The Fall of Daddy Max

Old Chile takes us back to a simpler time—when jukeboxes bubbled, fries came with tartar sauce, and Grandpa’s pants were always one beer away from disaster. In this tale of burgers, backfires, and bare-bottomed blunders, Chile recounts a fateful lunch at the Rebel Inn with Daddy Max—a Studebaker-driving, camel-smoking character with a love for Pearl beer and zero regard for belts. It’s heartwarming, hilarious, and just a little mortifying. Bottoms up.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey, this is Old Chili. Welcome, Welcome to Chili Pod podcast.
And that's me. I'm Chili, and I'm going to tell
you a little story today about about an incident that
happened at around nineteen fifty or fifty one, as I
can best remember. It involved me and my grandfather Mix

(00:28):
Herman Beilstein, or as we called him, the old Daddy
Max anywhere here she goes, and it's titled the Rebel End.
Goose Creek, Texas in the early nineteen fifties was a
classic boom town. The boom was gold black gold. Oil

(00:52):
fields and refinery sprouted from the humid coastal plain like
mushrooms and salt grass. These opportunities provided post World War
II veterans with jobs, jobs that paid well and were
usually secured. The newly employed population needed goods and services,

(01:15):
and these areas boomed as well. Writing with my grandmother, Mamareas.
She her name was Gatherine Mary Josephine Hailey Skurg of Bilstein,
if you can get all that out at one time,
so we just called her Mama. I used to go
with her to the post office almost daily. We passed

(01:38):
the new Roman Catholic and episcopal churches on our drives.
The new churches were tan and red brick, respectfully. The
original wooden structures were replaced with this brick exterior as
each congregations grew both in members and offerings. Higgin and

(01:59):
Bought Boaters was the new Plymouth Dodge dealership. The majority
of the inventory was black, but all were quite shiny
and lined up perfectly. Mister Higginbotham was a real showman.
He flew American flags and played patriotic marches at all times.
On his lot there was boarding house, there were two

(02:23):
drug stores, an ice cream parlor sat among five bars,
few restaurants, and around the corner there was Roxy's Whorehouse,
Brown's Chicken Shack, Hamburger Joint was across Market Street from
Paul Prince Buick and the Rebel Inn. All these businesses

(02:47):
were in very short walking distance from the front gate
of the humble old Refinery. My family patronized all these
businesses regularly, but my grandfather, Daddy Mack, was probably the
most frequent customer. I don't know if he ever went
to Roxies, but that's something I'll ever know, so I'm

(03:12):
not going to comment on it anymore. His favorite meal
was hamburgers washed down by several pearl beers from the
revel In. I like to go with him and get
malted milk, French fries, and tartarshaws. He was on his
best behavior when he was, of course, at the Rebel.

(03:37):
As I said, I was always willing to tag along
for a lunch. One summer day, during my sixth year
on this planet, he invited me to join him for
a burger. I ran to his favorite faded red Stewdabaker
truck and climbed into the front seat. The truck always
smelled a little funny. Today I suspect a roma's combination

(04:01):
of spilled beer, camel cigarettes, and mouse earin Daddy Max
got the truck fired up. You know. The flathead engine
just only made one backfire that day, and we were off,
or as off. As Daddy Max drove in town. He
never got further along in second gear. He must have

(04:23):
thought he was driving safely, but the line of cars
honking and following him thought differently. I'm sure, Oh well,
fries were in my immediate future, and I blocked out
all the commotion behind us. The old truck creaked and
the tires cried as we passed over the oyster shell
parking lot of the Rebelion. As soon as the brakes

(04:47):
brought us to a stop, I jumped from the cab
and ran into the restaurant. I felt the cool lair
and smell the intoxicating gift of a sizzling grill. Daddy
Ma went directly to his booth in the middle of
the restaurant. The booth was red vinyl with a tabletop

(05:08):
of mother of Pearl lemonade. The wallerts Er jukebox was
in six feet of us. Around the face of the
jukebox was a lighted, multi colored band of plastic tubing
with bubbles finding their way throughout. The records were old
old peas. Each selection costs five cents and included the

(05:30):
most current favorite songs. Daddy Max would always order his
beers two at a time so they wouldn't get hot
on their journey from the cooler to his table. He
ordered for himself and told the neatly pressed waitress, I
wanted the usual one. Now, how can you mess up

(05:50):
an order of fries, chocolate milkshake or malt and tartar sauce.
They did not fail. The meals were down as smoothly
as his beer. I had my share of SIPs, and
it was very smooth and cool. Daddy Max had a
habit of unbuttoning his khaki pants and loosening his belt

(06:13):
when he first sat down in the booth. This day,
I prayed he was just a little bit overserved. He
put the bill, He paid the bill in cash wrapped
in a rubber band, and picked up his stetson from
the booth seat, slid out of the booth, and when

(06:33):
he started when he stood to depart, his unsecure pants
fell to his ankles, and he landed face first on
the black linoleum floor. My grandfather wore no underwear. Woo.
The sight of his pale, gray blue buttocks were more

(06:54):
than I could handle. The reaction of the adjacent diners
ranged from last ter to he asp and finger pointed.
Slowly got to his feet with the help of the
cook and the waitress. He turned toward the booth to
raise his pants as of his fly, as if he
had exposed nothing at all. The expressions on the faces

(07:17):
of the waitress and the cook told me that this
was probably not the first time this had happened. He
walked out of the door, nothing unusual, and it was,
and I was waiting at the truck. We drove home
in silence. The story I held for many years. At
the time, I was embarrassed and confused. Today I understand

(07:40):
that his smoking camel cigarettes all the time caused his
circulation to be a little impaired. Therefore he had a
gray blue But the river pearl Beard did not help either.
Peace watched those intersections Jilly signing off