Audio

“Fun and Nonsense”

They call you Dr. Potter. Are you really a doctor?

B: He's a doctor of pottery. That's his profession.

P: I'm a ceramic engineer and founder of the Gilmer Potteries—University of Texas graduate, ceramic engineer.

B: Our little possumology actually started in 1936, at Gilmer’s East Texas Yamboree. It was a festival honoring our East Texas sweet potato, which at that time was a very marketable crop and had many, many acres throughout the county devoted to it. We had the festival, and then we had a yam pie contest.

Dr. Potter (left) and Prof. Baird (right) display pot of yams.

B: Cook the pies and show them how to make them and how to cook the yam pies and serve yam pies. It's a very delicious pie. So Dr. Potter and I thought, “Well, possums and yams go together, so we’ll take one down, and, while they're watching the pie being cooked, we'll tell them about possumology.”

Mother possum with babies

And we just added to it each year. Let Dr. Potter tell you about the Yamboree, too, because he's a past president of our East Texas Yamboree.

P: As is Professor Baird.

Were you here the first year?

B: Yes. We have been here since the very first.

Were you dressing up in those terrible clothes? (laughter)

B: This is our original costume. The Festival brought us out; it sure did.

(From left to right) Dick Potter; his wife, Possum Queen Daisy Potter; and Professor “Spot” Baird at the Texas Folklife Festival.

All this talent lying latent all these years.

B: All these years.

P: Yes, we were here from the first. The Yamboree did have a part in sponsoring us in the early years. The Yamboree took it upon themselves to say, "Yeah, we'll send a delegation down there; we'll send a bunch of pies, and we'll see how it goes.” We have always managed to dispose of anywhere from 900 to 1,000 pies down here. The [Folklife] festival has been very nice to the professor and myself. In the latter years they have constituted us as “entertainers.”

The first year you came down with the pies, were you cutting up like this?

P: Very much so. Originally, we did a one-on-one deal. We just simply answered the questions with half-truths, and the act developed, I suspect, from just all these various answers that came off the top of our heads as we talked to people.

In other words, it's grown like Topsy.

P: It has.

B: We've met so many wonderful people. In fact, just this year, Dr. Potter and I gave an award to two of the sweetest ladies. So help me, they have been here every year. Doctor, what were their names?

P: Ruth Finnenger and Helen Engel. They are from Dickinson, Texas, and they brought the editor of their paper along this year. We gave them a diploma of the Bachelor of Science in Possumology. We only award that with the gold seal and the actual shoestring to certain special people.

B: The shoestring denotes the fact that we started this thing on a shoestring eleven years ago and we're still on it. [laughter] But we're making progress.

P: It's an Indian trick that the Professor's ancestors found by trading garden vegetables to the Cherokee Indians. He'd better explain.

B: There is a little rose called a Cherokee rose, and from season to season in the early years, the Indians would make a trail as they were breaking camp after the winter, and along the trail they would plant these little roses. And then later on, the other Indians coming along could follow the roses as they were blooming to see where the other Indians had made the path. So they came through East Texas, and they were a very friendly group of Indians, trading hides and different things for vegetables and garden things so they could cook and move on.

And this was a trick they would do: They would take two pots, and they'd put a possum skull under [one of] these two clay pots. Then they had a magic hide they would cover it with, and then they would say, "Possum, Possum." Just as they would say the magic words, they'd lift up the hide, but not lift up the two pots. They would say that the skull had traveled from pot number 1 to pot number 2, and then they would reverse the hide, say the words "Ossum, Possum" and make the skull travel [back] from pot 2 to pot 1.

It was always amazing to the grandparents and the people that saw it. They never could figure out how the Indians were able to do it. And they passed it on to us, and we've been able to do it.

P: Quite successfully.

I saw you do it.

P: Just every time.

B: It's just unbelievable! (laughter) It's so nice to see them in anticipation. They say, "It really happens, but when is he going to lift the pot up?"

Another thing I made a note of was "Indian horse blanket."

P: That's the saddle blanket that he uses as a cover to hide the pots.

B: We don't have the hide like they had; we use the Indian saddle blanket. And it's a tow sack. Dr. Potter had it in his garage there at home. I guess it's a keepsake.

P: It's an heirloom.

B: It's a tow sack with a big Indian picture on it. And they use those as saddle blankets between the saddle and the horse. Little cushion. I remember another thing you did, where you were taking pictures. This was supposed to be, I expect, a Polaroid.

P: A predecessor to the now famous Land camera!

What did you use for fuel? You didn't have batteries.

B: The professor has a candle; his batteries are a book of

matches. He lights the candle and takes a portrait by candlelight.

P: It's a portrait by candlelight. It has a soft glow to it. I expect the inventor of the Polaroid, Dr. Land, got his idea from it.

 B: East Texas Polaroid.

P: I guess he saw some of my negatives and thought there was  room for improvement.

 P: Oh yes. Suitable for framing. And it's suitable for sending to their mothers-in-law, too.

 Does anybody get mad?

B/P: Oh, no!

P: And usually the wives will say, "Well, it's certainly a perfect likeness. Looks just like you."

You had me fooled with that deal you go into about the possum oil. You do that very well!

B: We've extracted a hand lotion from it. We put it on the ladies' hands and caution them not to get it too near the ring or the watch. [laughter] There's nothing deleterious at all about the hand lotion, but we like to see them jump when we tell them that. In addition to it not being a very good hand lotion, it does have mystical powers. The Professor performs his magic chamber with scarves by using the mystical powers of the possum oil.

I don't remember that.

B: That's a magic chamber that we use. It's actually paper and was presented to us by the International Paper Company. It's a great big shopping sack.

It has magic words imprinted on it. We take two scarves. We take an all-white scarf and an all-black scarf. We put the scarves in the magic chamber, fold it up, and put a drop of the mystical possum oil on the front and one drop on the back. We take three big circles—one, two, and three. And this is a great mystery: when we've opened it, the mystic magic possum oil has made the colors transpose each other. The black scarf inside the chamber turned white and the white scarf turned black. Yes, it's amazing.

P: And people give us big applause.

Getting back to this magic possum oil. Do you tell people how you extract the oil?

P: It's a secret process.

B: The Professor used to tell about the possum oil earache medicine [of] his old ancestors. He has an old-time medical spoon that is bent like a little funnel, coming down to a point at the end. And the old timers, mother and dad, Grannie Grim, used to sit in front of the old wood-burning fireplace. And this oil was always kept in a 4-dot―a square snuffbox that had dots on the bottom.

P: Four-dot snuff bottle.

B: Because 4 was always considered a medical bottle. They'd keep it about half full of possum oil. And they'd get it at the killing season and strain it through a second-year-used cotton sack. In other words, the used canvas was so smooth it made a good filter. Then they would take the possum oil, pour it onto the spoon, and warm it over the open fire. And the little kid would come in and put his head on the knee, and they'd drop four or five little drops of possum oil down the ear that had the ache.

B: In about 30 minutes, the little kid would get to smelling so much like a possum, he'd always forget about the ear ache. It would cure him in 30 minutes every time.

The thing about you two is you start off so darn serious, you begin to absolutely believe what you're saying. Then you have this crash.

B: I'm glad you brought it up because Dr. Potter and I have worried about this, too. Actually, we have told this now for eleven years, and we’re beginning to believe about half of it ourselves.

I can see how you would. It makes a whole lot of sense. We all had hot some kind of warm oil put in our ears. In parenthesis, I should put that possum oil is glycerine. Right?

B: Yes.

P: We generally preface that the possum oil we have extracted is glycerine from the possum oil.

You are quoted here saying, "It is colorless, tasteless, odorless, and completely useless."

P: Therefore we will probably market it.

Are there any other tricks that you do? You do the photograph, you do the shell game deal, you do the oil, you do the scarves in the brown sack.

We go through the possum fertilizer. The geranium experiment. I have reconstituted, recycled, homogenized possum fertilizer that I show.

Spot Baird’s International Possum Fertilizer Factory guaranteed to produce growth

Then we have demonstrators of the geraniums. These are not actual geraniums, but we demonstrate the plant prior to the application of this fertilizer. The geranium is in a 4-inch little pot and is perfect size. Then after four weeks of applying this high nitrogen fertilizer, we extract another pot. I hold the pot up, and the geranium has remained absolutely identical, but the pot has grown to 4 times its original size. So we are espousing a very strong fertilizer if they will just get the possum guano.

B: A lot of people, even though they see it, find it hard to believe. This year we've brought the plans, and they're producing it. The national stove works is building an old-timey wood cook stove. It's built out of white pine and you cook just one meal on it—it usually burns up with the fire.

P: You use a wood frying pan.

B: Some of them have a wood frying pan—it will just cook one meal.

You've got that with you this time?

P: Oh, yes. We have the pans. It's actually an ad. They're worth $39.95 and cost every penny of it.

Let's get on to the recipes. Are these the ones you're still doing?

P: Possum on the half shell and the Possum treat.

 Tell about the Possum Treat.

P: Well, you get about a 5- or 6-pound possum, clean it good, and get most of the tissue off the carcass. Then you parboil it, get about six East Texas yams, and cut them lengthwise. Then get a half or three-quarter cup of good syrup—East Texas ribbon cane—and bring it to a boil. Boil it about 4 or 5 minutes, turn it off, and just keep it on warm. Then you get a white oak board, usually an inch thick and 12 by 18 inches in length. You put the possum in the center, and you surround it by the yams.

Have the yams been baked?

P: Parboiled. The possum has been parboiled as well. To finish it and get the sweet syrupy taste, you pour some of the syrup on it, put it in a 250-degree oven and cook it for about 2 hours. About every 30 minutes, baste the possum and the yams with the ribbon cane syrup. And at the end of 2 or 2 1/2 hours, remove it from the oven and go to the nearest garbage can and scrape off the possum and the yams into the can. Then, you eat the board. It's a delightful flavor.

You know that really kills me because it sounds awfully good. [laughter] That's what you would call “planked possum.” Now you've got possum on the half shell.

P: That goes through all the details of how you clean the shell.

But you start with armadillo.

P: Sure. Possums are chasing them and killing them.

B: The possums are mad about the armadillo being espoused as the state animal. The “dillos” have migrated here from out West, and we in East Texas take great offense.I

An armadillo

P: We are liable to secede.

I can see that.

P: Possum is an indigenous [native] creature to our area, and armadillos are not; they're transients. They’ve come in here and taken their jobs, and they’re from Arizona, New Mexico—the dirty states.

And you say the possums are taking after them?

B: Not only that, but the possums don't do any damage to your flower beds; whereas the armadillos dig them all up. They're turrible [sic] creatures.

P: Possums are not dumb. They just look dumb.

O.K. You have to do the armadillo shell.

P: You get rid of the armadillo, and you can use the shell for serving.

You've got the armadillo shell all cleaned out. Then what do you rub the shell with?

B: Well, actually, you rub the shell with any number of solutions that we have up there. We use possum oil and then this other one…

P: Shellac.

B: That's when they're going to make the purses.

P: Hackberry oil or something Mrs. Green was telling us about.

I know what you're talking about; it's a type of berry.

B: It's not a farkle berry?

P: Farkle berry. You look in your Institute of Texan Cultures lexicon, and you will find that farkle berries are indeed a berry in East Texas.

Are you serious?

B: No, we are absolutely dead serious.

P: No, we're not pulling your teeth. Has a very nice farkle flavor. You’re going to have to come up and visit us sometime.

So you rub the shell with possum oil, and then what do you put around the edge?

B: You put yams. You boil the yams, and you put a little vanilla flavoring and butter and stir them up, cream them—like mashed potatoes. And then you line the outer edge with marshmallows, and as you bake that, it toasts the marshmallows. The possum is in the center. It's a lovely, lovely dish!

Have you ever eaten possum?

B: Oh, yes.

Honest, now? Cross your heart and hope to die? What does it taste like? Pork?

P: If you didn't know what you were eating, you'd think you were eating ham or pork. Especially pork.

Very stringy?

The many culinary possibilities of the possum

B: They still eat them in East Texas. A lot of trappers go out and trap and sell them for fur and a lot of people say, "I want a carcass.” A lot of them in East Texas, Lufkin, Nacogdoches.

P: We recommend, and most of them do, that you catch them live and feed them a little bit because they are a scavenging type of animal, a nocturnal animal. If you feed them on table scraps for about two weeks, you change the body chemistry.

You've got this recipe for a tree decorated with fresh persimmons.¹

B: That's for the Christmas season; the holiday season.

P: Possums and persimmons have a great affinity for each other.

The Parks and Wildlife puts out a picture of a possum hanging out of a persimmon tree and eating persimmons.

B: I would hang by my tail, too, to eat a persimmon.

Prof. Baird kneeling by tree

Ours are so ratty—I can't imagine anyone wanting to eat one.

P: They've got hands and feet just like us—four fingers and a thumb.
I have two possums at home now, two of the hybrid possums. I took some leftover food from the country club home. There were two, three doughnuts left, and the next day I went up there—and this is true—this possum was leaning up on the corner of his pen there and had this doughnut in his hand, and, every once in a while, he’d lift the hand up and take a bite of the doughnut. It was the cutest thing. I wish I'd had a picture of it.

Possum with young

Of course, they have a prehensile tail. They can support themselves with that tail, either bottom side down or right side up. That leaves the front hands free.

Possum caricature

P: Back home we have the native muscadine²in our woods, but we have a little grape called possum grape. And they make possum grape jelly. Delicious.

On this sheet, you get serious and you really give the recipe for the yam pie.

P: Yes, and that's like [the one] they serve here.

And people love it, don't they? Mr. Baird has given me a lot of publicity that you two have gotten.

An advertisement for Spot Baird Possum Works

B: Caleb Purtle interviewed us here for about two days last year. This article, “Potentate's Possumology,” was a direct result of Caleb Purtle's interview right here on the grounds.

Do you do this same kind of fun and nonsense when somebody interviews you?

B/P: You bet.

B: Dr. Potter and I had the honor of presenting the award to Pete Dupont, the Governor of Delaware.

When did you do this?

B: He was nice. He wrote us a lovely letter. Said he wanted to serve it sometime in Delaware for an occasion that would be equal to the food.

B: The little College Superbowl was held in Longview, Texas, at the new high school stadium. It had to be in ‘76 or '77. Right after they built this new stadium. Small colleges. They had the state of Delaware and the state of Illinois.

That's how you hooked up with him?

B: Dupont came to the thing, and we awarded him a degree. He was very gracious.

[More discussion of clippings. Possibility of being on Hee Haw.]

I'm surprised you men have time to take care of your business.

Front side of a possum paper dollar	Back side of a possum paper dollar

You are just a delight, the two of you. Everybody knows you, and everybody just loves you to pieces; you're just part of the family. That's one of the nice things about the Folklife Festival—we all feel so good about each other. We got to talking last year, and I want it on this tape: The first year of Folklife the Gilmer people had someone working with a froe,³making shingles for log cabins. Tell me about a froe.

P: A froe is the drawknife that you use to chop what they used to call boards. They are literally shingles. But you take a nice oak stump or a piece of good oak…and incidentally we have brought good old East Texas oak down here for them to make boards.

B: Dean Lumber Company.

Is that what they are doing over by the log cabin?

P: The shingles that have made the roof. They have got a young man now that does it. The original man, old Mr. Keel, was a carpenter at home, and his twin sons, Eulan and Elan, were both carpenters. Mr. Keel came down here when he was in his 80's, wanting to visit some of his kinfolks. He started the demonstration. Then his grandson came with him the next year. And ultimately he just kind of phased out.

Originally, did they do it where you are now?

P: Originally we were up at the corner, right adjacent to the log cabin. Mr. Keel worked with us, and we had the possum show and the yam pies there.

B: They started the log cabin during the very first Festival and then kept working on it.

Something sticks in my mind about the history of Upshur County. You mentioned the Mormons coming through there.

P: There's an old settlement called Kelsey. We have a Mormon with us, Ted Austin. Very, very devout Mormons. Lovely people. Hard workers. [Have] a large church in Gilmer.

Is there still a Kelsey, Texas?

B: Oh, yes.

And is that Mormon?

P: Very much so.

In other words, they were trekking west and set down there. Is that right?

P: They put what they call a stake there. It was the largest in Texas for many, many years.

B: Now Longview has got a stake—a new area—and they're developing other areas.

Did some of them move on, I wonder?

B: Oh, sure.

P: Each year they move. Part of their belief is to serve in the Temple—you know, in Salt Lake City—and there's a tremendous migration back and forth to Salt Lake City from Gilmer and the Kelsey area. Industrious, proud people. They’re dairy people, and, incidentally, our county has become about the sixth or seventh in the state of Texas for Dutch dairy herding. And I'm sure some of them are Mormons.

I love the name Upshur. Where did that come from?

P: It’s named for Abel Upshur. He was a Congressman. We do have a new Upshur symbol.

Is there anything else that should be on this tape before you vanish?

B: I think we've got it. If you can, come by and enjoy a pie and a little visit. We'd love for you to meet Ted and Jeanine Austin. I know they would delight in talking to you. Mormon people, really nice.

Dr. Potter and Prof. Baird at the Texas Folklife Festival

God bless you. You are the greatest!