Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutBill Hamilton TranscriptionCity of College Station Heritage Programs Oral History Interviewee: Bill Hamilton Interviewer: Tom Turbiville Transcriber: Brooke Linsenbardt Place: College Station, Texas Project: Veterans of the Valley 00:00: Bill Hamilton (BH): Of 1980. When I, I had a grand mal seizure at home. And I was rushed to the Methodist hospital. The next thing I know, I woke up and it was March the 20th, 1981. The doctors were telling me that I had just come out of coma that I’d been for the last two months. After they had them do the emergency brain surgery on me to remove my right temple brain lobe after they found out I had contracted a rare viral encephalitis. I said, “Shew what a hell thing to wake up to.” And then I caught my, my parents after they came up to me one. Well, they, they came and visited me one of the. They were a-, allowed to. And I asked her, I said, “Where, where’s Judy my wife and the children.” And they said, “Well, Bill they’re, they’re not here anymore.” I said, “What do you mean they’re not here anymore.” She said, “Well Judy has divorced you, already married a man in the Army. They’ve moved to Germany.” I said, “Golly, what a kick in the butt.” That’s such. 00:56: Tom Turbiville (TT): How long were you out? 00:58: BH: Out for two months. I’ve been in coma for two months. TT: From when to when? 01:02: BH: From January to March the 20th. TT: Of 1980? Or ’81? 01;06: BH: I, I went in, I went in the hospital January. Super Bowl Sunday 1980. And I got out, I got out in March, of ’81. March the 20th of ’81. TT: But that would be fourteen months wouldn’t it? 01:23: BH: No, no. I, I went in Super Bowl Sunday in 1980. And then. TT: But that’d be in January then. 01:28: BH: Jan-, January. Then February, March of ’81. TT: Okay so Super Bowl Sunday of ’81. 01:34: BH: Yeah. TT: Okay. So it happened in 1981, not, not 1980. Okay, okay. So two months, not fourteen months. Okay. Hey, I thought you said from January of ’80 to March of ’81. Okay so for two months you were. And how old were you then? 01:48: BH: I was 33 years old and they didn’t think I was gonna live see my 34th birthday. But. I. TT: And how old are you now? 01:56: BH: I, I, I, I’m 50-, 58. I’ll be 59 the 25th of this month. Shew. And I still got all my teeth and, and most my hair. But I don’t have no brains anymore. They took ‘em out. They took ‘em out in surgery. Golly. So I, I, I, I said, “I, I, I’ll, I bet you’ve never met a true Aggie before have you?” TT: I don’t know. 02:19: BH: Well see my, let me qualify that. My dad graduated class of 1934. And that’s with engineering. I was born in 1947. So that’s [inaudible] while my mother was powdering my naked bottom. Kind of changing my diaper. I, I had Aggie genes in my blood. And then before I started graduate school after several years ago, I had to have half my brains taken out surgically. So I are real Aggie. I are one. [chuckle] TT: [chuckle] You are one. 02:42: BH: I are one. Uh. I are one. [Laughter] TT: So tell me about, where, where did you grow up? 02:50: BH: I grew up in Abilene. Abilene, Texas. And I graduated from high school there, went to start McMurry College. In those days, I wanted to be a d-d-, doctor. So I, m-, my first at McMurry College, I majored in pre-med. And, after the first year, I got my report card. And my all my hopes and dreams, ever since I was a little kid, went up in a poof of smoke. Because I made a big, red F in chemistry. I said, “How can you be a doctor without chemistry?” So a friend of mine said, “Why don’t you st-, why don’t you come up and start working with me in.” At that time I called it inhalation therapy. I said, “Okay.” And I fell in love with it right quick. So I made that my career. And thank goodness for that. [chuckle] But I, I did a lo-, I, I, I, had a lot of, lot of fun and a lot of experience doing that. TT: So you went to McMurry College. 03:40: BH: McMurry College. TT: And then when you left Abilene where did you? 03:43: BH: Wh-, then, wh, wh-, when I left M-, Mc-, McMurry, I went to, we moved to Dallas. So I could, enroll at El Centro College. They had the, at that time, they had the only two-year, respiratory therapy circu-, registry program. And I got my Associate’s Degree in Allied Health there. And my registry in [inaudible] therapy there. I, I, a-, I after I took a. You know, I, written exam, clinical exam, and uh, some of other, a whole bunch of these exams. A, a oral exam. In my, in my registry in respiratory therapy there. And I started to working at, I was working at Children’s Medical Center as a pediatric respiratory therapist, at that time. And I worked there. My son was born in January of ’71. I’ve always called him my little Dallas Cowboy. And then in ’70-, and he was born in January in ’71. And I, I, after, I finished college. And my draft status changed from uh [inaudible] to the 1-A. TT: Right. 04:50: BH: And I didn’t particularly want to go into Vietnam and leave my wife home with my almost four-month old son. So I, I joined the Air Force after I found out they, they were looking for a, a, a trained respiratory therapist to teach respiratory therapy at the phase-two cardio pulmonary school at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois. Which at that time, time, was the M.A.C. headquarters—Military Air Command. Well I went, I went there and I, I after I got my assignment and my oh, how we’re, we’re not supposed to be teaching and so stuff like that I found out I had time to and they paid us to, to take classes over at Southern Illinois University—S.I.U.—at Carbondale. So, so I, so I enrolled in Carbondale. I majored in occupational education. I wanted to teach first with it after I got out of the Air Force. So I, I got my bachelor’s degree there. And in ’73, June ’73 my daughter was born at Scott Air Force base. I’ve always called her my li-, little Yankee. [chuckle] In fact she’s the only Yankee in the whole fa-, the whole Hamilton family wasn’t born in Texas. And I uh, got my, my associate’s de-, degree and then my registry and I, ca-, worked Children’s Medical Center. And then when my draft status changed to 1-A when I joined the Air Force, May of ’71. May 1st of ’71. And they sent me, a-, after basic training, after I was six to nine week ba-, basic training at Lackland Air Force base in San Antonio, they sent me direct duty, no tech school, just because I already, was already registered route straight to s-, southern Illinois, at Scott Air Force Base. And I started teaching in the respiratory therapy in the cardiac pulmonary phase-two school there. And then when I was there I, I got, I got my bachelor’s degree in occupational education. And then before I got out, I got my master’s degree in counseling education. All from Southern Illinois University. And then after my honorable discharge, May 1st of 1975, we moved back to Texas. We wanted to get somewhere, somebody, we wanted to get back to a place where people talk right. It took me four years. I still didn’t teach them, them Illinoisers how to talk. They still didn’t talk right. So, so we moved back to San Antonio. In fact, the reason we moved back to San Antonio, not just somewhere else in Texas was that about eight, ten months before I knew I was up for my discharge, I started writing letters to places I’d like to uh, loca-, relocate at that had a respiratory therapy school. And I wrote a letter to Saint Luke’s College and I got real hot letter back that said, “We’ve been looking for a person with your qualifications. And we’d like. The job is open, and ready for you, starting at $40,000 a year.” And I was 28 years old. So I jumped on that like stink on you know what. So, and I told my commanding officer, hours later, he said, “You given out. I thought you was, was gonna be a career man.” I says, “Yeah, I am. A civilian.” I says, he says, “Why you leaving?” I said, “I got a job paying me $40,000 a year.” He said, “Well that beats the heck out of pri-, private pay, don’t it?” I said, “I mean b-, b-, b-, buck sergeant’s plans. Yeah, he does.” So I says, “I’m gone.” So I, I started teaching there and when I got to my wife, she was an X-ray technician when I met her. In Abilene. And we got married in 1969, in Abilene. And after I got out of the Air Force, she got a job. When I started at St. Luke’s College, she got a job at, with a large group of radiologist. As their chief ultrasound technician. Making another uh, $30,000 dollars a year. $32,000. So she was 26. So here we were under 30 years old and making over $70,000 a year. So I said, “Shazam.” You know. So we, we, we, we both went ballistic with all this money we were making. We bought a great big home we didn’t need. That big of home. About, a big, ol’ home. I nineteenth foot inboard, outboard ski boat. 165-horsepower Johnson. Taught, taught her how to ski. I knew how to ski. And I taught the children how to ski. And I taught there until, middle of Super Bowl Sunday 1980 when all hell broke loose when I, I, I. TT: Now let me get this straight. Is it ’80 or ’81. 09:05: BH: No it was Super Bowl Sunday of 1980. TT: ’80. 09:08: BH: ’80. TT: Okay. 09:09: BH: Yeah, yeah. TT: And then you were in a coma for two months till March of 1980. Right? 09:15: BH: No. January ’80. I was January. Yeah, March of ’80. TT: Of ’80. Okay. 09:21: BH: I [inaudible] I. It, it, it was January, January when I went in. TT: Of 1980. 09:28: BH: Yeah, ’80. And uh, I was having brain surgery and then coma for two months. So January, February, March of ’81. Is when I came out of a coma. TT: Okay, well that’d be fourteen months. From January of ’80 to March of ’81, that’d be fourteen months. 09:48: BH: Hmm. I, I made of mixed it up with something. I thought I was, ‘cause I know I was in a coma for two months. TT: Well if you were in a coma for two months, it had to be in one year. Either ’80 or ’81. That it all happened. 09:58: BH: It, it was ’80. It was ’80. ’80. TT: ’80. So. January of ’80 to March of ’80. 10:01: BH: Yeah. TT: Two months. 10:03: BH: Yeah. TT: Okay, okay. Very good. 10:04: BH: And, after I got out of coma, I, you know, was told that I was permanently disabled. Couldn’t ever work again. And my wife had left me. And I was, had to start rehabilitation. Well I started there in San Antonio. And then, after my wife divorced me, I couldn’t live by myself. So my mother and dad moved me down to Bryan to live with them. So I lived with them out there in Steep Hollow. And started rehabilitation at Brazos Valley Rehab Center. TT: Right. 10:35: BH: Here. And Dr. [name of doctor] been my doctor ever since I moved down here. And I, I stayed here. Uh st-. I was doing that for se-, few, several years and then 19, I think, 1990. 1990 or ’91, I got a full scholarship to a, a, a r-, a rehabilitation called “Project Reentry.” It was at [name of hospital] Medical Center in Houston. And they, they, they were teaching adults with brain, brain injury, how to live independently. So I went down there and I lived by myself in a part where just, within a, a, a block or two so I could walk back and forth. And then I, I finished that program. And that, they, they, it was a God-send. ‘Cause you know, after all that had happened to me, I, I had lost all my self-confidence. I mean. I, it was just like starting all over. I had to learn how to, write again. I had to learn how, how to dress myself again. You know, the whole bit. It was just like starting over like a, like a baby. And it was a long, long thing. In fact that’s the book I’ve been working on ever since I got out of the hospital, in ’81. I’ve been working on a book called The Long Road Back. And I’ve been working on, ‘cause while I was in that coma, they said I had died. The doctor told me that I had died at, part time of that coma. And I, goodness, oh my goodness, I’m, I’m at the Lord. I was a Christian before that time. But I’m at the Lord. I found myself walking in the most beautiful place I’d ever seen in my life. Beautiful, clear blue skies. White puffy clouds about waste-deep. And I was walking towards the back, uh, towards a per-, a person faced away from me. Long brown hair and a white scarlet robe. I knew I had to touch that person to live. So I kept walking and stumbling and falling and getting back up and walking and stumbling and falling. And just as I got close enough to touch, I reached up to touch his shoulder. And he turned around and grabbed me. And I fell on my knees, I said, “God please don’t let me die. I’ve got two young children I wanna see grow.” And he pulled my hand and called by name and said, “Bill stand on your feet. You’re not gonna die. For I want you, I want you to do something for me. I want to go now and write me a book. Call your book The Long Road Back. Tie it into my Bible scripture so it’ll be a inspiration to other people on their long road back, to my son Jesus, Jesus. So I’ve been working on that ever since you know. And, and it’s uh. Since, since I’ve been down here in Bryan I’ve, I’ve, see I can’t drive anymore so I. I have to be hauled everywhere or people have to come over here and pick me up. But I, I’ve been involved with la-, last nine, ten years with the Bryan Independent School District as a host reading volunteer at Fannin Elementary School. I tutor, I tutored disabled children in, in reading and I just love it. ‘Cause, because one of my goals in life is to become a writer. I’ve been working on my autobiography, but also write poetry. In fact 1989, I was awarded Port of Merit, for A-, American Poetry Association for my poetry that I sent them. And, so I write children’s stories too and science fiction. So I like to write all kinds of things. And, I, I give up, I have more fun with little kids that they found out from the teacher that I write children’s stories and poems. And so they wanted me to recite one of my poems that I’d written. So I asked ‘em a question and that one little boy says, “Mr. Bill, Mr. Bill. Could you, gi-, tell us a poem that you’ve written.” I said, “Let me ask you a question first.” Little black boy in the back said, “Is this a test?” I said, “No, no, no, just a show of hands.” He said, “Okay.” I said, “How many in here have heard the little rhyme or riddle about Humpty Dumpty?” Of course all kids raised their hands. I said, “Well let me see if you’ve heard it this way. You know Humpty Dumpty, really sat up in a tree. But you know that turkey? Fell off backwards and broke his left knee. Then he jumped back up and said, ‘Tee-hee-hee. You can’t hurt Humpty Dumpty. I’m a poet and I know it. My feet’s short, they’re Longfellow.” And one little, lit-, boy, one of those students said, “How,” little black boy, “Could that Longfellow do this Mr. Bill? How does.” “You mean who’s Longfellow?” He said, “Yeah, who that, who that dude is?” I said, “He’s a poet, you’ll learn about him in high school.” He said, “Do they have feet, big feet Mr. Bill?” I go, “About like that.” Teacher goes, “Mr. Bill you’re gonna blow their minds.” [chuckle] But I’ll do a lot better here in the classroom than out there on the streets. [laugh] But I write silly stuff like that. I can’t have more fun with those little kids. TT: You have the poems, I mean, written that you? You? 15:08: BH: Oh yeah. I’ve got them put on my computer that I, save, save ‘em. TT: Yeah, yeah. 15:12: BH: But I, I write. Well I don’t, not all silly stuff, I write good stuff too. TT: Right. Good stuff. 15:17: BH: Yeah. I just wanna, I, I, I. TT: Well I wanna do, I wanna do a T.V. show with you next week. Will you bring some of the poems and read ‘em? We could pick some, about three, two or three of, of your favorite ones. And read ‘em on the T.V. show? 15:28: BH: Sure, sure. TT: Good, I want you to do that. Well keep going. 15:32: BH: Well I, anyway, I, I really enjoy working with little, those little ones. Children. And, and then I do my volunteer work with my disabled American veterans. I’m the as-, assistant chaplain. I was the chaplain. But then uh, another, uh, a black man by the name of Neil [Last Name] joined and he’s, he’s a, a ordained minister. So, my commander asked me if I’d step down from being chaplain and be, be, be the treasurer of the, the, and assistant chaplain. Name him the chaplain. And I’m assistant chaplain and the treasurer for the local chapter of Disabled American Veterans. And I do everything with them. TT: Right. How long you’ve been a member of the D.V.A.? 16:11: BH: Since, 19-, I flew down here, since 1981. TT: Since 1981. When you moved here. ‘Cause I haven’t done anything on the show specifically about the D.A.V. I have about the V.F.W. and the American Legion. But not the D.A.V. So you can tell me a lot about. 16:26: BH: We’ve got about. We, we, we’ve got about four hundred members. Members active. Four hundred members, they’re not all active. When we have. It’s a shame ‘cause when we have a meeting, it’s like many other organizations. Only a very few workers show up. The, all the other people just kind of congregate. The-, they just say, “Oh, we don’t, didn’t come. There was nothing to do.” But we, we go out and visit people at, Waco V. hospital. You, we, we would go up there every, every Christmas. We’d have a big Christmas party with all the Ladies Auxiliary makes cookies and cakes and stuff like that. And we drive up there to Waco and go into the V.A., si-, area there and. The-, these, these people are in there for life. You know, they’re really severely disabled. But we’d have a little Christmas party and I really enjoy doing that. In fact, I, one, one little boy, one, one man I, I was sitting there talking with one old guy. And he was pretty, oh he was old, I could tell, by his look. But he looked at me and said, “Hey sonny, what conflict were you in?” I says, “Vietnam era.” He says, “Oh the no unpopular war.” He says, “A lot of us was in the big W.W.2.” He says, “You know I should. I.” He says, “I found out.” And he, this guy really said this, he said, “I found out.” And he’s about 90-something odd years old. [Inaudible] He says, “I found out that those dang-old Germans were born pregnant.” I says, “What do you mean?” He says, “I had machine gun, and I just kept [imitating rapid gun fire]. And it, I, I mowed those Germans down by the, by the hundreds. And they kept coming over the hill, coming over the hill. They never stop.” [chuckle] Good grief. I said, “Man you’ve got some stories.” [laugh] Yeah, he says, said, he thought they were born pregnant. [laughs] But. But. Hey. Our commander of the D.A.V. started this chapter over thirty years ago. Floyd D. Wells, is his name. And he’s very well one of my best friends. And we always go out to coffee together. They come up. Everybody comes to my back door and honk, you know. And I, I go out there, that’s where I meet him. And then we go out for coffee together. TT: Now is Mr. Wells still alive? 08:35: BH: Oh yeah. TT: Okay. 18:36: BH: Yeah, he lives over on [Name of Street] Street in Bryan. Yeah he, he. TT: He started the D.A.V. chapter. 18:41: BH: Yeah. He started it and he still come out and every year he’s been reelected. [chuckle] I said, I said, “For how long you’ve been this chapter?” He says, “About twenty-some odd years Al.” I said, “Well golly one of these days you’ll be able to retire with a nice, nice pension from this group.” He says, “From these, this, this poor group, I can’t even get you guys to buy me a cup of coffee.” [laughs] TT: Now how old is he? 19:02: BH: He’s, late sixties, mid-, mid seventies. TT: Is he a Vietnam vet or what? 19:08: BH: No Korean War. TT: Korean War. What’s his disability? 19:13: BH: Oh, gosh. I don’t, I don’t know the real name of it is. But he, he, he, he walks around pretty good. A-, as of lately though, he’s had a, a heart, he’s wearing a heart pa-, not a pacemaker, but a, a, a recorder. And in fact I called this morning to tell him what I was up gonna be doing. I asked him what he’s doing. He said he’s gonna go have the recorder ru-, ru-, run and see what, what problems he’s been having because he’s been having these real di-, dizzy spells. Blackout spells and falling down. But he, he’s. TT: What else does that D.A.V. do? I mean you all meet and what do you, what do you all. Yeah, yeah, you go to, you go to Waco and. What other kinds of programs do you? 19:51; BH: Yeah and we go visit, visit other kinds of local. Well vet-, veterans in local hospitals here. Wa-, wa-, wa-, we’re always trying, we’re always involved in some kind of fundraiser for the chapter. We’ve, sell. We, we did have a place out at the jockey lot. We had a booth out there and we, we sold all kinds of stuff out there to raise money for our chapter. But we couldn’t get any, any, enough people to go out and help. It was just me, Floyd, and Doug. And Leroy. That was four of us out of four hundred members. You know, people just didn’t want to do anything. So we just finally closed down. It, it was just too much work. TT: Right. 20:30: BH: And, was always. We come up with new [inaudible], working on other ideas about selling, oh, some things that our veterans have made out at the Wal-Mart or shopping center one of these days. You know, something like that. Just to rai-, raise a little enough money for our chapter. TT: Right. 20:49: BH: But, that’s about all we do. Just congregate with the veterans and, give out as many. And Floyd of course is, is a real, political activist. And he’s, he’s really up on the. He’s ad-, he’s a, he’s a dye in the wool Democrat. [chuckle] Oh yeah. And I, it, it was funny because when I first met him, he says Democrat ‘cause he asked me what my political affiliation was, “Well ever since my great, great, great, great grandpa. We, we’ve been Republicans.” He says, “We’ll have to change that.” [Laughs] So first off I went home and told my mother that I, I, voted. She, “Did you vote today?” I said, “Yeah, I voted straight Democrat, she went” “What?!” [Laughs] I said, “Well mom you know, the way I look at it, the Rep-, Republicans have been in there a long time, and they’re messing up. Let’s try some Democrats, see if they, they, see if they can do something better. Okay we need to find somebody to get in there and do something right.” TT: Where are your? You have a son and a daughter? 21:51: BH: Yeah. TT: Where are they? 21:52: BH: My son and daughter-in-law and my two grandsons on his side are living in, Fayetteville, North Carolina. He’s building, building homes and she’s a registered pediatric nurse. TT: I see. 22:03: BH: And my daughter and son-in-law are both back in our, my hometown. They’re both ordained Methodist ministers. TT: In Abilene? 22:09: BH: Huh-huh. TT: I see. 22:10: BH: And they’re, they’re preaching at St. Paul’s Methodist Church. It’s the church that I was born and raised in, baptized in and married in 1969. And now they’ew pastor of that church. TT: Is that right? 22:20: BH: Yeah. Small world. TT: Do they have any kids? 22:21: BH: Yeah, they have two. TT: So you have four grandkids? 22L24L BH: Four, four grandsons. They have Noah and Daniel. Yeah, four grandsons. No grandson. I asked my son, last time I talked to ‘em, I says, “Brad when you and Michelle gonna have me a granddaughter?” I says, “Not us dad. We’re finished having babies.” I said, “Oh did you get a vasectomy or did your wife get her tubes tied?” He goes, “No dad. I did something a lot better and a lot cheaper.” I said, “What did you do leave home?” He goes, “No!” I go, “What did you do?” He said, “I built bunk beds.” [Laughs] I said, “Oh you idiot.” I said, “Brad, you crazy man.” [Laughs] But. TT: So do you get to see ‘em very often. 22:57: BH: Oh maybe once a year. Maybe once every other year, something like that. Yeah. Well I, I, they usually have to come down and see me because, part of my disability is flying. Being disorientated all the time. If I go to another, a new area, I have to go with somebody. I have to follow somebody around when I walk, or I’ll get lost. And, new territory just intimidates me to death. You know, ‘cause I don’t know where this is or where that is. I have to have my own set-up where I know where everything is. And nobody comes in here and changes the drawers where the forks go or anything like that because that just, will really mess me up bad. So I have to be real careful with doing that. Everything has to be in cer-, certain, certain order. TT: Yeah, yeah. Well you’re, you’re only 58 years old. This happened to you, 20-, 26 years ago. When you were 30-, yeah 33. 20, 25 years ago. Sometimes do you just wonder you know why, why me? I mean. 23:58: Oh yeah. I, I, I go through that a lot. And, every time I do, the Lord always taps me on my empty head up here and he says, “You’re supposed to be writing me a book.” Yeah. And I says, “Oh yeah.” TT: How often do you get to it? 24:14: BH: Oh I, I, I work on it just about, at, at least once a week. I’ll sit down and start going over it and rereading what I’ve already got and then rewriting it. I, I do more rewrites than anything. You know I just, I’m getting, if I don’t like that, I’ll tear that page out and start, start here’s, go, go again. But I’ve been, all in my spare time been, been searching for publishers that might be interested in something like that. I found out. And, and since I’ve been in the idea business of getting published of my, that publishing business is a, that can be a crooked gro-, group. There, there are so many vanity press out there. They’ll, they’ll, they’ll say, “Oh yeah, we’ll publish your book if you’ll send us $1000 dollars or $5000 dollars to get started. Something like that. Oh there’s a lot of those out there. Man. Shew. TT: Yeah, yeah you’ve gotta be careful of those. 24:58: BH: Yeah. And also since I’ve been here, in Bryan, I, I joined, I’m still a member of the local chapter of the Silver Tongue Toastmasters. We, we, we’re gonna want have a meeting once a week on Thursdays. And that usually conflicts with my Thur-, once a month Thursday meeting with D.A.V. So I, I, I usually go by D.A.V. since I’ve been in that, I’m, I’m an officer in that. TT: Now the Toastmasters I’ve done radio features on, on them before. They, they’re, they’re, they concentrate on, on speaking and, and, and bring speakers in and, amd things like that. 25:33: BH: Yeah. We’re, we’re, we’re working with big, uh, applying extensive mail. You know when you want to join Toastmasters, you work through the, your, icebreaker speech is very first speech, usually tell about yourself and, and everything you know. So the members can get to know you. And then, then there’s persuasive speaking. Inspirational speaking. And stuff all the house speaks like that. Don, Don Viator’s the president of the club. TT: Yeah, yeah, I’ve spoken with him. Right. So you’ve never, you never remarried. 26:08: BH: No. TT: Is that right? 26:09: BH: No, I, I got close one time. It’s embarrassing thing, Tom, you know be-, being lonely, you also go blind. Blind, deaf, and dumb. But I, I, you know, I used to go out with a friend of mine before he got married. We used to go out to the, the Hall of Shame. An-, and, and do some country western, dance. I like the country and western, dance. But I met this girl out there when I was, we danced. She was a good dancer. We started talking. I said, “Well how would you like to go out to, to dinner sometime.” So we made a date. And I. And she wasn’t in on the earlier part of the conversation, when I started telling people I, I’m legally blind. I have real narrow tunnel vision. And I says, “What, what time can you come by and pick me up Friday?” She goes, “Pick you up!” I said, “Well I can’t drive.” She goes, “What do you mean, you can’t drive.” I said, “Well I’m legally blind.” She goes, “Now you’re trying to pull wool over my. We’ve been dancing all night.” I said, “But.” I said, “I don’t have any periphery vision.” She says, “What’s that?” I said, “I can’t see anything on my sides.” “Oh.” She says, “Hey, I don’t mind picking you up.” So she came over there on Friday night. We went out to, to dinner. And we, we dated a little while. And then I thought, I started ‘cause [inaudible] before Bill starts falling in love you know. And I started, start, start falling like, like her. And, I got engaged to her. I was engaged to be married. And she said, “Well we’re not gonna rush into this.” I said, “Okay, that’s fine. I don’t mind long engagements.” Well we dated longer. And I knew she had been married in the past because she had a son. At that time he was about 15, 16 years old. Well that didn’t bother me. ‘Cause I’ve got two children. So I, come to find out that she showed up one day and I says, “Well, well what, whatever happened to your husband?” She says, “Which one?” I said, “Well the husband of your son.” “Oh well he, he, was killed in a car accident.” I said, “Oh, that’s nice.” “But, but the other, other four are, are still living, living in this area.” I said, “The other four?” She, she was several years younger than I was. She’d already been married and divorced five times. So I thought that was pretty much of a risky business. Well I, I broke that off. You know, I asked if I could have my ring back. She brought me my ring back. Oh. Lord have mercy. That’s all I needed. A woman been married five times, divorced five times. I, I told her, I said, “I did not want to be number six on your list of dead relationships.” I said, “Shoot man!” [Laughs] But other than that, I haven’t dated in quite, quite a while. You know, it, it, it’s hard in this town Tom. In this college community, to find a woman, close to my age, that’s not going with somebody, engaged somebody, or, or married. Or one foot in the grave and the other ones been [inaudible] or already in a rest home. You know it, it’s hard to find somebody in the age 45-55 that’s unmarried. And of course, I’m, I’ve got my specifics. You know they got, they have to be Christian. You know. And I prefer a Caucasian and ‘cause they wanna be speaking. I don’t want to have to learn, with my memory problems, trying to learn a foreign language, wouldn’t be, would be tough. That, that would be tough. TT: Right, right, right, right. But it seems like you have a lot of, you keep busy. You have people come and get you and take you where you need to go. 29:16: BH: Yeah, I, I’ve been. My, my, my sister, God bless her. She. My parents died in 1994. And they lived here in Bryan for quite a few years. TT: Your sister lives here? 29:26: BH: Huh-huh. Out there on Steep Hollow. But they passed away, and my, my sister became my legal guardian. I have a brother, three years younger, he lives out in College Station somewhere out by the [inaudible] Power Plant. But he’s never been much of a family member. You know, he, he doesn’t ever communicate with my sister. And she doesn’t communicate with him because he’s always so obnoxious. And he, he doesn’t usually ever call me. I, I call him sometimes to see what he’s doing. But, so my sister. My, my mother made a wise choice of putting Sylvia in charge of my, of my, my estate. Or my, my, my trust account that mother set up for me. And I’ve got some nephews, some good nephews—Rick and Robby. Robby is the. TT: These your sister’s kids? 30:14: BH: Huh-huh. Robby is the owner of, of the jewelry store down here on East 29th Street. And Ricky’s, in, in, he was. He did do part of a landscaping, but now he’s into, doing house remodeling and interior decorating-type stuff. Stuff like that. He and his wife work together. TT: They’re both here? 30:34: BH: Yeah. TT: The nephews? 30:35: BH: Yeah. TT: I see. And what. 30:37: BH: That’s my bird clock. [laughs] [bird whistles] TT: And, and what’d your sister do? 30:42: BH: She’s a retired, retired teacher. She retired, well. She taught a lot in Abileen. But then she, when she moved down here, she taught quite a few years at Henderson Elementary School. Elementary school teacher. And my brother-in-law, he was assistant, coach, football coach at Bryan High and Caldwell in there. And he, they’re, they’re both retired, I call ‘em both retarded now. [chuckle] So, so, she said, “It’ll make us all equal.” Yeah, “He retarded, he’s retarded, I’m retarded. We’re all retarded.” [Laughs] TT: Well this, this, this story is fascinating, and it’s a different kind of story that I’ve told on my show before. But I, but I, I like it. If you don’t mind tellin’ it. I would love to. I’d love to do it. 31:24: BH: No. Sure. Yeah. TT: And what, what we do. Have you, have you, have you seen the show? 31:28: BH: Yeah. TT: Okay. What we do is, and, and I’ll come over and get you. I’ll, I’ll come over and pick you up. I’ve done that before with folks. That’s not a problem at all. And we do, we’re gonna do it on Wednesday if that’s okay. 31:40: BH: This coming Wednesday? TT: Yeah. Is that okay? 31:42: BH: This Wednesday! [noises of excitement] This Wednesday! TT: This is Friday. Five days from now. Wednesday is the. 31:46: BH: Wednesday let me see. Let me. Let me here for just a minute. Wednesday the 13th. TT: 13th. Yeah, Wednesday the 13th. And I’ll come and pick you up at about 1:00 if that’s okay. 32:03: BH: Pick me up at 1:00? TT: 1:00. 32:07: BH: Okay. To appear, on the show. TT: Right. Right. We’re gonna go. 32:13: BH: KTXTV. TT: No, we’re gonna go over. KAMU. 32:17: BH: K-, KAMU. TT: Yeah, KAMU. Over on campus. Over on the A&M Campus. We’ll drive over there. 32:24: BH: Okay. TT: And we’ll be sitting in chairs, just sort of like we’re, we’re sitting now. And there’ll be cameras. 32:28: BH: I’ll, I’ll dress, I will wear shorts. TT: No that’s fine. And, and we’ll, you know they’ll set up the, have the cameras set up and, and all of that. And, and. We’ll just sort of talk kind of like we’re, we’re talking now. It’s a thirty minute show. We’ll talk about your, your, your military service. We’ll talk about your, your growing up. We’ll talk about your, your. 32:49: BH: I made. I made. I don’t remember how many exactly. But I made a few trips to Vietnam in an air-, military airlift transport to pick up wounded. Well. In, in those days. TT: Okay well now tell me about. Well tell me about that ‘cause I’ll want to hear.