Hube Yates was an eleven-year-old pioneer in 1914 when he and his large family moved by covered wagon from Oklahoma to Arizona. He became an athlete, Phoenix firefighter, hunting guide, practical jokster, horseman, dude wrangler, and a fine, fine man. Fortunately, he had a tack-sharp mind,even in his seventies when I interviewed him. Hugh Downs thought enough of him to write the forward to From Thunder to Breakfast. The title is derived from a Texas expression, "from hell to breakfast," which means scattered all over the place. Hube, being a preacher's son, didn't say "hell" so he substituted the word "thunder." He found himself in a thunder of a fix more than once. And when a Model-T Ford packed with luggage and boxes tipped over, the contents went from thunder to breakfast. Just listening to Hube made people smile. Buy your copy! Amazon Amazon.co.uk Froogle Barnes & Noble.com Xlibris Corporation Xlibris – Phone 888-795-4274 From Thunder to Breakfast starts in 1914 when 11 year-old Hube, his six brothers and sisters, preacher father and mother set off from Guthrie Oklahoma by covered wagons to move to the unknown — Phoenix, Arizona. It was Oklahoma's loss and Arizona's gain to have the Yates family in their midst. Hube grew up to be a great storyteller about his adventures throughout his life. He had a special way of speaking, gentle,warm, and friendly, but he could be a strong leader when the occasion called for it. His practical-joke period was outrageously hilarious. He was the storyteller and Gene K. Garrison was the author of this collection of stories. They're history, sort of. Excerpt This is an excerpt from the chapter titled "The Preacher Went A-Huntin'." Ere: The 1940s ______ We had just started to drive out of the gate when a big black sedan come wheelin' and dealin' up there. You could take one look at that little man and you'd know he was a minister. He didn't have to introduce himself. He wore a little old hat with about an inch brim, like they used back East a lot, and a pair of glasses that he pinched on his nose. There was a little ribbon down to the coat of his blue serge suit, a pretty tie — one of those bow ties that has an elastic band around the neck. His shoes were shined and he had on a white shirt. He looked the part. I rolled the window down, drove in front of him and said, "Good morning." He said, "Good morning. I'm looking for a Mr. Hube Yates" "Well, that's me," I said. "I'm Reverend ________ from Cottonwood. I wrote to you some time back about an elk hunt." "Yes, and I answered you by return mail, and I never heard a thing." He answered in almost a whisper, "It's my fault, it's my fault. I neglected to acknowledge your letter. Can you still take me on an elk hunt?" "Yes. I'll tell you what. Just get your suitcase and go out in the bunkhouse, get your fightin' clothes on, and we'll go." He reached up and adjusted his glasses. "Oh, I'm ready to go." The guys in the truck looked at each other. I didn't want to laugh, but it was humorous. "Haven't you got a heavier coat to put on?" "No," he said. "This is all I have." "If you haven't got a heavier coat, get your stuff and let's go." I got one of these fellows that had a heavy coat out of the cab and put him in back with that slim guy so I could get the minister up front where he wouldn't freeze to death. The canteens on the side of the truck were froze. The horse trough was froze over. The minister turned the switch, got out of his car and locked it, like somebody was goin' to steal it. He said, "By the way, Mr. Yates, I, uh, neglected to say . . . do you have a rifle I could use?" Here's a guy who came elk huntin' with no rifle. The guys in the truck all got real quiet and looked at each other again. They couldn't believe it. "You haven't got a rifle?" He said no, so I said, "Oh, I always have a few of them hangin' on the wall," so I got him a three-ought-six just like they used in the Army. All the little kids I know can manipulate them. I got two handfuls of shells and come back out and gave them to him and he put them in his coat pocket. It looked like he had a brick in each of his pockets of that blue serge suit. I said, "Here, this shoots just exactly where you put it. You don't have to worry about it shootin' high or low or to one side. "Wherever you put that, that's what you're goin' to hit." He adjusted his glasses and said, "You see, Mr. Yates, I've never fired a rifle." Great balls of fire! All these guys looked at me as if to say, "Give him two handfuls of shells and you're goin' to turn him loose on the same mountain with me huntin'? He probably never saw an elk, and he shoots the first thing that moves." Oh, I know what they were thinkin'. I asked, "You've never fired a rifle?" He said no. I stood there and tried to show him all the points of loadin' and unloadin', the safety and so forth. He talked to himself. He'd have it down on the ground workin' on it. He'd clear his throat and say, "To eject you pull this knob over, and to release it from the chamber you pull it back." This got a little tiresome, so I said, "Come on, we'll have to go." The fellows in he truck were gettin' nervous. I took the rifle away from the preacher and laid it in the back. I got him in the truck and we went up the road, stopping before we got to the ridge. I said to him, "Now you can't walk over four miles before you get to the Rim road. If you get that far and you haven' got any game, you build a fire to keep warm. You got any matches?" He didn't, so I gave him some. I said, "Build it in the middle of the road. Sometimes maybe one car will come by in a day. Build it in the road. Don't build it in the forest and burn the world up." He said, "All right." I said, "If you shoot one, jut remember where you shot it, and if you think you haven't gone but a mile, come back here. If you think you've gone two miles or over, go on up to the other road. I'll make this loop and pick you up. It's about thirty-five miles." He almost whispered, "All right, all right," and adjusted his pince-nez glasses. "If you kill an elk," I explained, "you just bleed it." He didn't even have a knife. I told him how to open it up. We'll be right with you soon if you get something down." I started to drive off. The other hunters were as solemn as Quakers. The minister called softly, "Oh, Mr. Yates, if I see one, where will I shoot it?" This brought a grin from all the men. I'm no artist, but I got out of the truck, took a stick and pushed the pine needles out of the way. I tried to draw an elk. I showed him the best places to shoot it. He looked at me and said, "All right, all right," and he adjusted those blamed glasses. I got in the truck with the other hunters and started to go around the point about a hundred and fifty feet away where we would be out of sight. We couldn't see him any more, and he couldn't shoot us either with that little mountain in there. I had gone a little way when Slim hollered from the back of the pickup, "Hey preacher, preacher ... if you see two, get me one." He laughed. "All right, all right," the minister said. I thought, "Well that's Slim's partin' shot. He had to get his hooks in him." I drove right around the point and heard a BOOM! I mashed the brakes on. The guy sittin' beside me said, "He killed himself already." It was too close to where I left him to turn around, so I just shoved it into reverse and backed up. Just then there was another BOOM! The fellow with me said, "No, he just wounded himself first and then he finished it." Nobody had any idea what in the thunder we were goin' to see when we got around that point.

Critique Magazine
FROM THUNDER TO BREAKFAST


Forward by Hugh Downs
Xlibris, 2002
ISBN: 1-4010-0377-X

Reviewed by Elizabeth Routen

There's something about From Thunder to Breakfast that is undeserving of a book review. Perhaps it's that to call this a "book" would be misleading, or that "review" is such a narrow term, suggesting summaries and strong opinions narrowly held. How can you review a life? In an honest moment, biographer, eulogist, and friend each would confess inadequacy. Mere words won't do.

But when those words come from such a savvy storyteller as Hube Yates, and when they are recorded by so expert a writer as Gene K. Garrison, sensing the spirit behind the stories no longer seems impossible.

From Thunder to Breakfast is a collection of anecdotes from the life of Arizona pioneer, firefighter, hunting guide, dude wrangler and storyteller" Hube Yates. Add father, husband, preacher, and fearless adventurer to that list and you begin to understand the scope of this little book. Far from an autobiography, with all the self-aggrandizing nonsense that typically entails, Thunder is the most delightful book I have read in the past year. Its charm lies not in its thoroughness or even in its honesty--the reader will suspect Mr. Yates of traditional hyperbole upon occasion--but in the humility and personability of its narrator. It is easy to see past the pages, to imagine Hube Yates to be your friend, and to imagine yourself as the first person to whom he has told his tales.

From Thunder to Breakfast narrates Hube Yates' arrival in Arizona with his family in 1914, his boisterous youth and unorthodox courtship. The reader follows him into old age and is unsurprised to find him enduring injury and the gradual decline of his physical ability with wry humor and good spirits. Through his eyes we participate in practical jokes and embrace his children's births; we watch as he rescues an old man caught in a flash flood and as he fends off 'highway' robbers who threaten all who dare to brave New Mexico's inhospitable desert.

Because of the book's natural language and fluid structure, it's easy to forget that the stories it tells are authentic pieces of history, and that the smiling face on the cover is not that of an actor or model, but of a man who lived a life whose merit cannot adequately be measured by words. There is no accounting the number of lives his simple acts touched and improved. He embodied the American spirit. Progressive and traditional, temperate and outrageous, flexible and morally astute, Hube Yates was a role model for the pioneers of his age as well as for the young men and women of today.

From Thunder to Breakfast is an emblematic journey into the life of a man who lived in an America that still lingers beneath the haste and wastefulness of everyday life. It is highly recommended to students of folklore, history, and human nature.



Rebecca's Reads
From Thunder To Breakfast
Gene K. Garrison
(Reviewed by The Editor - Rebecca Brown)
Xlibris
ISBN: 140100377X
Amazon’s price is: $21.99

Hube Yates’ campfire tales of his time as an Arizona pioneer, firefighter, hunting guide, dude wrangler.
With a Foreword by Hugh Downs who moved to Arizona and came across this loquacious pioneer, with his authentic & amusing memories.

It is 1914 and Hube Yates is all of eleven years old when his minister father uproots his family from the 160–acre claim which he had homesteaded when the Cherokee Strip was run, and with his wife and six children, two wagons pulled by mules, they head out from Guthrie, Oklahoma to faraway Phoenix.

Along the way, they come across Indians and bandits, possies and pigs, quicksands and bears, rivers and the Roosevelt Dam — all perfect adventures for a boy of eleven.

Four years later, the family made the trip back north to Guthrie in an automobile and found out, as the old saying goes: “you can never go home.”
And so the stories keep coming, of his escapades as a runaway and living on what he can shoot; of The Big Bicycle Race when Hube pedals from Tucson to Phoenix where he wins a suit of new clothes and earns the sobriquet Leather–Lungs Yates. Working on Colorado cattle ranches and playing with the young people of his church; memories of a feisty woman lawyer and The Frog Stunt; Christmas Projects and Peculiar Characters; A Turtle–Tip and The Old Goat and Play The Game and the Short–Cut.

Stories of another time in another place, told with a quiet, under–stated turn of phrase that demands you consider the twinkle in his eyes.

Stories, uncluttered and simply told, with the cadence of an old–time story–teller, leaving much to the imagination and the reader wanting more! Reminds me much of our beloved Poppa and the stories he would tell.

Legendary Hube Yates caught the attention of Gene K. Garrison, then a writer for Carefree Enterprise Magazine, and he kept her spellbound. From Thunder To Breakfast is the appealing result of their collaboration of talents.


Alicia Hathcock, http://shelfariauthorreview.blogspot.com
From Thunder to Breakfast by Hubert A. Yates & Gene K. Garrison

Reviewed by Alicia Hathcock

I met the most interesting man the other night.

No, I wasn’t at a party or a local watering hole. I wasn’t working or traveling. I wasn’t even out of the house, but was instead curled up in my favorite chair, next to my husband on the couch who was happily pursuing his sport of choice, tag w/ the TV remote.

I met Hube Yates in the pages of a wonderful book named From Thunder to Breakfast. He is unlike any man I have met before, whether in real life or in the corners of my imagination. Definitely a character, I found him to be a trickster who enjoys a good heartfelt chuckle, but who exemplifies a sweet and true spirit. Hube is a man who arises to every occasion life hands him, who always tries to do the right thing, to be and do what his family and society demand of him. It occurs to me as I write this, that calling Hube Yates a hero wouldn’t be exaggerating!

From Thunder to Breakfast tells the story of Mr. Yates’ life, beginning when he is eleven. His minister father decided to move his family of seven children from Guthrie, Oklahoma to Phoenix, Arizona. The year was 1914 and the family’s traveling mode consisted of two covered wagons pulled by mules, two pack horses, various trunks and supplies, as well as their mother’s organ, heavily padded for protection. The journey was long and rough, and it took the little family three and a half months to make their way to their new home. Hube recalls thinking he felt prepared for the trip because he’d immersed himself in pulp fiction that described the wild and wooly west with all of its dangers. He wasn’t disappointed in the dusty, lonely journey at all - not with standing guard at night with his 12-gauge single-shot rifle; not in meeting Indians; not even in stumbling into a group of horse thieves or the sheriffs who pursued them. In fact, after reading many of Mr. Yates’ adventures during his lifetime, I don’t think he was disappointed in anything that ever happened to him, but instead saw it as a chance for another great story!

And what stories he tells in this book! There are a few more tales of Yates as a youngster including how he ran away while in his teens because he didn’t want to finish his “schoolin’” and the big bicycle race when he was seventeen and he earned the name Leather Lung Yates because he beat everyone in the 144 mile race. There are stories about when he met his wife, Patsy (to whom he dedicates this book); prohibition and the sprinkler wagons; eccentric but admirable people like attorney Hattie Mosier; playing midwife at the birth of his first child; how he became “a fire-fightin’preacher”; roping a skunk and so many more that I don’t want to spoil your pleasure by mentioning all of them.

My favorite story is “The Frog Stunt” and it shows Hube as the consummate trickster. All I’ll say is that it involves a 300 pound Chief of Police, a baseball rivalry between the firemen and police, a hot summer day, some water and frogs.

Reading From Thunder to Breakfast is like being present when an older relative starts to remember “way back when”. The stories are precious for the knowledge of times long gone and are told in a down-to-earth manner. They aren’t fancy with glowing descriptions or metaphors or figurative language. Instead, you get pure storytelling at its finest, with adventures and giggles thrown in for sweetening. Go on, pull up a chair, kick back and open up this book. You’ll be glad you met Hube Yates.