November 22, 1963

November 22, 1963

From Dallas, Texas, the flash apparently official: President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time, 2:00 Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago. Vice President Johnson has left the hospital in Dallas, but we do not know to where he has proceeded; presumably, he will be taking the oath of office shortly and become the 36th President of the United States... Walter Cronkite CBS News. It has been almost 55 years ago, yet it seemed like yesterday. I was officially a teenager at 13 and settled into the 8th grade. The day had begun with the usual excitement that is associated with Friday. A football game was scheduled for that night and the tensions were building because the band was becoming a force to deal with and many times the halftime performance was the high point of the game. Traditionally my sister and I would walk home at noon for lunch. Being only a block away it would take only minutes. The moment that I hit the door, I could tell something was wrong. We NEVER watched TV during the day, but it was on that Friday. Before I could say anything my Mother said that the President had been shot in Dallas and she didn’t know his condition. Linda and Dad were right behind me. We proceeded to the dining room but I don’t believe we ate anything. At 12:30, our time, it was reported that The President was dead.

I can count on one hand the number of times that I saw my father cry. This was one of those days. He had a deep love for our country and would react to defend and honor it. I know he had not voted for President Kennedy in 1960 but now his reaction was consistent. In his view as Americans, we are stronger because of our ability to disagree and then embrace each other after the will of the people is expressed. I distinctly remember him saying, “We don’t kill our Presidents”.

Linda and I returned to school and at that time there was an eerie feeling all over the campus. When we returned to class I fully expected it to be basically dismissed but our teacher said that education was very important to The President and that he believed that the highest compliment we could pay him would be to participate in the scheduled math class. Frankly, I think he was in shock and did not know what to do. During the first hour after lunch, the buses for the country kids had been arranged and the schools were closed. Linda and I slowly walked home.

Even though it had been one of the closest elections in our nation’s history, President Kennedy was unusually popular. The torch had been passed. We had won a cold war standoff with the Soviet Union. Our involvement in Vietnam was limited and withdrawal plans were in the works. The economy was good and following the infrastructure boom of the Eisenhower years a challenge had been given to the nation via the space program.

We were at a loss and as we left church services on Sunday word spread through the congregation that the suspected assassin had been killed. Looking back and trying to examine how the country held it together, it really goes back to the Cronkite statement at the beginning. We continue. We get back up. We can not be held down. The King is dead, long live the King.

Practice Makes Perfect

I think every child mentally latches onto a person and elevates them to basically a hero status. Even though you don’t actually know them, the assumption is that whatever they do must be another expression of perfection. My idol in Junior High was an upperclassman from high school who could make a trombone sound like Pavarotti. He had competed in a variety of music competitions and he would hang his medal-laden band uniform in the hallway entrance to the music building. I would glance at his uniform every time we attended band class and the image of my uniform adorned with metals danced in my head. Likewise, he wore glasses with a thick black frame. I bet you have guessed it. I had glasses with a thick black frame.

I believe that we had started in beginner’s band in the fifth grade and my weapon of mass destruction was the tuba. I am sure that if I ever sought counseling on the subject there would be some deep and closely held reason for that choice. My sister had chosen the clarinet and the massive physical difference between the two might have contributed to the choice. The tuba, while being the most obvious instrument in the band, musically it was not intended to be a solo instrument like most of the others. This created a dilemma. To obtain the metals I so desperately needed I had to participate in the band solo competitions that rolled around once a year. When I told Taylor Stephenson the band director what I wanted to do he told me finding anything would be a tall order, but he would try. Consistent with his character he had found a solo piece specifically for a tuba within the week. Rather than take the tuba home to practice and put my family through unbearable pain and suffering I asked Mr. Stephenson if I could practice in the band room after school. Since he didn’t see that as a problem I would show up right after school just as he was leaving. He told me to turn off the lights and he would lock the door so I didn’t need to worry about that. As I had promised myself I would go set up my tuba and the music sheets but the temptation to take a quick look at those medals overtook me. Consequently, I would spend more time in fantasy land in the hallway than practicing on my solo. Before I knew it the time for the contest rolled around and fortunately the judges weren’t like the ones on “America’s Got Talent” where they could hit the buzzer and drive you off the stage. Out of kindness, they gave me a 3.

While I went through a period of major disappointment, the foremost lesson that came out of the Tuba solo competition was that I had become so focused on the prize, I didn’t spend the time needed to win it. In other words, set your goal but execute a logical plan to achieve it.

 To visit Thomas’s Bookstore go to:  http://tinyurl.com/8vfdrgr

When Mama Ain’t Happy…..

In every marriage, there are some rules that even though they aren’t in writing they have the force of the eleventh commandment. In ours, my Mother had made the rule that “Thou shalt not gamble”. Frankly, it was kind of an odd rule considering that they had basically bought their first house after World War II from Dad’s poker winnings from his time in the service. Likewise, Dad would mysteriously come up with the money for her birthday and Christmas gifts, but rules were rules. In our town, the temptation could find you even when you weren’t looking for it. Every year it would rear its evil head when The World Series would come around. One of the favorites was called the Series pool. The number of participants could vary based on the number of slots sold and the size of the bet. Dad’s favorite was a pool that only allowed 10 individuals in and the numbers were from 0-9. The total of the scores from all of the games would be added up and the last number in the total was the winner. In 1963 Dad bought into a $10 pool with the winning amount of $100. His number was 6. The series was between the Dodgers and the Yankees. The Dodgers had won the first three games and the total score number was at 13. The Dodgers pulled off a clean sweep and beat the Yankees in the fourth game with a score of 2 to 1. For the mathematicians in the crowd that brought the total to 16 and that made the number 6 the winner. As Paul Harvey would say, “Now for the rest of the story”.

It was 1963, in the 8^th grade, and even though cable had come to Clayton we did not have a TV. On special occasions, we would go over to Leland Jacob’s home but for the most part, we depended on radio station KLMX, the Amarillo Daily News and the Union County Leader. As I had said in previous blogs my parents were quite frugal and simply would not buy anything unless they could pay cash for it. Since mother was creating Dave Ramsey’s envelope program every penny was properly accounted for except, as you might have guessed, Dad’s gambling stash. Dad wanted to buy a TV and Mom had determined that they couldn’t afford it. Using reverse psychology Dad would openly express his opposition to the purchase of a TV in hopes that Mom would find a way to make it happen. Since it became obvious that this wasn’t going to work he decided to announce that he had violated the eleventh commandment and that HE was $100 richer. Mom immediately demanded that he turn over the money and told him that if he thought that he could afford to gamble, she could afford to buy a TV for the family. That afternoon, still steaming, she went down to Timmon’s Sales, picked out a TV, called the cable company and by the time Dad, with great remorse, came home at 5 we had a new black and white TV operating in the living room. I think Dad learned his lesson. 

Never Look A Gift Santa In The Mouth

It had been the tradition in our family for Mom and Dad to give Linda and me one gift and “Santa” would give us another one. Although it was never said, we knew if we ever expressed a disbelief in that jolly old gentleman from the north, the gravy train would be cut off. Consequently, in my seventh-grade year, Santa gave me a real printing press. It was rather small, and you could only feed 5 ½” x 8 ½” paper through it but the bite of printer’s ink ­­­left a lifetime impression on me. As I am sure you noticed, I had made it out of grade school! Not only did I move up a grade, the walking distance to school was reduced from uphill for a one-half mile to one block. Next, I actually had multiple teachers. It was like going from your General Practice Family Doctor to a Specialist who could operate on just one section of your brain.

Perhaps the one teacher who made the greatest impression on me that year was Charlsie Mae Harding. Known as Miss Harding to her students, she brought the State of New Mexico to life through her phenomenal history class. Born in 1911, she had graduated as Salutatorian from high school at the age of 15, graduated from West Texas Teachers College (now WTSU) in 1931, and taught for the next 50 years apart from one year, in the Clayton system. In 1977 she received the National Teacher of the Year Award and in 1983 she was named to the New Mexico Educators Hall of Fame. Physically a small woman, she was a giant for so many children.

I am sure you are wondering how Miss Harding could be linked to my new printing press. Well, I have a natural tendency to look at almost everything from a business point of view. For example, while a printing press is fun to play with, a printing press that makes money is even better. After I had printed letterheads for my mother and tally pads for my parent’s card club the time had arrived to make some real money. The high school had a newspaper but alas the Jr. High did not have the benefit of a reliable news source. I consulted with Miss Harding about publishing a periodical called “Jr. High News” and since she had been an advisor for the school newspaper she freely provided a wealth of information from the best type of stories to advertising sources and other income. From that point forward all my spare time was consumed interviewing, writing, setting type and then printing the initial FREE issue. The praise sent my ego out of the ballpark. I just knew that I had a winner and went to work the next day on selling subscriptions. If Al Gore had asked me years later about the difficulty of turning a free information source into a money-making proposition, I would have advised him to avoid the word Free! The sad part of this story is that the sale of subscriptions was slower than a crippled turtle. Since everything was prepared to go to press, I did publish a second free issue of the paper, but lessons were learned and filed for later applications.

As a closing note, Miss Harding passed away in 1998 at the age of 86 leaving an unparalleled legacy.

Economics 101

The backyard taught me the principle of barter economics. I was introduced to this concept when I was around six years old. Dad did not like to fish but he loved to eat them. At the same time, he knew fishermen who loved to go out to Clayton Lake and spend the day catching their limit, but they didn’t like to clean nor eat their catch. To these fishermen the belief was that the best bait was earthworms and unless you had a worm source, they were a pain to get. That is, of course, where the Sharp Worm Farm came into play. Dad built a box complete with a retractable lid. He filled it halfway with very fertile loose soil and some seed worms. My job was to take the coffee grounds out there each morning to help the composting process along. As it turns out, worms are better than rabbits when it comes to reproduction. Since there are no male or female worms they can mate with just any worm who happens to be crawling by. It didn’t take long for the word to spread that we had worms that we would trade for fish. Consequently, our freezer was full of trout and catfish and our worms had a happy home for at least awhile. Fortunately for me, Dad cleaned all the fish. Soon the production of the worms exceeded the trading volume, so I would put worms in pint paper containers and take them to Isaacs Hardware Store that would sell them on consignment. This put some extra change in the pocket and sparked my love of the world of business.

By the time I was ten I felt a tremendous need to expand my business interests. Since the high school was only a block away from our home, all of the school owned ground around the high school was within walking distance of our house. To keep the growth down, the school would hire someone to come in a few times in the summer to basically mow the vacant lots with a tractor pulled mower. Frankly, it didn’t look much better after the mowing simply because of the method used. Seeing the need for a better way, I finally convinced my father to get me an appointment with the Superintendent of the schools, so I could offer my services. In early May of 1960 at the age of ten I met with Don R. Wood and we reached an agreement that I would mow the high school vacant lots twice a month during the summer months in exchange for $70 per month. In today’s dollars that would amount to over $550 per month. I went down to Isaacs Hardware and they agreed to finance a lawn mower to be paid for over the summer. This arrangement with the school continued until I was old enough to get a driver’s license. Since the school work took approximately one week to complete, I was able to mow several little old lady’s lawns during the off weeks. Did all work and no play make Tommy a dull boy? I think not!

Moving on up to the North Building for more Life Lessons

Fourth grade: “I am free at last!” My sister has moved on to Junior High so I can walk uphill to school without her feeling obligated to tell me how to do it! Likewise, I will have to be completely responsible for my coat, gloves and galoshes. For my friends in the latest generation, galoshes were rubber boats that you put over your shoes so that you could walk through blizzard like weather conditions and we liked it. Of course, the lessons of life continued to unfold. One lesson is that you can make anything scary if you give your mind enough freedom. After leaving the house in the morning I would cut over to Oak street so that I could avoid walking through the high school grounds. About four blocks from my house was what we referred to as the Peyton mansion. While the style of the home was unique within itself, the original owners had molded concrete into what appeared to be petrified wood that was intertwined around the property. On the top floor of the property one could see what looked like a look out post. Stories would swirl and magnify themselves about the mansion. My pace would always quicken when I passed the property. Once I made it to the school grounds spirits were usually high and in the fourth grade the deeper matters of world affairs were left to the outside word. We were very honored to have a member of our class who was without a doubt the fastest runner in the world. I will save her the embarrassment, but she could run faster than a BB. I know for a fact that she did allow herself to slow down because years later she permitted a boy with a fast Mustang to catch her and I double dated with them on one of my rare dates in high school. For the most part as 4^th graders we had moved away from the big slide and merry go round but on occasion we would lose ourselves on the swings as we soared to greater heights and then bailing out to return to earth. The big event that still weighs on my mind from that period of time was the fact that I made a B in spelling. I really thought I had it down. You know, i before e except after c and the other rules that had been formulated over the centuries of literary composition. To others my grade would be a blessing but, in my mind, it created a lifetime of doubt and the need for auto correct.

Fifth grade: “All Politics is Local”. These were confusing times for a ten-year-old. Earlier in 1960, a U2 spy plane had been shot down over Russia and tensions between the two great powers grew each day. As kids we would hear estimates of how many times the world could be destroyed during an attack by the Soviet Union. While it was impossible to imagine the devastation of that type of war, awareness of the danger was brought to small town America. Dad was the Civil Defense Director for Clayton and he conducted surveys of buildings in the area to try to determine the best possible shelters for the community. Strangely enough our house, due to the two-foot-thick adobe walls and it’s lead roof, was deemed one of the safest places in the area. Since the likelihood of a direct attack was remote, the presence of the weather station at the airport gave Dad a way to calculate time windows for potential fallout. Yes, we did talk about things like this and my imagination contributed to my concern.  

In other ways 1960 was a pivotal year for me. This was the first Presidential election that I really remember. Vice President Nixon was running as the Republican nominee and Senator Kennedy represented the Democrats. Politics had always been a part of our family life. We were Democrats and it was not unusual to attend a party pot luck supper at the airport. The candidates from all across the state would descend on Clayton and rub elbows with the locals. Dad always told us that he had only voted a straight party ticket one time in his life and that was in 1932. Otherwise, he tried to vote for the candidate rather than the party. Just as in the nation the Presidential race was extremely close in New Mexico. While Union and Bernalillo (Albuquerque) Counties went to Nixon, the state was won by Kennedy. I learned several valuable political lessons that year. First, if you want to know how the parents feel about a candidate, ask their children. The children will parrot almost word for word what they heard at home. Second, political opinions are rarely based on real issues but rather on emotions. To demonstrate this point, I remember several fights broke out on the playground over who would win the election. Third, a stump speech from one candidate sounds a lot like a stump speech from another. Fourth, in a primary you can say just about anything you want about the opposition but when the primary is over you become the best of friends. For example, one day I could accuse you of being a cannibal but at the end of the week and after I had won, we would both agree that you were really just eating your hat.

Sixth grade: “Words are more powerful than swords”. In the sixth grade I actually had a teacher who was not a woman. That certainly thru charm and flattery out the window. After being one step behind the Soviet Union in the space race the United States successfully sent Alan Shephard into space. This just fueled my infatuation with rockets. Initially I sent compressed air missiles into the sky followed by solid fuel Estes rockets and then I built my own using vinegar and baking soda to create the thrust necessary to leave the confines of this earthly plane. Meanwhile back in school I was presented with a tremendous learning lesson. It was the policy in our classroom, that if you made less than a 60 on any exam you were punished with a pop from a ruler for every point less than the minimum acceptable grade. God had blessed me with the ability to stay above that mark but we had one kid in our class who just couldn’t make it. Consequently, after every exam you knew what was going to happen next. This really bothered me to the point that I felt a need to take a stand against what I considered an injustice. For several days I worked on a speech that outlined my position. I did not tell the teacher the reason nor the subject, but I asked if I could make a speech to the class. He said that I could have the floor that afternoon. Needless to say, I was a bundle of nerves by the time the afternoon rolled around. It was a rather short speech, but I stated that I felt that any punishment for a bad grade was simply wrong and that should never be used as a measure of a persons worth. I acknowledged that it certainly wasn’t my decision whether the practice continued but that if the teacher felt a need to pop someone for a bad grade that I would offer my posterior as a substitute. The speech was over, and you could have heard a pin drop. After what seemed like an eternity the class resumed. At the end of the day the teacher asked me to stay. I really didn’t know what was going to happen, but he was quick and to the point. He said that he had really thought about what I had said and that he believed that I was right. The practice stopped, and I believe it marked a turning point in my life. I learned that the power of words can be astronomical, and that admitting fault can end up being a virtue. My respect for my 6^th grade teacher continues today.

Life Lessons from Lower Grade School

Perhaps the first but not the most important lesson that I learned in grade school was that each teacher had one of three first names: Mr., Mrs., or Miss. Mr. was easy enough but the other two could be a little confusing. The most important lesson was that my sister was going to be a hard act to follow. To provide a sense of order in this epistle, I will break the lessons down by the grade at Central Ward School.

First Grade: “Never day dream when you are taking a test”. Early on in the year our teacher gave us a test that contained two parts. The test was easy enough and I quickly went through the first section. Suddenly my mind took me outside to get on the worlds tallest slide and begin the exciting ride down as you could hear the metal in the slide moan and groan as you traveled with increasing speed towards earth. Needless to say, the time for the test was up before I finished my own recess. Since we lived in a small town where everybody knew everybody my teacher called my mother and said that this was performance was so unlike Tommy’s usual work but since she felt so bad about giving me a F perhaps I could retake the test during the next recess. That seemed more than reasonable to me so the next day I stayed in during the recess period ready to take the exam. This time to ensure that I completed the test, I started with the second part first. Unfortunately, our classroom had big windows that looked out on the playground and I could see all of my friends having a wonderful time. Again, my mind played tricks on me and as soon as the recess was over the teacher collected my test before I had a chance to finish. This time she called my Dad at the power plant where he was the City Engineer. The recess retake was again offered but she said that she hoped that Dad would find some way for Tommy to keep his mind focused. Since Dad always felt a need to explain why he was going to spank me, the speech was rather short this time when he told me to never day dream when taking a test. Contrary to a popular myth, I do believe that it hurt me more than it hurt him. The good news is that it worked and I was able to move on to the second grade.

Second grade: “When you start something, you finish it”. Grade school can become such a drag. This is especially true when you have big plans and the drudgery of day to day work on things like the alphabet, addition, subtraction and who know what else gets in the way. The day came in March that I had taken all that I could, so I told all of my friends that I would be going home at noon for lunch and that I wouldn’t be back. Good luck, so long, farewell and some foreign phase that never made much sense. Lunch at our house was a production. My mother would prepare a three-course All-American meal that included meat, potatoes and a vegetable of some kind. Likewise, she would have prepared a dessert. Dad would drive home for lunch and Linda and I would walk home from school. I can count on both hands the number of times that I ate at the school cafeteria. Strangely enough I looked at that as a treat but my classmates who dined there everyday would disagree. Back to the story. Halfway through the meal I announced that today was my final day at school. My mother promptly said that it wasn’t. This went back and forth a few times until Dad failed to see the humor and simply announced that we didn’t quit things, we finished them. Swallowing hard I could see that I was defeated but now I had to figure out something to say to my classmates when I got back to school. Of course, telling the truth would have been the correct course but it is so much easier to create a believable but unconfirmable lie. So by the time we went back to class, everybody in my circle of friends felt really sorry for my poor mother who had broken down in tears over the possibility that my life would go down the drain like an uncle who had not finished the second grade.

Third grade: “When you know something it may be best not to be a public-address system”. This was the final year of the lower section of grade school. We were the lords of our section of the playground and sacks of marbles measured our wealth. Once in awhile we would have homework but generally everything was accomplished within the regular school day. We had an arithmetic workbook and one day we were told to take the workbook home and complete an assignment for the next day. After supper that evening I felt rather grown up because I had homework just like my 6^th grader sister. After I finished the task I started looking at the workbook in greater detail only to discover that in the back of the book were sample tests that the students could take. There were two problems with that discovery. First, in addition to the tests there was an answer section and second, when I examined the sample tests they looked exactly like the tests we had been given in class. Looking back, I know that the correct thing to do would have included going to the teacher and pointing out my accidental discovery. However, I am a sinner and if you aren’t, cast the first stone. I couldn’t wait to get to school to share my wonderful discovery with EVERYONE in the entire class. Needless to say, the chicken came home to roost. On the next arithmetic test almost every person scored a 100. You could tell something was wrong when we came into the classroom the next morning. The teacher looked so ticked off. The first thing she wanted to know was how could all of her students could do so well on a test? I could have answered that, but I opted to keep my mouth shut. However, one of my classmates was quick to point out that Tommy had shown her the answers in the back of the workbook and that she felt really bad about it. My, my how the tide can turn. Just 24 hours ago she had told me that I was a hero. Well the wrath of the teacher soon followed. She went by every desk in the room and tore out the sample tests and answer sheets. She threw out the results of the test from the previous day and made us take another test. Since it was handwritten I can only assume that the hand of an angered woman wrote it. Even though things remained tense for a period, it did smooth out as we worked to move on to the 4^th grade. I think the incident helped me formulate my opinion about entrapment.