State Wars Day 4 > The Battle of Famous People …. Texas has a whole herd of famous folks; here are two I know personally.

This battle on day four of State Wars plays right into my hand as they say in poker, I could easily put together a Royal Flush hand and send the rest of the states packing and looking for a way out with all the famous Texans this state has produced over the years. In the spirit of kindness though I am only going to play 2 cards, both are high powered cards though, both are aces, here in Texas and around the world. So sit back and enjoy the ride with my first ace.

Folks in Indiana might want to claim this man as one of their own but he is pure Texan 100% through and through. The reason that Indiana people might want to claim him is because he made the Indianapolis Motor Speedway his personal playground for about 50 years. Super Tex is the name folks around Indy call him, but here in his home state he’s just A.J., and if you happen to be good friends with him like I am, you can just call him “old man”.

Even if you are not an Indy Car race fan you know the name A.J. Foyt, Jr. unless you are under 25 years old or have been living under a rock your entire life. A.J. has 5 Indy 500 Championships to his credit, he drove to 4 of those wins and the other he has as the car owner when Kenny Brack won the Indy 500 in 1999.

A J wasn’t a one trick pony; if it had four wheels and an engine he could drive it and win. He is the only race car driver in history to win the Indy 500, the Daytona 500, and the 24 Hours of Le Mans road race event. He has in the past won races in every category of open wheel cars that were raced in the USA under an American sanctioning body. He never raced Formula 1 or he probably would have won in that as well.

Speaking of ponies; A.J. over the years was also involved in thoroughbred horse racing as an owner, his farm raised a real nice stud horse that was undefeated leading up to the Kentucky Derby one year and was the early on favorite to win , but had to be scratched from the race due to a sore tendon. The horse’s name was Rare Brick, he went on to sire some real good race horses that the Foyt Ranch raised and trained.

A J is the real deal, genuine good guy with his fans and while he does have a reputation of being a hot head at times it is only when people act like jackasses and won’t let him be when he asks them to leave him alone. How A J and I became friends is documented in an earlier post of my Daily Dose column from 10/13/17, here is the link in case you would like to read it, https://steemit.com/story/@sultnpapper/daily-dose-of-sultnpapper-10-13-17-my-old-friend-who-almost-shot-michael-jackson and yes, he almost did shoot Michael Jackson.

Next up in my famous Texan pair of aces is Lyle Lovett. Lyle and I have been friends just about as long as A J and I have been friends. Lyle and I are about the same age, actually he is a couple years younger and we have a lot of things in common. We both like pretty women and as most of you know he married one back in 1993 by the name of Julia, yep that pretty woman. At the time when he was marrying Julia he and I really didn’t know each other that well, but I was invited to the wedding. You see, my fiancé at the time was Lyle’s first cousin; and so I got an invitation but I elected to pass on the wedding, I hate flying in small private jets and so I said “Thanks but, I have some previous plans for the weekend.”

Well it really was a good thing I didn’t go, that wedding ended up causing some hard feelings among family members. Fact is when my wife and I got married in 1994; the whole Lovett clan boycotted our wedding. It also worked out good for me because Lyle would sing at all the family weddings and one thing I had made perfectly clear was that he wouldn’t be singing at my wedding, and I made that clear before the falling out.

But time does heal wounds, and such was the case with the family stuff, so since about 1996 we have been pretty good friends. He would always come watch the kids play baseball at the local sports park when he was in town and it really messed with people’s minds that he was there watching youth baseball. I will tell you that he is a genuine nice guy; he always would take the time to visit with folks and sign autographs. Fortunately youth baseball games don’t get a lot of spectators, and they are usually the same people so by the time he had been there for like the third game folks just left him alone.

In 2002 he had a run in with a young bull named Cotton, and that bull ended up pinning his right leg up against the wood fence boards in the corral where the bull was penned up. It was a freak accident that was caused by Lyle’s uncle. I don’t know what I am allowed to tell or not, but since my wife won’t be proof reading this I’ll tell it all. Lyle and Uncle Calvin were in the pen where Cotton stayed, he actually was more of pet than a wild bull. They were in that pen looking at a dead tree that needed to be removed; Calvin was going to see if his Mexicans could cut it down and remove it. Well, Cotton kept coming over and brushing up against Calvin so Calvin got mad, picked up a brick and hit Cotton with the brick. Well that young bull didn’t take kindly to Calvin hitting him and so he lowered his head and charged Calvin. Uncle Calvin was knocked to the ground pretty hard, and Cotton was going after him pretty good.

The truth is that had Lyle not stepped in and played bull fighter Uncle Calvin might have been done for, Lyle smacked the bull on his head and the bull immediately raised up and started after Lyle. He lead the bull down the fence line while a couple others pulled Calvin out of the pen, when Lyle saw that Calvin was safe he went to scramble over the fence and was just a little too slow getting over it, the bull lowered his head and shoulder and plowed into Lyle’s right leg. Calvin ended up in the nearby hospital in Tomball. Lyle’s leg was broken in several place and a life flight helicopter ended up taking him to Houston. I got a call from my wife and she told me what hospital so I went to the emergency room to check on his condition. Hospitals have this thing about when they have celebrity patients, they always act like they don’t know what you are talking about, and it was no different with this lady at the ER that day. I told her, “look lady , he’s here, he’s family and I want to see him. Take my driver’s license and go show it to him and then come back and tell me he’s not here.”

After about five minutes I was able to see him, just before he went back for x-rays, he was in a bunch of pain and they hadn’t even shot him up with any pain killers. I’m no doctor but even I knew he needed some pain medicine. So they gave a shot and took him back for x-rays, when he came back and the x-rays came back I was able to look at them with his doctor. The x-ray of that lower leg looked like a jigsaw puzzle, there were bone pieces pointing in all different directions.

His doctor was an old Texan named Doctor Red Duke, he had the little bi-focal glasses and the big handle bar mustache and a voice that was pure Texas gold. He always did a health segment on the ABC affiliate station in Houston each week. At the very end of his segment he would end it, “from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, I’m Dr. Red Duke.” Well Dr. Duke and Lyle were friends and so when Dr. Red looked over the x-rays he said, “Lyle, this ain’t good, normally with an injury like this we would take it off just below the knee, but I think this time we’ll just take the knee and all.” Then as Lyle was trying to process what he had just heard Dr. Red broke into a little grin and smile, and told him that it could be fixed but it wasn’t going to be easy and the recovery time was going to be about a good year long process.
So as they got Lyle ready for surgery I stayed with his mother who had just gotten there, the surgery took almost 6 hours. When he came out he had pins on the inside and three of those “halo rings” on the outside of his leg. It was a sight for sure, and it took every bit of the year before he was actually walking without pain.

One thing that I do want to tell you is that on the internet there are all kinds of stories about Lyle having a “morbid” fear of cattle. Let me assure you that is a bunch of hog wash. Lyle is big into reining horses and competes in reining competitions as his schedule allows. He also competes in cutting horse celebrity competitions up at the National Cutting Horse Association Futurity in Fort Worth, Tx. and he still has cattle on his ranch in Klein. I know, we go over and visit on a pretty regular basis.

Lyle is still touring and does a lot of shows with his good friends Robert Earl Keen & John Hiatt but I look for his touring schedule to be reduced quite a bit in the upcoming future. He's got some more important things to take care of now on his ranch, and he isn't a spring chicken any longer, that life on the road is tough on a person.

He’s a good family man, still even sings with the church choir when he is in town. He sings the song, “Silent Night”, in German at the Christmas Eve services. So if you get a chance to see him in person you had better take it now, or plan on being with us on Christmas Eve.

One of his songs that is very fitting for this State Wars competition I have attached to this post from You Tube, take a listen and enjoy .

We have plenty of other famous folks from Texas but I enjoy telling about people and things I have firsthand knowledge of, thus you get my pair of Aces. There will be other great Texans listed in the other posts so be sure to stop by and read them as well.
So the day for battle is in the books for me,
Until next we meet,
@sultnpapper

All photos are property of @sultnpapper ( yes, that is Lyle and Calvin) the video is from YouTube