Deaf Negotiators

By Angela Lowry Whitt

    My Dad, A. C. "Al" Lowry owned a grocery store/service station in Saltillo from 1938 to 1953. He had many friends in the community. Dad was a practical joker. He pulled a lot of practical jokes on innocent people, and could take the payback when it was paid.

     One day Walter Deprang came by the store and asked Dad if he knew the banker Brice in Sulphur Springs very well. Dad said that he did. Then Walter told him that he needed a loan to have expense money to go back to work on the pipeline. Then he asked Dad if he would co-sign a note. Dad said that he would. Then he told him that he needed to know that banker Brice was deaf as a door knob, and you will recognize him because he talked real loud. And . . . you will have to yell for him to hear.

     After that conversation, Dad went to the bank and told Mr. Brice that Walter was coming in for a loan that he would co-sign. Also, that Walter was deaf as a door knob and he talked real loud. The stage was then set for two normal hearing men to negotiate a loan in a yell.

     This episode was probably one of Dad's finest hours when he, and others watched, and heard the two men negotiate the loan.

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Angela Lowry Whitt graduated from Saltillo High School in 1950. She, and her husband Bill Whitt, live in Round Rock, Texas. Both are retired. Al Lowry died in December of 1990