After graduation I attended Trinidad State JC in Trinidad CO where I was exposed as having one of the first known cases of "white man's disease" on the basketball court. For those of you who do not recall, that means, "can't run, jump or shoot very well!" I then went to Texas Tech for one year with grades ranging from a-b-c-d-f, with the A in PE. I dropped out after the one semester went home to work for the Railroad and wait to be drafted. Something possessed me to join the USMC Reserves so I drove to Amarillo to accomplish this and upon returning to C the next day found my draft notice in the mail. That is how I became a draft dodging Hollywood Marine Corp Reservist.
I then took this act to Houston, married Diane Mock and finally finished my degree at U of H in 01/1970. Along the way I managed to make Diane so miserable that she asked for a divorce and rightfully so. That will be my last comment on my marital exploits, other than to say that I have been married, for the last time, to Anne, since 1994. Along the way I became the proud father of two daughters, Ashley, born in 1974 and Whitney, born in 1985. I have 3 grandchildren, Will, Sam and Lily, ages 8, 6 and 3.5 respectively. They live in Boerne and Ashley and her Husband, Bobby, both graduated from Texas A & M. Whitney just finished at UT and lives in Austin.
From 1970 until 1994 I worked in the corporate sector and for a couple of small companies in the D/FW area. Jobs ranged rom sales rep to sales manager to management, in the courier, bus and armored car industries. My political incorrectness, lack of tact and stubborness did not endear me to upper management so I changed jobs more times than I would have liked. I also beat my head against the wall trying to make a business I bought successful in Denton TX. This was an office supply, furniture store and computer store. I learned that I need to have a great passion about what I am doing in order to make it successful. I did not in this case and closed this down in 1990 and was able to pay off all of my secured debt and 98% of the unsecured debt.
Anne and I married in 1994 and immediately moved to Sydney Australia with her employer, American Express. Anne is from the Detroit area and in her early career she and I had met at one of their functions. She promptly moved to Memphis and we stayed in touch until she came back to Dallas in 1992. I was in the midst of blowing up another good career opportunity with Loomis Armored Car. I got that done in 1993 and was about to get back in the courier business when her opportunity to move to Sydney came around. We were engaged and married and off to Australia we went for a great 2 year adventure, followed by 2 years in Salt Lake City and back to Australia for another 18 months.
We came back to the Dallas area in mid 2000 and moved about 2 miles from James Claude Holton where we stayed for 5 years. I had learned a new field in Sydney, as a retained recruiter and as a counselor in the career transition field (teaching displaced employees how to do resumes, job search and interview, by now on which I was quite an expert)! Anne retired from American Express in 2004 and wound up taking a job with AAA automotive group in Dearborn Mi. Her mom, who is 79, still lives in this area as do 2 of her 3 brothers. I was able to transfer with my latest employer, USIS, a government contractor that conducts security clearance investigations for the Federal government.
How is that for a 45 year summary? I obviously left out much of the good, the bad and the ugly. I am more comfortable in my skin that ever before, thanks to my renewed faith in my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I have been blessed with more second chances than the law allows and I did not deserve even one second pass.
I will always feel drawn to Childress and to people I have grown up with. I have never made friends like the ones I have from Childress.
Joe D.
I then took this act to Houston, married Diane Mock and finally finished my degree at U of H in 01/1970. Along the way I managed to make Diane so miserable that she asked for a divorce and rightfully so. That will be my last comment on my marital exploits, other than to say that I have been married, for the last time, to Anne, since 1994. Along the way I became the proud father of two daughters, Ashley, born in 1974 and Whitney, born in 1985. I have 3 grandchildren, Will, Sam and Lily, ages 8, 6 and 3.5 respectively. They live in Boerne and Ashley and her Husband, Bobby, both graduated from Texas A & M. Whitney just finished at UT and lives in Austin.
From 1970 until 1994 I worked in the corporate sector and for a couple of small companies in the D/FW area. Jobs ranged rom sales rep to sales manager to management, in the courier, bus and armored car industries. My political incorrectness, lack of tact and stubborness did not endear me to upper management so I changed jobs more times than I would have liked. I also beat my head against the wall trying to make a business I bought successful in Denton TX. This was an office supply, furniture store and computer store. I learned that I need to have a great passion about what I am doing in order to make it successful. I did not in this case and closed this down in 1990 and was able to pay off all of my secured debt and 98% of the unsecured debt.
Anne and I married in 1994 and immediately moved to Sydney Australia with her employer, American Express. Anne is from the Detroit area and in her early career she and I had met at one of their functions. She promptly moved to Memphis and we stayed in touch until she came back to Dallas in 1992. I was in the midst of blowing up another good career opportunity with Loomis Armored Car. I got that done in 1993 and was about to get back in the courier business when her opportunity to move to Sydney came around. We were engaged and married and off to Australia we went for a great 2 year adventure, followed by 2 years in Salt Lake City and back to Australia for another 18 months.
We came back to the Dallas area in mid 2000 and moved about 2 miles from James Claude Holton where we stayed for 5 years. I had learned a new field in Sydney, as a retained recruiter and as a counselor in the career transition field (teaching displaced employees how to do resumes, job search and interview, by now on which I was quite an expert)! Anne retired from American Express in 2004 and wound up taking a job with AAA automotive group in Dearborn Mi. Her mom, who is 79, still lives in this area as do 2 of her 3 brothers. I was able to transfer with my latest employer, USIS, a government contractor that conducts security clearance investigations for the Federal government.
How is that for a 45 year summary? I obviously left out much of the good, the bad and the ugly. I am more comfortable in my skin that ever before, thanks to my renewed faith in my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I have been blessed with more second chances than the law allows and I did not deserve even one second pass.
I will always feel drawn to Childress and to people I have grown up with. I have never made friends like the ones I have from Childress.
Joe D.
5 comments:
Joe.......lemme just say......you were absolutely positively one of the good guys when we were growing up.......and when we met again a few years ago in Wimberley.........you just reconfirmed that you still are.......hope to visit with you again in Las Vegas......
Sprad
Joe, Nicki and I are both impressed with your "Show and Tell" entry ... not only with the complex story you've told, but with the candor and courage you've shown in telling it. A lot of people aren't capable of looking at their lives with such introspection and analysis, and even less capable of writing about it in more or less a public forum.
I truly believe that everything that has happened in your life ("the good, the bad and the ugly" as you said ... somehow I am again reminded of Clint Eastwood) has gone into making you the caring, compassionate person I have been privileged to come to know again during the last several years. Like Mike, I have great memories of seeing you at Wimberley, and your support during Paula's ordeal meant so much to her and to the rest of the Nine. Yahn and I so look forward to having the pleasure of seeing you again in Las Vegas in October.
Thanks again for your update ... as well as your wonderful "Confessions From the Locker Room" post to the main blog.
)O(
Joe, I have already told you in an email how very much I appreciate your taking the time and having the courage to share your story with us. I believe that you more than any of the rest of us have played a pivotal role in keeping the rest of us connected over the last 45 years. Without your phone calls to many of the guys, it would have been likley that this blog and the planned reunion would have been much, much harder to initiate and for this we thank you.
Your thought provoking comments certainly highlight an awareness in all of us that without a doubt there is probably not one of us who hasn't suffered through those inevitable "learning experiences" that make us who we are today. As we tell our stories, we will most likely leave out the really "bad" and certainly the "ugly". Yikes! However, rest assured that we all have those stories lurking in our hearts and minds and certainly our past. I suspect that we all might be surprised at how much we have in common if those stories were told.
Like you, I know that I and I think I can speak for Jim, also, feel so much more comfortable within our skins and in our lives and with whom we have become. Isn't it great to have the opportunity to share with our old friends and classmates so we can get to know each other in a whole new way?
I have said it before and now I say it again, Joe, you really are a good man!
Ditto Mike Spradley.
You and I go back to first grade. You were always one of my favorites. After seeing you several times over the past few years, I can say you are the same person I knew in gradeschool, no matter what happened in between. And after meeting your daughters, I have to say that you definitely did something right! They are absolutely terrific----such a pleasure to be with.
What an interesting life! I can tell that you have had lots of fun, quite possibly too much??? NAH...no such thing. Hopefully you are still having fun while living in Michigan? GEEZ! How does a Texas boy deal with that kind of cold? Hope you make it back home soon.
Like I said in one of my earlier comments, we were in the 6th grade before I realized you were the smartest boy in our class, next to Jerry Newberry, Barry Wakefield..maybe before then I didn't realize being smart had anything to do with anything. I just knew that somebody had to get the answer right and it wasn't going to be me! LOL
Looking forward to seeing you again in Vegas. Hope Anne can come with you.
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