When the Porch Light's On. . .Stories of People, Popcorn, and Parasails. Don Ph.D. Newbury PhD

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      “DUNKING” IS A favorite part of parasailing, and this involves dropping the flyer into the water about waist-deep, then taking off again. When I went to pick up the boat in Alabama, the folks there gave me a ride on a twelve hundred foot rope. Dan and another student, Zeb Alexander, went along to learn how to be deck hands. I saw them gesturing as I began my descent. You guessed it—they ordered me dunked!

      So, that’s the story of the title. I’ve been introduced at speakers’ podiums a good many times as “the nation’s ‘unstuffiest’ college president.” I hope you feel this introduction is appropriate. It is likewise important that you believe that I do recognize “serious as serious and fun as fun.” I know the difference, and can deal with both! I hope you enjoy this book, as much as I have enjoyed the experiences along the way. That’s a lofty expectation.…

      Don Newbury

      Fort Worth, Texas

      August 1, 2002

      WHEN I WAS ‘THIS TALL’

      IT IS HARD to imagine any person, anywhere or any time, being so blessed by family. These blessings have continued throughout my life. My parents were the late Mr. and Mrs. T. J. Newbury. Both were from big families, both had little formal education (neither finished high school), and both were familiar and comfortable with hard work. My mom’s mother died during the national flu epidemic around 1930, and Mom--the oldest of three girls among nine children--helped her dad raise the younger siblings. My dad, born in Louisiana to a railroad family, had seven brothers and sisters, one of whom was claimed by diphtheria at an early age. Mom (the former Tempie Gotcher) and Dad (Thomas J. Newbury) met when both families lived in rural Brown County, when the country was in the depths of the Great Depression. When they married in 1931, they scratched out a living in farm work, including long days picking cotton bolls, sometimes moving around West Texas to the next fields needing cotton pickers.

      I was born September 7, 1937, in their small rented farmhouse west of May, Texas. Dr. McDaniel drove out to the farm for the delivery, and Dad joked many times about how the doctor charged him twenty-five dollars--and that I probably wasn’t worth it! In those days, it was common to be born at home. (I was not to be hospitalized—not even once—until open-heart surgery required it sixty years later.) Soon after my birth, my dad got a job with May Schools. He was custodian, “fix-it” man, bus driver, and you name it—there were no written job descriptions. He eagerly did whatever “Mr. White” (H. E. White, Superintendent of Schools) asked him to do. After all, the school paid him thirty dollars a month….

      I’m not sure how we got around—most likely, we didn’t go many places. When we did, I think we either walked or hitched rides with friends fortunate enough to own motorized transportation and generous enough to share it. I do recall riding the school bus routes with my dad; I was about three years of age. I remember his cheery countenance as he drove the lumbering yellow bus over the country roads and how he encouraged all the riders.…He was mighty proud to be a part of May Schools, even though his “position” was several cuts below a professional one, and I doubt very much if he had ever heard the word “contract.” If he had, he would have consulted Superintendent White to make sure he should sign it. Dad was usually leery about signing his name on anything, and he urged me repeatedly to be careful what I put my name on….

      One of my earliest memories concerns Friday night movies at the school. I was fascinated by the guy who knew how to thread the projector and how quickly he could take off one reel of the old black and white film and slip on the next one with minimal delay. The projector was noisy, the picture sometimes jumped, and the film almost always broke at least once. They took up a collection to rent another film for the next week, and there was free popcorn, lemonade, and “Polly-Pop” for us kids. (“Polly-Pop” was a precursor of Kool-Aid.) Life was exceedingly uncomplicated….