Mickey Sims: Siberian Peach Pie

I once bought a book on solving Procrastination. I never got around to reading it. “Manana Living” is still a way of life for me.   Often, I get stuck in neutral because I’m percolating on an idea or situation.

So, this is how I came to the dilemma of Siberian Peach Pie or Waldorf Astoria Red Velvet Cake?

Mickey Sims

When one names their blog, “A Country For Old Men” it is inevitable there would be obituaries of people admired from both near and afar.  I’ve written personal reflections on James Garner, Jerry Jeff Walker, Guy Clark, Billy Joe Shaver, Merle Haggard and Whitey Ford.  I’ve also written remembrances of my father, Lawrence Hallmark, my cousins Sidney & Travis Witten and my brother-in-law, Henry Teague.

I haven’t written about the three most important people of my formative years, my mother, Belmont Witten Hallmark, my brother Jim Hallmark and sister Nancy Hallmark Teague.  I think I’ve procrastinated because trying to write past the sense of loss I still feel when thinking of them is paralyzing.  Even as I write about someone else there are tears as I acknowledge the empty fact of their being gone.  I vow to get these done for legacy as the oldest surviving member of our family unit to pass on to younger relatives a sense of who these people were to me.

I have been similarly numbed since being advised in September of the passing of my friend Mickey Sims in Amarillo, Tx.  I’ve been wrestling and procrastinating while trying to figure out a “lead” as I learned in Journalism school and the newspaper business.

Siberian Peach Pie…. Siberian Peach Pie…

It was disconcerting to realize the last time I saw Mickey was 2015 when Jan and I flew to Denver and had breakfast with him before heading to Arches National Park in Utah.  Ten years goes by quickly once one passes 60, which I guess is why it didn’t seem so long ago until I saw a photo timestamp.    

We kept in touch mostly by text and Mick was usually the initiator.  He would let me know there was going to be a harvest moon or Northern Lights or some other astrological phenomena.  Or he would send me some information on the Texas Tech Red Raiders to keep an expatriate in the loop.  The last text I got from him a week before he passed had to do with Jimmy Carmichael, who was voted the best high school quarterback of the 1960s in Texas, but could never beat out Joe Barnes for Tech’s starting job. I responded something about Carmichael should have lived in the times of the NIL portal.

Siberian Peach Pie…. Siberian Peach Pie…

I won’t torment further without explaining the obsession of Siberian Peach Pie.  I first learned of the delicacy when I met Mickey and his roommate, Mark Turner.  Sims and Turner lived just down the hall from me in Bledsoe Hall sophomore year at Texas Tech.  Sims and Turner were giants, obviously high school football players, 6-4 & 6-3 in height and 225+ in weight.      

A group of us gathered in Sims’ & Turner’s room for the story.  Turner could have made a fortune as a card player as he had the most deadpan face I ever saw. He is the one who told the epic about Siberian Peach Pie with Sims chiming in with details, local color from around the globe and the infuriating refrain.     

Turner told of a sailor who went to a bakery in London where he discovered the delicacy – Siberian Peach Pie.  It was the best pie he had ever eaten … a taste of heaven. He ate a whole pie for each of the three nights his ship was in London.  Then he shipped out for a trip around the world.

France, Italy, Morocco, Africa, South Africa… each time he hit port he went to a bakery hoping to find Siberian Peach Pie.  Australia, Hawaii, Alaska… Siberian Peach Pie.  He rounded the globe, but never found his favorite pie anywhere, not even in Siberia.  He declined all alternatives.  As Turner and Sims took us around the world, we grew tired of the sailor’s refrain as voiced by Sims: Siberian Peach Pie… Siberian Peach Pie!  

After about 15 minutes, the story finally brought the sailor back to London.  He jumped off the ship and made it to the bakery.  He was so excited.  He went up to the counter and ordered his favorite meal – Siberian Peach Pie!  The counterman looked at him, and in Turner’s flat voice said: ”I’m sorry, we are all out until next week!”

The sailor was dumbfounded.  He was only in London for one night and his obsession, for which he had literally searched the world, was not available. He looked sadly at the counterman, his dreams shattered, his taste buds crying, then replied in Sims' voice: “Okay, I’ll take chocolate!”

The four of us in the audience attacked the two big old boys as best we could for wasting 15 minutes of our young lives. Not surprisingly, Sims and Turner fought us off handily.

That fall semester I was pledging Saddle Tramps, the spirit and service organization at Texas Tech. Sims had spent his freshman year as a Texas Aggie Cadet before seeing the error of that allegiance and returning to West Texas.  The next fall after we met, Sims pledged Saddle Tramps.

I was lucky enough to have Mickey Sims as a Little Brother, which was somewhat ironic since he was six months older, six inches taller and much more mature than me.   He also outstripped me in rank in the organization, rising to the office of President while I was his First Vice President.  I didn’t have a problem playing second fiddle, disappointed only that he never grew up to be governor of Texas as I envisioned. I treasure the Big Brother Bell he gave me to this day and may drag it out to support the Red Raiders in the College Football Playoffs.

Big Brother Bell

The Saddle Tramps had a tradition of actives and pledges depositing one another in a campus fountain.  The pledge classes would sometimes write the count of actives who had hit the water so far that semester on the chalk board before a meeting.  It was into this “fountain committee” tradition that Walking Tall strode.

Mickey had a strong resemblance to Joe Don Baker, the actor who starred in the Walking Tall movies as Sheriff Buford Pusser.  Pusser carried a baseball bat in the movies to bust up stills and Sims began to carry one for our fountain committees.  I’m sure there are some long ago pledges who can recall opening the door to a 6-4, 240-pound Walking Tall lookalike leading the actives fountain committee.  The bat was merely for show but was effective in squelching resistance.

Sims always showed up for me over the 52 years of our friendship.  He organized about 20 Saddle Tramps to come 200 miles from Lubbock to Zephyr, Tx for my father’s funeral in 1975.   Mickey and David Pierce saved my bacon in a little pizza bar just off campus where two town toughs were insulting a table of Saddle Tramps because one of us was black.  I thought a funny story was being told and wandered over just in time to hear the racial insults.  Buoyed by a pitcher of beer, I objected and the two immediately turned on me.  They were just looking for someone to fight, and I had stepped in the trap.  That’s when Sims and Pierce, my 6-4, 225-pound roommate, stood up and informed them the two would have to go through them to get to me.  It pays to have bodyguards when your mouth overloads your ability to back up your words.

He and wife Frankie Sims hosted me numerous times when I wandered through Lubbock during high-timing bachelor days that lasted until I was almost 40.  So, it was only natural Mickey would be at West End Methodist in Nashville for the curiosity extravaganza of the last century, my wedding to Jan Spears on Leap Year Day, 1992.  A famous family picture accompanies this article of Mickey bending way down to talk to my 4-11 mother as she sat in a chair.  I later asked Mickey about the conversation.  Mickey said, “Your mother asked if I thought I would ever see this day?”  He recalled saying, “No Mrs. Hallmark, I never thought I would.”

Mom and Mickey

Ah, ye of little faith! Thirty-three years and counting!

Mickey was good at keeping up with me even as he himself withdrew a bit.  When I saw him in Denver, he had already had a foot amputated due to diabetes.  Still, he seemed his optimistic self, or at least he fooled me. He never shared his health concerns with me, but I’m told the disease took its toll in the ensuing 10 years and adversely affected some of his relationships and friendships.

When the word came of his passing I was stunned.  I guess I had taken for granted there would be a Mickey Sims in this world as long as I walked about.  I had missed my chance at that phone call.    There was just an empty spot left in the world like the one left by my mother, brother and sister. 

I immediately got a flight reservation out for the Saturday of Mickey’s funeral.  I was to fly to Amarillo, rent a car and drive to Pampa for the funeral.  I caught the plane, but halfway over Arkansas we got turned back to Nashville because the two Dallas airports were both closed due to telecommunications glitches.   The plane came back to Nashville and was going to “gas and go”, but I wouldn’t make a connector from Dallas to Amarillo in time for the funeral.  I reasoned since Mickey had been CEO of two companies in the telecommunications industry, he had something posthumously to do with me not being able to make it to West Texas for his sendoff.

I was able to watch the service on YouTube as his son McKinley did a wonderful job honoring his father. McKinley spoke of the paradox that was his relationship with his father, someone who he said was hard to know.  I remember Mick taking McKinley to the state basketball tournament in Austin when he was a teenager, something I’ve duplicated with my grandson, Kody, in Tennessee.  I understood what McKinley was saying, as I knew Mickey 52 years and understanding him was not something I would say was ever accomplished.  All I can tell McKinley is Mickey Sims could be weird in his own way, but I never had a better friend.

A couple of years after we met, Mickey claimed to have made a Waldorf Astoria Red Velvet Cake for my birthday.  I always suspected his mom, but if there was a guy who was unexpected enough to have truly made the cake himself it would be Sims.  Whoever made the cake, it has become my favorite, completely overshadowing the chocolate my mother made.  These days, when we have family birthdays we get “bundt cupcakes” and I always choose the red velvet ones.

If I wandered into that London bakery and they were out of Siberian Peach Pie, I would not be saddened like the sailor.  I would be fine with Waldorf Astoria Red Velvet cake.