepped in to separate us. I’ll always remember how Glenn’s face resembled a package of raw hamburger meat more than it did and human face.

With my shirt torn almost completely off, I headed across town to home. It was the evening we were hosting a Christmas Party for Madeline’s family. They were all there when I arrived. Even Alice Sayers. All I had to do was tell them it was something Glenn Lewis was involved in.

Glenn left that day and didn’t return. He really wouldn’t have been welcomed back. We didn’t speak again for a few years. Soon afterward he married, took a job on the Arrowhead Ranch and lived out the rest of his life without nearly as much calamity. He was building fence along a highway one day a few years later. Seeing him I turned around and went back. We stood on the side of road for a long while remembering the many different memories we had. We visited many other times until his passing in early 2012, each time jokingly the hat incident was brought up. I’ll never know whether that afternoon on the side of RR 2222 changed him or getting married did it. I suspect it was some of both, but he undoubtedly was a changed man for the last half of his life.

Footnote: Kenny sent the hat off to the Resitol Factory for me and they cleaned, blocked and made it look completely new. That my friend is why good quality hats are well worth the money.