PAUL GILLIAM  & BOBBY SWINSON

Arvord M. Abernethy

From: The Hamilton Herald-News
January, 1981

I had missed lately the sponsorship of the 11:45 weather report over KCLW for Paul Gilliam Used Cars. I didn't always listen just to get the weather or to find a place to buy a car, but to hear one of those wild stories of Paul or the announcer, Bobby Swinson, would tell. I missed it enough to go by Paul's car lot and find out what had happened.

For one thing, Paul is not as young as he was 43 years ago when I came down here. Life was just starting for Paul then; I believe they say that life begins at 40, so you see that he is well past the retirement age. Paul is slowing down in his activities, and his heart decided to slow down too, so he recently had a pacemaker implanted to make it tick a little faster. Paul feels that the reputation he has built up over the past 46 years for selling "Clean Used Cars, Not Models" should give him all of the business he wants to take care of now.

This slogan that he has used over the years was chosen because he was always more concerned with getting a clean, dependable car than he was about the model it was. It was not only a slogan, but a way of business for him. And it is the thing that has given him a good business over the years.

Paul showed me the envelope that contained the papers of the first used car he bought and sold. He had caught a ride to Fort Worth, and, after walking all over town, he bought a 1929 Ford Roadster and drove it home. This was August 8, 1935. He sold the car to Lee Schrank, taking in a cow and a calf which he sold for $25.00. Lee also paid him $50.00 in cash and gave him a note for $50.00; and Paul was in the used car business.

He made his first headquarters at Bill Strickland's Gulf station which was just north of Harry Bullard's station now. A little later he rented a small lot at the rear of the Hamilton National Bank from Cecil James for $10.00 a month.

Paul said that he had bought most of his "cars" over the phone. Some dealers in Fort Worth and Waco learned what class of cars he wanted, so when they got a real clean one they would call Paul and would usually make a deal. He said that he had been real fortunate in getting dependable used cars--never getting one he could call a lemon. He said that he got a few lemons in cars that he took in as trade-ins.

He had Bobby tell this story about one of the good cars he took in trade. This car had been owned all its life by a little old lady who used it very little. There was one trip that she would make each week and that was to the Ladies Aid society every Monday at 3 p.m. It was downhill driving to the church and was downhill going back home. If she had to go to town later in the week for groceries, she might drive on out to the cemetery, but never out of the city limits.

Bobby said that Paul liked for him to tell how economical a car was on gas. He said that if you should run out of gas, get a little gasoline on a piece of cotton, rub it on the bottom of the gas tank and it would take you to the next station.

I thought that Paul was a native of this section, but he is a Tennessean. He made up this story which his people don't appreciate, and I think that you will understand why. His dad was a Baptist preacher in Tennessee and the church at Hico needed a pastor. The church was given the names of two preachers in Tennessee and his dad was second choice. They got the names mixed and Bro. Gilliam got the first invitation.

He caught a train out to Hico and preached on Sunday morning, since there was not a train out that afternoon they asked him to preach at the night service. He did and the church called him that night. Paul said that he immediately accepted as he needed to get away from Tennessee. Pay was not much for preachers there, so his dad made moonshine all week long and preached on Sunday and the church there was beginning to frown on it.

Paul was two years old when they came to Hico, but he says that he can remember how nice the people were to have a meal prepared for them, and he can remember being carried around by some of the ladies.

Later he remembered going with his dad to Spurlin where he would preach on Saturday morning and then go to the home of some of the members for dinner. He said that they often went to the Barnett home where he would get some of the best fried chicken he ever ate. After dinner they would go out on the porch and talk and talk, and he was wishing that he was back home playing, He would hear that sermon on Saturday morning his dad would preach the same sermon on Sunday morning at Hico, and Sunday afternoon they would drive to Duffau where he would hear the sermon for the third time. No wonder Paul is so good.

Bro. Gilliam had a long ministry in Texas, having served as pastor in Hico, Carlton, Clifton, Stephenville, and out at Uvalde.

Googalak was one of Bobby's favorite characters in the stories on the weather forecast, so I had to call him up to see how it was spelled. As I suspected, it was not a true name, but that type character did live.

I didn't think to ask Bobby how long he had announced for Paul, but he had been at KCLW for over 32 years and has won the respect of all of us. He said that he had been announcing Paul's ad for a few weeks when called for him to come in. Bobby felt about like a second grader that had been called to the principal's office. When he got there, Paul told him he liked the way he was ,,,,, ,,,,,,, .... and that he could tell anything he wanted to as long as he took time to say something about the cars for sale.

He said, if the forecast was short and sweet, he had a lot of time to fill in. He would make up a story to fit the time. If he didn't have one about Googalak, he would tell one about some of his fishing experiences with Melvin Peirson or some other buddy. If he thought that his wife was not listening, he would tell something on her that happened around the house. This got him in trouble a few times when a neighbor, Mrs. Alton Bullard, would hear the program and tell his wife.

Bobby grew up in Baird, Texas, where his father was a barber for 50 years. Bobby shined shoes at the shop and heard the background for many of his stories there. There are some R and X rated stories that he has had to leave out.

He played his fiddle in the Texas Wranglers Band for a number of years and it was while playing with them that he captured the heart of a Mississippi miss, Bobbie Nell, his wife.