(These thoughts were triggered by the footage currently being shown on CNN of the lunar landing, 7/20/69
and meeting an acquaintance of Ernie Koy, Jr. at the Seguin Wellness Center during a recent evening. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Koy_Jr. https://www.si.com/vault/2005/08/22/8270922/ernie-koy-jr-running-back- https://www.kjas.com/news/local_news/article_c071fe54-ec53-11e8-b7b5-a35bdf322dc5.html
1. Love, empathy, fellowship, and solidarity; amazing dancing, good barbeque, beer, and champagne. Our wedding night at Quihi Gun Club Dance Hall, 7/16/71.
2. Damnit! Wow! Man! Oh my!!! Other than our wedding day (Elizabeth Florence Hoffmann & paul bain martin), there was no more memorable period than 1968. It was a year of some joy and elation, but mostly many tribulations and much sorrow, and squashed hopes. It started shortly after midnight in Dallas–on the first day of the year–with chants of “Roll Tide, roll!!!”. That New Year’s Day, Utopian Murray Burns and I saw a great Cotton Bowl with the Ags winning 20-16 and the Bear carrying his former wide receiver … tall, lanky, Gene Stallings … off of the field. (Earlier in the football season of 1967-68, I experienced the most exciting game of my life in which “littles”, Ines Perez* and Jerry Levias, beat Texas A&M in the first game of the season at Kyle Field. I encountered Ines & Jerry later in life.) … Later in 1968, my speech-classmate, humble Randy Matson, won the Olympics at Tommie Smith & Juan Carlos’ protest-Olympics in Mexico City. There was a Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the North Korean USS Pueblo incident, the chaotic Democratic convention, pervasive and very justified civil rights- & Vietnam-protests, the tragic assassinations of MLK, Jr. and Robert Kennedy; I was completing my bachelor’s degree, starting my master’s, and enthusiastic about a hope for biological management in agricultural systems, and then received a notice from my draft board, and wondered if I would soon be in Vietnam in the US Army fighting a War I didn’t support. [*My small potatoes-gambling Dad & Kenneth Cox has taken me to Alamo Stadium to watch Ines and his Corpus Christi Miller team beat the amazing Linus Baer and SA Lee in a bi-regional game in 1963. A week earlier Lee had beaten SA Brackenridge and the absolutely amazing Warren McVea in what has been called the best high school game ever. https://sportsday.dallasnews.com/high-school/high-schools/2016/06/09/flashback-texas-high-school-footballs-game-century-combined-racial-issues-two-unstoppable-stars .]
3. Entomological livelihood and family. Drinking Wild Turkey whiskey with Dr. E.F. Knipling, developer of the sterile male technique for screwworm (insect) management late one evening at the 1980 Fall Armyworm Conference in Biloxi, MS, and then the next morning receiving a phone call from Dr. Connie McCormick & Elaine Belk that my daughter Angie was at Emory Hospital in Atlanta with Reyes Syndrome. http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/knipling-e-f.pdf
4. “The contractions are coming regularly.” It was about 5:30 am, January 10, 1975. Betsy was sitting up in bed in our small married student apartment on the University of Florida campus. I stalled in taking Betsy and unborn Jeremy into Alachua General because we had no coverage for the hospital delivery, and if you arrived at the hospital before 11 am, you had to pay for the previous day. We arrived at a few minutes after 11 am at 10-centimeters of dilation.
5. “Oh my God, I am heartedly sorry for having offended thee.” Then I was out … unconscious …and turning blue … having seven-feet of cotton-seed hulls cave in on me after returning from feed-lot work to help make feed at the Tri-County Farmers Co-op/The Mill in August of 1964.
6. “Please sign this release for doing a Cesarean!” In a crowded hospital on a full-moon night in Tifton, Georgia, Betsy was having precipitous, continuous contractions prior to much dilation. When I first saw 9-pound, 3-ounce John Alton, he was amid premature babies with large forceps-marks on his head, he was being nourished through his umbilical cord stump, and his tongue and lips were frantically wanting to suckle. August 28, 1977.
7. “He walked today” Betsy yelled gleefully as I arrived home from checking green bean, black-eyed pea, and mung bean fields in our Peggy Martin & Associates’ company-trailer house on the PMA grounds in Pearsall, Texas. I went back to the bathroom, and son Jeremy strutted shakily some wonderful & beautiful steps in that confined area. Early Fall 1975.
8. “Last call for the 440-yard dash!?!” After prelims on our Devine Warhorse dirt track on that wonderful Saturday in the spring of 1964, I had gone home and fixed myself a big lean steak and eggs, and I was thinking I had an hour or more left before finals as I headed back to the district meet. But as I arrived, I heard the last call for the 440 finals … and several friends were yelling, “Where were you?” I rushed to the starting area, and once there on the track, I had the second lane (The first one was relatively soft from previous races.) with other staggered runners before me, including two who had run better times than I on the rubberized Randolph track. (The best track in our district was Pearsall’s caliche track.) … I got a good start, easily and smoothly sprinted through the first 220 as fast as I could and right on the inside line as Coach Gus had instructed me, and then gutted it through the 330 point and struggled to keep my momentum going through the finish line. … “Wow, I just won district!” (At some point in between often running 5 races during a meet (sprint relay prelims & finals, 440-yd dash prelims & finals, and the mile relay, I would almost always vomit.)
[I unexpectedly received a number of awards & honors during the last days of my senior year at Devine High school in 1964. … Winning district in the 440-yd-dash was the highlight for me. … To some extent, this win and the other recognitions helped remove my insecurities and an ingrained feeling that I was a very ugly, inept duckling. Nevertheless, I continue to deal to some extent with many of these feelings of insecurity to date.]
9. “You wanted that one bad didn’t you Paul?” congratulated Coach Marvin Gustafson after I returned to the sidelines after the extra point. As a sophomore halfback on the B-team under the coaching of Jerry Comalander, I had made quite a few touchdowns. But that was just junior varsity. Then during my senior year, Coach Gus switched me to offensive and defensive end, and I did enjoy defense at this position immensely because it was easier to read the offensive plays than at the linebacker positions I had played previously, … and I could get in on numerous tackles. There were also opportunities for real enjoyment on offense since I could get in the open quickly for a long halfback pass from George Alexander; however, these little unsure hands of mine dropped too many of these beautiful passes, and this was discouraging. … However, on a night against Crystal City, Dennis Haass handed the ball off to George; I was deep and in the open … headed toward the goal post; George led me perfectly, and I snatched the ball with my fingertips. As I was being trip-tackled from behind, I stretched to place the pelota across the goal line. Touchdown! Fall 1963 in Warhorse stadium. https://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/article/S-A-Sports-Hall-Gustafson-was-the-finest-959153.php https://www.expressnews.com/sports/high-school/article/Comalander-s-lasting-legacy-is-passion-for-job-6038333.php
10. What an exciting and miserable night! Keeping statistics along with Ivan Chant on a cold and rainy night in Austin, at an exciting and most memorable (for Devine Warhorses and Bellville Brahmans) high school semi-final playoff night in Austin, with Ernie Koy, Jr. & Joe Ed Lynn from Bellville and a host of good athletes from Devine with the names of Dubose, Miller, Hines, Bain, Petri, Bendele, Hutzler, Schott, etc., etc. Bellville won in a hard-fought game in the mud … 8-0. (Many years ago now when two of my kids were running cross-country in Moulton, I chatted with the gigantic Ernie Koy, Jr., who had a grandchild there at the meet that Saturday … and who was rurally decked out in old overalls.) Fall 1960.
11. “Durn! The car I just rear-ended here in Premont at mid-night had a pregnant woman driving.” Wrecking Uncle Peggy Martin’s 409-engined, semi-trailer truck,” Big Red”, in Premont and then jack-knifing it in between Premont and Freer, all because I wanted to make it back to Devine from Brownsville for a date with Kathy Wilkinson after delivery a trailer full of green blackeyed peas. Early 1960s.
12. “I feel nauseated and terrible all over! I’m having trouble seeing and can’t talk right. Damn these damn cramps! And now it’s coming out both ends and I’m really messing up Sam House’s car. … Oh Sister! Thank you so much for that atropine.” Poisoned by aldicarb—for which they were making a precursor chemical in Bhopal in 1984 when the terrible accident occurred in —in Field 14 in the Brazos Bottom, late 1960s. https://www.stephenhicks.org/2016/11/12/the-bhopal-chemical-spill-disaster-who-is-to-blame/
13. “Whew!!!” Feeling of tremendous relief after coming out of a long upside-down stall at the top of a loop in a little T-34 high over Pensacola Bay, and then later after “touching” hard at a Brewton, Alabama strip partially surrounded with pine trees, having the T-28’s seat “collapse”, and almost hitting some pine trees during the “go” of my “touch and go”. [Later, I saw the burnt remains of a T-28 which a student pilot had crashed at Brewton and was killed. Also, during this period an instructor put himself and a student into the Gulf while showing off to his girlfriend with aerobatics (“illegally”) in a jet over the beach and bay. … Finally, I just must mention that alcohol and marijuana use/misuse was common on the Pensacola-area Naval bases during this period, including by officers.] Summer and Fall of 1969.
14. “Go to the left! To the left!!” they yelled in Polish and then translated to English for me. We were lost with old pre-WW II maps of the Carpathian Mountains in southwestern Ukraine but Andrzej Kunstman (sp.?), an experienced mountaineer, felt he could get us back safely to our cabin down below. However, Andrzej took us over tough mountainous terrain covered with thick, twisted, and intertwined woody vegetation (perhaps mountain alder?), and almost led us over a cliff. Later, his cousin, my good entomologist friend Kazimierz Wiech wondered why I was laughing helplessly while, as the last of four of us, I crossed a ledge of inches for some considerable yardage. I replied that I thought I might die, and that the giddiness just came out uncontrollably. (Mom St. Louise Kneuper Martin has said on a number of occasions that I am a cat with nine lives. And Andrzej helped me waste one.) 1990s, early 2000s. https://theculturetrip.com/europe/ukraine/articles/a-guide-to-exploring-the-carpathian-mountains-in-ukraine/
15. I decided to put my foot down in my perceived role as an elder. “I’m going to put an end to all this nonsense.” Sadly … this was the night in which I really began breaking the camel’s back concerning relations with one sector of my immediate family. Ca. 2016.
16. “Fascinating!” Daddy bringing in a newborn calf in the winter of 1949 (It went to zero-degree Fahrenheit in SA.) and placing it in the front of the Dearborn space heater in the living room. Then—through the living room window–watching Daddy skip playfully over sheets of ice on the ground. https://www.tripsavvy.com/the-coldest-temperatures-in-texas-3498952
17. “I told you to get those potatoes planted! You are going to quit picking on Lawrence right now and get back to work. Pull your pants down!” Dad had me pull my jeans & underwear down to my bare bottom and proceeded to give me a butt-blistering whipping in front of brother Lawrence and Lawrence’s friends. I dearly loved my Dad, but this left a small scar. (This is actually the only whipping I remember getting from him, though I am certain there were some others. Generally, it was Lawrence who received this corporal punishment; Lawrence was always pushing the envelope of mischievousness back in those years in Devine.) Late 1950s or early 60s.
18. “You’ve let the mesquites take over, and your renter is ruining the house.” My Dad Alton’s expression of disappointment in the way I was managing the family farm in Stockdale, which Betsy & I purchased from Mom & Dad in 1983. Probably the late 1990s or early 2000s.
19. “What the hell is going on?”, we all wondered as we peeked in Al Williams’ office in the Natural Science Department at St. Philip’s to see on his TV what was happening to the Twin Towers in Manhattan. We had class preparation to do and science classes to facilitate. It wasn’t until later that we and the world began to understand what was going on that morning of 9-11-2001 in lower Manhattan, NYC, USA.
20. “President John F. Kennedy has been assassinated.” came the somber announcement of our Devine High Principal, Mr. Tony Petri over the loudspeaker as I sat in a science class. President Kennedy made mistakes, but he was so much more of a respected and intelligent leader than our current shameful, deplorable, basket-case. November 22nd, 1963, two days before my 17th birthday. Two days later, on my birthday his killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, was killed.
21. “Go up to the front of the class right now and eat your sandwich!” demanded Sister. At five years of age, I stood crying in front of my first-grade class, trying to choke down the dry several-days-old peanut butter & jelly sandwich which sister had found in the storage area below my little desk. … Another unpleasant memory was being disciplined by a nun after I blurted out to a young niña-playmate, “¡Callate lo sico!” or “¡Callate la boca!” and the young playmate told Sister I was using curse words … Good memories are of riding to Catholic school with WW II veteran Tucker Irwin–who had had both legs amputated—and listening to the old-time, 50s country music he had on the radio; and competing with non-Catholic Sherry Poore to be the first in this class to learn our prayers. … An associated memory was when I was transferred to the public school in the second grade, being bullied by the older Jerd Hamlet (sp.) the first day, and having our older rural-neighborhood gang-leader, Lillian Sauter, defend me from Jerd and telling him to never pick on me again. He never did! … Finally, during this period when we moved to five acres where the Triple-C restaurant is now located, I remember ca. 7- and 9-year-old Esteban and Alejandro Peña out in Mr. Fritz Schroeter’s pasture teaching me Spanish as well as the medicinal and food uses of various plants there. Ca. 1952-3.
22. It was truly amazing! I was in a bar on Pensacola beach with Naval pilot-trainee friends, somewhat inebriated, and looking up at the TV to see humans walk on the Moon! July 20th, 1969.
……………………..
Of course, there are many other times that rival these in my memories. For instance, recently (last days of June 2019) in one of our Generations Indigenous Ways spiritual sharing & prayer circles, Waylon Gaddie asked me to sing a song he’d heard me shout out in camp a few days prior. No one had ever asked me to sing before during my ca. 73 years on Earth/Eaarth.
Moreover,
• Texas Senator Tati Santiestaban calling me a windy Bill Clinton-like speaker when I ignored his warning to “keep it short” in testimony before his Natural Resources Committee,
• a younger (than I) Taylor, Texas-cotton farmer calling me “Son!” when we were arguing heatedly about TDA cotton regulation enforcement,
• testifying under the guidance of Texas attorney general legal counsel Renea Hicks in the U.S. District courts of Judge Nowlin and Felimon Vela,
• conversing in a St. Philip’s College Natural Science Hall with my hero–“less-than-a-4-minute mile record holder”, Fox Tech/tu/UTSA’s, Ricardo Rom–about the severe discrimination Ralph Boston received in greater Austin in comparison to San Antonio (where he was received more graciously) when competing in professional track in Austin in the 1970s ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Romo ),
• tall, lanky consultant John Christian (sp.) of Raymondville telling me that I was “alright” (because my MD brother John Russell had correctly diagnosed his illness as rocky mountain spotted fever & treated him appropriately after several misdiagnosis by other MDs) … after a very difficult & extremely uncomfortable meeting dealing with TDA cotton stalk destruction enforcement with Lower Rio Grande Valley farmers and
• other occasions (E.g., the deaths of my Dad, Alton Martin and my brother Lawrence Alton Martin. I was with each of these amazing humans when they passed.).
were probably equally as memorable as some of these other 22 aforementioned–or even moreso!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOyIzVc1SeY https://www.google.com/search?q=ahrry+belafonte+day-o+lyrics&ie=&oe=
