Wouldn’t Miss Southern be proud of all the hard work putting together all these Biographies? I’m sure she would, but would no doubt have lots of fun roaming around the pages with her red pencil making marks throughout our attempts…
Anyway, here goes. Life and God have been really good to me since leaving PBHS. From High School I went into the farming business with my dad and in just over a year and a half learned that farming was a lot like taking your money to the horse track and buying a win ticket. The only difference was that it took a lot of hard work and the race lasted much longer. The result was the same, one either won or lost. Both seasons resulted in losses for me and as a result, I decided to do my duty, along with good buddies Davis Pinnell, Jim Garner and Chuck Rush. We all went into the Army and took basic training at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina. Upon completion of basic Davis, Jim and I were sent to Ft. Niagara in Youngstown, New York. For a South Florida guy like me, saw all the snow I ever wanted to see and realized how smart my ancestors were when they got off the boat and turned left.
My dad had some health problems about 2 years later and pulled some strings to get me home early and back on the farm to run things while he was incapacitated. By now, it was kinda like the old song went, “How Ya Gonna Keep’em Down On The Farm?” I had been to a different place and learned that everyone didn’t work 14 hours per day for little or no pay. I decided the next part of my life should get underway. After all, the way one left home in those days was to go in the military or get married. The military didn’t work so I went for the alternative. The plan was to pick a place go there every night until I met someone. I picked the drive in, Porkey’s on North Federal in Pompano Beach. Sure enough in a couple of weeks I met Linda Roy, an import from West Virginia. We had virtually nothing in common except we were both looking for a way to leave home.
We were married following a New Years Eve party at about 2 A.M. January 1st, 1960. Linda had a son, Bruce, by a previous marriage who I adopted when he was 18 months old and as far as I am concerned he has always been my son. We had another daughter and son, Stacy and Jack over the years and though probably a mistake, remained married for I believe it was 19 years.
Getting ahead of myself, In February, 1960 I was fortunate to land a job with what was then Southern Bell Telephone Company. I truly enjoyed the vast majority of my career, started as a Cable Helper, then moved to a Lineman, became an Installer Repairman, promoted to Installation Foreman, next made a Supervisor, Security Representative, Security Supervisor, Service Supervisor in various cities in Southeast, Florida and finally a Supervisor in the Strategic Planning Organization for what is now BellSouth in Atlanta, Georgia.
Along the way, there was a divorce from and remarriage to Linda. In fact I am the only person I’ve ever known whose divorce announcement and marriage announcement to the same person, was in the same newspaper, on the same page, on the same day! Quickly found that I had better crawl back home apologize ask for forgiveness if I enjoyed eating and living indoors. Eventually we both found that life together was not in the best interest of our children or ourselves and in 1977 went our separate ways.
I quickly made another mistake and went from the frying pan into the fires of hell. I only thought my previous marital relationship had been bad, which it was, but nothing like this one. After 3 years, I managed to get myself out of that situation and moved on…
In 1983 Judge Greene decided the thing to do with the Bell System was to break it up and create several small company’s out of one big one. I was sent to Atlanta to a planning meeting to decide how to split up the Company’s hardware and how to handle new installation and maintenance procedures. Was there for a week and while there, met what turned out to be the love of my life. Emily had also been sent to the meeting. She was working in Ft. Lauderdale and living in Hollywood while I was working in West Palm Beach and living in Lake Worth. A little over a year later we were married in October 1984. And as the tale goes, have lived happily ever after.
In July 1985 Emily and I were transferred to Atlanta. While there we fell in love with the North Georgia Mountains and spent most summer weekends there. We continued to work in Atlanta and explore the mountains until October 1991 when BellSouth made us an offer which neither of us could or wanted to refuse. They added 5 years to our age, 5 years to our length of service and bought out our pensions in a lump sum. I cut my tie in half and we were off on our merry way to live the good life.
We bought a lot further up in the mountains near Cleveland, Georgia and I set about building us a summer retreat. Started with my workshop, always wanted one of those. Finished that sold our house and moved into the shop. Had a wonderful friend who fell on hard luck, brain tumor, lost his job and was devastated because he was afraid he was going to lose his home and then when he was gone his wife would be left with nothing. He had about $10,000 and a lot of want to and I agreed to help him build a small house for the 2 of them. He soon got much worse and could only watch as I worked on his house… After about 8 months and the help and donations of many friends, we had the house completed, they were living in it and had about $8,000 of the $10,000 left. This was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. He lived just a few weeks after moving in.
Once done with that house I set about building our house. Worked on it for two summers and as I was finishing it, I learned that I had developed prostate cancer. I went to Emory Hospital in Atlanta and decided I didn’t want to take the chance with carrying around a cancerous prostate and decided to have it surgically removed. Went in for the post op and a young intern was giving me the possible problems with the surgery and he reached the topic, “this surgery could have an adverse affect on your sex life.” I told him that sex had been an important part of my life and I had enjoyed that part of my life more than just a great deal. However I had now discovered that there is something even more important than sex. This young intern hardly 27 or 28 years old developed this real puzzled look on his face and said “really??? What’s that?” I replied, BREATHING!!! It really wasn’t the problem he made it out to be… Just as information to those of you who may be faced with this decision down the road.
So, one comes to grips with his mortality when the doctor explains you have cancer in your body. By this time Emily and I had bought a winter condo in Southwest Florida and were spending winters there and summers in the mountains. I decided it was time to simplify our life just in case things got worse so we sold the summer place and moved fulltime to Estero, Florida. The condo then became too small so we sold that and moved to our present home. A year after moving to our present location, Emily developed Breast Cancer and decided she too didn’t want to take the chance so a double mastectomy and reconstruction and we’re now both in great shape for the shape were in. We enjoy Living here on the golf course with me playing golf 4 or 5 days a week and Emily playing cards twice, Mahjong twice and golf once or twice per week. We do see each other from time to time but we both are living a very full and enjoyable life.
In the past year or so I have begun to take on the Board of Directors here in our community and have become known as a real trouble maker by them and their followers. But the problem is that they wrote some changes into our bylaws and then told everyone that the new documents were 1,000 times better than the old ones… Incidentally, I read the documents and voted against them, but being a quiet resident at the time didn’t express my concerns. The documents stripped away the authority to vote on Special Assessments for Capital Improvements. Next came the talk of making a $3.6 Million renovation of our clubhouse and the membership was told that it could be done without a vote of the Membership of the Association… Guess you being a graduate of PBHS understand the feeling of patriotism and what you would do if someone told you had no right to vote! Well I’ve been up to my eyeballs in this battle; put together a group of over 300 calling ourselves the Concerned Citizens of Country Creek and we have been having so much fun. Bringing it all to a head on March 27, 2006 at 7:00 PM when the vote for new officers will be completed… Can’t wait to tell the then past President; “see, it was the vote!”
Hope I haven’t over run my time and space and trust that I haven’t put you to sleep with my ramblings but this is as condensed as I could make 50 years and even then I realized that I haven’t told you that I have 3 grandsons form my oldest son Bruce, a grand daughter from my daughter Stacy. My youngest son Jack continues to play the field and has yet to find the lady of his dreams. He keeps looking but I guess he isn’t following in his dad’s footsteps and hasn’t resorted to a Porkey’s Drive in as yet.
I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at the big 50th reunion. To those of you that I won’t get to visit with, I think of the old days in Pompano often, we were a lucky lot to have had the opportunity to be raised in such a wonderful community populated by so many wonderful people with such strong values.
Wherever you are and what ever you’re doing, take time to have fun every chance you get… When we leave this place we don’t want to leave any of that left unhad.