A precis of events from the early 1950's to the middle 1960's (though not chronologically exact):
Genevieve and Walter Conring's daughter, Virginia, who had married Leroy Arnold, began having children. They would have four, the youngest would have severe birth defects.
JaAnn and George Saliba would have a daughter, Diane, and a boy, George, (always called "Chip".)
Madlyn and Sam Durham adopted an eleven year old girl named Dolores. She was a tall, troubled and violent girl. She would cause the Durhams many problems as she grew to adulthood.
Sonny and I would go hunting with Walter Conring at the ranch. I had saved from my lunch money and bought a .22 rifle and a .410 pump shotgun. Walter always wore a tie, even when hunting. We shot dove, quail and rabbits. Sonny and Walter would clean and cook the game. In the evening, there would be a fire in the ranch-house fireplace.
Mr. Stone came to Corpus and bought Sadie a car from a friend of Sonny's, Jack Pagan who owned a Lincoln-Mercury franchise. Mr. Stone enjoyed haggling and spent the entire day negotiating the price. He enjoyed the process so much that he would return a short time afterwards and buy himself a car.
Mr. Stone bought air-conditioners for his home, previously only cooled by an attic fan. He did the same for his tenant homes and raised the rents. All of the families would follow suit.
Mr. Stone bought the first television in his neighborhood. It was housed in huge console which also contained a radio and a record player. When visiting the Stones, I would arise at dawn and turn on the TV. I would watch the snowy screen until the test pattern appeared. Finally, the broadcasts would begin. There was only one Television station in San Antonio at that time.
Sonny also bought a TV even though there was no station in Corpus at that time. He installed an antenna, which towered over the house, hoping to get a signal from San Antonio. Stations would come. We watched Elvis Presley's first performance on the Ed Sullivan Show.
Growing families and geography slackened the number of holiday get-togethers and part of the family culture began to die.
Mr. Stone made Sonny the executor of his will.
During summer vacations, I would spend a month with the Stones and a month with the Durhams in Kerrville. JoAnn would occasionally bring Chip and Diane to Kerrville to play with me.
One day while snooping in Mr. Stone's office closet, I found a fancy sword with his name engraved on the blade, as well as a huge, rusty shotgun with an octagonal barrel. I asked him to tell me about them and mumbled that he would...someday. He never did...
Boy Scout activities and camps put an end to my summer visits to the Stones and Durhams.
Sonny booked a singer named Eddie Fontaine into the Surf Club. He was a big hit; people would come to see him night after night. The demand for seats was so great that that Eddie would do two shows a night at the Surf Club and another two acts at the Mustang Club. The teen-aged girls (and some of their mothers) screamed as if he were Elvis. He could sing rock, country, standards from the '30s and '40s as well as Italian ballads. He would accompany himself on guitar for some songs and on others, the house band would accompany him. He was held over again and again. The crowds never waned.
Sonny and Eddie showed up at my Boy Scout summer camp. He sang for an hour and left to go back to Corpus and do four floor shows. He left five hundred screaming boys in his wake.
I told Eddie that I wanted to learn to play the guitar. He asked Sonny for ten dollars and took me to a pawn shop. After securing a guitar, he showed me how to tune it and drew up a handful of chord diagrams. My education in music had begun.
Several months later I took piano lessons from Jack Davidson who played piano in one of Sonny's house bands. He was progressive teacher who thought scales and exercises a waste of time for a beginner. He taught melody line and chords which allowed the student to play right away. I could already read treble clef and had learned chord construction so piano education moved along rapidly. Sonny had an old Baldwin piano placed in my bedroom. I would play with several bands during high school, but always piano since there was an abundance of guitar players.
Eddie left for Hollywood to audition for some television shows. Over the years, he would appear in character roles in several series.
He would return to Corpus several times to do one or two week gigs.
Pearl Clogston, Herb's wife, was an attractive, spunky Oklahoma woman. She called Sonny and told him that she was concerned about Herb's health and was taking him to the hospital for some tests. She was right; he had a severe liver disease. She took him back to Oklahoma. Unable to do the work he loved, Herb died within a year.
Walter Conring was diagnosed as a manic-depressive. He had some violent incidents.
A second cousin from Iowa, Robert Kinney, his wife Lois and their five kids moved to Corpus. He took a job at Reynolds Aluminum.
Dolores met and married Johnny Wyant who, to everyone's amazement, was a great guy. The wedding reception was bawdy affair; Dolores was very drunk, surprising no one. To Sonny's distress, they moved to Corpus, taking residence in a garage apartment near Ocean Drive.
Joel Kinney, the Kinney's youngest son, somehow climbed into a freezer in the garage of their home. He died, smothered to death.
Sonny was named to the "Order of Arrow" by the Boy Scouts of America.
Word circulated among the family that Walter was beating Genevieve. Hunting trips on the ranch were halted.
Sonny went hunting, however, with the infamous Parr family in notorious Duvall County. They were hunting from a helicopter...they said for coyotes.
In 1960, the Dallas Cowboys became part of the fabric of Texas.
The Marine Room was sold when Ernest Setliff accepted a position with one of the Las Vegas casinos. He remained a very loyal friend.
Sonny gave me a car, a 1963 Comet S-2, from Jack Pagan's dealership. I abused the car; I would drive it through the surf on Padre Island and constantly run out of gas (even though gas cost less than twenty cents a gallon). I had a spectacular accident which did no damage to the Comet's body, but knocked all four of it's wheels off. Sonny's insurance agent called and asked me if I was trying to bankrupt him. Jack Pagan called me and asked how I had contrived to have such a stupid accident.
Mary began running a low-grade fever. She had not trusted doctors since she had worked in a clinic during the war. Finally, at Sonny's insistence, she saw a physician. She was assured that it was a small infection and was given some pills. The fever did not stop.
Sonny and Mary went to the 1964 Cotton Bowl. They came back raving about a quarterback named Roger Staubach who played for the Naval Academy.
I arrived at the Surf Club one afternoon and found Sonny and Jack Pagan huddled together at the bar. Jack had brought Sonny some brochures from the New Mexico Military Institute. It was school for affluent boys who tended to find trouble. Jack was a graduate. I said, not politely, "NO!" Jack would get even with me eight years later.
After graduation, I went to summer classes at the local junior college and picked up twelve hours.
I entered the University of Texas in the fall of 1964. I pledged Sigma Nu fraternity. I was a spoiled and undisciplined brat. So were my fraternity brothers...I fit (as they say) right in.
My first year of college would yield, for me, much to be ashamed of and little to be proud of.
One night at a Sigma Nu-Chi Omega match party, I saw a girl. She was tiny: less than five feet tall and could weigh no more than ninety pounds. She had enormous blue-green eyes which looked out at the world with ingenuous humor. She was surrounded by several of my fraternity brothers; she seemed able to laugh and talk to them all at the same time. Using beer-courage, I approached her and asked for a dance. Her name was Jane Loyd. She was from San Angelo and her father raised thoroughbred horses. She would be the finest person that I would ever know in my life...
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