1978 – By this time Wichita Falls was our home. Dad was getting the hang of this Financial Planner thing, and was happy to be working with the deserving families of the United States Air Force at Sheppard Air Force Base. He had turned in his flight suit and the keys to the jets he used to fly with such fervor. In the place of these pieces of heroic gear, he was given a supply of hideous paisley ties and a couple of suits that didn’t quite fit him like they were tailor made, but gave him a definite air of maturity that military life just won’t condone. I know he regrets the fact that his new job with United Services Planning Association & Independent Research Agency (USPA & IRA for short) kept him away from the house as much as it did, but the impact these actions had on the lives of his two young sons is far more negative in his mind than in reality.
Ryan and I were young at the time. We didn’t know that Dad was gone any more than any other father. If Dad did it, it was normal. That’s how kids see things. Unfortunately, that fact holds true in the case of very bad fathers all over the place too. Ours was not one of those. Besides, Dad’s long hours gave me and Ryan a lot of time with our mother. Her creativity, her sense of humor…..they are the traits that she gave to us that no one will ever take away. Without her truly unique way of looking at things and then handling them, our family would’ve collapsed and withered right there in the oppressive heat of North Texas.
I remember the confusion that went through my head as I heard news that Volkswagen was going to stop making the Beatle. My confusion came not from the fact that the bubbly vehicle was such a cherished part of society, but more from the fact that Granny (my mom’s mother) owned a powder blue Beetle that I believe she had driven since Christ was a kindergartner. There were holes in the floorboard allowing Ryan and I to watch the pavement pass below our feet as we scurried around Albuquerque with her over our summer trips to her home. The car had very few functioning gauges so Granny used to turn the radio and engine off, let the car roll down the hill in front of her house and then slam on the breaks. If she could hear the gasoline sloshing around in the tank, then she didn’t need to fill up. Times were simpler back then! My confusion on the subject came in the form of uncertainty that so often runs unaddressed through the limited scope of knowledge in young people. I was genuinely afraid my Grandmother was going to have her car taken away from her since it was no longer being made. The thought of her trudging up to the church where she worked for many years was more than I could bear, but yet again, my parents didn’t seem too upset so I had no choice but to assume that preparations had been made.
I distinctly remember the day I heard about Jim Jones and the tragedy he caused in British Guyana. The photos that I saw on the news were probably a bit too graphic for a child my age to be seeing, but it was a pretty big news story. There was no way I could have avoided the sight of all those bodies lying in that jungle clearing. My mother explained to me that sometimes people are not strong enough to think for themselves. Sometimes people just give up and start relying heavily on others for their opinions, morals, values, and futures. In the case of the Kool-Aid sopping lot over in Guyana, doing so cost them their lives. Mom explained the dangers of worshipping a ‘man’ because men are always corruptible. Jim Jones had proven this to the utmost certainty. After ordering the ambush of a plane carrying US Congressman Leo J. Ryan, the subsequent murders of everyone on board, and realizing that the end was in sight; Jim Jones ordered everyone to carry out what they thought was another suicide rehearsal. Mom was careful to explain that they all gave their lives willingly because they believed it was what God wanted them to do. I remember the great care and patience she took in explaining to me the vast differences between the God and the earthly lessons to which the People’s Temple subscribed were entirely different than the one, true God we spent so much of our time loving. Her carefully chosen words were so different from her normal mannerisms that they left no doubt in my head that she was not giving me an opinion but rather stating a fact to which I needed to adhere forever. I think that was the first time I ever comprehended the concept and dangers of peer pressure. Just because someone says “drink this” doesn’t mean you should always do it. God is merciful. God is forgiving. God is loving. God specifically forbids suicide and I imagined, even in those days, He reserved a special place in hell for people like Jim Jones. I remember trying to wrap my head around the emotions that the surviving family members back in California must have been feeling. Having never experienced any real sorrow, loss, or tragedy in my life to that point, it was unfathomable. To this day, I get a strange, uncomfortable feeling every time I hear someone casually toss around the phrase “drinking the Kool-Aid.” The phrase is most often used in association with an opinion with which I agree, but I still don’t feel it’s an event that should be mentioned in jest.
Even at a very young age, I was fascinated with all things electronic. I firmly believe that love of gadgets is something that is encoded in a male’s genetics. If it had buttons, I wanted it. It didn’t matter if I understood what the heck the thing actually did, or not……I wanted it! When I heard the story that Illinois Bell had introduced what they called a Cellular Mobile Telephone, I was fascinated. I understood nothing of the details but I knew for a fact that being able to talk to my Mom back at home while Dad and I drove to Albuquerque would be the coolest thing ever. In those days, I had no idea how in the hell we were going to get a cord that long into Leroy, but apparently some guys in a lab somewhere had just figured out how to make it work.
When it came to TV in those days, there were very few things that rivaled CHiPs. I’m man enough to admit it. Don’t get me wrong…..Erik Estrada was a complete douche and the show itself was just a big bucket of awful, but I remember being so jealous of Ryan when he got the battery powered, indoor motorcycle. The fact that it was a toy designed for kids his age mattered very little to me. I wanted so badly to be like the guys on CHiPs. I was willing to whip around the dangerous terrain of that red shag carpeting if it meant that I got to be as cool as the guys on the show but upon realizing that the thing couldn’t even move as fast as I could crawl, I was glad to relinquish my self appointed “turns” at Ryan’s toy.
1978 is not really all that memorable in my head. The following year would bring more memories than any child should ever have, but 1978 was a fairly calm year. Technically it happened in 1979, but the Cowboys capped off the 1978 season with a 4 point loss to the Steelers in Super Bowl XIII.
