Part Owner of Texas
SLINGING WTERMELONS WITH A CATAPULT
“Blanket is just a great town to live in, I think. It’s full of characters.”
Charley Atchley has the General Store in Blanket, Texas, a small place near Brownwood. The store is a popular gathering place for residents, especially during the morning coffee hours. The store sells food and has delicious fried pies. Outside the store is a steel catapult made of junk form his scrap pile.
“Since I was a little boy I always wanted to make one,” says Charley. “I’d watch an old movie and see them throw rocks at castles with a catapult, so I decided to just go ahead and build one so I could throw watermelons. I’ve been throwing them now for about five years.”
He admits it is truly a spectacle when he launches a watermelon and sends it sailing through the air.
“We usually have several hundred people come out to watch. They let out a big cheer when one goes a long way. We’ll buy a pallet of watermelons and throw about 50 of them. They’ll go about 200 yards. Whenever I feel like doing it I just hang a sign out there and put the date when it’s going to be and people kind of get excited about it.
I’ll put a target out there and see if we can hit it. The target is usually an old car or pickup. I’ve had people tell me they could catch one. I don’t think so. That melon’s coming at about two hundred miles an hour. If you get hit by an eleven pound watermelon you probably wouldn’t survive.”
Charley throws his melons in the fall because he says he can get them cheaper then. He doesn’t mind throwing melons that are trashy. He has thought about throwing pumpkins but they are too expensive. He made more than one catapult.
“I’ve got one at home. Now and then we’ll set it up and throw some rocks.”
His catapults have two thousand pound weights that are released to throw the melons or other objects.
“It’s kinda dangerous so I don’t let anybody get close when I’m firing.”
Charley belongs to the GOOD OLE BOYS SOCIETY in Blanket. The group puts on all kinds of events year-round.
“We put on a Mardi Gras Parade the Saturday before Mardi Gras. We have a float. People decorate their cars and pickups. Somebody will drive an old school bus and our fire truck will be in it. Last year we had about fifteen entries in our parade. That’s pretty good for a town of just 400 people. When the parade is over we usually feed everybody Cajun-style food. Mainly it’s for the people who live here.
“We also have three cook-offs every year, chili in the spring and steak sometime when it starts getting’ cooler. In the summer we have a big ice cream social. We judge homemade ice cream. We try to keep the town hopping.”