It’s a wonderful wife

My beautiful wife!

When I was a sophomore in college at East Texas State University in late 1969, the university changed the way the semesters were scheduled by moving fall semester finals to before Christmas rather than right after. That gave us nearly a month between the end of fall and the beginning of the spring semester. Not wanting to be idle for that time, I wanted to get a job to make a little money. My sister Sande, a sophomore at South Garland High School, and I headed out to Northpark Center which had opened just four years earlier. She immediately found a job as a waitress at Kip’s Big Boy Restaurant, but I did not want to work waiting tables so I applied at all every other non-food shop in the mall – over 150 at that time – and got nothing, even though it was just three weeks before Christmas. Not finding what I wanted, I went back to Kip’s where they hired me to buss tables.

On my first afternoon I managed to drop and shatter a full tray of dishes, relegating me to the kitchen where I spent the next month washing dishes. On the up side, I met one of the best-looking girls I had ever met – Jean Caskey. I asked her out to a concert by Dionne Warwick, but since that was not until February I also took her to see Midnight Cowboy, which had opened that past summer. After we saw the movie I asked if she was REALLY hungry, and when she said yes, I took her to Phil’s Delicatessen, where their burgers were huge.

Since I came home from Commerce every weekend to help my mother with her interior decorating business, I was able to take Jean out those weekends. We dated for two-and-a-half years, getting married August 4, 1972, less than three months after I graduated from ETSU. We moved to Carrollton where I had gotten my first job and eventually bought our first house there five years later. We also were able to do a good bit of travelling. When I worked at Lone Star Gas in downtown Dallas I was able to attend job-related events all over the United States, often taking her with me – Washington, DC; Boca Raton, FL; New Orleans; New York City; Anaheim, CA; Las Vegas; and Colorado Springs. We also made trips on our own to Corpus Christi and Rockport (on our honeymoon), to visit her sister Sue in Charleston, SC; skiing in Colorado; and many other places all over Texas, the US and even Guadalajara, St Thomas, the Bahamas, Canada and Britain.

We both loved to eat, so we have done that both at home and everywhere we traveled. We’ve had Chicago-style pizza in Chicago, muffulettas and beignets in New Orleans, Katz’s Delicatession and Carnegie Deli in New York City, and many great dining experiences everywhere we went.

Jean has been with me through thick and thin. About a year before we were married, I decided to buy a motorcycle and pick her up for lunch at Zuider Zee restaurant, where she worked. On the way there I wrecked the bike, breaking my jaw. Of course she wonedred why I never showed up for lunch – I was in the hospital! Then in Tulsa the summer of 2003 I spent a month in the hospital, along with nearly a year in rehab, from Guillain-Barre syndrome. And, of course, most recently on November 1, 2012, I ended up at Parkland Hospital after being hit by a car, suffering a traumatic brain injury.

Jean has been there to help and support me ;every step along the way. With the TBI keeping me from being able to take care of the bills, for the first time in her life Jean had to take over those chores. I hadn’t meant to keep her in the dark about our finances, she just did not have any interest. Two years ago she and Evan had to dig through my stuff – mostly online because I received and paid bills online whenever possible – to figure out who we owed and how to pay for everything. Jean worked miracles getting me organized and taking care, not only with the bills we already had, but also the new ones resulting from my injury, from medical bills to long term disability and Social Security Disability Income.

I always knew how wonderful she was, but after the past two years, I am truly amazed at what she is capable of doing, for me and with me.

Jeannie, I admire and love you, beyond belief!

Waiting to adopt

In my lifetime I have been fortunate enough to have visited 38 states in the US and have lived in seven. I have also been to Canada, Mexico (three times), the US Virgin Islands, The Bahamas and Great Britain – England, Wales and Scotland.

In 1983 Jean and I, having been married for eleven years, were ready to begin the process of adopting a child. Jean knew that the best place for us to do that was at Hope Cottage. Adoption was starting to be a more difficult process because the stigma of having a child out of wedlock was more acceptable in this country so more unwed girls were deciding to keep those children. The number of children available at Hope Cottage was shrinking so fast that, whenever they would announce when they were accepting applications on a first-come, first-served basis, people wanting to adopt would line up outside their door several days before hand, hoping to get a chance to adopt. By 1983 they ended that process and began just taking applications during certain times of the year and then do a random selection from those for the twenty or so couples they would select for the coming year.

We submitted our request and began waiting to see if we would, as I put it, “win the adoption lottery.” We learned that the selection would be made sometime in June of 1984, which was the same time that we had been planning our vacation to the British Isles. I had been planning that trip for over a year. Each payday I would walk over to the bank and purchase a hundred dollars or so of American Express travelers checks in British pounds in preparation for that trip. There was also a book store near my office where I would buy travel books that I used to plan where we would and what we wanted do see and do – my parents had been on guided tours all over the world, but I wanted to do it myself. That’s why we were going to the UK, where they spoke English!

So in late May we flew to JFK in New York City and on to Heathrow near London. From there we rented a car, loaded our luggage and set out to learn how to drive on the left side of the road. Our first stop was in Guildford at a small shopping area. The first thing I learned was that I should have brought some cash in pounds, because I had to pay to park the car. I left Jean in the car while I walked into a store to find where I could cash one of my travelers checks. I was not successful and finally went back to the car and we left. Our next stop was in Winchester to see the cathedral, where I did manage to get some pounds to pay for parking.

Over the next four weeks we saw Stonehenge, Dartmoor National Park, Tintagel Castle, Oxford, Blenheim and Kensington Palaces, Portmeirion village, Sherwood Forest, York, Fountains Abbey, Beatrix Potter’s home in Near Sawrey, Cumbria, Loch Ness (we saw no monsters), Inverness, the Isle of Skye and Edinburgh. After a week in Scotland we turned in our car and took a train back to London, where we spent our final week using the “Tube,” London’s underground transit system, to take in the whole of the city. All along the way we stayed at bed-and-breakfast lodging in private homes, guest houses, small hotels, farm houses and even a castle from the 15th century.

When we finally returned home, we found waiting for us the letter from Hope Cottage accepting us into their adoption program which resulted in us receiving Evan two and a half years later. He was thirteen days old when we went to Hope Cottage to get him. He is now 27 and will turn 28 in little over a month.