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Near by, George Craft, 69, "the spittin'est man you ever did see," and official distance record holder (24 ft. 10.5 in.), points out: "You've got to have good jaw muscles." George polished his skills hitting moving targets like chickens and cats as a farm boy; he chews only Apple Sun Cured. "My mother could hit the fireplace from anywhere in the living room," he recalls. "A spitter's greatest joy lies in hitting the moving target, preferably cats, chickens or snakes. You ought to see a cat run when you spit in his eye." Today he is semiretired, but his presence at the contest is something akin to Jack Dempsey ringside at a heavyweight title bout.
Finally the first event, for accuracy, begins. A range of plywood sheets covered with butcher paper is laid out. Official Scorer Johnny Little, known as "the keeper of the cuspidor," cautions: "No licorice or other foreign matter mixed in." One by one the spitters toe the line, legs spread. They draw two fingers to the ends of their mouths, rock back like drawn bowstrings and let fly toward a distant spittoon. Don Snyder reaches the finals but loses the accuracy contest to Hulon Craft, a distant nephew of old George. Hulon comes to within 1 ½ inches of a spittoon 15 feet away.
Screaming boys line the spitting range, older folks crowd up in folding aluminum chairs, and the bleachers sag under the weight of several hundred cheek-to-jowl spectators as Don Snyder begins his assault on the distance crown. The 22 entrants spew down the range. There are three rounds, and Snyder on his first try comes to within a foot of George Craft's 13-year-old record. On the second round he narrows the difference to less than two inches. Then Snyder arches his last shot 25 ft. 10 in. for a new world's record.
The folks have viewed a prodigious feat and they are ecstatic. "I don't see how anybody'll ever catch him unless he slips up," says George Craft. But against the day that Snyder is the sport's grand old man, Timmy Tullos, aged nine and for two years a chewer, is toeing the line with the men and firing away.