HIGH TEMPER: POST #53

There are some things that a fellow who is about 7-8 years old just finds hard to understand. I had never heard the term, "High Temper" until I was about that age and I had no idea what it meant until it was used to describe something that I had just seen. At Herman Junction we lived next to a man who farmed quite a bit of land and we share-cropped with him. Dad worked on the railroad but he and the older boys worked making a crop and working with our neighbor, Mr. Claude Montgomery. Mr. Montgomery was a fine man but he had some peculiar ways that I didn't understand at all.

One day Mr. Montgomery's cows got out of the fenced in lot where he kept them. I guess that Mom or one of the boys saw him out chasing cows all over the place and so they ran to help. Cows were going in every direction, in the railroad ditch, up on top of the railroad, and right down the middle of old highway 63. Finally Mr. Montgomery caught one of the cows that was not yet fully grown but was not just a baby calf either. He tackled that calf, threw him down on the ground, and nearly chewed his ear off! I was shocked. I could think of ways to punish that cow maybe, but not by chewing his ear almost completely off. I just stood there like a stump! I suppose that I wondered what he would do to me if I displeased him in some way. After getting all out of that ear that he wanted, he let the cow up and it went straight to the lot where it was supposed to be. Little wonder! I suppose that I would have straightened up too. Well, when we discussed that later Mom said, "He has a "High Temper". So, now I knew something new.

I saw another example of Mr. Montgomery's "High Temper" later. One day his tractor would not start. He worked on it for some time and tried to start it and it wouldn't start and then he would do that again and again. After several failed attempts at getting the tractor running, he stood back from the tractor a little, took a big monkey wrench and beat the tar out of that tractor motor. He broke things all to pieces. It still didn't start! You know I have wanted to do that with my car or some other thing that wouldn't run when I wanted it to, but I have never followed through with it. I don't know what he did nor how much it cost him but I do remember the tractor running later.

A high temper never accomplishes good. I remember having a "High Temper" myself as a younger fellow. One time I kicked a hole in the wall of our living room. I don't remember why I did it. But, I will tell you that I was dreading when Dad got home and saw that busted wall. You know, he didn't do anything to me about it but he said, "If I had been here I would have made another hole with his head."

I have since noted that there was something funny about my 'High Temper" and I suppose that the same thing is true of most people. It was easy for me to lose my temper with my little sisters and brother and maybe with others who were younger and smaller than me. But it seemed that I could always control my temper in other situations. It seemed to me like a six foot, three inch, 153 pound guy didn't have any business losing his temper with a 200 pound six foot, three inch guy. For the life of me I cannot remember ever losing my temper with Waylon Russell, Winston Holmes, Bob Inboden, or a lot of other guys that I knew. It seemed so much easier to control my temper under those circumstances. Maybe it was because I loved my teeth too much. So, I have tried through the years to bring my high temper under control and I have made some good progress. And, when I do lose it, I don't try to find some cow so that I can chew his ear off. If I am around Herman Junction I send for Jack to take care of the problem for me.