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Moment in History - Jim Wills
For
My Children and Grandchildren
Tuesday, December 6, 1932, I was presented to my mother, Ruth Elliott Holt Wills and my father, Joe Wills, at 708 North Harris Avenue, Tyler, Smith County, Texas. I came into the world at home as many born during those years did. Hospital birth was just not in vogue at that time. I was born dead. After a while, they put me in the oven to warm me. The blanket fell from my right shoulder and I was burned. I still carry the scar today. Upon arriving I found that I had a sister, Dorothy Louise, who had preceded me by 7 years or so. She was a good sister, so that's what I called her ... Sister. Over the years she became the focal point of my mischievousness and somehow got the blame for my misdeeds, but in spite of my childhood pranks she loved me and I loved her. I learned that I had a half brother from my Daddy's first marriage. He and his mother were deceased before I was born.
My mother was a farm girl and I suppose married my daddy to get off the farm. My daddy was also a farm boy, but had gone into business with his brother Henry. Mother and Daddy’s parents owned farms on opposite sides of the Lavender Road in north Smith County. Daddy and Uncle Henry owned a small service station and hamburger stand on the corner of North Spring and East Valentine in Tyler. Daddy handled the auto part of the business and Uncle Henry made hamburgers, sold candy, moon pies, and soft drinks. Together, somehow, they squeezed out a meager living for us during those hard times just after the stock market crash of 1929. Daddy’s family had moved to Smith County from Rusk County in 1896. They rented a place from Boney Hudnall. In 1897 they bought a farm on the Lavender Road about 3 miles south of Hitt’s Lake and a mile north of the Four Mile Mountain. Daddy’s father was William G. Wills and his mother was Anna Lee Wills. Anna Lee died in 1920, I’m not sure when Granddaddy Wills died, but they are buried in the Pine Springs Commentary just north of Tyler where Jackie and I have our tombstone set already.
In those days nearly everyone was poor to middle class so I do not suppose we had any more or any less than most other people. Grandmother and Grandfather Wills had long been dead when I was born so I never knew them. Granddaddy and Grandmother Holt were old, too old to do much farming, but with a little help, survived the hard times of that day. I remember when I was about 4 years old we had a 1936 Ford. I remember Mother taking Granddaddy Holt to an old age assistance program down by the depot. He was issued flour, meal, sugar and other such foodstuffs from the program. The flour sacks had prints on them and were made into shirts after they were emptied. Potato sacks also came in handy around the farm. Although we lived in town, mother always cooked Sunday dinner and took it out to my grandparents' house. Mammy, as we called her, could make great pumpkin and sweet potato pies. I particularly loved her candied yams. After we ate, Sister and I spent the day playing. We played hopscotch in the sand. Temple and Leo Holt, my first cousins, came along and as they grew old enough to play with us we had great times on those Sundays of long ago. I have written about these times previously.
When I was 4 or 5 years old, Billy Ricks and his family built a house next to us. Billy was my first playmate in the neighborhood. Later I discovered Harold Chapman, who lived around the corner on Ellis Avenue. In later years Mother and Pete (W.R. More, my stepfather) were to own the houses at 709 N. Ellis, 707 N. Ellis, 708 N. Harris, and 710 N. Harris. Harold, Billy and I played ball on a vacant lot on Wilson Street just around the corner between Billy and Harold and me. When we were 6 or 7 years old, the Tyler Day Nursery was built on that lot, so we were not able to play there anymore. One of our playmates, Byron Tunnel, went on to become Railroad Commissioner and I Speaker of the House of the State of Texas. Colored town lay just a few blocks to the North. I had many playmates there. Actually I never realized I was white until I started to school and found that many of my playmates were not there.
Harold, Billy, and I often walked to town. It was only a mile or so away. We would pick up soda bottles (Grapette, RC Cola, Orange Crush, DR Pepper and Coca-Cola) along the way until we had enough to redeem at the grocery store. In those days if you returned an empty soda bottle you would get a penny or two. Pennies were valuable to us. When we had enough money we would go to the picture show often counting out the admission in pennies. The picture shows were usually Westerns. The show cost 9 cents and there was a penny tax. We usually had enough for a show and some popcorn that cost 5 cents. I suppose it was those early days of self-reliance that caused me to be so independent. I learned that if I wanted something and was willing to pay the price, I could have it. It seemed that nothing was out of my reach if I was willing to work for it.
Sometime along the way I got a little red wagon. I think it was a Christmas present. I found out that if I pulled that wagon around town and picked up bolts, nuts, nails, and other metals off the streets, I could redeem the load for cash at the local junkyard only a few blocks away. What a bonanza! Free money!
One Sunday Harold and I were sitting in the Liberty Theater watching the picture show. They stopped the movie, and then flashed an announcement on the screen. The announcement said that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. What was Pearl Harbor? Who were the Japanese? The time was 2:30 PM December 7, 1941. The movie continued without any more fanfare. When the show was over and we walked outside, there was a great deal of commotion on the square in downtown Tyler. Everyone was out on the streets, people were talking to each other, and kids were hawking the news extras from every corner about the attack. Harold and I still did not realize what was happening. I had just turned 9 years old the day before. I suppose I was in the 2nd grade, because I did not get to start school until I was almost 8 years old. I skipped the 3rd grade because the 12th grade was added and anyone in school at that time skipped the next grade. It did not make sense to me then and it still doesn’t. We bought special stamps at school to fill a book and when the book was full we could cash it in for a war bond.
I can remember being in my mother's arms, nursing getting bathed, and having my diapers changed. When I was 2 years old I was operated on to repair an abdominal hernia. Strange how memory works .....being able to recall things of those early days .... and yet not remembering things that happened a moment or a week ago. It seems the bad is locked out and only the good remains. Thank God for that!
Harold and I played a great deal in the old Oakwood Cemetery on Oakwood Street. It had paved lanes through it and was an easy place to ride our bicycles. We were afraid to ride on other paved streets because of the traffic. We marveled at the differences in monuments and the comments on them.
Harold had an old World War I army bugle that belonged to his dad. When he was free of chores and could play, he would play the "cavalry charge" on that old bugle to let me know he was free to play. I could hear him a block and a half away. In those early years we played a lot of "cowboy games,” taking on the roles of the cowboy heroes of the time and riding our stick horses everywhere. About this time Harold acquired a guitar. Later I got one also. He learned to play his …...... I never did. Although I have lost contact with Harold, in August of 1994, Frank Graham told me he saw him performing in a Dallas nightclub in 1989. More on Harold later ........
When I was in the 6th grade I saved enough money to buy me an old cow pony. I kept it in the backyard and had to build a fence around the garage and used it for a barn. Every day I cleaned up and buried the manure in the yard. Billy had a nice fat little pony. We rode a lot, he had a nice saddle, and I rode bareback. Before I went to school I would take "Rab" several blocks away, hobble and stake him out so he could graze on a vacant lot.
One day Harold went with me to bring him home. We were riding bareback, of course, and were bouncing because of the bad gait of the horse. We started laughing uncontrollably and we both fell off. rolling right under the old horse. I do not think we quit laughing for a long time. Years later in Hawaii we were to recall that fall and start laughing all over again.
We never had many "store bought" toys, so we improvised. We made "rubber guns" out of old inner tubes and pieces of wood carved from the ends of orange crates. We made slingshots from the same wooden boxes. One of our favorite toys was an old metal hoop that we pushed down the street with an old mop handle with a bent nail in it to guide the hoop. It seems silly now. We made "stick horses" from the same old mops. Our cowboy heroes of the day were Buck Jones, Hop-a-long Cassidy, Hoot Gibson, Tim McCoy, Buster Crabbed, Whip Wilson, the Three Musketeers, Tex Ritter and others now forgotten. We could buy a top and string for a dime and we spent hours spinning our tops. A yo-yo cost 10 or 15 cents so we learned how to yo-yo and spent our time trying to hone our skills. We built skate scooters from old roller skates and rode them all over town wherever there were sidewalks. We played marbles a lot, too. We made "tom walkers" and increased our height by 2 feet and walked all over the neighborhood on them.
Sometime during the late 30’s or early 40's Mother and Daddy divorced. Daddy moved away and Mother, Sister and I stayed on Harris Avenue. I really never saw much of Daddy anyway. He left home before daylight and never closed the station until after dark. During the summer he never came home until 9:30 or 10:00. My earliest remembrances of Daddy's gasoline prices were 8 cents for regular and 9 cents for ethyl. Oil was 10 cents and 15 cents for premium. Kerosene was 3 cents a gallon.
There were many displaced persons during the depression and the slow recovery of the 1930’s that followed. Many visitors knocked on our back door and asked for food. They all wanted to work for food, but we had nothing much for them to do except occasionally mow the yard. That was my job. That old push mower was hard to push through high grass so I kept it cut as close as possible. Mother always shared what we had with every one of these unfortunate visitors who were trying to make their way somewhere ... maybe home. My mother was a generous soul.
Some of the boys I remember starting to school with are Charles Stratton, Weldon Green, James Willbanks, Frank Graham, Jerry Hood, Charles Barron, Larry Holland, Edgar Turman and Ennis Smith (later Trimble). Patsy Price is the only girl I can remember from the first grade at this time. She was my sweetheart until the 7th grade. She is as of this writing a missionary in Taiwan. She got my attention in the first grade because I sat behind her and she wet her pants one day which ended up all over my shoes.
During the late 30's I remember taking trips in the Ford to visit our relatives in Dallas, Garland, Iowa Park, Pleasant Valley, Sackse, and Memphis. We had relatives scattered all over north and west Texas. Some of the roads only had one lane paved, so when we met another car, everyeone had to move over and let the other pass. This worked okay except when the roads were wet and slick. Often we got stuck in the mud. Everybody had to get out and push.
My grandparents were born in the late 19th century during a time of westward expansion. Wealthy business people were given land rights-of-way by the government. All they had to do was build railroads. Whole townships once belonged to the railroad companies. Even today, railroads pay taxes based on the track mile. Men of means made fortunes because the income tax was not instituted until 1913. John Pearpoint Morgan (history records him as J. P. Morgan) was such a man. At one time he owned 28 railroads and 5 shipping companies. One of his ships was the U.S.S. Titanic that sank in 1913.
In 1961 I became close friends with his grandson, Morgan Richards. He lived in Dripping Springs, Texas on 2000 acres about 20 miles west of Austin and was a ham radio operator as was I. His call was W5HBM. The family had farmed him out on the ranch in Central Texas because he was an embarrassment to them. He had been kicked out of almost every university in Europe and this country to.
Mammy Holt often told me about the days when she and Pappy lived in Oklahoma. They lived in a dugout out on the prairie. Mother was born in Oklahoma, we are still not sure where. Mammy and Pappy had 9 kids. They were born who knows where now. All that history has long been lost. How they raised so many children as farmers and sharecroppers is a lesson in economics we could use today.
Shortly after the war started, a replacement-training center was built about 10 miles from Tyler on U.S. 271 North. I suppose this was about 1942 or 1943. It turned out to be a gold mine for me. The soldiers came to town on passes so I made a shoeshine box and went into business. I charged 10 cents for a shoeshine working the "square" in downtown Tyler. Weekends were the best. Hardly any of the boys refused a shine. They wanted to be pampered. Also, at this time, I sold papers at mess hall #1. A man would pick up us up about 4 o'clock in the morning and take us out to Camp Fanning as it was called. We would be dropped off at our posts and picked up in time to get back to town and school on time. I was 10 or 11 when I embarked on this enterprise. The old mess Sergeant fed me breakfast in exchange for a paper and the barter system was born! I returned to town each day with my pockets full of silver coins. I was rich!
Before I was 10 I had explored every storm sewer in town. I would walk every creek barefooted and when it entered a tunnel I kept on going to find out where it would come out. Small wonder I never cut my bare feet or was bitten by a snake. I could navigate the whole city and never get on a street. I never became lost either.
Sister married Roe Mink during the war. She continued to live at home with us and Roe Jr. was born on my 10th birthday. After the war Roe came home and Sister moved. I was to live with them off and on until I went into the Navy shortly after my 18th birthday in 1950.
Sometime around 1945, Mother married W. R. (Pete) Moore. He was a good stepfather and tried to be a daddy to me. He was always kind and generous and understanding. He and Mother were together until he died.
My sweetheart from the 1st to the 6th grade was Patsy Price. After high school she became a missionary to China and still is as of this writing. In junior high school I developed other interests and really did not have time for girls. I bought a Whizzer that was a motor driven bicycle. I had a lot of fun with it until it was stolen. I played football in the 9th grade. We lost every game that season except the one we played against Hogg, the other junior high in town and our archrival. I lettered that year and received a sweater with the big R for Roberts Junior High on it, but it was too small so I never wore it. I gave it to my one and only high school sweetheart, Mary June Wynne.
In my 9th grade year I bought a Model A Ford. Every day I would drive it to school. It was a black coupe with a rumble seat. My friends and I had a great time in that old car. It was a 1930 model and was older than I was. I think I drove it 2 years before I was old enough to get a driver's license. In the 10th grade I sold the Model A and bought an English motorcycle, an AJS from Jimmy Poindexter who is Al Dexter's son. Al Dexter (his professional name) was a local entertainer and had written "Pistol Packing Momma," "Wine, Women, and Song," and many other 'hits' of the day. Sam Lovin bought a Matchless motorcycle. We went to all the races at Waco and Dallas. I kept the AJS for a year and traded it to Bobby Kimberly for a 1942 Chrysler 4-door Royal. I customized the old car by padding the dash, foaming the seats and padding the door paneling with red leatherette. I put on 14 coats of hand rubbed black lacquer, also lowered the rear by 2 inches, put on white sidewall tires, rear fender skirts and a sun visor. I sure was proud of that old car. It had a vacuum-u-matic transmission. During my 10th grade my sweetheart was Mary June Wynne. I had to break off with her though, because I could not afford a girlfriend and a car. I guess she still has my football sweater. Mary June married Charles Harvey, a West Pointer and Janet Harvey’s brother. Janet was in our graduating class at high school also.
Also, while I was in the 9th grade, I fibbed about my age and joined the Texas State Guard. We met once a week on Thursday nights and drilled. The unit disbanded about 6 months later and I received an honorable discharge. When I was 16 I joined the Texas National Guard again fibbing about my age. I stayed in the 146th Armed Infantry Battalion of the Texas National Guard until I went active in the Navy on December 15, 1950. I remember one summer trip Buddy Bennedict, Sam Lovin and I went to Austin and picked up 2 half-track armored cars. We drove them back to Tyler. It was several days after that before my hearing returned! Wow they were noisy.
During my high school days I worked at East Texas Auto Supply located on south Broadway near the high school. I stocked the shelves, delivered parts orders on a 3-wheel motorcycle and assisted in the shipping department. In January of 1950 I moved to Tyler Service Parts, a competitor of East Texas, and left them in December to join the Navy. Sam Lovin, T.H. Payne, Devon Chambless and I all were to meet down at the Post Office to join the Navy. After all, our country was at war in Korea and we felt it was our duty to serve. Sam had a wreck on his motorcycle on the way down and broke his shoulder so he could not go. Devon was too young to join. T.H. and me were left to go on alone. We met Kenneth Weaver at the Dallas recruiting center and we all three were sworn in together and became close friends. Kenneth changed his name from T. K. to K. T. Weaver. We came home on leave together, stayed together through boot camp and our first 2 years of navy life on the U.S.S. Lowry DD-770. We rode the train to San Diego, California where we went through boot camp. It was my first train ride. I was made "Recruit Company Commander" straight away because of my previous military experience. It was my responsibility to assemble the troops, get them fed and march them to our classes and other training activities including parades. It was a good deal for me. They had to carry rifles I carried a sword. My military demeanor and test scores were apparently noticed because I was interviewed for the Naval Academy at Annapolis. I showed no interest in going to the Academy though because I saw my self as a hero and wanted to go to Korea where the action was. Mistake number 1!
On March 1, 1951, we boarded the U.S.S. Lowry DD-770 and headed from San Diego to Longbeach, California. The sea was rough that day and night and we all got sick. We were there only a few days for liberty and returned to San Diego. Early in April we departed for San Francisco and on April the 8th I got my first look at the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz.
About this time I "struck" for a radioman's rate. I taught myself to type and learned the Morse code by listening to signals on the radios down in the emergency radio room. Everyone was amazed at how quickly I learned the code. We soon left for New York via the Panama Canal. April the 19th we docked in Balboa, Canal Zone. I remember it was hot and the town was dirty. It rained every day at 11 o'clock. The tropical workday was a half-day.
We went through the canal on April 21st. It is a one-day trip. April the 30th we docked in New York and went site seeing. T.H., Kenneth and I headed first to the Empire State Building. I can tell you that the view from the top is great. Looking down I would get dizzy. On May 3rd, we docked in Norfolk, Virginia. Kenneth and I went to refresher radio school and T.H. became a payroll clerk.
The war was still going on in Korea, but we were not in it. I was getting disappointed. We went on a "shakedown" cruise and arrived in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba on August 25th, 1951. September 21st we went to San Diego, Cuba for a few days of liberty. Cuba is a pretty country, mountainous and green. Between August 25th and January 27th we made numerous trips from Norfolk to GTMO. On October 9, 1951 we were returning to Norfolk from GTMO. I was on radio watch monitoring 500 KCS when I heard an SOS. It seems that the Suamico, a Navy transport ship and the Saxon, an American freighter had collided. I immediately notified the "bridge" and the Captain. We changed course to proceed to the two ships in distress. The following is a quote from the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot dated the 10th of October 1951. "First to the rescue was the U.S.S. Lowry (DD-770), a destroyer, returning to Norfolk from Cuba. The Coast Guard said she was 17 miles away at the time of the accident and the two ships were perceptible on her radar. The Lowry stood by for about an hour until the arrival of the Barataria, a Coast Guard weather ship, which was returning to its station from delivering a crewmember to Norfolk for hospitalization and was 18 miles south when ordered to the scene. The location of the accident was 36.15 N and 75.30 W."
January 29, 1952 we left the Panama Canal for San Diego. I met Donald Ferguson, a friend from my neighborhood and who went to my church. He was also in the navy but was studying for the ministry. Harold Chapman had joined the Air Force and was stationed in Honolulu. I sent him a Twix that we were coming so he was waiting for us at the dock in Pearl Harbor when we arrived on February 15, 1952. We spent a few days together and he showed us around the island. We still laughed about falling off the old horse.
We arrived at Midway Island on February 20th for refueling. I saw my first "gooney birds." They are beautiful in flight but have a difficult time taking to the air and always crash when they land. Between Midway and Yokosuka, Japan we were hit by a typhoon. I was leaving the radio shack for the mess hall and had started down the ladder, the ship dropped out from under me and as I fell downwards, the ship heaved upward. The ladder caught me in the back and gave me an injury that still troubles me today.
Finally on March 7, 1952 we joined a task force on the East coast of North Korea at Wonson Harbor and began shelling the railroads, bridges, and storage depots. We were able to seal a train in a tunnel by blowing up both ends. Later that month we joined fast carrier task force 77 and operated as escort. We picked up several downed pilots during that operation. Often I would see the carriers push damaged aircraft over the side. They just didn't have the time or space to cannibalize them. This was relatively good duty except that we had to go all out all the time during launching and recovery. Did you ever try to sleep on a destroyer when it is underway at 25 knots? Impossible! The whole ship shakes and vibrates!
April 1st we joined task force 96.7 off Okinawa and operated with them looking for Russian submarines until April 16th when we arrived in Sasebo, Japan. After shore leave we joined a British carrier force on the West coast of North Korea. They were still using Spitfires and Vampire aircraft. May 19th we were anchored offshore. I'm not sure exactly where, but somewhere above the bomb line. I volunteered for a "shore fire control party" and went ashore to direct gunfire. Typical navy operation of the day ... we were in short sleeves ... no canteens ... low quarter shoes ...only a Lieutenant was armed.
The Captain thought this would be a 2 or 3-hour deal. The ship started taking fire by shore batteries, so they dropped the anchor and got underway leaving us on the beach.
The North Koreans spotted us easily and took pot shots at us constantly. That was where I learned to “escape and evade.” We made our way south for 3 days hiding during the daytime. It was still cold. I almost froze. On the 3rd day, we encountered U.S. Marines who started shooting at us to. They wondered how we had come through the minefields to the North without incident, what mine fields, we asked? Then we were told that we had been hiking around for 3 days in a heavily mined area between the lines. The marines fed us and put us on an LCM that took us out in the Yellow Sea to the LSMR 403, which was an LST converted to carry rockets. They told us the area where we had been for 3 days was heavily mined. Weren't we lucky not to have stepped on one when all around us our American servicemen were losing their lives? I contacted Kenneth on our ship using CW and notified him of our whereabouts. We stayed on the LSMR until the Lowry could get back to us and make a transfer. The guys on the LSMR took real good care of us.
Shortly after this I was loaned to the South Korean Navy and served on a PT boat for several days. We patrolled up the Chinnampo Inlet and the Nam River near Pyongyang at night and hid behind Soc-to or Cho-do Islands during the day. Pyongyang was where the 8th Army was evacuated from on December 5, 1950. They were almost annihilated before they got out. The boat had no radio operator until I got onboard. The Koreans ate little minnow-like fried fish. I got my food during the day from a supply boat. Although the PT boat was heavily armed with machine guns, it was scary. The North Koreans were on the North bank of the river and to the South were UN Troops. We took fire every night. Once I had a gun mount blown from around me but escaped injury.
We left the war zone on June 22nd for Hong Kong, China and home. Before we reached Singapore we crossed the equator and went through the "shellback rituals." Interesting! July 1, we left Singapore for Colombo, Ceylon, now Sri Lanka. We rode a bus up into the mountains to Kandy, the capital. Along the way we stopped where some natives were washing their elephants in a mountain stream. Several of the guys took rides on the elephants.
We arrived at Bahrain Island in the Persian Gulf on July 14th and went swimming at the pool of a local sheik. On the 19th we left Aden, Arabia, a shipping crossroads for the Suez Canal. There was no such thing as an ice cold drink in Aden, but there were a lot of camels. We stopped in the Little Bitter Lake and had swim call for a while. The water there is reputed to be the saltiest in the world. You couldn't sink. We arrived at Port Said, Egypt on the Mediterranean on the 24th and left on the 25th for Istanbul, Turkey. We passed through the Dardanelles, a waterway connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Ocean and named after Dardanus, the mythical founder of Troy. This waterway separates Europe from Asia Minor. All along the west bank are old castles guarding the waterway and on the east bank are olive, almond, and lemon orchards.
Istanbul, Turkey was an interesting place. In one place, they thought we were crazy when we ordered a second dish of ice cream. We saw the famous Blue Mosque and other local sites. Istanbul was once named Constantinople. The First Council of Constantinople was the second ecumenical council of the church. Theodosius I convened it in 381 A.D. The bishop of Constantinople was proclaimed second in status to the bishop of Rome. Later, Constantinople became the seat of the Eastern Orthodox Catholic Church. Later it was overrun by the Otterman Empire and became Moslem. We arrived in Athens, Greece on the 27th of July. We visited the Parthenon on the Acropolis. We stood on “Mars Hill” where St. Paul had asked the Athenians why they had a monument to the "Unknown God." I found it interesting that the Greeks were able to do so much with the crude tools they had so many centuries ago. On August 1st, we arrived in Naples, Italy. We visited the Isle of Capri, perhaps one of the most beautiful places on earth. While on the island we took a boat to the Blue Grotto. The Grotto has a small hole entrance into it. Once inside it was dark as pitch. You couldn't see your hand in front of you. You could, however, see anything in the water. The light came into the Grotto through the sea and lit up the water. It was very interesting. We visited the ancient ruins of Pompeii, a city destroyed by an eruption from Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D. In its day, it was another Sodom. A surviving mural depicted a man holding scales. On one side it was loaded with gold. On the other were his genitals. The scales balanced! Much of the architecture was Greek and Roman.
We arrived in Cannes, France on the 6th of August. Cannes is a beautiful place on the southern tip of France where the wealthy of the world gather to play. T.H., Kenneth and I went to Paris to see the sights. We saw the medieval cathedral of Notre Dame, which is just a few feet from the geographical center of Paris. We enjoyed the view from the Eiffel Tower. We saw the Follies Bejour, the Cafe de Lido, and the Pigalle area where famous artisans of the past used to paint. Paris is indeed a beautiful city. We departed Gibraltar for Norfolk, Virginia on August 11th.
On December 15, 1952, exactly 2 years after I joined the Navy, I swapped duty with a radio operator on the U.S.S. Trathen DD-530. They were heading for Korea. He didn't want to go and I did. So I said good-bye to T.H. and Kenneth and headed back to Korea to do it all over again. On January 9, 1953, we left Norfolk, Virginia for Korea.
January 14th, we went through the Panama Canal again on our way to San Diego. Did you know that the Canal runs northwest to southeast? January 21st, I ran into Ralph Everett from Tyler. We had gone through school together. We left San Diego, California on the 23rd of January and arrived in Honolulu, Hawaii on the 28th. We departed Honolulu on the 28th for Midway. We arrived Sasebo, Japan on the 1st of February and were destined to join Task Group 95.2 on the "bomb line." We blew up several small crafts belonging to the North Korean Navy while patrolling the northern waters. Duty on the ship was pretty boring, so I spent all my off time in the radio shack as well. Often I would sit on a circuit for 36 hours at a time without sleep. Sometimes when I would send traffic to Tokyo, it would be NPG in Guam, NPN in Honolulu, or NSS in Washington who would hear me and take my traffic. Just because I was closer to Tokyo didn't mean they could always hear me. One day while operating too close to shore, I was in the radio shack when a shell fired by the North Koreans went right through the radio shack and lodged in a far outer bulkhead. It had missed me a couple of feet, but had knocked some books stored in the overhead down on me. It happened so fast. Every day it was my duty to send out the "bomb report." This was a 450 to 650-code group message to the naval command in Tokyo. I used my "bug" and luckily I always sent to a good operator, because they never asked for fills. I sent the reports out as fast as I could, probably about 35 or 40 wpm.
We operated on the "bomb line" bombarding the beaches of North Korea until March 25th and arrived in Sasebo on the 27th. After a few days liberty, it was time to join the fast carrier task force operating off the east coast of North Korea. We joined them April 3rd. On the 3rd of May we arrived at Yokosuka, Japan for repairs and left to rejoin the carrier force on May the 11th. One of our sister destroyers hit a mine and was damaged pretty badly. June 5th we arrived at Sasebo, Japan and made preparations for the trip home.
Our first stop was Hong Kong, China on the 10th of June 1953. June the 15th I crossed the equator for the second time and made the usual ports of call on the way back home. This was to complete my second trip around the world.
Faye Turner attended my church so I knew who she was. I was very surprised to find out that Devon Calmness and Lois Jean had matched me with her on a blind date while home on leave in 1952. We corresponded during the last year that I was in Korea and while home on leave in September of 1953 Faye and I were married. We bought a 1950 Chevrolet from Holley Motor Company and drove back to Norfolk, Virginia. I was due for discharge on the 14th of December 1954, but Marsha was to be born in November, so I took an early out while Faye could still travel and she flew home. I left the Navy on October 31st and drove home alone. I had just made Radioman 1st Class (E6) but was discharged before I pinned on the rank.
When we got back to Tyler I did not know what I wanted to do so I took a temporary job with the Post Office during the Christmas holidays. We lived on south Donnybrook when Marsha was born on November 22, 1954, at Mother Francis Hospital. Dr. C.E. Willingham, who delivered me, also delivered Marsha. He charged $400. In January we moved to Arlington and I enrolled in Arlington State College (now UT Arlington). I got a job at the Buick-Oldsmobile-Pontiac plant installing left vet windows (49 windows an hour) and went to school at night. By Spring I had developed pneumonia and was pretty sick. I lost my job, quit school and moved back to Tyler. We stayed with Sister and Roe for a while. Captain Smith, a DPS officer and friend, advised me to join the Highway Patrol. So I went to Austin to start training. While there I met Bill Broman who talked me into transferring to the communications division. After completing training, I was transferred to Lufkin. Faye joined me there. We stayed there as long as we could and almost starved. The pay was really bad --$260/mo. Even in 1955 that wasn’t much. We moved back to Tyler and I went to work for Retail Credit Company doing investigations and enrolled in Tyler Junior College. That lasted until January of 1956. I was pretty bored in Tyler and longed for the excitement of the military life.
I took the battery of tests for the Air Force cadet program and missed only a few questions. I was turned down because I was married and that was forbidden, so I joined the Air Force on January 26, 1956. . I was told by the recruiter that I could apply for OCS when I got to San Antonio. Wrong! Dumb me!! I found out you had to be under one commander for a year and then be recommended. So After being in the 9th TRS for a year, I took the test over again, took the physical and waited for an appointment date. They assigned me to class 57C. The time came that I should report, but I had no orders. A follow up by the squadron to OCS said there had been an error in leaving me off the list because I had applied so early and got lost in the shuffle. I should reapply next year. Well……next year I was to old. Darn!! We went to San Antonio for uniforms and assignment. They sent me to Russian language school. After that I wanted to fly so I went to gunnery school in Denver. After school I was transferred to a B-66 recon squadron at Shaw AFB in Sumter, South Carolina. Rex Deaton was my AC (aircraft commander) He was from Henderson, Texas and we often flew a T33 to Shreveport and hitch-hiked home. Once we landed at the naval air station in Grand Prairie in a B66. Rex was a tall lanky Texan like me and we got along well. He had a ski boat so we often went up to the lake and water skied. I really liked him. Jan was born in Tyler at Mother Francis Hospital on February 7, 1957. Dr. Willingham had raised his price to $450. Faye and the kids joined me when they could travel. Malisa was born at Shaw AFB Hospital on April 26, 1958.
I had lost all of my rank by staying out and switching services so I entered the Air Force as a corporal. Shortly I made Buck Sergeant and was assigned to the NCO Prep Academy. I graduated as Honor Graduate and won the speech award. The commanding General promised I would be promoted to Staff Sergeant when I was eligible. And I was.
One day I was flying a "test hop" to check out a plane that had just been released by maintenance. When we made our penetration from 40,000 feet to 20,000 feet, the pilot's windshield crystallized, preventing any forward vision. The tower told us to head for Myrtle Beach and bail out. The pilot, hero that he was, decided that if a chase plane could fly alongside of us to line us up on the runway, we could make it in. We did, too. On another flight, the nose wheel collapsed on landing. We had B25s and T33s in the squadron also.
I didn't particularly care for the B25 because it was so noisy. I did get to fly the T33s quite often. Rex would schedule us as a chase on the B-66s. We would take one up and fly intercepts on the B66s to give the gunners practice. I learned the 8-point roll and the loop. The loop caused me to red out. That's when all the blood rushes to your head and your vision turns red. We rolled the B66, also, even though it was not designed as an aerobatic airplane
In 1959, the Far East was in chaos. I was transferred to Yokota AFB, Japan to another B66 outfit. Faye and the girls joined me a few months later. Marsha started to school there at age 5, as did all the Japanese kids. She was to be in school for the next 27 years. Our mission was to probe the radar capabilities of the Russians and the Chinese to determine just what their intercept ranges and patterns were. We would fly straight in toward China and when they would launch their fighters, we would turn away. Often their fighters would come up and fly on our wing till we were no longer a threat to them. They were very careful not to get into my attack zone because I would bring my guns to bear and shoot them down. Neither them nor me wanted to be the one to fire the first shot of World War III. One night I came home from a long mission and after debriefing, stopped by the club and had a few beers with the crew. It was typical of me in those days. When I got home we had supper and went to bed to stay warm. It was wintertime in Japan and our house was very cold since there was no insulation in it. During the night, I heard a strong commanding; yet soft voice call my name. At that moment the room was filled with the most brilliant, warm, comforting, peaceful light I have ever experienced. I sat up in the bed. The Light was brighter than the sun. It was so brilliant that I could not understand how I could look directly into it. A voice from the light said, "Jim, if you don't straighten up your life, I'm going to take the girls away from you." Whoa! I knew I was in the presence of God! I pleaded, "Please Lord, I love them too much. From this day forward, I dedicate their lives to Your service and glorification." The light withdrew leaving me wide-awake and puzzled. I didn't think that the Lord visited us anymore. Was the voice an angel, a messenger from God or Christ Himself? I do not know, but what I do know is that it was the God of the universe, the God who spoke the world into existence and hung it on nothing, talking directly to me. After that we got to know several missionaries in the area and started going to church. We helped build a small church not far from the base and just a block from our house. We called it the Church of the Open Door. The men would take turns preaching. Finally, when we thought we could afford it, we sent to Bob Jones University for a pastor. He and his family finally came and moved in next door to us. He and I would ride my Lambretta scooter up into the interior of Japan and visit with the Japanese farmers about Christ. We passed out tracts to all who would take one. I share this experience reluctantly with only those I trust because the clerics and scholars scoff at such tales. It happened to me and changed my life forever.
We were given a retired K-9 German Shepherd named Dadee. She loved the girls and liked to play ball with them. She was very protective and would not let strangers come near the girls. I would take her down to a nearby stream and throw a rock into the water. She would swim out, dive down and bring up a rock from the bottom every time. Not necessarily the same rock. She loved it.
The B-66s were grounded and removed from service, so I thought. I was transferred to a B-50 outfit. I had the choice of becoming a boom and reel operator on KB-50J tankers or staying a gunner on B-50s, still with a recon mission. The B-50s had four 4360hp prop engines and were slow. When the Chinese, Koreans, or the Russians detected us, MIGs would position themselves between their mainland and us. They would slide their wing in behind ours and stay as close as they could try to intimidate us. I often used hand signals to communicate with them.
Our missions were reconnaissance over China, Korea, and northern Russia. We flew low level and high-level altitudes and sometimes we were never detected. Once we were struck by lightning over the Sea of Japan while returning from a mission in the Yellow Sea. We landed with our long wire antenna trailing behind. In 1961, the B-50s were replaced by RC-130s. There were no weapons on the plane so all gunners were transferred to the States.
We had a choice of going home by sea or by air. I chose the latter. We were assigned to the 9th TRS, our old squadron at Shaw AFB. We drove a 1954 Oldsmobile that we had in Japan across the desert to Texas, (sure was hot) traded it for a 1958 Oldsmobile with air conditioning in Tyler and headed for Shaw. I visited the squadron before signing in and discovered that the base still was not authorized 7 level supervisors in my career field, so I never signed in, knowing that if I did, I would never get promoted.
We had stopped in North Augusta, SC and visited with T. H. Payne and his family on the way to Shaw AFB, so back we went to his house. Faye and the girls stayed with them while I flew to Washington, DC to seek reassignment. I went straight to Air Force Personnel Headquarters at Bolling Field and advised them of my mal-assignment. They asked me where I wanted to go, so I said, "Oh, Austin or Ft. Worth." I was told to have a cup of coffee and come back in a few minutes. After a while I was handed new orders assigning me to a B-52 bomb wing in Austin, Texas. Our household goods were on the way to Shaw but had not arrived. So we headed back home to Texas. Faye and the girls stayed in Tyler for a couple of months until our household goods arrived and then joined me in base housing at Bergstrom AFB, Austin, Texas. We lived in base housing for a while until we bought a house at 6314 Haney Drive in Austin.
We stayed in Austin until the bomb wing was transferred sometime in October 1966. It was during this time (1961) that I became an amateur radio operator. My call was WA5EHQ. (I never did like that call.) If I had told the Personnel Department at Air Force Headquarters that I had wanted to go to Ft. Worth or Austin, I guess I would have gone to Ft. Worth and perhaps stayed there until I retired. When Lyndon Johnson became President, Bergstrom was considered too close to his ranch and therefore a possible target for the Russians so the wing was transferred to California. In my field, I was one of 3 that had not served a northern assignment and was therefore transferred to a northern base. During those years I flew classified missions out over the Atlantic Ocean, up over the Arctic, around Russia, over the North Pole, down through the Bering Straits into the Pacific and home again. The missions were called "Chrome Dome." We had hydrogen bombs and nuclear warhead missiles onboard and were prepared to kill tens of thousands of people upon receiving the "GO Code." These missions were designed as a deterrent. Apparently, they worked. We won the cold war!
On one mission I was having trouble controlling the temperature in my cockpit in the tail. It would oscillate from full hot to full cold in a matter of minutes. I found myself putting on more clothes, taking off clothes and eventually getting sick. I notified the pilot, so he let down to 10,000 feet and I went through the bomb bay to the forward cockpit. When we climbed out to altitude, a fuel valve froze preventing fuel transfer from the aft main tank, so we began to fly tail heavy. We had to find land and get on it quick. The nearest airfield was Thule, Greenland, about 600 miles to the South. We just made it. Taking off from Thule 3 days later was quite an experience. The ice on the runway was rough, like we were in a plowed field. I didn't think we were ever going to get up airspeed. Our targets would change as we moved across northern Russia. During almost every mission MIGs would come up and fly on our wing. They were only a few feet away and we sometimes talked using hand signals.
Sometime during this period our crew advanced to "select"... the highest proficiency level obtainable for a SAC bomb crew. The whole crew received "spot" promotions. I went to Master Sergeant; everyone else advanced one grade also. Later in the year, we dropped a "bad" bomb on a training mission and lost our "spots." The bad bomb was 900 feet off from an altitude of 40,000 feet.
When I was not flying, I stood "alert duty." This occurred every third week for a week. This continued for all the years I was in SAC. When I was on alert duty my primary target was Moscow. In February of 1966 I went to the Senior NCO Academy at Barksdale AFB, LA. I graduated as distinguished graduate and won 2nd place in the speech competition at the graduation ceremony. My final speech was entitled, "Patriotism, The Noblest Motive." When I finished my speech, the audience of about 400 was crying. In October of 1966 we were transferred to a B-52G wing in Bangor, Maine for more of the same. It was not long until it snowed. It got deeper and deeper. Quite often we couldn’t find our cars after returning from a mission. They were completely covered with snow. Once we were returning from an airborne alert mission and could not find a landing field in the area that was not below minimums. We had to land down in New York State at Plattsburg AFB. We had hydrogen weapons onboard, of course. The runway was covered with snow and very slick. Winds were gusty. When we touched down the drag chute did not open. The chute was used to stabilize and slow us down. I could see that it didn’t deploy through my closed circuit TV. On this G model, I sat in the forward cockpit facing aft and used TV for optics. I notified the pilot twice that the drag chute did not open. He was very busy, but finally acknowledged. As brakes were applied, we started skidding. The pilot shouted over the interphone, "Brace for crash landing." We went off the runway down a hill and the nose stopped about 10 feet from the gate to the bomb dump. The airplane was almost covered up by snow. They dug us out of the snow and the next 3 days were spent with the accident board. A few days later we flew the airplane home. On these long missions, the pilots and the ECM team (the EWO and me) took turns resting and flying the airplane. There was always a pilot in the co-pilot position though because that's where the fuel valves and the CG controls were. When I was flying the airplane and the navigator would tell me to change course, all I had to do was dial the new course with the Autopilot. Actually, it was pretty boring monitoring all the engine gauges.
Millions of American stood in Uniform against the USSR during the years of
the Cold War and never knew much about their enemy. For example, did you ever
know anyone who knew what “KGB” stood for? Or CCCP? Odds are that you didn’t.
KGB stood for “Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti” which meant “Committee for
State Security.” CCCP represented the name of the USSR in the Russian alphabet.
Russian script is based on the Cyrillic alphabet, which does not contain the English
letters S and R. The euivalent for these letters in Russian is C and P. Using
the English alphabet, the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics was “Soyuz Sovetskykh
Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik."
It didn’t take much of this weather for me to realize that I did not like it up there in the North. I called Ray Guinn, the Chief Gunner at SAC Headquarters, and told him I wanted to quit flying and go to computer school. He sent a replacement and when he was certified, off to Biloxi, Ms. we went. When I quit flying in 1967 I had amassed approximately 10,000 hours of flying time. We spent a year in Biloxi where I attended computer maintenance school studying the IBM SAGE System. Upon completion of the school I chose a Burroughs computer assignment. Gads! It was on the Canadian border in Minnesota. We were there from May 1, 1968 until my birthday December 6th.
The girls got their first ice skates while in Minnesota. Every evening the bears would come around the housing area and raid our garbage cans. They were wild black bears, but never once was a playing child attacked. My girls weren't allowed outside during these times.
I got a call from the Air Defense Command notifying me that the Air Training Command had heard about the good job I had done getting the computer system installed, checked out and on line well ahead of schedule. I also had all my men promoted well below the zone. ATC wanted me to come back to Biloxi and teach did I want to go? It was December 1st. They asked how long it would take me to be ready to go. I told them if they would Twix me orders I could be out by the 6th and I was. We enjoyed Biloxi. It was warmer. Instructor duty was good. We joined a small church outside the west gate and lived in base housing. I had 28 instructors and we graduated about 2000 students a year. We taught 2 and sometimes 3 shifts a day depending on demand. One day a Twix came across my desk wanting volunteers to go to the Dynamic Corporation of America’s factory on Long Island, build a training course for a new computer, the Univac 1219-B, and move to Austin, TX. So I volunteered myself and was accepted.
I built a team of 12 computer and radar instructors and headed for a Long Island adventure. We were there about 12 weeks. While sightseeing one day, we accidentally wondered onto the Guggenheim Estate. Security guards politely escorted us off the premises. While I was there in 1969, Roe died and I flew home for the funeral. Shortly after I returned to Biloxi, hurricane Camille hit us. We took shelter on the base taking bedding, food and water. It was a miserable night. All power was lost on the base. The emergency lighting came on, but I realized that the storm may take all night to pass and that the lighting would not last that long. I organized a team and assigned them to disable one of the two lights on each emergency system. That way the lighting would last longer. Three of my instructors lost their households. When we could travel, I went out to their places to survey the damage. It was unbelievable. Everything they owned was scattered over acres and acres. All family keepsakes, pictures, everything. Things that couldn't be replaced. The government reimbursed them for their physical losses, but it was hard to start over again from scratch. When we solved all the personal disasters, we moved to Austin, TX. and set up a mobile training school. Again, the duty was very good. I had wanted to get back to Austin. However, it just was not the same town as it was before. In the early 60's when we were there, it was a big town with a small town atmosphere. Not any longer. Now it was a big town with a big town atmosphere. This time we bought a house in the very north of Austin, just east of I-35, and only a few blocks from our old friend Gene Bryan, K5UPB.
The computer was available for our classes from 6 PM till midnight, so that's when we taught. We taught 6 hours a day, 5 days a week. This easy schedule did not keep us busy, so I took over the electronic department of a technical school downtown and ran that during the day for a couple of years. I hired some of my instructors to teach downtown at the school with me. I also had a contract with the VA teaching remedial math for an hour a day, 5 days a week. About 5 PM we reported for work at the base school.
That lasted until November 1st, 1971. I received a phone call from the Singer Company in San Leandro, California. They heard that I was eligible for retirement and wanted to hire me as Director of Training. So, they flew me out to San Francisco. They showed me Chinatown, where we enjoyed a fine meal. The next day they took me across the Golden Gate into the wine country and up through Muir's Woods. We dined at the Top-of-the-Mark, the highest restaurant in town. I was staying in the hotel there. After wining and dining me all weekend, I was introduced to the Vice President of Engineering. He knew of me through a Colonel friend of his that I had dealt with on the Minnesota project.
Apparently I was of good report, because he hired me on the spot, knowing that my retirement application would take 6 months. That's how long it takes the Air Force to process a retirement request. They put me on full executive salary and flew me back to Austin. I applied for retirement and went home. I retired by mail and reported to Singer in early 1972.
By May of 1972, Singer wanted to consolidate all its training facilities in Montvale, NJ. I didn’t want to move there so they offered me the assistant manager's job in Los Angeles. I flew down to LA and looked the situation over, but didn't like the deal. So I found myself a job in the Houston office as a senior field engineer. Faye and the girls had not moved to California yet, so back to Texas I went. We moved to 411 Broad ripples in Huffman, Texas on Lake Houston, 30 miles from the Houston office. Before long I was Promoted to Regional Specialist and then to Advanced Systems Manager.
Sunday, July 29, 1973, Faye and I were to go and pick up Malisa and Jan at Port Aransas where they had been working all summer for Uncle Harry and Aunt Marie. I was called to the office so Faye went on to pick them up without me, taking two girl friends of the kids with her. There was a fatal accident on the way back. Faye was killed at Louise, Texas. The girls were banged and scratched up a bit, but thank God they were pretty much okay.
Marsha had moved to Austin and was attending U.T. there. She came home and took charge of the household. She enrolled at the University of Houston and made the Dean's list. She stayed with us for that semester and then returned to Austin. Shortly after that, we moved to Jersey Village, Texas, a suburb on Hiway 290, 7 miles northwest of my office. Jan and Malisa enrolled in the new Jersey Village High School. It was a pilot school using the open concept of learning. Jan was in the first class ever graduated there. Upon graduating she went to the Bible Baptist Seminary in Springfield, MO for two years and then transferred to the east coast campus to finish. That's where she met her husband Don.
About that time I met Jackie and we married on June 29, 1974. She had twin girls, Holli and Heidi, age 9, still at home, and two boys, Rik and Nik who had already moved away. She was a survivor the same as me. There were some difficulties in merging the two families, but it eventually worked out okay. After high school, Malisa moved to New Braunfels. Sometime in 1976 I attended the funeral of my Aunt Bell in Lufkin. My cousin had a periodical distributorship there and offered me the general manager's job with eventual control and ownership. We returned to Houston, quit our jobs, sold our house and moved to a hotel in Lufkin and paid down on a house. My first day at work I was fired by my cousin so we had to change plans in a hurry. I had become a hero to Sears Roebuck by finding a $5,000,000 error in their national POS program at Lake Charles, Louisiana shortly before, and they had offered me a Sears franchise catalog store. I took one in Marble Falls, Texas. So here we go to Marble Falls, bought a house and moved. We opened the store August 2, 1976. It was a good business and provided for our needs.
Within 2 years our volume was $1..5 million. By 1978 we moved to a larger house at 1401 Blue Bonnet on Thanksgiving Day. It was a $200,000 house on an acre and large enough for our needs. By 1979 I had begun to invest in real estate and made good profits doubling my investment or better on every deal. In 1980 I went into the tractor business with Bob Leger, a former CIA operative. We were distributors for the whole Southwestern United States and South America of the Quadractor, a 4-wheel drive, 4-wheel steering, small economical tractor.
We sold as far away as Colorado and Mississippi. Prodrill, an Argentine oil company wanted to buy us out and start distribution in South America. We agreed and went to Houston to sign the contract. The check for $6 million was on the table with the contract. Bob and I had already signed when their representative was called out of the room. He returned shortly and said the contract could not be completed because the British had just attacked the Falklands and they were at war. So close .... but no cigar.
In Marble Falls we lived across the street from a wonderful man and woman. Mr. And Mrs. Johns. They had a wonderful daughter, Debbie. She was married to Joe Jones. Joe was a great guy; ex-army and we worked some deals together. Joe became a son to me and we did a lot of things together.
In 1981 I purchased 10 acres of ranch land on Hiway 281 contiguous to the city limits. I immediately contacted Wal-Mart and they flew down for a look-see. They were interested so I sold them the 10 acres for a quarter of a million and acted as their agent to the city council requesting they be annexed. Later I invested $100,000 in additional acreage in the industrial park and sold it for $200,000 within 30 days to Glastron Boats. This was too easy! I bought more acreage on Hiway 281 next to the radio station where Heidi was the general manager. I wanted to make a cemetery out of it and sell it by the plot, 4x7. I didn’t. It even occurred to me to sell it by the square foot to the Japanese, but I didn’t. Always I kept rolling profits over into another deal without extracting any cash. Consequently, when the bad times came there was little left for a cushion. Mistake #2.
We sold the Sears Store in 1984. Mistake #3. Jackie was getting tired of running the place while I was involved in other deals. By 1985 I owned too much real estate and there were no buyers. Sitting on some of those notes hurt a lot. I started a 2-way radio business with Brooks Blake. It did okay for a small market, but Brooks was the technician and I think he lost interest. He was heavily involved with the fire department and the EMS. I sold my half interest to Ron Berry, whose ham call sign was WA5BUG. I thought he was a friend and gave him a year to make the first payment. I had to sue him to get some of the assets back. The judge wanted to give me the whole company back, but by that time he had gotten the company in debt so I didn’t want it back. Jim Counts, Howard Counts and I opened up a small loan company in 1985. I named it Highland Credit & Lending. Neither Jim nor I wanted to run it so we bought out Howard and took in R. D. Odom and paid him to manage it. Mistake #4. We were borrowing money at prime and loaning it at 243%. We had about $750,000 in loans on the books but R. D. wasn’t good at collecting. I was on him all the time. By this time the tractor manufacturing company went bankrupt and my source of tractors dried up. So Bob and I liquidated our inventory and were out of the tractor business. Bob, who had worked for the CIA in Southern Air Transport and Air America in Southeast Asia for 18 years went to Saudi Arabia to work for the Saudi government. By 1987 I realized that we had taken the wrong partner in the loan business and had made him manager. So, I sold my interest to R. D. and Jim. They paid me for 3 years and then defaulted. I helped get the Marble Falls National Bank started and had been buying bank stock. I had paid $16 a share and had accumulated about 2500 shares. I was hoping eventually to change events in our small town.
Mistake #5. The bank almost folded during the mid 1980s and you could not give the stock away. Another venture with a friend, Chris Alton, the ex-city manager of Marble Falls, never got off the ground except the incorporating expenses. We intended to startup a long distance re-selling business in Kerrville, Texas. Chris lost interest and that was that. Mistake #6.
From time to time Holli and Tara or Heidi would move back home with us. It was good to have some of the kids home again. Until that time, I never had the opportunity to be close to any of my grandchildren except occasionally seeing Josh and Jeremy. Something I have always regretted.
I was elected to the Charter Commission in the City of Marble Falls along with a panel of others. We wrote the city charter in record time, about 3 months. About this time I formed a group of educators and business people to bring college courses to our area. I called the group the Highland Lakes Educational Development Society. We succeeded and classes were soon convened by Central Texas College and later by Austin Community College.
Over these years I had interests perhaps worth a few million dollars until it came liquidation time. Then all of a sudden, what I had did not seem to have much value. I owed about $500,000 when I finally went broke. I went so broke that I did not even have enough money to file bankruptcy.
My reasons for acquiring wealth were not greed. I simply wanted to get at least $100,000 set aside for each one of the seven kids. I almost made it, but times changed. The Congress killed a lot of people with the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1986 that was the most sweeping tax increase in modern history.
In late 1987 Shanti Shaw, who sat on the advisory board of the Southwest School of Electronics in Austin, called me and told me they needed a new Director for the school. The old one was retiring. Shanti had taught for me in Austin and he knew that I operated a good school. I interviewed, got the job with a base of $55,000 and bonuses promised.
I fulfilled my part of the contract. Enrollment grew. Programs were expanded and improved. Bad instructors were replaced. Morale improved and operating costs were cut. Still I received no bonuses even though I authorized and paid monthly bonuses to the instructors. In late July the owner and president fired me. Our management styles clashed.
In 1989 I began to have a health problem. I started passing out from TIAs (Trans-instemic attacks), causing me to spend some time in the hospital. Jackie and I decided to sell our home, once valued at $200,000. The market was dead. Wayne McKinney a friend from Tyler took over the note of $60,000. I suppose that I should have paid the house off when I could, but I never did. When Wayne finally sold the house he only got $95,000 for it. In the meantime, Wayne gave us $5000 so we could move back to Tyler. We eventually moved into one of his houses with our back yards adjoining. Wayne sits on the board of TCA Cable Company and is a major stockholder. He did not lose his money during the 80,s and is worth about $150 million. He split the profits on the house sale with me, which was very generous of him.
In 1990, broken and disillusioned I went back to school. This was made possible by a Pell grant and a student loan. I had accumulated 91 hours over the years in the military so I enrolled in LeTourneau University, a Christian Engineering school and graduated in 1991 with 153 hours, a 3.68 GPA (would have been 3.86 except for a D in a math course I didn’t need or want but was forced to take), and a BS in Business Management.
I must have sent hundreds of resumes seeking employment. No one was hiring anyone my age. I started consulting and picked up two physicians as clients. Boy, were they in need of guidance. I found $265,000 in accounts receivable for one fellow that he didn't know he had. Another just needed to fire some people and get organized. They paid my rate of $125/hr. gratefully.
Then came another slump. Through my acquaintance with Dr. Walter Fuller, at Tyler Junior College and KD5GD, I was able to get a teaching contract at the school. The department head was Dr. Keith Bridges, KE5WH. He hired me to teach computer math, digital circuits, basic electronics, and assembly language programming and PC maintenance at TJC during the 1992/1993 school years. By 1993/1994 enrollment was down in the Technology Department, so I did not receive a new contract. Students were moving into the Health Science Department by droves. There were not enough students for the full time faculty to carry a full load. And so, my teaching career at the Junior College ended.
Since I have returned to Tyler I have been fortunate to re-discover some old schoolmates and friends. We drink coffee, talk about old times, wonder where the world got off track, and just remember the "good old days." I put together our 40th reunion in 1990 and the 45th in 1995 and our 50th in 2000. I even published a memento book of the occasion in 1995.
I have had two good wives, been blessed beyond my dreams, have had every opportunity and have been worthy of none. My children and grandchildren are many and I treasure them beyond measure. (In 1994 I discovered that my biological father was not Joe Wills, but Detective Captain James Adams of the Tyler Police Department. He is reputed to be a tall man with black curly hair and brown eyes. (My mother's one true love.)
If God truly made us in His own image, then we, too, must have 3 entities. I perceive that we are a spirit, have a soul, and live in a body. If we can remember that this flesh is not us, but rather where we live and recognize our place in the divine scheme of things, we will find true happiness.
I can leave my children and grandchildren nothing else but this one piece of advice: Live your life in such a manner as to never bring dishonor upon God, your Country, your Family, or yourself. If I can remember more later, I will add to this information, but for now, this saga ends. October 31, 1994
March 23, 2001
The Russian MIR returning to earth yesterday reminds me of the time that I was flying out of Johnson Island monitoring the Russian launches in Siberia back in 1959. They would fire a missile from Siberia downrange to the South Pacific. We were in orbit watching them reenter hundreds of miles South of Johnson. Quite often we would have the tail of the airplane to the reentry and I, as briefed, would call "hack" every time there was a change in the reentry. Later at debriefing I would describe what each "hack" meant to a group of civilians back on Johnson. First thing I would see was a large ball of fire, and then it would divide, and then further divide all the while changing colors, etc. It didn't last very long. I suppose the civilians were scientist or CIA who found the information useful. The navigator would log each "hack" time and location. It was interesting duty.
"It is the
soldier, not the reporter who has given us the freedom of the press.
It
is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.
It
is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us freedom to
demonstrate.
It is the soldier who saluted the flag, who
serves beneath the flag, and whose
coffin is draped by
the flag - - who allows the protester to burn the
flag."
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