Dean-My Cousin, Competitor and Friend

If you didn’t know better you’d think I was giving Dean the ole’ elbow. Left to right: Dean, LeRoy, Gary and Dennis Walls in the late 1940’s. Dennis, at far right, has been a key member of the Woodpro team since 1980. He leads in the areas of Layout engineering, Computer Aided Drafting and Counter Top production. 

Photo by

  
Margaret Walls  

Written by 
LeRoy Walls 
CEO 

Dean and I were both beaming with a grin that would last several days. (It would even improve our looks nearly 50 years later when our first great adventure was remembered.) Dean held the red fox squirrel up high for all the men and older cousins to admire.

Dean and I felt avenged since this same group had less than an hour earlier ignored our announcement of a big hunt. We made plenty of noise with, "Here, Brownie," "Come on boy," as we called our farm dog and were off waving our homemade wood guns and yelling, "Bam-bam" and "Ka-pow". I’m sure that some of those in the group smiled to themselves. Our dads and Grandpa probably shook their heads at our cockiness but as usual the older ones mostly ignored us.

Whatever their feelings about a pair of energetic 5 and 6 year old cousins, Dean and I, along with my dog Brownie, were enjoying the event. My dad’s purpose for our trip was to pick up the mail. Our mail box was along the dirt road that went into Cabool. This was a quarter mile away from our house at the top of a big Ozark hill.

Dean and Brownie spotted the red squirrel at about the same time. Brownie didn’t need any command but for good measure we yelled, "Sic ‘em, Brownie," as we all ran after it. With Brownie barking and the squirrel’s tail flying high, the chase was on. The squirrel ran up a small hickory tree that was in a semi-open area of the woods.

This would normally have been a safe haven from which the squirrel could chatter and give us a real cussin’. But with two boys throwing rocks followed by one climbing up after him, apparently fear overcame reason, and he jumped out to make a run for a bigger tree. In the open the squirrel was no match for Brownie and was soon the proud trophy to the first success of two excited hunters.

Dean and his two brothers grew up on the farm that adjoined ours. He was the closest cousin and neighbor to me in terms of age, size, interests and athletic ability. Besides all the farm work we did together we also fished, swam, played ball, shot marbles, had calf rodeos, had fights with rotten pears and much more. If there was a ball around we’d be throwing it, kicking it or hitting it.

Dean and I were fierce competitors in whatever we did. In individual things like playing mumblepeg, rooster fighting or wrestling we were often literally at each others’ throats. We were usually on opposite sides in team sports of softball, football and always guarded each other in basketball. In college, where we lived in the same apartment one year, we competed in tennis and still did some wrestling.

W carried our competitiveness too far some times but for the most part I believe it made both of us tougher not only preparing us physically but also for mental challenges we would face later in our lives. We would continue through life with some of our boyhood sense of adventure and our fair share of confidence. I am thankful for all my cousins and especially for my sometimes arch-rival but great friend -- Dean Walls.

Incidentally after supper was over the only trophy left of the squirrel was its beautiful red tail. It survived for a few days but during a little cousinly tug-of-war one cousin ended up with a handful of squirrel hair, and Dean ended up with the tailbone.

We are proud of our family atmosphere at Woodpro. With quite a few related folks working together we can even have competition between siblings or cousins, but that is pretty rare. At Woodpro competition between teams has never been highly encouraged yet most team members are quite loyal to their own team.

12/31/1999