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Wow. I
woke up this morning and realized it was time AGAIN for my
bi-monthly NEWSLETTER. I don't think I have very much to
add but we'll see by the end of this venture.
from
Cherlyn
Hebert in Houston
Just wanted to give a brief report on my
trip to
Israel. We stayed 4 days in
Tiberias and took day-trips from there. One was to the
Dead Sea, where a bunch of us
got out and floated. I've seen pictures of parts of the
Dead Sea that have white sand
and crystal clear blue water. Unfortunately, we were taken
to an area that looked more like
Galveston. As soon as you stepped into
the water, it was all mud and very difficult to navigate.
You had to just inch your way along because you could easily
fall into a hole. I finally was able to get out far enough
to float. The hardest part was getting back on your feet.
I felt very much like a turtle on its back. I finally was
able to hold onto another lady in the group and stand up.
All in all, I guess it falls into the "glad I did it but don't
ever need to do it again" category.
Then, we moved for 4 more days in
Jerusalem. Our
guide was a Messianic Jew, so our sightseeing was interspersed
with a lot of reading and teaching from the Bible. It was
all very interesting, but I thought my head was going to explode
at times trying to keep up with all the Middle Eastern history
he was telling us. We got to visit the Western Wall and
leave a prayer if we wanted. Our trip ended appropriately
in what is called the Garden Tomb. The guides there are
careful not to proclaim it as "the" tomb Jesus was buried in" as
it might or might not be. We were told to use it as a
visualization of what it would have looked like. That was
the most meaningful time for me. Such a feeling of peace
all around.
Then, as we left and headed back to the bus, my camera was
stolen along with more than 500 pictures on it. Welcome
back to the
Real World,
I guess. I have to admit it was my fault. I made it way
too easy for the thief, leaving my camera in an outside pocket
of my purse, with the strap conveniently hanging out. I
didn't miss it until that night but finally remembered a street
vendor coming up behind me trying to sell me bookmarks and know
that's when it happened. Oh well, another lesson
reinforced.
Now, I'm off on March 28 on a one-week Caribbean cruise out of
Galveston, my first one from there. We'll
be on the same cruise that
Jane Lippincott
and her husband were on because we're taking the
Voyager of
the Seas, also with the same ports of
call. I've had several friends/relatives who have been on
this ship, and they really love it. I am really looking
forward to this trip as a week of relaxation and enjoyment.
I'll drop another line when I get back from there.
from
Hugh LeBaron (Student Activities Director at TJ)
I reached my seventy-first birthday last year and decided I am
old enought to write my autobiography to please my kids and
grandkids who have been urging me to write it. Actually, I
have been at it for over a year and it has been a trip down
memory lane. Being verbose, it took over three hundred
pages to get to 1963 so I am breaking it up into two volumes.
My childhood years were spent in the nine hundred block of
thirteenth street
in
Port Arthur during
the 1940's. I recall the floods we had in those days
before
Port Arthur
installed an improved drainage system and the plagues of
mosquitoes that tormented us. I also remember those
pleasant family gatherings on the front porch every Sunday
afternoon after church. Those were simpler days but we had
to deal with the affects of world war.
I have begun the second volume and have been reminiscing about
my days at Thomas Jefferson and recalling what a wonderful place
it was to the in the 1960s before the world turned upside down
on us. I don't expect to publish it but to turn it over to
my children to use as they see proper.
(You can see a couple of Mr. LeBaron's TJ memories in the
section I REMEMBER WHEN).
from
Pamela
Flohr in Seabrook
I hope you remember my brother and classmate, Lloyd Flohr.
His grandchildren, ages 3 and 5, lost everything when their
house burned down. They live in
Ohio. Even though they lost everything,
we are so grateful they did not get hurt. We would
appreciate donations of any kind--financial or otherwise.
You may contact me at my e-mail address
flohrp@aol.com or contact Linda DeCuir McFadden. She
will relay the message to me.
from
Paula
Iles (TJ '69)
I always enjoy reading the news and the updates from your class.
I just wish our Class of '69 would get going on a site of their
own! I have been in touch recently with
Pat
(Dionne) Dombek ('69). She now
lives in
Nashville. She
works for the college there. Pat still sings with bands
occasionally and did a gig in
Beaumont last year
and is invited back.
Scott Brittain
in the in the band, also. She told me that another of our
'69 classmates,
Ricky Hamilton,
recently passed away. I remember singing in Assembly doing
the Mamas and the Papas song
"California Dreamin"
with Pat,
Clifford Higgs,
Ricky, and
Shery Donaldson.
Pat and I are the only remaining members of that group as Shery,
Clifford, and Ricky have all three passed away. Sad.
I ws also wondering if anyone knows the whereabouts of
Jan
Campbell who was in the Hussars.
If so, contact Linda with your info. I'm sure she will
pass it along to me. I hope that some of these names of my
classmates spark a memory in your minds even though we were
behind you in age and grade.
**********************************************************************
Happy late
B-D Texas and Early San
Jacinto Day
From Bum, Being Texan
Dear Friends,
Last year, I wrote a small piece about what it means to
me to be a Texan. My friends know it means about damned
near everything. Anyway, this fella asked me to reprint
what I'd wrote and I didn't have it. So I set out to
think about rewriting something. I considered writing
about all the great things I love about
Texas. There are way too many things to list.
I can't even begin to do it justice. Lemme let you in on
my short list.
It starts with The Window at
Big Bend, which in and
of itself is proof of God. It goes to Lake Sam Rayburn
where my Granddad taught me more about life than fishin,
and enough about fishin to last a lifetime. I can talk
about
Tyler, and
Longview, and
Odessa and Cisco, and
Abilene and
Poteet and every place in between. Every little part of
Texas feels special. Every person who ever
flew over the Lone Star thinks of Bandera or
Victoria or Manor or wherever they call "home"
as the best little part of the best state.
So I got to thinkin about it, and here's what I really
want to say. Last year, I talked about all the great
places and great heroes who make
Texas what it is. I talked about Willie and
Waylon and Michael Dell and Michael DeBakey and my Dad
and LBJ and Denton Cooley. I talked about everybody that
came to mind. It took me sitting here tonight reading
this stack of emails and thinkin' about where I've been
and what I've done since the last time I wrote on this
occasion to remind me what it is about Texas that is
really great.
You see, this last month or so I finally went to
Europe for the first
time. I hadn't ever been, and didn't too much want to.
But you know all my damned friends are always talking
about "the time they went to
Europe." So, I finally went. It was a hell of a trip to be
sure. All they did when they saw me was say the same
thing, before they'd ever met me. "Hey cowboy, we love
Texas." I guess the hat tipped em off. But let
me tell you what, they all came up with a smile on their
faces. You know why? They knew for damned sure that I
was gonna be nice to em. They knew it cause they knew I
was from
Texas. They knew something that hadn't even
hit me. They knew Texans, even though they'd never met
one.
That's when it occurred to me. Do you know what is great
about
Texas? Do
you know why when my friend Beverly and I were trekking
across country to see 15 baseball games we got sick and
had to come home after 8? Do you know why every time I
cross the border I say, "Lord, please don't let me die
in _____"?
Do you know why children in
Japan can look at a picture of the
great State and know exactly what it is about the same
time they can tell a rhombus from a trapezoid? I can
tell you that right quick. You. The same spirit that
made 186 men cross that line in the sand in
San Antonio damned near 165 years ago is still
in you today. Why else would my friend send me William
Barrett Travis' plea for help in an email just a week
ago, or why would Charles Stenciled ask me to reprint a
Texas Independence column from a year ago?
What would make my friend
Elizabeth say, "I don't know if I can marry a man who
doesn't love
Texas like I do?" Why in the hell are 1,000
people coming to my house this weekend to celebrate a
holiday for what used to be a nation that is now a
state? Because the spirit that made that nation is the
spirit that burned in every person who founded this
great place we call
Texas, and
they passed it on through blood or sweat to every one of
us.
You see, that spirit that made
Texas what it is, is alive in all of us, even
if we can't stand next to a cannon to prove it, and it's
our responsibility to keep that fire burning. Every
person who ever put a "Native Texan" or an "I wasn't
born in
Texas but I got here as fast a could" sticker
on his car understands. Anyone who ever hung a map of
Texas on
their wall or flew a Lone Star flag on their porch knows
what I mean.
My Dad's buddy Bill has an old saying. He says that some
people were forged of a hotter fire. Well, that's what
it is to be Texan. To be forged of a hotter fire.
To know that part of
Colorado was
Texas. That part of
New Mexico was
Texas. That part of
Oklahoma was
Texas. Yep. Talk all you want. Part of what
you got was what we gave you. To look at a picture of
Idaho or Istanbul and say, "what the Hell is that?" when
you know that anyone in Idaho or Istanbul who sees a
picture of Texas knows damned good and well what it is.
It isn't the shape, it isn't the state, it's the state
of mind. You're what makes
Texas.
The fact that you would take 15 minutes out of your day
to read this, because that's what
Texas means to you,
that's what makes
Texas what
it is. The fact that when you see the guy in front of
you litter you honk and think, "Sonofabitch. Littering
on MY highway."
When was the last time you went to a person's house in
New York and you saw a
big map of
New York on
their wall? That was never. When did you ever drive
through
Oklahoma and see their flag waving on four
businesses in a row? Can you even tell me what the flag
in
Louisiana
looks like? I damned sure can't.
But I bet my ass you can't drive 20 minutes from your
house and not see a business that has a big
Texas flag as part of its logo. If you haven't
done business with someone called All Tex something or
Lone Star somebody or other, or
Texas such and such, you hadn't lived here for
too long.
When you ask a man from
New York what he is, he'll say a stockbroker,
or an accountant, or an ad exec. When you ask a woman
from
California
what she is, she'll tell you her last name or her major.
Hell either of em might say "I'm a republican," or they
might be a democrat. When you ask a Texan what they are,
before they say, "I'm a Methodist," or "I'm a lawyer,"
or "I'm a Smith," they tell you they're a Texan. I got
nothin' against all those other places, and Lord knows
they've probably got some fine folks, but in your gut
you know it just like I do, Texas is just a little
different.
So tomorrow when you drive down the road and you see a
person broken down on the side of the road, stop and
help. When you are in a bar in California, buy a
Californian a drink and tell him it's for Texas
Independence Day. Remind the person in the cube next to
you that he wouldn't be here enjoying this if it weren't
for Sam Houston, and if he or she doesn't know the
story, tell them.
When William Barrett Travis wrote in 1836 that he would
never surrender and he would have Victory or Death, what
he was really saying was that he and his men were forged
of a hotter fire. They weren't your average every day
men.
Well, that is what it means to be a Texan. It meant it
then, and that's why it means it today. It means just
what all those people North of the Red River accuse us
of thinking it means. It means there's no mountain that
we can't climb. It means that we can swim the Gulf in
the winter. It means that Earl Campbell ran harder and
Houston is bigger and Dallas is richer and Alpine is
hotter and Stevie Ray was smoother and God vacations in
Texas.
It means that come Hell or high water, when the chips
are down and the Good Lord is watching, we're Texans by
damned, and just like in 1836, that counts for
something. So for today at least, when your chance comes
around, go out and prove it. It's true because we
believe it's true. If you are sitting wondering what the
Hell I'm talking about, this ain't for you.
But if the first thing you are going to do when the Good
Lord calls your number is find the men who sat in that
tiny mission in San Antonio and shake their hands, then
you're the reason I wrote this tonight, and this is for
you. So until next time you hear from me, God Bless and
Happy Texas Independence Day.
May you be poor in misfortune, rich in blessings, slow
to make enemies and quick to make friends. But, rich or
poor, quick or slow, may you know nothing but happiness
from this day forward.
Regards From Texas,
Bum Phillips
***********************************************************************
I think my
mom must be a cat! She is certainly on her sixth life!
I took her to Friendswood last Sunday for Easter to see my
brother's family. She was good but still noticably weak.
She used the walker and oxygen and barely had breath to talk.
By Tuesday, it was a MIRACLE. She was walking around in
the apartment even without a cane. Her voice is so much
stronger. She even has a smile on her face every once in
awhile. It is so good to see her happy and feeling alive
again. Thanks for the prayers and cards. My sister's
depression has lifted and she was able to go to an ACTS retreat
this weekend. Thanks, I'm sure to your prayers. What
would I do without all of you? The sitter is working out
great and is such a comfort to know that my parents are in good
hands while we aren't there. I am feeling a whole lot
better with much less stress. Thanks again for all the
supporting words that I have received.
***********************************************************************
Kay Campbell
Netherland
is having
surgery this week. The surgeon will be performing a "colon
resection". Please keep her in your prayers.
Leo Foreman
received great news from his doctors this
week. Even though he has Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, after
reviewing the latest test results, the doctor's changed his
status from a Stage 4 (original findings) to a Stage 2!!!!
God is Good! We are all so pleased with this news.
Keep him in your prayers and drop him a line.
Leo Foreman
4648 Gulf Street
Groves, TX 77619
(409)962-9592
boo5550@aol.com
David
Williams
is schduled to have a heart by-pass at the
Heart Hospital in Austin. More info when I learn more.
David
Williams
200 Winn Valley Dr.
Wimberly, TX 78676
***********************************************************************
Rodney Glenn
Wigginton
(death of his mother)
Obituary
Simpson, LA
(I was not able to find a recent address for him. You may
view her obituary in the OBITUARIES section on the front page of
our website)
***********************************************************************
Okay, another
NEWSLETTER put to bed. I'm sure I will think of several
items I wanted to mention AFTER I send this to Mike to publish.
Oh well. I guess he could FIRE ME but I'm the
boss.
Hee Hee. Please send me ANYTHING to publish in my MAIL
CALL. I am depleted in that category.
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