It is certainly their guidance that shaped my early attitudes toward taking responsibility for your actions; doing what is good; knowing the difference between right and wrong; understanding that your family name is your most prized possession; and understanding that your family is the bond which holds all of these other intangible traits together. (Family blood will always be thicker than water.)
Of course, being instructed in similar lessons by strict and stern nuns at St. James Catholic School in Port Arthur, from grades one to eight, only reinforced those earlier parental imprints.
Ruler raps and sore knuckles by nuns certainly didn't diminish the importance of these lessons. Sore-knuckle flashbacks in later years – when weighing various courses of action to take on difficult situations – helped provide guidance. (I guess this could be considered PNSS - Post Nun Stress Syndrome.)
However, similar to an Amish teen experiencing rumspringa, I managed to discover the ways of the "modern" world when I escaped the nuns' stranglehold and entered public schools in the ninth grade at Woodrow Wilson Junior High School in Port Arthur.
Those were truly formative and educational years...new friends, adventures, and my first kiss (Judy Methvin) which wasn't with either an aunt or my mustached Cajun grandmother. (For the truly voyeuristic, this is about the only sex this tome will contain. Except, of course, to document the birth of our two offspring.)
Thomas Jefferson High School in Port Arthur would have been perfect without the benefit of Latin and Trig classes. While surviving both (Trig barely...thanks to being able to smooth-talk Mr. Ward into changing my grade.), I collected some of my best friends - B.J., Jay, Jim, Brian, David, Butch and Barry. (In fact, there is a bottle of Two Buck Chuck wine on my bookshelf for the last of the TJ 7+1 WASPs. Right now, there are five of us left.) Other notable acquaintances I attended high school with and knew were Janis Joplin, Jimmy Johnson, and the artist Jim Richard.
You can read more about my familiarity with Janis (we shared homeroom for three years) by buying a copy of Ellis Amber's book "Pearl" and reviewing page 19. Janis attended the 10th TJ reunion and I had a chance to chat with her and obtain an autograph on my brown liquor bottle bag. Her detailed inscription in my '59 TJ annual is classic Joplin.
Of course, we all made the mistake of believing high school friendship bonds would weather the test of time, and good times could be extended into our futures. Lesson Learned: Not always true.
As "close" friends, we now see or visit each other (at least those still alive), maybe on the occasion of a high school class reunion. We again reaffirm our pledge to keep in touch, plan outings, or just pick up the phone and call.
Certainly, not looking forward to the 50th reunion in 2010 to reaffirm this aging pledge. Maybe this is best since I've become a firm believer you cannot go home again ... the rooms are too small for one thing. (Note: Did not attend the reunion but did start having quarterly lunch meetings with BJ, who lives in Fort Worth.)
Believing a person, who doesn't have or love dogs, should be placed on a sexual predators list to make their life difficult, I decided to attend Texas A&M College to study Veterinary Medicine after graduating from high school. (A&M was still a college back then. While the corp was compulsory for all students, girls were not yet admitted at that time.)
All went fine until my sophomore year when I just couldn't grasp the understanding and wondered why animals needed me to understand Organic Chemistry and Physics. I surely didn't!
I did, however, determine how to tell if beer was cold enough to drink and enjoy. And it only took a year-and-a-half at A&M to absorb this valuable lesson. Another lesson learned well was that Snook, Texas, probably had the coldest beer in all the state on Saturday nights.
Leaving A&M with the sole knowledge and appreciation of cold beer, this "pause" in my formal education allowed me to work in the 'real world' while deciding if a college education was truly in my future. I can now assure you after working for six months as a deckhand on an oil tanker sailing up and down the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, college seemed like paradise.
On the tanker, I toiled scraping rust out of the oil/gas holds (getting high if the tanks were still "ripe"), painted every square inch of metal and decking, and stood 4:00 a.m. watch on the bow of the ship scanning the horizon for icebergs. (I later learned no icebergs had ever been spotted in the Gulf of Mexico.)
With callused hands and a fat bank account, I returned to the swamp lands of my birth with a renewed understanding that college education might make toiling and sweating for a living a little less desirable.
Enrolling in Lamar State College (now University) in Beaumont, Texas, I charted a course of study which would hopefully provide me with gainful employment: number crunching.
With the deckhand days still in my memory synapses, I actually studied and read lesson assignments this time around. The amazing process of studying earned me a BBA degree in Accounting along with membership in the Blue Key National Honor Society and Delta Sigma Pi professional business Fraternity.
Since Viet Nam was grabbing all young males of service age, I attempted to find gainful employment with the FBI upon graduation from Lamar. Alas, they couldn't provide a deferment for my rather low draft number, so I did the next best thing ... I joined the Navy Reserve. (My thinking was it would be better to sleep between warm sheets instead of a muddy and wet foxhole.)
Actually, I started the military process by taking the exam and passed all the requirements for entry into the Navy's Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island.
Things floated along well until about six weeks before graduating as an Ensign from OCS - Hospital Company 608. I realized if I was commissioned, this would entail three and a half more years of active duty service. Whereas, if I "floated out" of OCS, I could serve the remainder of my reserve duty time – one and a half years – as an enlisted swab. (This is how number crunching really came in handy. My only regret was leaving OCS and the finest group of shipmates who were young, idealistic, and dedicated to the service.)
Choosing option "B," I left the OCS program — and I left many friends who went on to perform tremendous service for the Navy during the Viet Nam war. I was granted leave, went home, proposed to Judy Jane Linthicum at a Shakey's Pizza Parlor on Harry Hines Blvd in Dallas, and started planning a wedding before reporting for duty aboard the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CVA 42) in Mayport, Florida.
Yes, sharp reader, I got married before shipping out to — you guessed it — the Tonkin Gulf, Viet Nam!
Judy and I had been dating before I graduated from college. She still had one year to go at Lamar before receiving her degree. So, in six days -- while on leave -- our families planned a church wedding, gathered up all my Cajun relatives, and we got hitched on June 11, 1966, in St. James Catholic Church, Port Arthur. When someone hollers "wedding party," all the "coonass" (Cajun, for the uninformed) relatives come out of the woodwork and swamps. Over 200 folks joined us in the festivities that day. And what a day it was.
The ending of the shindig was classic. One of my fraternity brothers hugged Judy so hard that he actually separated one of her ribs! How's that for starting a honeymoon? (Note: Bud and Judy Baskin still remain on our Christmas card list. In fact, they attended our 50th wedding anniversary shindig on June 11, 2016.)
I'll give the Navy credit for their saying about joining and seeing the world. While the duty aboard the ship was less than glamorous, the ports of call were truly outstanding. My tour of duty allowed me to see and visit: Cuba (Guantanamo Bay) twice, the Philippines (twice), Brazil (Rio), and Japan (twice). However, crossing the equator and going through the Navy's Shellback Ceremony was no picnic. There was a lot of sweat, grease, water and butt slapping with chunks of fire hoses.
Working in the Air Traffic Control tower aboard the aircraft carrier, I probably had better opportunities for shore leave than many other swabs on the ship. Stateside forays included areas around Mayport and Jacksonville, Florida. Once, I even managed to make a weekend trip home to see Judy in Irving, Texas, carrying a brass table purchased in Guantanamo for our anniversary.
Another unusual event occurred as my tour of duty began to wind down. While "Floating in the Tonkin Gulf," I was called to the Chaplin's office and informed Clarence had had a heart attack, and I was granted a week's leave to go home. Not only did I launch off the carrier in a C-140 (actually my second time to launch off the carrier...the first was a day trip to Danang), but I celebrated Christmas Eve twice in 1966. Yes, twice after crossing the International Date Line.
On Christmas Eve, I flew to the Philippines, boarded a C-151 transport carrier, and headed to the USA. The 16-hour flight crossed the International Date Line and had us landing in California on Christmas Eve morning. Is that strange or what?
After finishing my tour of duty, Judy and I settled in Houston, Texas, where she taught school (junior high) in the Spring Branch district and I worked as an accounting drone with Tenneco Oil Company.
Judy was overwrought with snotty-nosed students and I calculated it would take 90 years to reach a manager's position in my department. Since both of our careers were mired in muddy directions, fate dictated we move to Irving where Judy could work in the family Ben Franklin Store business while her mother was recovering from breast cancer surgery.
I went to work with a family-run wholesaler paper distributor, Olmsted-Kirk Paper Company, Dallas, Texas, as the head accountant...my boss was the chief accountant.
The call to work in an education environment was soon beckoning. So, after two years with the paper company, I landed a slot as Chief Accountant for the Dallas County Community College District. While the work was not glorious, I had a foot in the education doorway. Without going into boring number-crunching detail, I worked my way up to Comptroller for the district before leaving to take a position at the UT Health Science Center - School of Allied Health Sciences as the Administrative Assistant to the Dean of the School of Allied Health Sciences.
As a part of the UT Medical Center, I acquired exceptional education and collegiate budgeting skills which positioned me to apply and garner the Vice President of Business Services position for the soon to open, in 1977, North Lake College of the Dallas County Community College District in Irving.
Skipping over all the stress, heartburn, personnel problems and other assorted detritus which encompasses work in the academic environment, I later joined another North Lake colleague, and we also opened the new Bill Priest Institute of Economic Development (also part of the DCCCD) where I was the Vice President of Business Services. It was here I finally calculated and took advantage of an early retirement program (with a 'silver' parachute) and began smelling the roses of the leisure life at the ripe age of 55.
From this point forward, life had a new meaning...doing what I wanted to do, when I wanted to, and how I wanted to.
Of course, there was a considerable amount of civic activity during all these years of employment. From being president of the Irving Rotary Club, fundraising as Chairman of the BSA annual drive, vice president and director of the Irving Chamber of Commerce, and serving two terms on the Irving City council. However, after the first sniff of the sweet fragrances of the retirement roses, I decided to leave all of that behind to relax, read, and attempt to fine-tune all aspects of my previous 'cat kicking' "wordsmithing" via the Controversial Committee Report.
The CCR, as it became known, was first published in 1984 with weekly 'reports' in the Irving Rotary Club Blade. As the editor of The Blade, I had free rein to express opinions regarding local events, politico action or inaction, and certainly 'kick the cat' when necessary.
The CCR evolved from the Rotary Club Blade to monthly published reports which were mailed to a subscriber list. Never designed to make a profit, the $10 annual cost was a literary ruse to let folks think they were either paying for something important or being provided 'inside' information regarding the local political scene.
In reality, the CCR was merely attempting to make "cat kicking" a humorous report on the Irving condition. And thanks to Phil Harvey, the other half of "Cool and the Geezer" columns which were published in the Irving News and The Journal, many chuckles were registered. And with the good graces of Jan Dickson, covering the school district scene, provided the technical skills of editing the reports to ensure folks believed Phil and I had at least passed high school grammar lessons.
As this is the very Final Issue of the CCR, it would be most appropriate to mention or list any regrets, sins of omission, or "cats" the staff of the CCR (Mark Holbrook my pseudonym, me, and Dylan Westie, my West Highland White Terrier) never got around to kicking. However, life should not be about regrets. Instead, we should celebrate what we have...good, bad, or indifferent. After all, if leopards cannot change their spots, then we cannot change or amend what the tally board reflects concerning our time spent breathing air on this planet. There are no do-overs. And, at this stage, no regrets.
With regards to non-regrets, some things done once...were just never tried again. And there was always a tendency to partake of the good things of life in moderation...otherwise, some may view these actions in differing light, or consider one an addict. (And this is not a reference to drugs. Hell, I even hate taking prescription medications. The reference was to indulgences of Dr. Pepper, Blue Bell ice cream and, of course, BBQ brisket.)
Hopefully, one can retain a spiritual memory bank of some of the really good memories accumulated over a lifetime…regardless of wherever their ethereal being might eventually be parked. While not an all-inclusive list, remembering would certainly include deer hunting with Clarence; learning how to cook gumbo with Josephine; a night on the town with my brother and Joe Kares in Arkansas; a taxi ride up Mount Corcovado in Rio; snorkeling in Guantanamo Bay (finding a piece of brain coral); taking off and landing on an aircraft carrier; high school antics with the 7+1 WASPs (BTW, be sure the bottle of wine on the bookcase shelf is given to one of the remaining members); marrying Judy and having two terrific kids – Patrick and Jennifer; watching the kids grow and become independent and always making us proud; publishing "TEXAS Is;" publishing "Dylan's Ruffings; "having a few good, close friends over the years: Joe, Jim, Phil, Dick, Gerald, Ben, Avi, Kevin and Carla, and a few coffee shop group attendees.
Finally, there are some last thoughts as to how I would like to close this chapter of the CCR and put a period on all this rambling "wordsmithing."
Not one to be ostentatious, I think these things should be kept very simple...translation: on the cheap side. (Once a conservative, always a conservative…right?.)
Instead of a large funeral with a heavy coffin (have I mentioned I tend to be claustrophobic?) for my friends to tote, I should be deep-fried crisp like a batch of jumbo shrimp, and the ashes placed in a decorative urn. The urn can rest in the vault at Bluebonnet Hills in Southlake, next to the love of my life — Judy.
A vault-side service with the urn, similar to what was done for Josephine and Judy, should be sufficient for my very immediate family and a few select and invited friends only.
Then, in keeping with the Cajun tradition of "laissez les bon temps rouler," I would like to have a 'memorial reception' or gathering for family, friends and other guests. This could be at one of the nicer Irving hotels where there will be free drinks (beer and wine only) for the group, plenty of noshing items (including peeled boiled shrimp -- at least the 15-count size) and music as identified later in this document (maybe Patrick could burn a disk to handle a few of my favorites. One which must be included is the 5th Dimension's "Age of Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In.").
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Stop the Press: The above last rites were written several years ago. Since then and with the passing of Judy, I have had a change of heart, feelings, and desired plans. With the kids working and handling Judy's rites with me, the detail considered worked to perfection — wooded casket for the mortuary, public viewing the evening before (I would prefer a closed casket), immediate family only at the mortuary for a brief service with the church priest officiating prior to the church mass for the public, an Episcopal mass, and a 'social' gathering in the church hall after the ceremonial mass. While this plan for Judy covered all the bases, it also allowed us to properly respect Judy's desires and share her remembrance with family and friends.
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Stop the Press, Again: With the current COVID-19 pandemic breaking the USA down, it is possible none of the above might even be possible due to distancing restrictions, crowd gatherings, and the ability to conduct a "normal" funeral service. However, Patrick and Jennifer can determine what should be considered. Knowing the deep bond between them, they will keep the Family Strong tradition alive and do what is best. And the same will be true with handling all the "to-do" issues left regarding the family business and household requirements. It would be grand if all the detail was in order, but that is just a fantasy wish.
It is doubtful anyone can actually have and provide for all the post-mortem issues which might prevail. But working together, I know the kids will be strong and do what is best; Thank you, Jennifer and Patrick. As I've said many times, your mom and I were extremely blessed with two of the greatest kids possible. Your life is now completely in your hands...live well and respect each other.
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Also, I would like this "final chapter" of the CCR report to be printed as a small brochure and a copy given to all those in attendance at the church reception (if there is one). Additionally, the report should be posted on the CCR blog site, e-mailed to all the contacts in the ZAP files (as bcc:) along with a copy sent to all those in the Navy OCS H-608 contact file.
The church reception (if provided) will be more fun than an elaborate church wedding reception and folks can chat, drink, and have a good time without a coffin lurking in the background. (Never did like going to funeral home visitations when the deceased had to lay there while everyone else appeared to be having a good time. This just seemed to be so disrespectful.).
As far as all the CCR files are concerned, it would be nice if all my papers, reports, musings, etc. on my desk were not shredded or tossed into a recycle bin. Packed away in plastic tubs for storage might be appropriate. Most reports are already packed in plastic tubs in my office closet and a good number (not all) have been provided to the Irving Archives director, Kevin Kendro (there are some files already designated for him).
After all, there is a lot of Irving history contained in these missives, so maybe someone down the road would be interested in a literary research project: "Does butchering sacred cows actually change public opinion?"; or should costly mistakes, made by elected politicos, ever be placed on the back burner of history?
Just a thought...not all the reports and other documents are posted on the CCRs blog site. Some issues were communicated to friends or coffee shop group individuals – PJs B-Day announcements.
Last words for this final "cat kicking" summary: "He was right more than he was wrong, but would someone please check his grammar?" (Ed. note: God help us, Mike, we tried.)
Knowing there could be some disagreement in that assertion of being right, I know the family will understand my love, and commitment, and all my actions were truly designed to always be there for them, protect their interest, and ensure, as best as possible, that our lives and times together was a joyous ride which could never be duplicated or imagined. "Laissez les bon temps rouler." And frankly, dear readers, I think this has been accomplished!
