Page 6 - Amarillo Senior Link Magazine Summer 2020- Online Magazine

Artist, Bob Lile

IN HIS OWN WORDS

I entered life on June
7, 1940 in Perryton,
TX, born the middle
child of Jesse and
Vada (Morgan) Lile.
Dad had worked for
50 cents a day during
the Depression and
“dirty thirties”, hanging
telephone line in the
Oklahoma Panhandle.
When the US joined
WWII, my family
moved to Wichita,
Kansas where my
father worked for Beech
Aircraft and joined
the National Guard.
We lived in a housing
project of apartments
converted from military
barracks. I got in
trouble a lot.
old, I would sit on the front row Since no houses were available
My mother listened to the radio of church with the older boys and in Booker, Dad, my grandad and
and sang along while dad was sing. Even at that age, I could some friends found an old wooden
at work, so I learned the words harmonize to almost any song. granary in the country, cut it in
to lots of songs. I used to stand Much later, I sang Barbershop two, and hauled it to town. They
on the stoop and sing, and the Harmony with Amarillo’s Golden put it back together, added a room
lady across from us would listen. Spread Chorus and the Wizards of with some used lumber, and that
She called me “Frankie Sinatra”, Harmony Chorus in the Oklahoma was our home.
and I called her “Stinky Pot Mrs. Panhandle.
Brown”. She bought me a black The summer before I started
clip-on bow tie. At the end of the war, we moved school, I met several boys my age.
back to Booker, in the Texas Some of their mothers worked,
Dad helped start a church on Panhandle. My dad worked as so they were free to roam the
Poplar Avenue and, on our way a mechanic for his brother-in- streets and alleys. One of them
back and forth, we drove by the law’s Chevrolet dealership. We cussed like a sailor. My mother
apple cider vinegar plant. I really rented a shack in Huntoon with no would let me go to the dealership
loved that smell. At four years running water and an outhouse. to see my dad but warned me

6 Amarillo Senior Link