College Football. Weekend Two

 It feels odd. Watching employees of the State of Michigan play football against employees of the State of  Texas. Doesn't sound much fun does it? The day is early but all the lead-up to this seems out of place, out of time. 

The old conference structure is gone. Replaced by one that will not last nearly as long as the one it replaced. 

Money has a way of pushing things around. It disrupts, in both good ways and bad. The employees will make demands. The marketplace will make demands. The state will make concessions, for a time. 

Will we still be able to pretend this is "best for the student-athelete"? Probably not. 

Then it will blow up. 

He was indeed heir to a great fortune

 On December 16, 1922, in the evening, a baby was placed in the back seat of the car of Dr. Frank Cullen in downtown Dallas, with a note: "This boy's name is J.D. Take good care of him as he is heir to a great large fortune. His mother is in great trouble and can't keep him now. You will be watched. Put him in a good orphan's house if you don't keep him. I am coming back after him when I can. I have your no. Anything you do for him you will be made rich." 

The baby was placed by his biological mother, an unwed girl of 19, named Josephine. The baby was my Dad. 

This note was the first thing I read when I opened the files of  case 4014 of Hope Cottage Orphanage in Dallas. I finally had in my hands the file my dad always wanted to see, but never did, the story of his adoption. It answered many questions about his birth and circumstances and of course created new ones. "Why this?" and "Who is that?" But that is a writing for another time. The intimate details of the circumstances that led Josephine to do what she did are lost to time and passed with her death in the late 1980's. 

My father was adopted by Thomas and Elizabeth Welch of Goliad, Tx.  Elizabeth told the story many years later of a long train ride to Dallas, and an appointment at Hope Cottage. All references and paperwork in order, she was escorted into a room with 28 babies in cribs. 

"Pick one", was the simple instruction that would change so many lives. And she did. She picked the one with the bluest eyes and the biggest smile, the one who cried when she walked away from his crib. He was named Thomas Benjamin Welch, Jr., after his new father. 

He grew up in small town Texas in the 1920's and 30's. Played football, was in the band. Had a little sister, Ada Sue, the long desired biological child of Tom and Elizabeth. In his youth he suspected he was adopted, which was confirmed when an aunt left him off a family tree. He wrote years later, "I was nonplussed - numb and rooted to the floor and couldn't have moved if I had tried." 

He left high school in 1941 before graduating. War was brewing. That spring he enlisted in the Navy and in the summer found himself on the USS Neosho headed for Pearl Harbor. By a twist of fate or fortune he was out of harm's way on December 7th. As he told it to me, he was not there, but "close by". 

He was in the Navy for six years. During this time he was drawn deeper to his Christian faith. In a hospital bed in Australia, he confided to a nurse that after the war he wanted most of all to be a minister, but didn't think he'd be a very good one. She thought the idea was wonderful and fitting and encouraged him during his weeks of recovery from an injury. Her name, like many others in this story, is lost, but to her lasting credit, she pushed him to hang on to this dream.   

After the war he spent his last months at the Navy Yard in Chicago. He was discharged and finished his high school diploma at the YMCA while working nights as a guard at Continental Illinois Bank. (He loved to relate that "that bank never got in any trouble as long as I was guarding the vault!'). 

He returned home to Texas where he graduated from the University of Corpus Christi and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. He met my mom there and they were married during the time in Fort Worth. Josephine lived in Fort Worth then as well. After she was notified of his adoption, there is no record that she ever attempted to find him. Perhaps she pictured him lost in the war, as so many men were who were born in 1922. But I also imagine that as our family gathered around his birthday cake each year with smiles and laughs and goofy presents, there was a woman in Fort Worth who always shed a tear and wondered. 

He was a pastor, and a good one. He led churches in various locations across the South, mainly Florida and the Carolinas. Always small, always paying just enough salary for us to get by (when combined with mom's salary from teaching school and giving piano lessons). But for thousands and thousands of people it was from his lips that they heard the message of Christianity proclaimed clearly and lovingly, with a gift for expressing truth that came from his heavenly Father. He was a prolific writer and left behind dozens of articles in Christian publications and hundreds of pages of notes, essays, musings and outlines on faith that his descendants will cherish. 

He had three sons and though he left this earth much younger than we wanted, at 76, he lived long enough to know all of his four grandchildren very well. 

Elizabeth Welch was certainly pleased at the choice she made when called on to "pick one". Josephine must have always wondered, but never knew, of the man who grew from the baby she believed she had to let go. She would have been very proud. 

In the note she left behind, Josephine scratched out "great" and claimed the boy was heir to a "large" fortune. Like many things in the story, this is puzzling. What caused that little scratch of a line and a quick change. A passing thought, perhaps, "I have to be quick, but I want to get this note just right". Call it large, call it great, but one hundred years later it now rings so very true. It was a fortune indeed. One of faith, family and friendships. A legacy that I am heir to, as are all his offspring and everyone who ever felt the warmth of his smile and the shake of his hand. 

From a blanket in the back seat of a car, from the arms of a troubled teenager, from the arms of a kindly doctor, from the protection of an orphanage... to the arms of a new mother, to the call to arms of a nation, to the cuddly arms of grandchildren. What a life. And now he knows. 

 

That may have been the last big solo drive of my life

December 20, 2015

Left Waco, TX at 4am. Arrived in Victoria, MN at 830pm. If you don't stop at all, Google Maps says its a 16 hr drive. So I guess I wasted about 30 mins stopping for gas and driving less than expected in road construction areas.

Not a bad drive, just a grind. Getting through Fort Worth is always challenging. Texas border to Oklahoma City is somewhat scenic. Oklahoma City to Wichita is flat and fast. North of Wichita is the Flint Hills area, a most beautiful area of the country that most people have never heard of. Knute Rockne died near there and is commemorated very tastefully at a rest stop near his plane crash.

After leaving the Flint Hills the beauty turns into millions of acres of farmland, interupted briefly by the cities of Kansas City and Des Moines. During summer it can be nice to drive by acres of corn wheat and soybeans, but in the winter it is stark. From the Flint Hills to Minneapolis it is a grind that you just get through by force of will.

1080 miles.

In the hours before I left I drove around Waco and wished I had taken more time to see the place. It really is a special little spot with its own history and its own special mark on America. My youngest daughter has graduated from Baylor University. More than likely I will never go back to Waco, but one never knows for sure. I only know that next time I won't be the only one driving.

Texas finally gets rain and I get a night at the Ramada Inn

How I got here is not a long story, but I'll skip it. It's 9pm on November 15th and probably one of the last sticky nights of the fall. I'm standing in the lobby of the Ramada Inn West, about a mile from the Houston airport. I have just concluded a two hour fight with United Airlines over who is to blame over my missed connection. I finally convince them that the weather is their fault and they book me on a Delta flight early the next morning.

Here at the Ramada they have turned off the air conditioning in the lobby way too soon. Thunderstorms rolled in and I am one of thousands of travelers stuck somewhere they did not intend to be. Most of those around me are upset and tired, which seems to put a governor on my own temper and help me make it through the rest of the evening.

I am in line for an hour trying to get a hotel key. The lady in front of me, Karen, is from Louisville. She's here helping a son through cancer treatments. He's going to be ok but her flight home was cancelled. She tells me most of the people in line are from the cancelled Louisville flight. Like me she has a son in St. Louis. So we talk Cardinals, the World Series, Ramada Inns, Cancer, and colleges. The son with cancer lives in Chicago near the DePaul campus, which creates another round of things to talk about. Karen does not have a reservation. I suggest she call Ramada reservations while she is standing in line. I give her the number and take notes for her while she talks to the voice on the phone. She thinks I'm being helpful be really I don't want to give her my room if they run out, since I am confirmed and she is a mom with a kid with cancer, I know that's what I'll do. She gets a reservation just before they run out. The hour goes by in about an hour, but fortunately does not seem like three hours. One by one people get room keys. One by one they come back with stories of rooms that are already occupied or keys that don't work.

After finally getting my key, I head to a restaurant recommended by the hotel staff, the 7-11 next door. A burritto, pack of cheese crackers, and a bottle of blue Gatorade 2 later i'm in my hotel room. Surfing channels with my finger since the TV remote is broken. Doesnt matter since only two cable channels are working, ESPN and the Animal Channel. I choose sports and fall soundly asleep.

Eating Bird

The annual turkey has been smoked, eaten and the carcass carried out to the trash. It turned out well despite my sense that I had messed it up and would never be ready on time. When it comes to smoking you can often have too much info, which is what happened in this case.

Put the 13 lb turkey on the smoker at 6am for a planned 1pm feast. Although I had the basic recipe in my head, I killed an hour browsing the internet looking at various comments on turkey smoking. Bad move, as it only made me second guess every step I'd taken in preperation. Most websites said the internal temp should be 165, but a couple said 180, a huge difference. Most indicated that it should take about six hours for a bird this size, but one site said it would take ten. Just enough difference of opinion for me to second guess my plans.

Around 11am I announced to the family that the bird would probably not be done until 3pm. The internal temp was 154 and seemed to be move higher at a crawl. Further, I was having the biggest problem keeping the temp in the smoker at a consistently high level. I wanted it at 250, but could not get it too stay long above 225. Being under the gun to finish the project by 1pm, I started messing with the charcoal and hickory chips too much.

Smoking does not work at all under time pressure. Smoking is for long summer days that stretch on and on. Give a smoke master a clock and a deadline and you may just ruin the finished product, the day, his life.

My wife, accustomed to my wild claims and extreme views on a variety of topics, refused to let my announcement mess up thanksgiving in any way. She simply said we would work around it and everything would be fine, basically ignoring the announcement. Smart move. I moved out of the house and sat by the smoker carefully tending the fire. Another smart move. By 1130 the internal was up to 160. By noon it was 165. I'm not accustomed to bird smoking and the fact that temperature changes are not linear was something I did not consider.

The finished product was ok. Tender, moist, full of that special smoky taste. The wing and back was worthless, which is disappointing not always the case with an oven roasted bird. This was my thrid or fourth smoked turkey and about as good as i've done. The real key to success was due to my wife, who mixed the brine and soaked the bird for 48 hours before cooking began, and ignored my completion forecasts. In retrospect, I think at least 90% of the success is due to her handling that right.

The day was filled with other big holiday stuff. We trimmed the Christmas tree, complete with 30 years worth of ornaments, many hand-made by the kids in Sunday School. We lamented the absence of our son. While it put a big hole in our celebration, it was replaced our knowledge that he had a great family to spend it with in St. Louis. We joined our fellow Americans in the annual tradition of watch the Detroit Lions lose a game and the Dallas Cowboys win one. For a second year in a row we watched with pleasure as Texas racked up 49 points over A&M. This time complete with a real Texas fan in the form of my oldest daughter's boyfriend. She finished knitting him a UT scarf, in the official team colours, with about 5 minutes left to go in the game. A good end to Thanksgiving Day.

I still miss 'em

In the fall of 1968, just after I turned 12, I had my first cigarette. Behind the gym at Everitt Junior High School in Panama City Florida. Actually it was my second if you count the lit butt I found on the sidewalk outside our house in Chicago in 1962, I was six and took one puff. I guess that doesn't really count.

Anyway, the junior high event started me on this love/hate relationship with cigarettes that continued off and on through high school. In college it was more off than on as I took up running and would quit for months at a time while I took in the new passion for pounding the streets. I started again with the onset of my first real job after college, management trainee with JCPenney in Little Rock, Arkansas and continued through engagement to my wife, marriage, the birth of our first child. All of these were major life events that caused me to swear off cigarettes, but that only lasted a day or two.

October 15, 1983 was the day of the Texas/Arkansas football game. In the days of the old Southwest Conference this was one of the most important events of the year for Arkansans, whether one was a big sports fan or not. We lived in a place the locals referred to as Pine Bluff, Arkansas, a bedroom community of Little Rock. Although I grew up with my dad's affinity for Texas football it didn't run very deep and the passion of my adopted state for the Razorbacks was infectious.

On the morning of the game I thought again about the need to quit the habit and wondered how I could make it through the weekend without lighting up. I thought through the weekend as a series of time compartments. I got this sense that if I could just make it past the game I could probably make it through the whole day. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense but it did at the time. My oldest daughter was almost three and I asked her if she would go running with me before the game started. This would get me through the first time slot. We went outside and for about 30 minutes chased each other around a long block that circled a nearby church. The trot was enough to remind me of how much I loved running and how the tobacco was wearing on my lungs.

When we got back to our little apartment I was determined to at least make it to halftime. Made it. Third quarter, made it. Fourth quarter, game over. Razorbacks badly beaten, 30 something to 3. I had made it and on through the rest of the day. Sunday morning, once I made it past the church service, the rest of the day was not quite as hard. Monday, Tuesday, easier. That was over 25 years ago.

I still miss 'em. While giving up the habit has saved me over $66,000 (2 packs a day @ 3.50 average per pack for 26 years) there are still times when I would love to sit on the porch with a cup of coffee, the newspaper, a pack of Salems, and a couple of fellow smokers. If I thought I could get away with it and not start the habit again, I would. I'm not that strong. That physical sensation that came from quenching the nicotine craving with a freshly lit cigarette was really something. Especially after a good meal. You know what I mean.

Occasionally I will pass the smokers outside my office and remember my old habit. When I quit, smoking was still common in office buildings. I never had to go outside. Never had to take a break from work to light up. I smoked on buses and on airplanes. In my house, in my car, with my little girl on my lap.

I now pass these folk as they huddle outside my office building and sometimes remember that I was one of them, though the memory is fading. When I am traveling out of the country and can pick up a carton of cheap cigarettes, I do, and then give them away. Can't pass up that bargain. In the winter I will shake my head and quickly walk by them, thinking about how weak they are, not strong like me to kick the habit. But i'm not as strong as I think. I have other habits that have taken the place of that one.

Every once in a while I will see them chatting, laughing, sharing some joke, or a problem, getting acquainted, sharing a light, cursing their habit in the bitter cold, cursing the political correctness that forces them outside, and I will envy them. I will forget all the bad things about smoking, all the money I wasted and how smokers are forced to plan their days, friends, work and life in general around the habit. I see them and ponder if I would be tough enough to be in their ranks today, especially when the temp outside is double digits below zero. I am glad that they are still there and I hope they continue to thumb their noses, or ashes, at those who force them into alleys and corridors. There are a lot of bad habits in this world that lead to a hoard of pain and suffering. Gluttony, drunkedness, greed, and the like. In the big scheme of things this one is hardly worth noticing.

Hey man, I can still slap open a zippo with the snap of my fingers and light a match with a nick of the thumbnail. I miss 'em.

Dallas

I was in dallas today. Stayed at some fancy hotel that was so memorable I have forgotten the name. I will remember it for the fact that the when guests walked the halls to their rooms the servants all stopped speaking to one another and stood to the side while the guest passed. Weird. Crescent Hotel, that's it. Rosewood Crescent. Won't be back, it gave me the creeps. However, the room service was amazing. On time and the food was great, especially the chicken soup.

Spoke at an industry event and attended a seminar.