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Seldom Seen: Painting stirs memories of Templeton's feed mill
Sunday, August 19, 2001 By David Templeton, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Drawing from my overdrawn memory bank, I still can smell the aromatic grains, along with the persistent feed dust that could choke a mite. How well I remember those red feed trucks with automatic unloaders. How could I forget the metallic echo of train cars after the oats or brewer's grain had been unloaded, or the wooden bins flexing from the weight of corn and oats.
And I still hear the high-voltage roar of machinery -- the grinder, mixer, corn cracker and crimper -- as my mind romps, just as my body once did, past the scales and over the burlap sacks of feed piled in neat rows.
W. M. Templeton & Sons was the name of the feed mill -- a black terra cotta tile building with oak beam interior that bore the name of my great-grandfather and the "Sons" referring to my grandfather, great-uncle and ultimately my father, Milt. It was Houston's Rock of Gibraltar that coughed up dust and burped out noise for the better part of a century in a grand effort to produce feed in an era when agriculture was king.
This bird paradise offered every sparrow and swallow swooping through the sliding doors an all-you-can-peck buffet. A dead owl, hung from rafters to scare away birds and rodents, had long ago lost its mystical powers over everything but me.
I got my first job there the summer of 1964, certainly not because of nepotism. What I lacked in skill and muscle, I made up for with annoying energy. I was the perfect size to hold a burlap bag at shovel height. I was a Tasmanian Devil with a push broom.
So I joyfully worked 40 hours a week in what some thought was a feed mill but I considered a fun factory. My dad -- and don't tell him I said this -- was foolish enough to pay me a nickel an hour in 1964 to work there.
That's one whole Jefferson nickel every single hour. Two full bucks a week plus an array of benefits including free lunch at 11:30 a.m. at Rocky's Restaurant and a pack of baseball cards I slipped onto the counter at McCabe's Newsstand as my dad shelled out coins for his Post-Gazette and coffee.
OK, I was only 9 years old and perhaps even dumber than I looked. But I, like everyone else who encountered the place, marveled at the Gibraltar exterior and Laurel Caverns interior that touched my soul.
These memories came splashing into my head like corn into a metal truck bed when Chartiers watercolorist Jim McConnell showed me the painting of the feed mill he completed for the upcoming Houston Centennial kickoff.
McConnell, a first-rate painter, does stylistic landscapes with barns, roadside buildings and covered bridges when he's not focusing his formidable skills on buildings such as the Washington County Courthouse and Church of the Covenant in Washington. He and other artists will present artwork with Houston themes from noon to 6 p.m. Friday at the Old School House on Cherry Avenue.
His paintings include several of the Pumpkin Festival and a depiction of the Pike Street house of Charlie Paxton, whose claim to fame was stuffed and mounted Siamese twin calves. I still remember his gruff proclamation that dogs don't talk because what one dog knows, all dogs know.
Pumpkin Festival organizers transformed Charlie's deteriorated abode into a haunted house that became a Pumpkin Festival attraction until its merciful razing.
As wonderful as that painting is, my favorite McConnell remains the feed mill.
In 1985, I, my brother, Web, and sister, Beth, commissioned McConnell, a family friend, to do a painting of the feed mill once my dad decided to sell it and retire. The painting McConnell did for the centennial exhibit is a close rendition of that original painting now hanging in my parents' home.
The building was especially eye-catching for those of us whose family name graced its tiles.
Inside, I learned to unload freight cars on one side, mix Templeton-brand feeds inside and load it onto trucks on the other side. There I learned to drive trucks, tie feed sacks, chew wheat until it turned into gum and bat kernels of corn almost far enough across the parking lot to reach Patsch's used car lot.
It's where I tasted everything edible, be it dog food, grains, seeds or exotic ingredients such as brewer's grain and beet pulp -- a dry, spongy ingredient that once prompted me to pour milk on it, then more, then even more and eat it like cereal.
This isn't beet pulp fiction.
I caught birds against windows and released them outside only to see them do hairpin turns and fly back inside.
In that feed mill, I burned my wrists unloading hydrated lime with sweaty arms. I got sun poisoning tarring the roof. I needed stitches from trying to whittle a door stop. I lost 12 pounds one blistering hot morning unloading a train car of oats.
From farmers and horsemen, I learned how dangerous and difficult farming is. Daily topics included the latest farmer to get gored by a bull or horseman to be hobbled by an overzealous steed. An early impression was how many farmers have aches, pains, limps and bad backs.
There were daily dissertations about unfair milk and beef prices -- why farmers receive pennies for what's sold in grocery stores for dollars. I remember one farmer boasting how he'd eaten lard on bread his whole life. He died from a heart attack soon thereafter.
I remember the farm philosophy that you eat what you grow, sell what you sow. Always help your neighbor. You keep a truck rolling with wire, tape and hammer. You make hay when the sun is shining.
So even though the feed mill closed 16 years ago, it's fresh in my mind. It's where I learned to work in dust and heat with long shirt sleeves to ward off itchy oats dust. There I learned to keep working till the feed was made and the last truck was loaded.
And I learned that doing back-breaking labor for a nickel an hour -- or for any wage -- helps one embrace worthy philosophies and memories. I tell these stories to my children when their lives get more mixed up than Templeton's Chicken Mash, stickier than Templeton's Horse Feed -- when their egos get more crimped than the plump oats we processed.
So, OK, I miss W. M. Templeton & Sons Feed.
But memories flourish with the help of a fine McConnell painting.
David Templeton can be reached by e-mail at emailaddressdtempleton@post-gazette.com
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