Lair Family history 101: Mom-Part 2

World War II sent two men of the family away from home, but drew all of the women closer together.


Sam Durham went to the Pacific.  As an engineer, he designed and built airports for bombers and fighter-planes.


Sonny enlisted in the Army Air Corps.  He had good co-ordination and exceptional eye-sight, traits which were coveted in pilots.  He departed for basic training and then flight school.


Mary, Madlyn and JoAnn took secretarial jobs.  Genaveve had a small daughter and stayed at home.  Sadie found herself with only one boyfriend: Bubba Whitley.  Bubba had been declared 4-F: physically unfit to serve in the armed services.  Thanks to the war, there were few young men left in San Antonio to compete with him for female attention.


No one could understand what Sadie saw in Bubba.  He was tall and thin with thick, black hair brushed back from his forehead.  He had thick, red lips and sunken cheeks;  his dark skin had acne scars.  He had an oily, grasping manner. He had every appearance of dishonesty and his words seemed insincere.  Mr. Stone, usually aloof, was openly hostile...especially when Sadie said that she planned to marry Bubba.  Mr. Stone eventually gave his grudging (though un-necessary) consent.  The marriage occurred shortly before the end of the war and Bubba had his trophy wife...for a while.


On a routine training mission near the Rocky Mountains, Sonny's plane strayed to a dangerous altitude and his eardrum burst, grounding him for the rest of the war.  He would be given billets which would allow Mary to live and travel with him...she joined him in a flash.  The next two years were spent traveling around the country;  they befriended and entertained with other military couples, all feeling somewhat guilty in passing the war under such pleasant circumstances.  In the early summer of 1945, Sonny was notified that he was being discharged and that he should return to San Antonio to be mustered out.  On the way home, he and Mary made a stop-over in the small (then) cross-roads town of Las Vegas. Nine months later, they tell me, I was born...


Sam returned from the Pacific with his regimental mascot, a cocker-spaniel named "Jigger."  He rejoined the highway department.  He would be transferred to Kerrville to open a new construction office. 


Walter Conring's cattle ranch, thanks largely to the war, prospered.


George Saliba's fledgling business began to grow.


Sonny returned to his old job and was given a sales territory between San Antonio south to Laredo.  He opened many accounts.  A large number of them were in Corpus Christi.


Returning home one day, Bubba walked into his home to find Sadie entertaining several of her pre-war suitors.  They were drinking his booze.  He was not gracious, but they would return, thinking of him (as did most people) a "skinny draft dodger."  There were several separations and, finally, a divorce.


In 1947, to everyone's shock and sorrow, Jessie died of a heart attack.  Sonny and Mary moved into the house on Cumberland.  Mary continued to paint, gaining some commissions.  Sonny continued gathering accounts to the south, often gone for most of the week.


Mary never pictured herself as a house-wife.  She learned to cook a few meals from her mother and Sonny's sisters, but she was not an enthusiastic student.  She would rather dress up and go shopping or meet someone for lunch, not attend to washing and ironing.  From then on, she would always have a maid or cleaning lady.


Then, in 1950, Sonny was given a promotion...


(continued...)

Lair Family History 101: Mom-Part1

Mary Louise Stone said she was born in Peach Orchard, Colorado in the year of 1917.  Although there are many peach orchards in Colorado, I could find no evidence of a town or village that had that name.  I found a Peach Orchard Peak, but it appears to be in an uninhabitable area.  This would be one of many mysteries surrounding the Stone family prior to their arrival in San Antonio.


Edward S. Stone was her father.  Again, I was unable to unearth any history on him prior to his arrival in San Antonio.


Louise (nee) Mazza Stone was born in Naples, Italy.  She met Mr. Stone in Colorado.  They married and began their family.


Sara Stone was Mary's little sister, three years her junior.


Mr. Stone moved to San Antonio in the early 1920's.  He bought a house on Clifford Court;  he would buy two more houses on that street, thus making some of neighbors his tenants.


Even photos taken when he was much younger, Mr. Stone appeared to be much older.  The photos would show a bespeckled face, looking disapprovingly into the camera lens from under the brim of a fedora.  He was tall and spoke in a rumbling, gruff voice.


Mr. Stone was an accountant who would ride the bus to his office in downtown San Antonio.  He could drive, but for many years refused to buy a car.  After several years he moved the accounting practice into his home, converting a front quarter of the house into his office, 
The office was furnished with a huge roll-top desk, a wood and cane office chair, a small couch, a coat rack and numerous file cabinets.  There was a private entrance to the office from the front porch of the house.


Louise Stone was a small woman with olive skin and black hair streaked with gray.  She would walk to the market (only about a half-block away) for necessary groceries and meat.  The milkman delivered eggs, juice, cream and, of course, milk each morning.  A flat-bed truck, selling fresh produce, would drive through the neighborhood each day.   Louise served breakfast at seven and dinner at six.  Lunch she left to those who wanted to fend for themselves.  She was an excellent seamstress and ordered the latest dress patterns.  She kept her daughters well dressed and in vogue.  She was a very devoted mom.


Sara Stone was a beautiful baby with golden, naturally curly hair and enormous blue eyes.  She was even more attractive as a young woman.  As her body matured, more and more boys came to call at Clifford Court.  Eager to please and to be pleased, she would listen with apparent attention to their stories and giggle at their jokes.  "Coquette" is an old-fashioned word that best described Sadie, as she came to be called.  She would go on to become a fraternity sweetheart and an Aggie sweetheart.  Even decades later in her retirement home, she was voted "most beautiful" by her fellow residents.  The war put an end to the gentlemen callers,,,for a while.


Mary had dark, curly hair and dark eyes which would look out at the world with frank appraisal.  She was a no-nonsense girl and an even more direct young woman.  She would not suffer a fool nor would she indulge in girlish flirtation.  She liked horse riding and tennis, but she mostly enjoyed her art.  By high school, she was fairly accomplished in oil, pastel, tempera, water-color and copper-plate.  She would be the artist for all of school's publications.  Even her handwriting was artistic.  It was a form of script called in old Europe  "written fair", replete with flourishes, loops and curls.  (Look to John Hancock's signature as an example.)  She planned to attend college and major in art.  Then she met Sonny Lair and her plans changed...


Upon meeting Sonny, she soon determined that he would be the man in her life.  She then went on a campaign to make that determination a reality.  She amended her no-flirt policy.  She wheedled him away from the golf course (he was an avid golfer) and onto the tennis court.  She was friendly (albeit reluctantly) to his friends.  She befriended his mother and sisters and sent them short notes in her exotic hand-writing.  She was ever-vigilant of any female who might approach Sonny...including her sister, Sadie.  By graduation, her mission was accomplished.


Married in 1940, Sonny and Mary moved into a private suite in the back of the house on Clifford Court.  They had their own bathroom, sitting area, hearth and mini-library.  They went out often, mainly with Sonny's sisters and their husbands. They went to the movies and Ronald Reagan became their favorite star.  Holidays were observed by visiting and feasting at family members' homes.  Sonny continued to play golf with his buddies and tennis with Mary.  His reputation was growing in his company.  She continued with her painting and was trying to learn to cook.  Life was good.


But then the bombs fell...


(continued...)

Family History 101: Dad-part 2

Sonny Lair, as the baby brother of the family, was much caressed by his sisters and mother.  He was always well clad, well groomed and clean.  

Jessie managed her family economy with energy and efficiency.  There was a vegetable garden as well as chicken coops in the back yard.  With only the money from the annuity coming in, the children were encouraged to find part-time jobs.  The children were required to assist in the cooking and house-hold chores.  One day, Jessie told JoAnn to wring the neck of a chicken for supper that evening.  JoAnn, having dressed early for a date, protested.  Jessie told her to change from her date-dress.  JoAnn did not change and as she was dispatching the chicken, gore from the unfortunate fowl shot all over her and her dress.  She howled in anger while her siblings hooted in mirth.  Decades later, she would still declare her anger at the memory of the incident.

Geneveve met and married Walter Conring, a local business executive who also was to own a large cattle ranch in south Texas near Dehinnis.

Madlyn left for college in north Texas.  She would meet and marry Sam Durham, an engineer with the highway department.

JoAnn would marry and divorce ( a scandal at that time for a Catholic girl).  She then married George Saliba whose plumbing company would grow to be one of the largest in San Antonio.


As his sisters were leaving, Sonny grew tall.  He had curly black hair and raffish smile.  He was comfortable talking to girls, growing from birth surrounded by females.  He was used to feminine ways.  On entering high school, the females of his family were not the only women doting on him.  One of them was Adrienne...


Adrienne was petite and pert.  She became pregnant.  There was a quick marriage and a quick divorce.  The issue of this brief marriage was Betty Jean, who would become my half-sister and one of the noblest women I have ever known.


Nearing graduation, Sonny met Mary Stone.  Mary knew who and what she wanted.  In the war of the sexes, most men are incapable of dealing with an aggressive female pursuer.  By graduation, Mary had captured Sonny.


They graduated and Sonny went to work for Walter Conring's company.  He drove a delivery truck for a year and then was made a salesman.  Sonny and Mary were married and moved into her parents' house.


Then the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor...
(To be continued)  

Family History 101: Dad-part 1

Graydon H. Lair was born in 1917 in San Antonio, Texas.  His middle initial stood for Horace, but he would tell anyone who asked that it stood for "Hippocrates".


Jessie (nee) Lime Lair was his mother.  She was described as small and sassy.  She was Irish with a little Native-American in the woodpile.


L. Ross Lair was his father.  His ancestors came from the Rhine Valley in Germany, migrated to Philadelphia, then to Kentucky and finally to north Texas.  The original German family name was "Lehrer."  Ross was a cotton trader of ambiguous character, reputed to have a second family in Oklahoma.  He died when Graydon was nine months old from complications following an appendectomy.


Jessie was left with a modest annuity, a home in San Antonio on Cumberland Street, three daughters and an infant son.  The three daughters were named Genavive, Madlyn and JoAnn; the son was called Graydon, but not for long...


Anglo-Saxon lore of that time alleged that any family which contained three sisters would have one who was sweet, one who was smart and one who was pretty.  This was true in the instance of the Lair sisters.  Geneveve was indeed sweet and patient.  Madlyn had wit and an acerbic tongue.  JoAnn was, well, pretty.  Graydon, the only male in a home with four females was dubbed "Sonny".


As the calendar turned into the Roaring Twenties, this family would endure a depression and a world war.


They would become part of America's "greatest generation".
(To be continued...)

Future History...A Preface as an Epilogue

We are all the hero of our own tale.  We re-edit our past in glowing light and our currently fictional future we pen in gold ink.


I love history for the stories it tells, the characters it describes and the lessons it teaches.  "History repeats itself" is a very old cliche.  And like most cliches, it is very true.


Governments and major corporations have not learned from the tragic mistakes of history.  They rationalize or ignore the past while pursuing future power and wealth.  Then they spend years defending and justifying their often reckless decisions rather than repairing the harm that those decisions rendered.  They obviously have a learning disorder...


So I address myself to you:  the individual, un-incorporated reader.


"You have the right to choose happiness" is an old saw-horse oft-quoted by evangelists and motivational speakers.  What should be quoted is: "When you make a life-choice, you risk happiness."


When government and big business makes mistakes, they may hurt the lives of thousands.  When you and I make bad life-choices, we hurt those closest to us and mending that harm may take a very long time.


We live in a very busy time;  we make decisions, often many, every day.  Sometimes during this hail of options, often insidiously disguised, comes a critical choice.  Sometimes a comfortable status quo cloaks an impending crisis which must be remedied.  Often we will make minor mistakes, but when we botch the repair of them, we may create an even greater crisis.  When you identify a critical choice, study what history is relevant and seek advice from those who have earned your trust.  If you are embarrassed asking someone for advice, it is likely that you are considering a bad choice.


These snippets-these bites-are written for those who are closest to me.  Hopefully they are educational and insightful.


Sometimes they are just and explanation and an apology...

Banking Bites

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.  If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and the corporations that grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered..
Thomas Jefferson


After college, my father secured a job for me at a local institution in Corpus Christi.  He had a friend who was the executive vice-president of that institution, who promised to teach me the banking business and push me along the career path.


It was a promise that would be impossible for him to keep.  I was always late, my hair was long, and although I always wore the required coat and tie, I detested wearing socks...and still do.  I was also a musician playing with a band some weekday nights.  I was certainly not the prototype young banker.


I was assigned to an office with three older women who immediately resented me.  They disliked that my salary, as an inexperienced trainee, was greater than theirs in spite of their tenure.  They disliked my appearance.  They disapproved of my attitude and tardiness.  They suspected that musicians were were always doing something illicit...unless they were Lawrence Welk.  Mostly, I think they resented my youth.


These were the days before office computers, so computations were done manually using ten-key calculators.  The results were recorded by hand in huge ledgers.  The calculations and analysis that I performed were easily learned and quickly became boring.  I found myself with time to kill.  I learned a few things...


Customer escrow accounts, which were under my purview, were debited at the end of December for taxes due the state, county and city...But the taxes were not due until late February or March.  Hundreds of thousands of dollars vanished from the ledger.  I snooped around that these funds were transferred to another entity to earn interest for sixty to ninety days.  The customers did not share in the earned interest.  The earned interest for this undertaking was noted to be "incremental income"...a practice which has since been outlawed.  I also learned that that an insurance agency adjacent to the bank was owned by the three executive officers of the bank.  It was managed by the son of my sponsor, the executive vice president of the bank.  When a prospective customer applied for a loan, it was suggested that things would go more smoothly if they place their insurance coverage with that agency.  It was a pretty easy sell.


"Proof" was a word in those days to describe teller functions, checking and savings accounts and all things not loan-related such as cashier's checks and wire transfers.  A returned check charge at that time was two dollars.  "Proof" was considered a necessary burden of the banking business.  Times would change.


I was with the bank for two undistinguished years.  During this time my Mom died and I matured...well, maybe a little bit.  My questions about bank policy and my life-style made me a corporate pariah.  My sponsor suggested I find employment elsewhere...immediately.


Over the ensuing years, I developed friendships with many bankers; their moral texture ranged from scrupulous to scandalous.  From them, I learned a great many things.


Banker Bob was in charge of his bank's proof department.  It was losing money.  He developed a scheme of fees, charges and balance transfers that made his department profitable.  Many of his innovations you will likely find on your checking account statement.


Banker Art loved to gamble.  To underwrite his gambling addiction, he would sell repossessed items from the bank to his friends.  These items were sold well below market value.  When the items were resold, Art and his friends would split the profits.  Art seemed to have two minds:  One mind was clear and analytic with perfect banker's logic.  The second mind was dark and wormy, spinning illicit schemes for making money.  Gambling eventually cost him his job.  Diabetes, fueled with alcohol, killed him.


Banker Gene dealt with bank examiners by getting them drunk on the eve of an audit.  When the audit began, the hung-over examiners were placed in a hot, un-airconditioned  room where temperatures would hover in the ninety-degree range.  Under these conditions, the examiners seldom spent enough time to find very much to complain about.  (The coming of the computer age destroyed this tactic.)


Banker Gerry was a banker at the First National Bank of Midland. It was the seventh- largest bank in America.  Junior officers were allowed to make six figure loans without going to a loan committee.  Most loans at that time were oil-related.  Officers very often made loans with the proviso that the borrower would cut them in the profits that the loan would engender.  Then the oil business crashed...and in 1983 the First National of Midland was declared insolvent and was closed down.  During the next decade, hundreds of banks (especially those tied to the oil business) failed.  Some bankers went to jail.  Many had to find different careers.


Banking had to find new revenue streams.  The credit card industry was good, but it did not provide what the oil business once provided.


Then the banks re-discovered mortgage lending and Jefferson's great fears were about to be realized.


Banks became invested in the mortgage business, gradually at first, then at a break-neck pace.  The loans were bundled and sold to investment firms who then re-bundled and resold the paper to other firms.  The paper trail was difficult and the side deals between banks, investment houses and insurance firms were even more so.  Basically the banks were doing what Bob, Art, Gene and Gerry had done...Only on a much grander scale.


The avarice of banking institutions had once again sent America into a financial crisis, ruining businesses and destroying peoples'
savings.  Yet many of the top banking executives are still on the job, still being paid seven figure incomes.


During the eight-teenth century, English banks would accept a gold deposit from a client.  When that same client came to make a withdrawal, the bank would give him a bank note.  If the client protested, the bank would try to charge a fee for a gold withdrawal.


During that same period, a banker convicted of embezzlement might, and often was, hanged.


"A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella while the sun shines, but at the first drop of rain, he wants it back."
Mark Twain

College Stories 2: Critical Philosophy

As a freshman, my first class at the University of Texas was philosophy 101.  The professor was Frederick Genascol.  There were over 300 students in the lecture hall.  I was totally intimidated on one hand and excited on the other.  I was eager to learn from great minds at a major university.  I would become disillusioned.


These were the days when smoke of the Vietnam war was spreading across America.  The draft boards were aggressive in finding conscripts for the escalating war effort.  Poor grades would likely earn a one-way trip to to the offices of the draft board.


Professor Genascol was a small, swarthy man with black, unkept hair and a caterpillar mustache.  No matter the weather, he always wore a trench coat and carried an umbrella.  He continued to carry the umbrella as he lectured.  He was very much playing the role of an eccentric college professor.


During that first lecture, the professor told the students that no questions were allowed during the class; he said that any questions that the students had would be answered during his posted office hours.  He told us that most of us would become atheists by the end of the semester.  He told us that he was going to teach us to "think critically"...Not movie critic "critically," but rather "does this make sense" critically.  He then assigned a reading assignment from one of our text-books and told us to be prepared for a quiz  for our next class date.  He dismissed the class.  A one hour lecture period was over in less than thirty minutes.


In spite of studying the material thoroughly, my first test score was a big fat C.  I went to the professor's office for an explanation and seeking how I might improve.  He wasn't  there.  The hours posted on his office door said he was supposed to be there, but he wasn't... nor was he ever there during subsequent visits.


Professor Genascol had several teaching assistants: graduate students who monitored student attendance (we had assigned seats), picked up our tests and after they were graded, distributed them back to the students.  They were all surly, long-haired and dirty...and these were the days before hippies.


I never got within a hundred feet of Professor Genascol and I did learn to think critically...but I did not become an atheist or even an agnostic.


Looking back now, I wonder what the leaders of this country read while students.  Did they read "The Prince" or "The Art of War"? Did they read the critical warnings against government penned by Jefferson and Franklin?  Did they not consider what Vietnam taught before undertaking two wars in the middle east which are bankrupting America and killing many of our young,  Vietnam killed around sixty thousand of our military (if you believe our government's accounting) and maimed many, many more.  Did anyone investigate the dangers of unregulated banking?  Did the corporate bailout make sense to you?


Do you trust your government?


Please think critically...

College Stories: The Tower Sniper

On August 1, 1966, I was walking home from class.  My instructor had dismissed the class at 11:30 that morning, thirty minutes early.  I was on scholastic probation and desperately in need of at least a B to improve my GPA.  As I walked back to our apartment on Rio Grande Street, I heard what I thought was someone hammering on roof shingles.


I was wrong.


The phone was ringing when I opened our apartment door.  It was our friend Monty.  "You're all right?" he said,"Y'know some some son-of-bitch is up on the tower shootin' people!"  I assured him that I was okay and asked him to explain.  "Some mother-f__er is up on the damn tower killin' people on the drag and on nineteenth street"


I hung up and the phone immediately rang again.  It was Jane, my wife...six months pregnant and very, very upset.  I assured her of my good health and told her that I was going to head back to campus to see what was going on.


Bad idea.


Jane informed me, in words that I had never heard come out of her mouth, what her response would be to such an excursion.  I promised to not take a step out of the apartment.


President Lyndon Johnson owned the cable company in Austin at that time.  He also owned the PBS station which was located on nineteenth street.  The station had moved a camera, with a strong telephoto lens, up on their roof.


I watched everything on TV.


There were no SWAT-teams in Austin in 1966 (or anywhere else, for that matter) but the students were well-armed.  Everyone within walking distance, who had a gun in their closet, went to the campus and started blazing away.  I watched the grainy black and white TV picture as dust- puffs from the ad-hoc student militia erupted all over the tower observation deck.  They did some good.  They kept the sniper's head down.  No more students were shot.


Then the cops killed the sniper.


Over the next couple of days, the sniper was identified as Charles Whitman.  He had killed or wounded nearly fifty people, including his wife and mother.


The instructor who had dismissed our class early that day awarded no grades higher than a couple of Bs.


To my knowledge, no one complained.

The Sporting Brothers and the Burial Plan

There is an affluent type of people who dearly love to hunt and fish.  In the spring and summer they fish the mountain trout streams, the lakes and the oceans.  In the autumn and winter, they hunt dove, quail, waterfowl and deer.  They may book a safari in Africa or charter a deep-sea vessel to angle for tarpon.  They love their fishing tackle, their rifles and shotguns, their ranches, the NRA and their hunting dogs.  They especially love their hunting dogs.


Tomy, Toby and Jerry were brothers who were sportsmen of this type.  On his death, their father left them a successful business and trust funds large enough to assure their future comfort.  I did business with their company and over the years we developed an easy friendship.  We would swap stories  and gossip for half an hour and then go on with business.


One day I walked into Jerry's office and found him visibly upset.  Earlier in the week, he had come home one evening to find his number one hunting dog dead.  The dog was ten years old and the vet had warned Jerry that there was degenerative heart condition.  Jerry wrapped his dog in a blanket loaded him in his pickup along with a pick and shovel and a bottle of scotch.  Jerry then drove five hours to his hunting ranch and buried his old and loyal companion.  Leaving the ranch at one in the morning, dirty and drunk, Jerry was pulled over by local deputy sheriff.  On hearing Jerry's explanation, the deputy had him follow the police car to a place where Jerry could drink some coffee and grab something to eat.  Jerry then drove home without incident, arriving at seven in the morning.  He hung a portrait-sized picture of his dog on the wall behind his desk.  "I really loved that dog," he would say whenever he looked at the picture.


About a year later, while having dinner at Ninfa's with his doctor and their wives, Toby suffered massive heart attack and died on the floor of the restaurant.


Two weeks after Toby's funeral, I walked into Tomy's office and offered my condolences.  We shook hands and he waved me to a seat.  He said, "Damn, I hate funerals...I hate the whole damn shootin' match...the hearse. the limo...the damn coffin...what a waste of money!"  Meanwhile Jerry had come into the office and sat down.  Tomy reached into the ice chest behind his desk and produced three glasses of ice and a bottle of scotch.  It was ten in the morning and I still had a lot of work to do.  I poured myself a drink as politely weak as possible while Tomy continued his condemnation of the undertaking business.


Tomy described how one of their hunting buddies who had died had been cremated and the ashes scattered on his ranch...probably saving thousands of dollars.


Jerry told of another hunting buddy, not yet deceased, who had made arrangements to be cremated and his ashes to be mixed with gunpowder.  This mixture would be loaded in to twelve-gauge shells (he estimated it would produce about a case) which would be fired on the opening day of dove season.  His reasoning being that there would be some enjoyment to the otherwise somber act of scattering the ashes of the deceased.


"I dunno," said Tomy," those ashes and crap might be bad for my shotgun." ( Tomy had very, very expensive shotguns.)


Suddenly brightening, Tomy said, " I know!  I'll get myself cremated and have the ashes mixed in with my bird dogs' food, have 'em driven down to the ranch and they can shit me out all over the property...and nobody'll have to wait for the start of any damn season!"  Jerry and I looked at one another; Tomy seemed serious and we were stifling our laughter.


Tomy must have repeated his plan to others for soon his wife learned of his scheme.  Of course his plan was quickly aborted.


Business reverses over the next few years forced the brothers to draw capital from their trust fund (never a good business model) and finally, three years ago, they sold their business.


I haven't seen the brothers since.  I miss our often pointless, if profane, conversations.


You meet so many gray people in life...It's nice to know someone who gives it color...