Fort Stockton has had its share of circuses come to town; not necessarily all of them had tents and tigers, if you know what I mean. Most folks take it all in stride as long as it doesn’t affect the price of cattle or oil.

That was the case back in late ’48 when a mint and white Westcraft Sequoia cruised into town behind a green Chrysler Town & Country convertible. From a distance it looked like a giant waffle cone with a big scoop of chocolate mint ice cream had fallen on its side and was heading down the highway looking for shade from the Texas sun before it melted all over the Sam Houston rest stop just outside town.

Closer inspection told a tale that was equally hard to discern.

The two studious guys navigating the Chrysler / Sequoia classic tandem through town claimed to be scientists. They explained to anyone who’d listen that Fort Stockton had been chosen to gather scientific data for projects each was working on. From the little bit of information gleaned, Brother Bob over at Second Baptist had concerns, as neither topic seemed very biblical.

Nonetheless, the sleek Westcraft could be seen setting up at key spots all over town, affording the researchers the opportunity to interview local denizens and gather as much information as they could. It was parked in front of the Piggly Wiggly for several days with a steady stream of female patrons making their way into the front door and exiting the rear door about half an hour later. Many of them seemed flush when they exited the rear door.

The Town & Country towed the two-toned trailer over to the Rusty Hammer Hardware Store next, and parked under the shade of the pecan trees on the west edge of the parking lot for darn near three weeks. As you’d expect, the hardware store had a mainly manly clientele, which is probably why it spent so much longer at that location.

One at a time, guys would walk into the front door, sit down, and fill out some paperwork, then wait to be called to the back portion of the Sequoia for the interview. Of course there was no bed in room, it was a simple birch desk crafted to match the rich paneling of the trailer. There was no air conditioning back then, and there was a reluctance to crack any of the windows, lest passers-by happened to hear any of the questions being asked inside. Between the respondents lighting up Lucky Strikes and the temperature of the interior, the trailer seemed to exhale as each respondent exited the rear portal, most sweating somewhat profusely.

You’d think the locals would have discussed the questions they were asked, if not their answers, but everyone was pretty tight lipped.

The final stop of the Westcraft was over at the Lucky Lady Lounge, where the two researchers would grab folks who had enjoyed a few, perhaps ensuring their responses would be even more factual, less inhibited. After only a few nights there, the trailer was packed up and the Chrysler left town, headed north towards Odessa.

Later that year, when A. C. Kinsey published his findings in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, it became a parlor game to try to identify the statistics in the book with people known to have been interviewed in town. When the friend traveling with Kinsey, George Gamow, introduced the project he’d been working on, The Big Bang Theory, a lot of folks thought it was the same topic.

If those lacquered birch walls could talk.