Sharing stories about Jake Pickle is still a remarkably vibrant pastime throughout Texas and the Hill Country, more than ten years after his death.
This page is your place for general commentary about the site or about your experiences with Jake Pickle. Use the comments form below to enter any reflections you may wish to share. All comments will be moderated, so please expect there to be a bit of a lag between submission and publication. Alternatively, you can communicate through email at honorablejakepickle@gmail.com . Email is probably the best way to alert us to needed corrections.
If you have a story you would like to share, it is welcome, too. It’s not clear at this time how and when we will weave everything together, but this is a good way to start bringing things into the same room. Please use the form below to enter your comments or other content. If you have some reflection on one of Jake’s video clips, please enter those comments on the page where the clip is displayed.
My father was a happy, optimistic person. I credit to the Pickle family gene pool for that. His parents and siblings were optimistic, hard-working people, too.
Like many men of “The Greatest Generation,” Daddy was proud of his service in World War II. But unless he was visiting with buddies who’d served, he never talked about the war. He didn’t consider the war as the high point of his life. Instead of looking back, Jake was always looking forward. He got up every morning with a mental list of “to dos,” and thanks to his determination and a great Congressional staff, he rarely went to bed without accomplishing those goals.
Daddy was the most forward thinking person I ever knew. To Jake Pickle, the best day of his life was the one he’d just lived — and tomorrow. He could hardly wait for tomorrow!
In my speckled past, I spent almost four years in Washington working for a U.S. congressman (Jake Pickle) and a couple more years working for a U. S. senator (Lloyd Bentsen). Of the two, Pickle was more loveable, Bentsen more worldly. But those are stories for later. Somewhere along the line, I wrote speeches for assorted state and federal elected and appointed officials. Some were fun. Some were egotistical jerks.
So, here’s one quick story about a speech I wrote for Jake Pickle. This is a true story, worthy of being told.
I had left Pickle and Bentsen and returned to Austin to hang out my shingle as a speech writer. In those days, a top speech was worth big money — around $350.
One day, I ran into Pickle in the Federal Building.
“George,” he said. “Am I glad to see you. I have a major speech on economics tomorrow to all the combined civic clubs in Austin. They are transmitting the information down from Washington and I want you to write my speech. I’ll pay you. I’ll pay you fifty bucks. That’s fair.”
Did I tell you Pickle was cheap? Legendary. He was a Depression baby. Came by it honest.
I didn’t know anything about economics, still don’t. But I read the research and started writing. The speech was going good.
For Pickle, I wrote:
“As I was doing research on economics, the simple solution hit me. It will cure U. S. inflation. Cure world wide inflation. I’ve got a call into the President and I’ll tell you what I’m going to tell him.”
That was the end of Page 1.
At the top of Page 2, I wrote: “That’s fifty dollars worth, you S.O.B. You’re on your own!”
Fortunately, a staffer finished writing the speech while Pickle called every bar in town looking for me. I was laying low. He knew I couldn’t hide forever and we ran into each other at the airport a couple of months later.
“Phenix, that was a terrible thing you did to your congressman,” he bellowed. Strangers moved away. But I could tell from the gleam in his eyes that he enjoyed the joke.
“Well, Congressman,” I said. “I wasn’t going to mention it, but you haven’t paid me yet.”
Pickle stiffened. The strangers nearly fainted.
A week later, a check for $150 arrived from Pickle. I return the check and wrote him back: “Keep your money. I’ve had a million dollars worth of laughs just telling the story.”
Pickle wrote back: “Don’t be noble. The money is to cover that speech — and the next one!”
So you see…I got him up to $75 per speech!
Running for political office used to be fun. Not like the mean-spirited stuff of today’s campaigns.
Or maybe Jake Pickle made it fun.
He was going door to door in a rural area of Central Texas looking for votes in his re-election bid for Congress. The hot button item: geese. Penned or free range, that was the burning question in Hays County, south of Austin.
One woman remained behind the screen door as she asked Pickle: what’s your position on the geese? He quickly noted that her geese were securely penned and launched into the virtues of caged geese. The woman fussed back — “They don’t lay as many eggs!” And slammed the door.
Next farm was just the opposite. The geese were running loose. Different woman behind the screen door, same question: What’s your position on the geese? Pickle barely got into higher egg production from free-range geese when the lady of the house snarled: “They ain’t sanitary, look at all the stuff in the yard!” Slam.
Things weren’t going well and they were about to get worse. At the next farm house, half the geese were penned and half were running loose.
Pickle sized up the situation. As the woman came to the door, Pickle said: “Now, before you ask, I’m OK on the goose question!”