Bar Talk with Bill Parker, Part 2

Brad:  Well, the just the work ethic. I think that you instilled in both Todd and I and Dawn too, but you know, I can’t remember ever not having a job. My first job that I ever got I was in seventh grade and started working for the newspaper and I was actually skipping school, so I could work one day a week –  finally got caught doing it, but then I, you know started working at the Pizza Hut, and I was the night manager for a while there and but I always had a job and I guess in looking back at it. It’s just something that was instilled, ingrained in me at some point somehow. Just I guess it’s the same as your dad putting you to work when you were second grade.

Bill:  And you learned the self satisfaction of having two dollars in your pocket at the end of that Saturday working.  Instead of nothing in your pocket.  I remember one occasion. Then this is why I pushed you boys this way once one when I was in high school somewhere along the way I one of my buddies are my say I don’t know how we worked it out. But let’s this take a little sweetie pie over here and little sweetie pie over there in take our girlfriends to the movie Saturday afternoon. And he said well, we always going to catch a bus ride downtown or while how are we going to do it? And he said, well, I have to go see my mom and my mom and dad and get some money and I have already had the money in my pocket from working weekends. I didn’t tell him and I felt a sense of satisfaction that maybe my dad knew what he was doing.  Making me get up and go to work those mornings in the summer making me work on Saturdays during when I was in school. So the self satisfaction of being able to have a two dollars in my pocket was you know a golly.

Brad:  Yes,  not having to count on anybody.

Bill:  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dad made know what he’s doing. Making We go to work like this, golly.

Brad:  Well, you rocked along in the with electrical business and we’re pretty successful at it. One of the things I remember you had a running a bunch of trucks and then you kind of made the decision. I’m tired of running bunch of trucks. I’m going to just run one or two things. Can you talk about that a little bit? What was that about?

Bill:  I got my satisfaction out of that tool pouch that hello my hip and I got my faction out of pulling wire, Making Connections, doing things like that -running a business was the most important part of keeping it going and so I could not go out on every job and really do what I got my kicks out of I had to run the business had to go out and fight for new jobs. So to speak bid jobs things like that and then one day it kind of things kind of slowed down a little bit and I thought you know, I’m just going to believe I’ll just jump back in there and do that work myself. And so I began to taper it off.  The my kids were pretty well into college. And of course that was a battle tried to keep their college paid for and all that, but it just evolved that I really enjoy going out and catching these service calls, and I really enjoy wiring these houses and I really enjoy running that conduit to these commercial buildings and so I made myself available to the working crew at Parker electric so to speak anyway, and I enjoyed it. I liked it. That still didn’t that didn’t mean I quit soliciting work and and all of that but

Brad:  We’ll the last several years of your of your practice of a be electrician. You’re pretty much on your own.

Bill:  I of work we had a economic slowdown back but back in that era and I could not afford to keep electricians on the payroll that I didn’t have place for them to be working. And so I called them all in one day I said, hey guys, we’re approaching a little bit of a problem here. And if the economy is slowing down if you should find another job that you want to take, take it. There will be no hard feelings.  But if you don’t take it, you might be the next one to get laid off if that comes to that. I realized how much fun I was having with my tools back on that truck, my truck and I would go to the job and go to a job. We had more than one at a time. How you guys doing? Oh, we’re doing pretty good. We’re going to have a little trouble getting through by 5 o’clock this afternoon. What’s the matter? He said? Well, it’s just a little more. Wait a minute. I got one extra man on the payroll your talking to him.  I’ll go back to trip get my tools walk back in that what you want me to do and I was not working as the boss. I’m the helper show me what you need to do. So you guys can get through with this job today and it would be it would might be a two or three-day job and they’re into the third day and we’d like to get through with it so Dad burn that’s fun. I’m back working again. So that’s…

Brad:  Haley at Kayla don’t know you ever have been an electrician. I mean they know it but okay their memories of you, you had already retired. And so you got out of the business when you were what 62-63 some where…

Bill:  Yeah. Yeah that I was thinking about retiring at about 62 and fortunately I landed a very good, big job.  And it was one of those deals that if you turn this down your idiot and you’re not going to make a billion dollars off of it, but it’ll be a profitable job, jump in there and do it.  And it was a different kind of job as far as the experience and it was challenging. And so I took it, jumped in there and did it, and when I got through with that job, I told my wife I said, I believe I’m going to quit and if we can’t make it. I know how to cook sausage, sausage and eggs and I’ll go to one of these restaurants and hire on and I’ll be a short-order cook and all tounge and cheek sure but I quit and fortunately I haven’t had to have any welfare yet may come have to live with you here for long, but that’s that’s the way that’s the way it turned out.

Brad:  Well, what have you been doing to occupy your time?  Because I know I turned 60 here in a few, few days, few weeks. I have no intention we were talking about this. I have absolutely no intention of retiring until the day I die. And I want to slow things down a little bit, but I just love what I do. I have a passion to practice law and it keeps me very happy. What have you done? And how have you done or how have you dealt with all of their spare time?

Bill:  I was very good electrical contractor but I like to make tables. I like to I like the woodwork and fortunately I was good at it. I didn’t sell it out on them on the main drag at Sears Roebuck or anywhere but I sure had fun making it and somewhere along the way I thought I wonder what wood carving is like and so I got a block of wood and a pocket knife and dadburn that’s kind of fun, but I don’t know what the thunder I’m doing here I could draw all and if I draw a picture and give it to you and tell you that’s a tree don’t argue with me. That’s the way I see a tree it may look to you like a big circle, but that’s what I think tree look like and so I began to take drawing lessons and it took me about two years to get the nerve up to get into a group of oil field workers down at Denver City, Texas who were into wood carving.  And they took me in.  And I began to learn how to be a good wood carver and after about 40 years. I still have all my fingers and I’ve got to…

Brad:  You’ve cut them a couple of times.

Bill:  Yes. Sure. Yeah, I had to learn the hard way and I did take those drawing lessons learned to draw and so my hobby of wood carving has occupied my life tremendously. And then having a shop where I could build things. I still go back everywhere At work bench is and I still take her with something and my wife thinks I’m an idiot, but sure have fun getting in my man cave back there and where we used to repair electric motors. I build a little gadgets and things so I stay busy and stay busy. In fact, I have told her I think I’ll go back and get a job somewhere that way. I’ll know what I’m going to do every day from nine to five or eight, eight five and this way I’m going along and the fence is leaning I need to straighten up the fence a little bit of the commode won’t quite shut off. So I gotta just that things need to be done. Darn it. I’m gonna get me a job where I got one thing to do and stay with it. Tongue in cheek. So but I you’ll find it your if you quit you’ll find that you’re going to be busy real quick.

Brad:  Yeah, so you don’t sit around just wasting time or watching TV, you keep busy.

Bill:  That’s correct. I still get up at about four o’clock every morning, which I did back when I was in business and I made sure every morning that I beat all of those electricians to work. I didn’t want them becoming in me not being there and they get the idea that I wasn’t running things, wasn’t alert as to how the business is going. Plus I would have all of our work crews pretty well figured out before I got there that morning -who’s going to go where and you’d have some men working on job as a they stay with job A till it was finished in his men on job be they were with job B so I had all those things to keep threat. But at the same time some material came in yesterday for job a I’ve got to make sure it gets loaded onto their trucks so that when they go to the job A they would have the proper material to continue their job and then again, sometimes he would we would have helpers who would put it on a truck, but somebody had to know to disperse that material and make sure we got it bought and then unfortunately I had the job be sure is paid for well, so that was Matt that was part of it that was part of the business that had to be I was not a multi-million dollar Corporation. I was a good, high small business. I was in the upper edge of a small business if I had jumped over the fence. So to speak I would have been a very small big contractor. I wanted to stay where I was and they was it managed to put three kids through college and fortunately that was all paid for so it just worked that way.

Brad:  Yeah what let’s was looking a little different angle here. You’ve had a lot of fun over your life. I know you had a good group of solid friends and to tell me just some of your memories of some of your better friends and maybe some of the things you did at still held a place in your heart.

Bill:  Well, we did a lot of our share of after-hours beer drinking before we went home and not enough beer drinking to and keep us from driving home or but a couple of beers and we would into wood carving. I got into a big group of guys that were organized to the point that we have some wood carving clubs. And as we got together look my carvings’ lot better peers or what you did right there. You need to change it and make it look this way. No. No, he said you’re wrong. My mind looks better than yours and a lot of camaraderie right there. But at the sametime we were learning from each other and picking up different ideas from each other. We had a lot of good good associations.

Brad:  I remember one of my memories of a is a kid growing up was always going to New Mexico, Ruidoso. We’d vacation up there and do some different things but we’d always go up there. I guess Lucille had bought after your dad died, she bought some land, a little trailer up there we end up you ultimately were always talking about White Oaks and got me into the history of White Oaks and Billy the Kid and stuff. But won’t you tell us about how you got turned on to White Oaks?

Bill:  Well, that was that came on nearly as a shock. I went to mass one morning. Episcopal church, and I was- the priest and I spoke together each- other and I was a member of his congregation blah blah blah and before the service got started that morning. He came down the aisle and I happened to be sitting next to the aisle and he whispered in my ears that I’d like to see you after church.  Uh oh, I looked at my wife and she looked at me and with much surprise as I had, wonder what this is about and so after church I went back, you know made him way waited. He asked me would I like to go to White Oaks New Mexico with he and two or three more there in the church, which are we were all very good friends, but I didn’t know anything about them going to White Oaks and I said, well sure I’ll go he said well, we’re going to leave well, whatever day it was Saturday or Thursday or whatever it was and that started a long friendship that lasted many years and these two or three guys had gone to White Oaks in case you’re not familiar with it’s an old mining town.  Deserted.  Very romantic place to be if you like to get out in the middle of the night, look at the stars. We always laugh that they could drop a pin in LA California. We could hear that pin drop in White Oaks, New Mexico. It was so nice and quiet, but we went up there and they had bought an old Adobe home. That was very dilapidated, and I got pulled into the circle of the guys being in the construction business. They were in the construction business also, and we spent many, many hours in White Oaks New Mexico rebuilding this old Adobe place and fortunately they needed some electricity run in there. And so I know how to do that. Let me help you guys do that. So that’s how it came and I promise you this is, golly, 45 50 years ago long time ago. You could stand out in the middle of that Main Street which was the main drag of White Oaks at one time and if he’d listened you could hear Billy the Kid riding through the mountains up there somewhere. I mean it was a fascinating, romantic thing. Now the men went to White Oaks. I don’t know but maybe one or two wives that ever went to White Oaks.  The outside privy was up the hill and around the corner or something there and that wasn’t the way these wives wanted to spend four or five days that or a time or something like that, so we would go up and…

Brad:  It was a boondoggle. You all were working, but you had a great time and…

Bill:  We had this we had this situation where I’ll just give this as a figure, before we go everybody puts fifty dollars in the pot and that’s our grocery money. Mainly that was our grocery money. We would stop and Carrizozo New Mexico and we had steaks about three times a day in White Oaks and we never ran out of cold beer, and we had plenty of building materials. We all brought our tools and we had a ball had a lot of nickel limit poker games at night. Just had a good camaraderie deal that we those of us that are still living are still in love with each other. We just had a good…

Brad:  Good group of guys.

Bill:  Good group of guys and our priests kept us in line. And if you’ve never had communion in a place like White Oaks, New Mexico -God’s there.

Brad:  Yeah. Well I know I grew up hearing about White Oaks and after I graduated from high school, I thought you know, I got that truck and that was my first time to really spending time and White Oaks and I immediately fell in love with the place. It’s just great place and one of the best times I think I’ve ever had with you, when you me and Todd went up to White Oaks and we we sat in that ‘No Scum Allowed’ Saloon. Yeah, they’re in White Oaks and I think there’s when they have Saturday night. There is probably the most populated place within 30 miles. Yeah, because and because there’s nobody at losing White Oaks early.

Bill:  And there’s no rowdiness. No bawdiness is if you want to go up and a have trouble, you better have some big knuckles because you’re not going to last very long causing trouble and the turnout that night might be 25 or 30 people because that’s about all he told that kind of thing. But yeah, it’s a nice place to have fun and to think that that that building it might have been there during the time of Pat Garrett Billy the Kid it’s quite a romantic place to speculate on all those kinds of things.

Brad:  Well it is and you know, you read that part that book by it’s no relation to us, but it’s written by a gentleman named Parker and it tells the history and story of White Oaks. And what was really interesting to me, Is that in the late 1800s there in the Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett days. White Oaks was quite the metropolitan area.

Bill:  Oh, yeah.

Brad:  I mean it was it was the cat’s meow. They had a theater there. They had performers. They had the town I think got up to a little over two or three thousand people.

Bill:  Yeah something like that.

Brad:  And you know it was a real mining Community.

Bill:  Exactly. Mr. Parker was a mine essayer or whatever you call it that he’ll take the gold that you bring in and he’ll run an essay test on that believe. That’s correct word and determine if it’s a two-dollar gold or if it’s $40 gold, right?  And that was his occupation and White Oaks for many many years and he I would like to have said y’all. Mr. Parker’s one of our Parker’s or I’m one of their Parker’s but it’s no no relationship at all. But he wrote a very interesting book about White Oaks and they had some mining X accidents that cost some lives and it’s a very interesting book.

Brad:  Yeah. I think I told you that they had that bicycle. Well, you know the bicycles with the big front tire. And the tall back one’s and he was talking about how they had gone to Denver and bought that bicycle and brought it back down to White Oaks and the city mentioned in the book that the last time he saw it. It was at some general store in Lincoln.  So I got my truck we went looking for this bicycle found out that this General story burned down several years earlier and but the bicycle didn’t burn and it was we found it.  Somewhere else in the little Museum and I knew will forget I asked the lady the curator of the museum I said is that Parker’s bicycle right there and she looked at me like how in the world did you know that.  But that was that was a lot of fun to learn about that stuff from you and know your history of going up in there.

Bill:  I recall on that bicycle you took me back or we will you and I and the Todd over always going through there and you took me one day and said hey Dad, you want to see that bicycle of Mr. Parker’s it was Mr. Parker’s son. I believe that’s right that had the bicycle. You want to see that by say. Well, yeah sure you go ahead and show it to me. You took me down the street into that or look through the window and there it was. Yeah. Oh my heart jumped. So yeah, it’s fun. It’s fun.

Brad: Well Ruidoso those are somewhat. Like I said, some of my best memories are being up there in red I was so with with you take us kids up there and.

Bill:  New Mexico is a neat place.

Brad:  It is.  It’s it really is and they’re driving up to the ski slope. I guess they call it Ski Apache now, but it used to be something else while you back but I the Inn of the Mountain Gods and what is that little Alpine Restaurant? Remember the time that we were eating dinner there and we were really little kids and I Lady comes up and says do you want soup or salad and you thought she said super salad and use said tell me more about this super salad.

Bill:  Well, I think the way it went it was soup or Salad. Yeah, you embarrass me now is calling up some of my problem. I just remember that was funny.

Brad:  And you mentioned church. That was St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church there in Lubbock and you know, the we all went to private school. I went to St. Christopher’s from kindergarten and till y’all divorced which I was in the fifth grade. We just completed the fifth grade.

Bill:  Did you not continue, or finish the sixth?

Brad:  No. We had moved.

Bill:  I just lost track and didn’t remember.

Brad:  How did you and Mom make the decision to send us to private school?

Bill:  It was there and we fortunately could afford it. It was an Episcopal School. We had joined the Episcopal church, and we’re very involved in it and we discussed it and it’s going to take some doing but let’s see if we get our kids into it and pay pay our respective dues our tuition and we did you did and we all enjoyed it. We all I think all of you accomplished what you should accomplish and during the grades there.

Brad:  Yeah, it was great. It was a great experience. Yeah, it really was. Oh, yeah enjoyed it a whole lot. What is the fondest memory you have about your life of I mean was our period of time that stands out as maybe a little more sentimental for you than other periods?

Bill:  The birth of you your brother and your sister was the most fabulous things. I ever saw in my life and the fact that it snowed in El Paso the night you were born. I got up that next morning and looked out and good night. It snowed. It didn’t just come a dusting of snow- it snowed and I remember that and so that was a big thing.  The fact that I managed to graduate from college and was possibly in lined, in line to maybe at least apply for to get in a veterinary school, which was not going to be an easy thing to do- with my grades were not the best they were above average but they are a lot of them, were higher than me. I had that possibility and then I graduate from high school to lucky enough there.

Brad:  Well you told me we were visited last night and you mentioned that one of your favorite times in life was when you lived in Clint that that was really something that you truly truly enjoyed. It was difficult decision to come back to Lubbock.

Bill:  I made some friendships down there that lasted many years after I moved away from there. I would go back and the gentleman who was my boss taught me more about becoming a man than anybody as much as some other people in my life. But yeah, it was a great experience and the living on the border at that time was a very big experience.

Brad:  How so?

Bill:  The lifestyle down there with the Anglos and the Spanish living together. The Bracero program was really into high gear at that time and I was into -very deeply -looking after cattle herd looking after cattle and it was a big experience big we had to learn Spanish. I could say good morning. Buenos Dias I mean, you know, it’s okay. That’s about all I knew I could count on the other days of the week and you know, I can tell time and thing and I got to where I could communicate agriculturally.

Brad:  Cowboy.

Bill:  Cowboy and if I went to town to buy a pair of socks, I didn’t know what I was doing. I mean I couldn’t buy in Spanish. I had to do that in English. So I did learn a lot of functions down there that I would never have learned.

Brad:  Yeah. Yeah, the border is different down there.

Bill:  And now it’s much different from what I was then

Brad:  Well, you know, even my time I had no qualms whatever going across the border into Waters and dinner drinks come back. Just freely go back and forth all the time. Yeah, and unfortunately, I wouldn’t- I wouldn’t do that anymore.

Bill:  And there were certain protocols even back then that the old-timers down there advised your mother and I don’t do this. You don’t do that, but go down there and do this and do that. Could you really enjoy it? So it was a mixture of two different cultures.

Brad:  Different cultures exactly and that kind of what a wonderful opportunity to to have that experience. You know, that’s something that you just don’t get otherwise just don’t get.  So you’ve been you’ve got remarried after the divorce and you’ve been now married to Bonita for how many years?

Bill:  46 or 47. Don’t tell her I didn’t know exactly!

Brad:  Don’t worry. She’ll hear this

Bill:  We had our ups and downs, but it’s sure been good. It’s been good. And her daughter is in our group or we’re all together and we have Bonita and I have four children. Yep, and those four children have about a dozen lose track. However, many we got and then they’re grand their kids are coming on and having kids. So it’s expanding like all other families are and in the world

Brad:  You are were born and raised in Lubbock.

Bill:  That’s correct.

Brad:  And I guess you’re the last of The Parkers in Lubbock aren’t you?

Bill:  It doesn’t seem possible. I have one cousin who is 10 years older than I am.  Now he’s got kids. I have children. That’s … But the direct line of The Parkers in Lubbock

Brad:  Because Vans children are I mean there They’re older than me and they have moved away from Lubbock.

Bill:  Oh, yeah, and everybody goes gets off on a different careers.

Brad:  Yeah. Well everyone jokes that Lubbock is a good place to be from!

Bill:  Well, that’s and he’s always it was always it was a good place for me to come back to, but I had a inside shot to for what Dad proposed to me. And so I took it and I was very lucky to have that opportunity.  And so he had trained me, well.  My daughter liked it when I was kid, but it turned out quite well.

Brad:  Did you have a good relationship with your dad?

Bill:  Oh, yeah, he he had his way and he thought that some of the things I was going to do wasn’t gonna work, but he said he would keep his name in the business and I remember one time he came in and he said well, he came by that but they but morning and said, what are you going to do to what’s got lined up day and I said, oh well blah blah, An I won’t call his name Charlie called up me want some work done. I’m good at he’s he said no, we’re not going you’re not going to work for Charlie. I said, wait a minute. I’m running this. I mean, I’m yeah, he’s got some work to get done. Oh, no. He said he and I split up long time ago well myself and he have not split up. So that was one of our little disagreements. But yeah, he was he was a good dad. Good guy.

That kind of thing.

Brad:  Well one of my fond memories, of course, I he passed I was only in the second grade I think so. I know I remember him but I don’t remember much about it. I remember the figure above Doug, but I don’t remember much about him, but I certainly remember Lucille and a lot about Lucille your mom and the thing that I enjoyed the most growing up was she would cook these magnificent lunches and we’d be coming over during the summer. And of course we were working just like you said working all day and we would get off at noon run over to her house drink big old pitcher of iced tea and she’d have fried chicken or potato salad or just the whole thing and we would eat so much we couldn’t move and we’d all go in there and lay down on the floor and take a 15 minute nap before get back in the truck and getting back to work.

Bill:  She was ranch girl and she was a cowgirl and working and and feeding a bunch of cowboys was right down her alley. And her her her family. She being the oldest she helped raise some of those sisters and brothers, and though they were cowboy and back them and they lived on a ranch they could they were Cowboy.  So she knew how to cook for a big group and she really enjoyed her grandson and her son, me. and you know one or two more and having lunch with her that was she was alone. I mean, she wasn’t despondent about being alone. She was very active but that big cooking up that big meal. That was a thrill for her.

Brad:  I remember some stories her sisters were little bit wilder than she was. I think.  And she was kind of the mother figure for just kind of your point being I guess she kind of raised everybody, but I remember getting the impression that her sisters were a wild bunch and they had some really good times.

Bill:  They had some fun times that were not necessarily the things that mother would have done but they were all interrelated and interconnected and had no secrets. You couldn’t have a secret between six or seven brothers and sisters. I mean it was so but they all survived and

Brad:  Well, I remember growing up and going to their house. I mean, I remember going to Mel and Litas house that were just down the street from from my from Nancy’s mom’s mom and dad and I remember going out to Tani’s Farm. Yeah, and then I remember Zette. Yeah, she would come out. I don’t know where she lived but I always remembered that she would show up wherever we were and…

Bill:  Her husband had an advertising agency in Lubbock. A very very big one and was very successful in his endeavor.

Brad:  And then I remember well, what was Leo was he a big was he the big guy? Leo Strickle. And then his brother was short. It was a little smaller about myself. I just thought those were some great times. I remember I didn’t see the men whose much as I did the women. Yeah, they weren’t around as much when I was growing up.

Bill:  I have a picture of Leo somebody took it well when they lived out the ranch, but he’s coming in from running cattle that afternoon, and he’s coming into the Corral up into the area where he’s gone unsaddle and he’s coming in on that horse. I took his picture and I have that picture in my wood carving room as my uncle Leo there he is coming in on that horse. I mean coming in today’s work. Yeah. It was interesting.

Brad:  Well and then of course Mary and Annie, I got to know really, really well through the years. Doug’s sisters in fact I lived next door to both of them. No, not Mary, but Annie to Annie and live right across the driveway from me for a number of years. And that was that was sweet and Mary had guess her husband polished rocks as a hobby.

Bill:  Yes after he retired.

Brad:  And we’d always get those polished rocks we go over to Mary’s house and he would lay those out but he died young too.

Bill:  Yes. He did. He went on a fishing trip down in Guaymas, Mexico and try to pass a kidney stone and they didn’t have any doctors down there that knew exactly what to do and he didn’t make it.

Brad:  Is that right? I did not realize that that’s what happened.

Bill:  He was very sick and lasted about two or three days and was gone. They had him in a hospital but they couldn’t to do anything falling in.

Brad:  One of the things I remember about them is they had that Airstream trailer.  Parked in the driveway. All the time we’d play in there and we get to go in at every now and then and take a look and I just thought that was the cat’s meow that that airstream trailer.

Bill:  They took it to down to Guaymas was on that trip and went fishing. They were fishing.

Brad:  Was Mary with him with all this happened.

Bill:  Yeah. It’s just a big shock to the family.  He got sick and bam he was in trouble right quick.

Brad:   Well then Annie’s husband passed early as well.

Bill:  He died Christmas Day.  I think 1941.  They lived at Clyde, Texas and I believe that’s when it was I know rid members Christmas day had heart attack and I believe it was 1941. 1940 or 41. I remember the day I’ve gosh I couldn’t have been six six years old maybe, but I remember the day they come got my dad had telephone call and then he came back and had some bad news.

Brad:  So that’s right never that interesting and they none of them Lucille never remarried. I mean she is great. She lived another what 35 years after Doug passed?

Bill:  Yeah. I mean, she was a Cutthroat bridge player and she played for blood now. We I played a few games with her and she didn’t cutthroat me but she was in a bridge group that were tough little ladies and they were they played seriously. Oh, yes. Yeah very definite.

Brad:  I remember the times we didn’t go have lunch is because she was in the bridge club at doing something with the bridge crew. And I remember one time I thought I don’t need to learn how to play bridge. Yeah. And so I took some lessons on how to put I never I never could learn I don’t know why but I could not learn and get that the Nick that’s a difficult game.

Bill:  Well, yeah. Well, I often thought that bridge playing between your mother and myself and a group is what caused our divorce because I was a dummy and I would bid and make it and that would make your mother so mad that when we left that bridge party of that night. She had let me down you don’t bid on a blah blah blah you bit it this way. Well, I bid it made it. Yeah, but that wasn’t the right way to do it.  So she was a very good bridge player and I was just long for the have it right looking for the chocolate pie always going to have here in a little while with as entertainment.

Brad:  So well, what else you want to talk about anything in particular on your mind?

Bill:  We’ve covered it. I I’ve had fun. I had a coach on a judging team in Tech and a very dear friend in Lubbock. Who was a in the gasoline operation business and my old boss down at Clint Texas were probably Em Dead. We’re probably the most for most influential people in my life clear two up to today and I love them all and to have been associated with those four people in my life. I think they cared for me I certainly did care for them. It was and they the Professor from Tech kept me straight in Tech. I was not the bright. I know I was I would call myself intelligent but I didn’t make very good grades because I didn’t apply myself until the end of my sophomore year and I realized I was not going to make the next two years. If I didn’t get myself in gear and learn some of that chemistry that I was bucking, uh, very definitely because the to get the degree that I wanted. I had to know how to make cattle rations and had to know chemistry. 

Brad:  And so that’s why I’m a lawyer because I couldn’t stand chemistry.

Bill:  I couldn’t either I nearly lost my college affiliation with that. But I got after a few stern talks with some proper people at Tech. I made the turn around and got myself straightened out and learned how to I started Tech I did not know how to study. I did not know how to take notes my high school training. I love those folks and still do but I was not prepared for college and it took me it took my entire freshman year to learn how this operates how this how this works. And what to listen for in a conversation. This guy is talking about this thing of this skeletal frame of a horse and you need to know this and this and all I was thinking about putting saddle on that horse. And you know, that kind of like well that wasn’t exactly what he’s trying to teach us. So I had to learn.

Brad: Well you alluded to Joe Larrimore.  And I presume that’s who you were talking about. How did you meet Joe?

Bill:  He and my mother and dad were acquainted with each other in their early years.  In fact, he I think probably he dated mother maybe, before Mother and Dad but they were all buddies and Joe was a good guy. He had a daughter- had two daughters, but one of them was my age. Well all knew each other and I did some things with him when he was a batch of not a bachelor. He was divorced and he kind of took me under his wing and because he knew mother and dad and yeah, so that’s how they came

Brad:  So you’d known him almost her entire life.

Bill:  Oh, yes until he passed what? Yeah.

Brad:  Okay, I didn’t I didn’t I guess I never knew that connection.

Bill:  He had a very well, I guess I can tell this he had a very bad motorcycle accident. He was a wild kid and he went by my grandmother’s house where there were always kids hanging around and he wanted mother to go with him on that motorcycle.  And I think I think mother may have made the decision herself not to go or my granddad said no and then that afternoon he was in a motorcycle wreck on the other another driver in motorcycles got killed and Joe lost his leg that day and that was before penicillin was readily available and he got gangrene and eventually lost that leg and so they had kind of a tie there.  That kind of thing. He  was a is good guy. Yeah, I’d like a mistake now and then he called me Pinhead. It’s in the listen Pinhead. You got to get this straight. That was they talking about a guy at the dunce sitting in the corner, right and with dunce cap on it went up to a pinpoint. Well, he’s a pinhead the okay. So my life was fun.

Brad:  Well, I remember meeting him on several occasions. And the thing that I recall the most was he lived in that house, to his service station and he would always listen to baseball. There’s always a baseball game on and maybe two.

Bill:  He would have a baseball game on his TV and a radio sitting over here to the side with another game going a different game and he’d be listening to both.

Brad:  Well, this has been a lot of fun. There’s a lot of stories that we probably didn’t get to where I know that we didn’t get to but…

Bill:  Some of them we won’t get to.

Brad:  Well, not not not to have recorded. But exactly anything you want to tell your grandkids or Dawn and Todd or now leave us with something?

Bill:  Life’s fun.  Continue to try to do the best. There’s going to be some hard knocks along the way and a lot of things that you’re going to be dealing with situations that are kind of hard to accept. I mean, wait a minute. That’s not the best way to be doing this but is it has succeeded for someone else so it can work if you just want to learn to do it their way or get out there and do it your way see how I try and see how it comes along good do it but work, work at it. Don’t, don’t slide. And obey the rules and life will be good.

Brad:  Yeah. Well it has been and it’s been a really really good. I think you instilled in all of us say a good work ethic a great attitude about life. You know, that’s that’s really the trick isn’t it?

Bill:  Exactly.

Brad:  If you if you have the right attitude you can you can do anything.

Bill:  You can make mistakes, but don’t let her sit around and whine about it. Profit from your mistakes. We all learn either success or mistakes. We learn something from both. And so learn from your takes and try not to make that same mistake again.

Brad:  Try not.

Bill:   Yeah,

Brad:  Well dad, this has been fun. Thank you so much. I’ve been looking forward to doing this for weeks.

Bill:  It’s a new experience for me.

Brad:  It’s a lot of fun and I love you, man. You’ve been great.

Bill:  I love you, and I’m proud of you and I hope this information will be shared by some people that can use it.

Brad:  Well, it will be no question about it.

Bill:  Think positive and it’ll turn out positive.

Brad:  Absolutely.

I’m Brad Parker the attorney you want, but hope you never need and thanks for listening to another edition of Bar Talk: The musings of attorneys, entrepreneurs and other interesting people. If you like our show and want to know more check out our website at parkerlawfirm.com, or please leave us a review on iTunes, Spotify, or your preferred podcast Outlet. See you next time.