The Fort Worth Star-Telegram was founded by a guy named Amon G. Carter. Even way back early in the last century there was a strange rivalry between Fort Worth and Dallas, which continues to this day, which is totally one-sided, with Dallas not knowing there is a rivalry.
If Amon Carter had to do business in Dallas, he would pack a lunch, so that he did not need to go to a restaurant and leave some of his Fort Worth money in Dallas.
Last month Amon Carter's great-grandson, Amon Carter IV, who goes by the name of Chance, was in the news due to a bizarre incident that happened during a ski trip to Breckinridge, Colorado with a group of his fellow Texas Christian University fraternity and sorority members, who had rented a house.
While about a dozen TCU students watched, with one videotaping, Amon Carter had the Greek symbols of his fraternity and a sorority branded on his butt.
The branding went badly, with Chance needing surgery for second and third degree burns. Chance will need more surgery to restore his butt to its pre-branding state.
Some versions of the story have Chance passed out while the branding took place. Alcohol had been consumed.
On Thursday Breckinridge authorities decided Chance participated in the branding of his buttocks willingly and no charges would be filed.
Chance told a local TV news guy that he consented to the branding, but not to what eventually happened.
That does not make a lot of sense to me.
So, why am I even telling this story? Well, I'm telling this story because I found it interesting that I did not read it in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, that being Amon Carter IV's great granddaddy's newspaper. I read it this morning in my old local newspaper, online, the Skagit Valley Herald.
Now, it's likely the Star-Telegram did print the story of the branding. I did not see it online. And when I Googled "Amon Carter branding" no Star-Telegram article came up. So, maybe they did not tell their readers what happened to Chance.
The Carter family was quite upset. Chance's dad, Amon Carter III, had a lawyer make sure the branding was investigated.
Chance said, ""Somewhere, somebody has to say this is not OK. My family doesn't think it's OK, and I am angry."
I'm not quite sure what Chance is angry about. Is he angry that he agreed to have his butt branded?
I had a roller blade fall once that ended up with an injury that looked similar to Chance's. It hurt real bad. And I was really angry about it. I didn't need surgery though and had a full recovery.
2 comments:
FWIW, Back in his younger days, Amon III had his own wild adventures, and some problems with illegal drugs, or at least legal problems with said drugs (attempted asset confiscations, etc.).
The Amon Carter carrying a lunch bag to Dallas story was told to every kid in Fort Worth schools back in ye days of olde. I remember one of my elementary grade teachers telling us what good common sense Mr. Carter had.
I also remember my dad telling me about Amon Jr. who was a wannabe cop. Jr owned a hot Chrysler 300 with a police radio in it. He would race to calls he heard on his radio and act like a big deal while the real police carried out their duties. This was in the 1950's.
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