The Port Arthur Package

Introduction • Chapter 1 • Chapter 1-Page 2 • Chapter 1-Page 3 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 2-Page 2 • Chapter 2- Page 3 • Junior Year • Junior Year-Page 2 • Junior Year-Page 3 • Junior Year-Page 4 • Head Hunters • Black Friday • We Beat Beaumont • Sweethearts • Wrapper Page 1 • Wrapper Page 2

"We Beat Beaumont! Do the Same!"

The Beaumont High "Royal Purples" game was coming up very soon. During the week before the game I heard my father, grandfather and my uncle say, "We beat Beaumont! Do the Same!" At the time I was only mildly curious how and why they could all have chosen the very same phrase, word for word, to express their excitement for this game. It only took 38 years to finally figure it out.

It seems that long before any other rivalry developed with the Yellow Jackets, there was a considerable dislike between Beaumont and Port Arthur. When I read an article in the 1948 Port Arthur News, a special Bi-Centennial issue, I saw that as far back as 1904, these two towns had played and hated each other. Although there was no official high school or team, a group of "PA boys" would band together to play against Beaumont High. The Purples won many of the first years games because they were greatly advanced compared to PA. They rubbed our noses in it too!

Recently, while browsing through one of my collected yearbooks from PA HIGH SCHOOL, around 1920, I saw printed in the football sport section the phrase, "WE BEAT BEAUMONT-DO THE SAME!" Well, what can I tell you? I was beside myself! All of a sudden I flashed back to 1965 and there they were, all three of them, Daddy, Grandpa, and Uncle G.P, chanting that phrase over and over, like a bunch of Notre Dame Yell Leaders –Do the Same –Do the Same! I really wish that I had bothered to ask about it way back then, but I was 17. It seems that youth truly is wasted on the young.

We beat Beaumont and Orange and came upon Pt. Neches, a different story. They were tough and had ideas of beating us. The Headhunters did not allow a touchdown all night, only 2 field-goals. But we couldn't score either, only one touchdown, and missed the extra point for a tie game.