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It’s not unusual to walk into any cafe
in Texas, in the early morning or late afternoon hours, and find a
table full of older men drinking coffee, laughing and swapping
stories. The Hwy 6 Café, in DeLeon, Texas, is no different.
Charles Chupp, a 78-year-old man with
the look of a weathered cowboy and the soul of a poet, can often be
found at these gatherings, and while he does his share of talking,
those who know Chupp well know it’s when he’s listening that he’s
happiest. Because once the other coffee drinkers go back to their
ranching, farming, or desk jobs, Chupp will often times head home
with enough material for another edition of his “Got No Reason to
Lie” column.
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Photo by
Laura Kestner |
Those columns, peppered with homespun
humor and wisdom, Latin phrases, and the occasional French curse
word, have been a featured addition to the local newspaper since the
early 1980s, when Chupp moved “back home” to DeLeon after working
and raising his family in West Texas. When he’s not writing about
the comical mishaps and antics of his friends, he often writes about
his own hardscrabble childhood in rural DeLeon. He’s also devoted
many hours to writing about his life and the experiences that came
between that childhood and these “coffee years” including 35 years
as a right-of-way negotiator for a major electrical supply company.
Of course, an observational humor column is not the ideal fit for
all narratives, and through the years Chupp has used many different
means to share his talents. He’s published six books, a magazine,
and, for five years in the 1990s, a newspaper.
“I write just about every morning,”
Chupp said. “I write for about two hours when I first get up, at
about 4 o’clock. I guess I’ve always had a bad conscience,” he added
with a laugh, “because I can’t sleep long. Around four hours a
night’s about all I make it.”
Chupp does all that writing with a
Scripto pencil, on a lined pad. “I’ve never used a computer,” he
said. “There are two typewriters in the house, and a computer, but
they were both used by Margaret.”
Margaret was Chupp’s child-bride,
having married him when “she was just a lass of 15.” The two were
wed in 1950, and Margaret passed away, due to complications from
Alzheimer’s, in March of 2008. For years, in addition to raising his
children, and working, she also typed his columns and dealt with the
day-to-day issues of his publishing. Charles always referred to her
as “Ol Margaret” or “my first wife, Margaret.” His faithful readers
got the joke of course -- Margaret was the one and only love of his
life. Chupp always ended each of his columns the same way, with “Let
me hear from you, Ol’ Margaret, my operator, is standing by.” He
quietly dropped those words from his column, permanently, in
February of 2007, and the next month let the readers in on what was
happening to Margaret, and the struggles the family had endured
during the past year. He noted that when Margaret, for her own
safety, was placed in a care facility, he “suffered the most
devastating loss in my 77 years on this planet” and that, “the
wounds to my soul may scab over, but I doubt they will ever heal.”
That ability to write -- to express his
thoughts, emotions, joy or pain with the written word – knowing that
sometimes it moves people to tears and other times makes them laugh,
is not a responsibility that Chupp takes lightly. “I absolutely love
to write,” Chupp said. “And I know if I can make people laugh that
it’ll make for a better day. But there are those rare occasions when
I have something else to say -- when I know it’s going to make
people sad, or maybe just thoughtful. Words are my Lincoln Logs, and
I just build to suit the occasion.”
Once he starts writing, Chupp said he
writes straight through. “First tell the story,” he said. “Then if
you need to edit it, do it. But don’t stop writing and check things
all the time – just write it.”
While his methods may not work for
everyone, Chupp figures “there’s no sense in fixing something that
ain’t broke.”
“I’ve written for profit since I was in
high school,” he laughed, “when I wrote essays for some of the other
kids. My teacher, Miss Roger Mae Smith, used to say ‘Charles, I know
you wrote it – I can’t prove it -- but I know you wrote it.’”
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"To bee or not to bee"
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Copyright©1982 Charles Chupp |
Interestingly enough, Chupp’s also
gifted in other mediums and is, in fact, a well-known artist.
Although much of his art work has a western touch, he’s equally
adept at more traditional pieces, and much of his work grace homes,
businesses and galleries across Texas.
He and a friend, Harley Murray, were
the founding members of The Texas Wild Bunch, a group of independent
artists who joined together in the 1970s and “showed everywhere
there was a shade.” According to Chupp, the group was formed because
galleries kept going up on their commissions.
“We were showing at a gallery in
Ruidoso, New Mexico, one in Wyoming, some in Dallas and Fort Worth,”
Chupp said, “and they got to where they were taking 40 percent. Of
course, they got a lot of money for our work, but me and Harley
decided we’d just cut out the middle man. We’d book our own shows.
The elastic limit was 30 – we wouldn’t have over 30 members,” Chupp
said. “And most of the time we were at about 30. If they moved out
of Texas, they had to drop out of The Wild Bunch. Or if they got too
big for their breeches, or got mad at somebody. We always had a
waiting list – I guess we still do.”
Chupp said that eventually, two of the
members were named State Artists – George Hallmark and George
Boutwell. “Boutwell’s still in the Bunch,” Chupp said. “He’s running
it now. They bestowed old Harley and me with lifetime member status,
because we’re so old,” he laughed.
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"Saturday Night"
—
Copyright©1972 Charles Chupp |
Chupp also free-lanced cartoons, and
punch lines for other cartoons, in his younger days. The Walt Disney
Company thought Chupp showed promise, and encouraged him to contact
them again when he turned 21. But by then, he was married, and in
the military, and never gave it any further consideration.
Even though his column has been
published under the “Got No Reason to Lie” header since the 1980s,
Charles said that he wrote similar pieces as far back as the 1950s.
“I didn’t call it Got No Reason to Lie back then,” he said, “but I
wrote for Joe Small’s True West magazine down in Austin. The
first piece was published in 1954.”
Discussing other writing ventures,
Chupp describes the late Star Telegram columnist, George
Dolan, as his buddy, and describes a unique relationship wherein he
supplied Dolan with material for “hundreds” of his observational
pieces. After Dolan’s death, in the mid 80s, a book of his work was
published, and Chupp received recognition for those efforts with the
following passage: “Chupp was a friend of George Dolan’s and was
also the source of many funny stories for Dolan’s column.”
“At the same time I was writing for
him,” Chupp said, “I was writing for Texas Art Circles, and others I
can’t even remember.”
Although he doesn’t remember all the
places he’s been published through the years, a more recent one
really stands out in Chupp’s mind.
“I wrote for the New Hampshire
Gazette,” he said, explaining how he’d “beguiled” the publisher
to print his pieces. “I read somewhere that it was the oldest
newspaper ever published in America that was still in print. And my
friend Fred Turner was going to New York, so I told the old boy up
there that I was going to send my agent by.” The articles Chupp
submitted, political pieces, were published several times. Chupp
noted that Turner, a friend for the past 16 years, handles all his
computer and Internet needs, including the prep work for the book
publications.
Even though Chupp’s columns are filled
with small town vernacular and colloquialisms, he’s actually a very
well-educated and well-read man, and will occasionally throw in a
word or two that has readers running for their dictionaries – just
to make sure people are paying attention.
Chupp said that two stints in the U.S.
Army put him through college.
“I was inducted into the Army in 1948,”
he said. “I was there 13 or 14 months, and then they sent us home.
Then the Korean War started, and there I went again. I didn’t go
overseas, I was stationed at Fort Hood the last time I was in. I was
in special services. I was an illustrator for a newspaper – I think
they called it “Tracks and Half Tracks” -- for a tank division.”
Once he was home, Chupp used the G.I.
Bill to attend classes at Odessa Junior College and Sul Ross
University -- all while juggling a career and family. “I went to
college at night – from 6 p.m. to 10:20,” he said. “I was working 40
hours a week, at Texas Electric Service Company (TESCO) and I worked
for an architect on the weekends, drawing house plans.”
Born in 1929, Chupp likes to say that
his parents, Hugh and Thelma Chupp, didn’t blame him for the
Depression, nor the Depression for him – and that they went on to
have two more children, John Franklin and Benny Wayne. His most
recent book “Frankly Speaking” focuses on his early childhood,
particularly his brother John Franklin.
“I think this book is my favorite,”
Chupp said. “I didn’t start out to make it about him (John
Franklin); he just sort of took over. That’s something that’ll
surprise you sometimes when you’re writing a book, the thing you
started out writing about comes in in second place. Damn if I can
understand it.”
His grandmother, Nancy Webster
Brownlee, known to the family as Gogo, is also featured prominently
in Frankly Speaking. “She had 12 kids,” Chupp said, “including my
mother, and they were scattered from hell to breakfast, and whenever
any of them would get enough money together for a bus ticket for
her, she’d take off from here and would go, go, go.”
Many of Chupp’s preferences and beliefs
make him more interesting than the people he writes about. He never
eats meat, but says that is not for religious or health reasons –
he’s just never liked the thought of eating animal flesh. He also
never reads a finished piece of writing, after it’s published, and
he tries not to look at his art work again.
“When I finish writing a book, I never
look back at it,” Chupp said. “And I never really look at my
pictures again, because once they put it behind glass, or in a
frame, there’s nothing else I can do, and I don’t want to see it.”
Chupp confessed that he often finds himself wishing he could make
changes, and, of course, by then it’s too late. So once he “lets go”
of his creations, he never looks back.
Chupp is often invited to appear at
various club and society luncheons to do a “reading.”
“I tell them I don’t do readings,” he
said. “I say, ‘I’ll tell you a story, but I’m not going to read out
of one of my books.’”
In addition to writing and painting,
Chupp served as DeLeon’s mayor during the 1990s, as well as serving
on the school board. It was during that time that he also published
a newspaper, DeLeon’s Monitor, as well as a regional
magazine, The Messenger. Both publications were family
efforts, and the resulting Texas Press Association awards still
grace Chupp’s wall.
Now that he’s retired from publishing (after having already retired
from the electric company), and sold the newspaper and magazine, and
cut way back on any art work, Chupp said that except for the column
and books, his family and dog Butterfly, are the focal points of his
life. During their 50 plus years together, he and Margaret had two
children, Ace and Tracy; three grandchildren, Taylor Anne, Mercedes
and Audrey; and two great-grandchildren, Angel and Alia. Butterfly
was Margaret’s beloved pet poodle, and brought much comfort to the
couple during Margaret’s struggle with Alzheimer’s. Butterfly is now
Charles’ constant companion.
The following brief passage, from
Frankly Speaking (which covers a time period of November, 1940 to
December, 1941) reveals why, at age 78, Charles Chupp may feel that
it’s important to keep going – he’s just a natural born
story-teller: “It had been a long day, and I still hadn’t been
converted, but that was now a small problem. Hugh, Thel and Gogo
were huddled around the radio listening to all the details of the
bombing in Hawaii. I lit up a Chesterfield snipe and Sooner treed a
squirrel in the oak tree outside the corral. “Thanks Boss,” I
whispered, as Sooner held the squirrel at bay and John Franklin sat
on top of the house looking for Japanese airplanes. I regretted all
the trouble I’d caused by asking for this freedom to sin a little
while longer.”
“I don’t really know if being able to
write is a blessing or a curse,” Chupp said recently, “but it’s all
I think about. Once I get an idea, the only way to get rid of it, is
to write it. It bugs me in my head.” When asked about his plans to
retire completely, Chupp’s answer was a simple one. “I ain’t to the
quittin place yet.” And Chupp fans everywhere, breathed a sigh of
relief.
For more information on Charles Chupp,
visit his website
www.charleschupp.com |
