TULIA STORY

This is a congratulations and thanks, follow up of the letter from Bill
Neeley. I too went to school at Tulia 10 1/2 years, but graduated from
Happy. My parents uprooted me and I thought broke my heart because of
employment, which took us to Happy for the next three years. But I survived
and love Happy very much.

Now I want to write a small story in regard to the letter Bill wrote on the
slam that was given to Tulia on the drug bust, I married in 1942 when World
War n was going full blast. I moved to Big Spring, where I still reside. My
husband was a medically retired Marine, stationed in Peking, China, when the
Japanese invaded the American embassy and pulled the American flag down.
That is another story.

There was literally no housing to be found in Big Spring because it was a
bombadier base, and then a jet base, and every nook and cranny was turned
into apartments, or crammed housing for the military. We lived in a one-room
apartment and shared the bath with 16 other families also living in one-room
apartments that my mother-law owned. The families and people were of every
kind living there and sharing facilities. Being from the small town of
Tulia, raised to be free and friendly, I had a hard time adjusting to the
customs of a busy city. There were four apartments in the old house where I
lived. Next door to me were two women. I could not figure out why my husband
said I could speak to them, but not walk up town with them to Woolworths, or
join them when they asked if I wanted go to the nearby drug store for a
soda. I thought he was being very unjust and unkind.

He kindly explained that I was not the same kind of people, and if they went
up town and got arrested, I would also be arrested. I protested. How in the
world would I be arrested if I had not done anything?

Needless to say, he stood his ground and forbade me to do more than speak
and visit on the front porch in the cool of the evening when they were not
out and were busy elsewhere.

Now the reason for this story is that when you associate with people who are
breaking the law or doing things that are not quite on the level, you get
arrested whether you are doing the same thing or not. And all these people
who were arrested in the bust might have been unjustly pulled in. I happen
to know the people on the law force there in Tulia, and I know they probably
knew a lot more about what was going on than all the protestors, out of town
news people and the slammers did.

I do not accuse anyone in the drug bust. I do not say they were breaking the
law, or innocent, or guilty of anything wrong. I just say, my husband knew
that I would be arrested with two prostitutes for walking to a drug store or
to Woolworths, and he was right and kept me out of harms way. It is a
possibility a bunch of people were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and
justice will be served. And being only 18 years of age, a small town girl
who knew nothing of big city and war ways, I could have been in the same
predicament. I am grateful to a husband who loved me and taught me right
from wrong.

I was married to him 43 years, before he was called away to a higher judge
than we have on this earth. And if these people are as innocent as they
claim, they will come out the better from having learned a hard lesson. Big
Spring also integrated without force or civil rights uprising. I drove a
schoo1 bus here for 30 years, and my first year were a11 black children.

I am respected, and loved by these people, their children and grandchildren
to this day. So it is not racial that lawbreakers get their neck stuck in a
noose. My ancestors were Indian; prejudice was high, and some of my
ancestors were slave holders, But times have changed and the few who still
hold grudges and malice, would hold it if you were speckled or polka dotted.
Religion and politics have a hard time standing on even ground, and you have
to train yourself to be tolerant and forgiving. You are not born that way.

Sincerely,

Christene Horn

Big Spring