The Toughest Man I Ever Knew
Being mentally and physically tough is a trait I admire. For me it is measured over time not in a moment of resolve or short term heroics. My wife Lee is one of those people. Fighting rheumatoid arthritis now for over 25 years, she routinely endures not only pain, but inconveniences that would crush a lot of people. All the while maintaining our family life, our social life and until a few years ago her professional life.
Back in the early 90s we decided to sell a house out in the county (Rockwall) that we had built in 79. Lee had been raised in rural Fisher county and with the girls out of the house was ready to move to town. We asked our business partner Charles Wilson who we should use as a realtor and he gave us Jonna Morton’s name. Jonna became our realtor but more importantly our friend. Along with her husband Tommy. There are some stories about the selling and buying of our houses that make me smile but just say this. My wife is strong willed and Jonna is too. I watched as they clashed with Lee stating her opinions and Jonna her’s. I was amazed as my wife gave in to the advise she was given. We sold and then purchased the house we are in now with me continuing to be amazed at the relationship that was forming. Jonna knew real-estate and how to make it happen and Lee understood that.
Now for the tough guy. Jonna and Tommy were high school sweethearts from a small east Texas town. Winding up married and in the Air Force they lived thru Viet Nam and the years that followed in various bases around the world. A story he told me about their time in Puerto Rico … the officers (pilots) owned several Volkswagens for the wives to use. They had more motors than cars, so when one would have a problem they would just replace the motor and then fix it on the workbench and put it back in stock.
During “T’s” time in the Air Force he flew heavy aircraft mainly refueling operations. Big stuff that would qualify you to captain for a civilian airline. That is how he wound up at Braniff flying 727s and DC-8s. Big stuff to exotic locations. Now on a day…Tommy went in for a standard medical exam like he had every year for his entire flying career…his blood sugar was high. He was told to return the next day and recheck it.
He did. They did. His flying career was over.
Barely in his 40’s everything changed. And it is in his response that he gains my admiration. According to others he bought small airplanes and leased them to flying schools. He built houses. He did this and that but he never did nothing. Oh by the way a few years after he lost his pilot’s medical Braniff went out of business bankrupting the retirement fund in which he had invested heavily. It was shortly after that he decided to become a computer guy. And a little after that he became my computer guy. He had taught himself how to build and maintain computer networks about the same time that Lee and I started our family business and needed a network.
Over the next few years we would go into work and Lee would announce that the ladies’ toilet seat was up…Tommy has been here. Having his own key he would come and go, mostly late at night and do all the background stuff that was so important to a business like ours. At the same time he taught me what I know about computers and hardware and I would help him build computers and do other projects for his small business. And in the process we became friends. A group of couples formed to do movie nights and New Year celebrations and live life together. We were all friends.
Being a real friend is about having a window into the life of another person where you are allowed to see things hidden from others. As Tommy’s diabetes worsened over the years I would see him quietly fight to stay normal. To work and do family things and respond “Oh, pretty good” when asked how he was doing. He would sometimes make trips to the VA hospital in south Dallas where his caregivers were. I would go visit if they held him in the hospital.
One night he was having a problem with his foot and at Jonna’s request I went down to their house and found a family gathering in full swing and asked him what he was gonna do about his foot. He said he would watch it and do what needed to be done. The next morning Jonna called and told me he got up in the middle of the night and went to the VA. I tracked him down and found them making plans to remove his leg. I know it had been on his mind for a long time but I was shocked. But I realized that he handled his own problems. He was tough.
They moved him to Parkland hospital to do the surgery since the doctors had privileges there and the facilities were better. When I visited him in the recovery room…the open room had 5 occupied beds … in two beds were shooting victims, a stabbing in another, some dude with handcuffs to the bed and Tommy. He said “I’m the only one who knew he was gonna be here.” I watched over the next months and years as he recovered and learned to use the prosthesis and normalize it into who he was…all with a grin and “Oh, pretty good”.
One last story to show his toughness wasn’t just physical. Tommy was quite and steady and someone you could count on…which is why this was the greatest insult of all. His handling it the way he did was something I could not have done.
One of Tommy’s stores was Incredible Universe. A geek’s treasure house, it sold anything having to do with computers, networks or audio visual equipment and was a place that “T” spent lots of money. One evening I got a call from Jonna saying Tommy was in trouble. Could I help by going to pick him up? I said sure. Where is he? She answered Lew Sterrett. Now Lew Sterrett is the Dallas county jail. I said OK. She said “the bail is $500…we have most of it in cash do you have any cash”? Some I said…enough.
Like I am in some type of fake movie set I go retrieve Tommy and he outlines what happened earlier in the evening. He was buying a bunch of supplies for a group of computers he was building for a customer. Walking towards the checkout register with his hands completely full of hard drives, cabling and cases he stopped at a display of hardware (screws, nuts, washers)….looked thru the different sizes and picked a couple of packs (less than $3) and having no place else to put them….he put them in his pocket. He walked to the checkout and paid his $500 plus bill forgetting about the screws.
As he was loading the purchase items in his van he was confronted by three store employees….one being a security guard. He explained the oversight and offered to go back in and pay for them. “We have a zero tolerance policy on shoplifters and we have already notified the police”. The beginning of about 5 hours of transport, detainment and booking that ends with me taking him back to his van around midnight to find it had been broken into and all of the purchase items stolen.
Had this happened to me I would have threatened lawyers or hurled a brick thru the front glass but Tommy’s response was…well I don’t know what it was. Other than thanking me for picking him up and for the ride to get his car…we never mentioned it again. I realized that he handled his own problems and quietly went about his business.
We lost Tommy a few years later. That hateful ugly disease finally took him from us and I visited him a couple of times towards the end and he was the same steady optimist he had always been. He was truly a Philippians 4:11 guy….”be content whatever the circumstances”.
I see his family on Facebook now. Jonna at the top of the family including their children & spouses , grandchildren and even great-grandchildren and I hope they teach the little ones how very special he was. I’m sure they do.