Gulf Coast Boy... The Community Years

The final installment in Dad's five-part autobiographical series.

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It was 1993 or there ‘bouts. I had been a communication technician for the phone company for 23 years. I always worked in the Central Office…The hi-tech stuff and all that. I enjoyed the work, but my old friend Danny was getting involved in community affairs. By then, he had been involved in every aspect of local service and politics and thought I should maybe ‘expand’ a bit.

I began with the Chamber of Commerce. I co-chaired (with Danny) their golf tournament fund raiser for two years and then chaired it for two more. I also did a few committees and such. My wife became an ‘Ambassador’ for the ‘Chamber’…we were socializing in ‘high cotton’…

About then, my company’s External Affairs department took note of me. I was ‘one of their own’ and I was pretty well connected to the local business and political folk. Translation: Use him.

Now, bear in mind that all of this ‘community involvement’ stuff was voluntary and after hours. My paycheck still said ‘communications technician’ and I did all of this other stuff on my own time. I had a great boss who helped in any way he could, but my ‘day job’ always came first. I would change from work clothes into slacks and a dress shirt to run to a ‘Chamber Luncheon’ on my lunch break and be back in an hour…my co-workers watched the clock too.

After a while, the External Affairs manager I worked with started taking me to city council meetings and such. All of the External Affairs managers were registered state lobbyists. My education into politics had begun.

She had a large area with many small towns. But in company politics, there’s no such thing as a ‘small town’.

Once she asked me to come with her to a town meeting southwest of Houston. She had been there once before and became uneasy when they locked the door behind her. This time the Mayor was asking us why his town couldn’t be included in the main Houston area code. They were 60 miles away from Houston. She was baffled, being a political type and all, so I drew His Honor a rough map, showing him that the main Houston area code already had a prefix like his and it couldn’t be repeated. He didn’t understand the math and the meeting ended in a draw…at least they unlocked the door for us…

She once asked me to visit seven or eight small communities alone and present some proposal.

I don’t care how confident you are, city councils can be imposing. Maybe not as much as fighting a garbage truck worker in a beer joint, but you get the idea…

She was a pretty damn attractive woman. I’m sure in her line of work, that was an asset. We became pretty good friends, but nothing more. She spent a huge amount of her time and budget keeping one VIP politician happy. I once asked her if she would ‘sleep’ with him to get his vote on an issue.

She said “absolutely not!” She was lying out her ass, I knew it and she knew I knew it…who said politics can’t be fun?

One of the communities I ‘visited’ was a remote village that had suffered serious flooding about 6 months before. Their ‘town hall’ was a small trailer. As I waited in turn to present my issue, I listened to other citizen’s address the Council. One elderly lady wanted to know what they were going to do about the ‘damn raccoons’ that had invaded her trailer. That problem just didn’t seem to have a political solution…but one councilman offered to come by and ‘shoot a couple of them’. Now that’s service, folks. It went that way all evening…

At one point the Council was to vote on whether to pay the Police Chief overtime for his extended hours in the previous flood or not. They had a very small budget. About then the trailer door opened and the Police Chief himself came in. He didn’t say a thing…but he just found a chair and hiked one leg up on it and stared right at them from about 15 feet away…his very big pistola was jutting out prominently…and low and behold, the issue passed…. Democracy in action is sweet to see…

I presented my proposal soon after and they all agreed it was a good deal for the community. I didn’t even have to bring out my pistola.

But it was about time to get back to being just a civilian with a day job. I phased out of politics and that’s the same thing I could say about my whole life.

Well, that’s about it. I retired in 2000 and put everything in the stock market… Now There’s a good idea! Life has been a hoot, so far, but all of you have stories that are just as unique. You folks get to writing so your friends can be just as bored as you are reading about me.

In January, God willing, I’ll be 56. Party on, Dudes!