Harlan R. Sandidge - Shared Memories from Family, Friends, and Colleagues

Kimberly Greenwood wrote on January 30th, 2023
I have a portrait painted by Harlan Sandidge and didn't know if u can tell me anything about it..
Victoria Hammill wrote on January 30th, 2017
My parents were both artists, and consequently kept the art supplies well stocked ... crayons, tempura paints, finger paints, water colors, large sheets of paper to draw on, clay, etc., with the exception of store bought coloring books. They wanted us to create our own works, expand our minds ... which was really cool. As a young girl, I remember my father, Harlan, taking the time to sit on the floor with me and a handful of crayons in Big Spring, Texas, and we'd play "name that animal" ... we'd take turns drawing an animal ... to see how quickly the other could identify the animal ... this was some special one on one time that I remember fondly.

He also spent a lot of time with teaching me how to ride my bike, and swim, and throw softballs ... we'd run and play ... we'd have swimming races, and he'd wasn't afraid to jump of the high dive and do flips. He was pretty athletic and agile. He also had the funniest sense of humor, and get you to laughing so hard, your sides felt like they'd split.

In particular, I remember how patient he was when he taught me to ride my bike. When he realized I had pretty good balance, he took the training wheels off, and he'd follow along holding the seat while I rode the bike, working to building my confidence in believing in myself that I could ride the bicycle on my own. I'd go so far on my own, and then when I felt him let go of the seat, I'd lose confidence and with that my balance. He'd keep saying "you can do it! you can do it!" Then one day their friend Opal came to visit with her two boys. The boys kept taunting me ... saying, you don't know how to ride your bike, and in an act defiance, I said "Oh yes, I can! My Dad taught me how!" And then I got on my bike, and from then I rode my back everywhere.

Thank you Dad for taking the time to teach me.

Love, Vicky
Ben Sandidge wrote on November 5th, 2016

Victoria, you found some photos that I hadn't even seen--for example, the one of Harlan, James and me as a little boy. This is a very typical pose of James, who was a real "go-getter". I guess he inherited a lot of Aunt Bennie's temperment--she was definitely the most outlandish of the 7 sisters, my favorite aunt, and probably had the closest relationship to our mother, who was her next older sister, Do you know if James is still around? He and Harlan were close in age and at one point dated twin girls--June and Joan, or something like that. This is great; keep up the good work! --Ben
Ben Sandidge wrote on October 26th, 2016
Being 8 years apart in age, Harlan and I couldn't really be playmates or anything, but I nevertheless have a lot of fond memories of things we did together during the time he was an adolescent and I was a kid. There were the times for example, when he took me to see movies like "Mighty Joe Young" or "The Day the Earth Stood Still", the latter of which is still one of my favorites. But the experience that stands out most vividly was the "trip" to the State Fair in Dallas one year. I had never been to the fair, so when Harlan told me that he was going over in his car and that I could go along with him and his friends I was really excited. Now, Dallas was no further from Ft. Worth then than it is today, but I use the word "trip" advisedly. This was before they built what was later called "the turnpike", so you had to take the normal two-lane highway via Handley, Arlington, Grand Prarie and a bunch of other little towns. Still, Dallas is--and was--only 30 miles from Ft. Worth, so you would hardly call that a "trip", but I can assure you that this turned out to be a very long trip. "Ah", you will say, "that's because you were having such a good time and spent a lot of time on the fairgrounds”. Not exactly. Maybe it would help if I told you that this little tour took place in Harlan's Model-A Ford, which in its day of course was a legend, but this thing must have been pushing 30 years old at this point, and it should have long since been put out to pasture. But Harlan was very proud of and had complete faith in his vehicle, so he invited his schoolmate Earl Wright and one or two others, as well as his little brother, to go with him to the State Fair of Texas.

Maybe the best way to make it clear to the reader what this little "road story" was about would be just to tell you that it was more like an educational novel, in that it was the trip during which Harlan--and his friends and little brother--learned how many parts of a car, even of a simple old Model A, can go kaputt. "Coil" anybody? Four flat tires? Radiator? In short, everything that could go went, and that included Harlan's friends, who, after about the second breakdown, decided to take the bus the rest of the way, so from then on it was just big bro. and little bro. The sensible thing to do would have been to turn around and limp back home and lick our wounds, but big bro. was determined to make this outing work, and little bro. of course stuck with him; after all, I had never been to the state fair. Anyway, after having left the house fairly early that morning, we finally arrived at the fairgrounds sometime that evening. That, in itself, felt like it was cause for some "whoopees", but then reality set in: after all the various repairs that had been necessary on the way to Big D, we had exactly one dollar left in our coffers, which would have been enough to get us into the fairgrounds, but we wouldn't have been able to actually do any rides or anything.

But Big Bro. had an idea: he had heard that this was either "Future Farmers'" or "4H Club" Day, which meant that if you were a member of whichever one it was, you could get in free. So we pulled up , very meekly and slowly, to one of the gates, and Harlan mumbled to the ticket taker in his very tenuous, indecisive way, "uh, we're members of that uh--what's that called, Ben? I wished I could have slid under the seat of that old jalopy, but I mustered the last bit of courage that I had and lied very proudly: "why, the 4H Club!" Much to my surprise, the guy let us go on in, so I guess between Harlan's casualness and my bravado we turned out to be effective con artists.

But now the real dilemma was upon us: when he saw the prices of various goods and services, Harlan quickly realized that things were quite expensive at the State Fair of Texas and so he turned to me and asked "would you rather eat a hot dog or ride the roller coaster? I swallowed hard, but really there was no question, and I quickly answered "the roller coaster". I was hungry, of course, after all the trials and tribulations of that long day, but this was THE most thrilling ride that anybody at that time, in that part of the United States could imagine, and I could already see the people zooming down the tracks and hear them oohing and ahhing, and a team of mules couldn't have kept me away from that wonderful, exciting experience that presented itself to me. So we paid our dollar and took the next available seat and off we were. I was amazed at how steep the "hill" was that the chain beneath the car slowly pulled us up, and what a view when we finally got to the top. That was heaven, but alas, only a second or two later, I thought I was going to die.

I was still pretty little--maybe 9, so I had never had that feeling of just free-falling in a vehicle before, and I was instantaneously screaming at the top of my lungs "get me out of here, I'm going to die". But of course I had to grin and bear this nightmare, just as I had had to bear the terrible ride in the Model-A—this was yet another learning experience on this "fun" day, I guess. Once I had my feet back on firm ground, with wobbly legs and a cramped little empty tummy, I definitely wished that I had taken the hot dog, but there was nothiing left to do now but to hit the road again and try to get home before it was too late. It was--too late, that is--by the time we rolled down our sloping driveway in the middle of the night, and--believe it or not--the motor conked out because the Ford was OUT OF GAS. I can't remember any of the choice words that our parents must have unleashed on their son that night or the next day--we blot those things out of our memory--but I had had one of the outstanding experiences of my life, and I have never forgotten THAT.