Back In My Day: Scoundrels and Heroes, Part 4 – Personal Heroes

As we move toward the completion of BIMD, I want to focus this part more on the positive. It is in this part that God’s mysterious, awesome loving care was fully revealed to me. The stories about some personal heroes follow.

To set the stage, in Goober’s former life in the delta of AR and MO in the 70’s and 80’s there was a family that very few folks would know about today. The patriarch was a man of great character and competency in his work. He was my mentor with the utility company employer, a district manager. He was from a modest family background from a small rural town in southeastern MO called Ironton. He served in our military after WW II and went on after his enlistment was up to enter the utility industry. He married his high school sweetheart and they had a son together. It was during this period he was transferred south to the bootheel to Caruthersville by his employer who had both electricity and natural gas distribution operations in regions of Missouri and northeastern Arkansas. He was named the local manager of both utilities in that town.

Goober Moves To The Bootheel

That first entry level job with the utility company employer in that river town came after college and a stint in banking in Little Rock that brought all of its political connections and observations previously discussed. At the time I was still a rube, a nobody married into a somebody family that was yet to be fully groomed by the Dem/uniparty machine. I had unwittingly married into a wealthy family with long standing deep state as well as national Dem political and business connections that I had no idea even existed. However, the more I learned through the years the more uncomfortable and even fearful I became as discussed in other BIMD stories.

I reported to work in the small town of Caruthersville, MO with all of the family and political connections I needed to meet leaders, open doors and get my job done. Our District Manager, a few levels above me in the corporate structure, became my mentor as he had formerly lived in the town for a good number of years before his promotion into the home office in NE Arkansas. He was not a part of the Dem criminal machine, just an average guy that worked his tail off to do good work. When he was hired by the company back in his day, he was later named the youngest local manager in company history. The job I was assigned to perform provided good training and access all over the bootheel as I worked with contractors who were building energy efficient electric homes during the national shut down of natural gas access. Living in the community provided both good and bad connections as you can see from the previously linked Reeves (JER) interview in Scoundrels, Part 1. I tried to understand who was who better without aligning with anybody in particular.

George K. Reeves (GKR), the attorney who secured the job for me, had left and was selling his large home there to live in Memphis and when working, in New Orleans where the headquarters of the larger holding company of the utilities operation was located. He provided legal services as a function of his position on its Board of Directors. This holding company was the NYSE listed Middle South Utilities that had operations at that time in five states, which included nuclear power facilities going back to the late 60’s. It is now called Entergy Corporation, still based in New Orleans, and one of the nation’s largest publicly held power companies. During the years that followed my employment they sold off their natural gas company operations as well as smaller electrical distribution rights that crossed into border states. They are now located in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi.

There were other people in the community not mentioned in the JER interview who were also prominent. That was a good thing. One lived a few doors down from GKR. His name was Charles Southern, Jr., who soon became a friend. It also turned out he was a long term friend of Fred Smith, the entrepreneurial CEO of Federal Express. They had met each other in Memphis as younger men where both had common business and social activities. It was at this point I began to realize that once again I would be associating with some people who played at a high level. That was something I did not expect after leaving Little Rock for a small town in the Bootheel.

However, Charlie was different, more down to earth and not snobbish at all. He was a devoted family man with a wonderful wife and four kids. He acted as the CEO for his retired father’s barge towing business, Southern Towing, whose terminal was located in Memphis with their headquarters an hour north in Caruthersville where Charlie and family lived. That small town was where his father had started before it grew into a regional operation. The company had a GM running operations at its Memphis terminal. Charlie had also purchased a small, related maritime insurance brokerage he operated from Caruthersville. Later on after I had long since left the area, he moved his family to St. Louis after selling the barge business upon his Memphis based father’s death. He continued operating the insurance brokerage until his own death in 2017. His obit with bio information is below.

https://www.luptonchapel.com/obituary/5337464

Charlie was one of the good guys. He was loved and a friend to many no matter their station in life. He was also unapologetic about his faith. He was very considerate, giving and helpful. I always regretted that our paths diverged due to the circumstances of work and life changes. I still wish I had listened to him in 1978 when he told me about Fred taking FedEx public and it being listed on the NYSE. After telling me what the company was about and Fred, he said that I should mortgage the house if I needed to buy their stock. Ole Goober did not have much money to do anything back in those days, but in hind sight I should have scraped whatever I could together to do so. I told my ex’s family about it, but they thought they knew everything and did not buy any either.

These people and more along with their associations, businesses, politics and more nefarious activities were in this little Mississippi River delta town of about 7500 people at that time. A population that has since declined to about 5500.

I was in that town only one year before being promoted to the nearby Kennett, MO office in adjacent Dunklin County. My mentor gave the honor of being the youngest local manager in company history to me and I was truly humbled. If you read the JER interview in Scoundrels, Part 1 you received insight about both counties; Pemiscot where Caruthersville was located as well as Dunklin. The political and government power structures in both were totally different. Essentially, they had nothing to do with each other, like there was a wall that separated them. The sheriff of many years in Dunklin had run a cleaner ship, unlike the criminal Sheriff Orton in Pemiscot.

Living in the two towns was also like night and day. In Kennett I was accepted immediately into the business community and put to work in the local UMC church and civic orgs. It was an enjoyable two years and I learned much about my work role, people in general, and the UMC denomination. My best friend from there, who later was the Best Man in my wedding to Wifey, was a big reason for that as he made sure I knew how things worked around there as well as more in the UMC power structure. He was a district lay leader for the conference and voting member at the UMC General Conference for many years. However, my stay in that town was not to last. It was a great training ground for the next role my mentor had in mind during our company’s merger into Arkansas Power & Light back in NE Arkansas where he was located. Much of the rest of this portion of that story was previously given in the earlier BIMDs.

It was from this man I learned about serving others with integrity in my occupation as well as corporate operations practices that I was able to utilize throughout my business career. After all I had seen and experienced at such a young age I was dangerously inching toward the grooming of the Dem controlled side of things with the continued exposure to my ex’s family, friends, political connections and business network. My mentor offered me alternative ways of looking at and doing things while still being able to enjoy life in each community. Subsequently, while still in their employment, I received similar exposure to another older, conservative political mentor as a board member in the company employees’ PAC back in Little Rock. This man was the assistant to the President of the company.

Through the years leading up to my time there, my local mentor’s son who was a decade older than me, completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Missouri and enrolled in medical school at the University of TN medical school in Memphis. After a year there he joined the Army to serve his country and earn funding for future medical school expenses via the GI Bill. He was commissioned a Captain and was awarded a Bronze Star as a combat medic in Vietnam prior to his return in 1971. He reenrolled in medical school and completed his residency. While in Memphis he joined a group that developed one of the first urban trauma centers in America. With his experiences in the field in Vietnam he had developed a passion for trauma care and related surgery. When we met, he and his family had just moved back to the area, opened his surgical practice and lived nearby in town. The link to his obit below provides more details of this extraordinary man’s life.

https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/bartlett-tn/dr-kenneth-sellers-7548520

Kenneth, his wife and kids were all good folks. It is an interesting oddity that both he and his father were named Kenneth and both his mother and wife were named Norma. We had some good conversations with the Kenneths and Normas over dinner on weekends for several years. He had developed a keen interest in organ transplants and later completed advanced studies, but chose not to go into the specialty as his occupation due to expenses and loss of income associated with leaving his practice as well as the requirement of completing a long residency to gain experience. He had a family to take care of and they came first. After his father passed away in the early 1990s, he and his family including his mother moved back to Memphis where he became a professor in the University of Tennessee medical school while remaining very active with the related foundation associated with transplants and organ donation. His wife passed away a couple of years after he did in 2019.

However, the interconnections in this story do not end there.

More Interconnections And Parallels

While Kenneth and his family were in NE Arkansas with his parents, he became friends with the surgeon/chief of staff for the hospital at the SAC AFB adjacent to the town. They had a lot in common with their military service and surgical backgrounds. This man would join us all for dinner on occasion. This talented surgeon later left the AF when his tour ended the year before my divorce and subsequent move to east TN. I learned from Kenneth he had decided to return to the UT medical school in Memphis for additional education and residency for a specialty as an OB/GYN. With all of his connections there, Kenneth helped get that done. I will leave his name out of this as he is still alive, retired and living relatively near us. I will call him Baby Doc for this story.

Meanwhile an Otolaryngologist (ENT) physician acquaintance who lived down the street went through a divorce a few months before me as his wife refused to leave the area for a much better opportunity he had received from a practice and hospital in east TN. She was a native of the area and the marriage had been rocky for some time, so he forced her hand and she divorced him. We neither one knew it at the time, however, both of us were heading to the same area about 500 miles away with divorce papers in hand looking for a fresh start.

We lost touch for a couple of years until one day this ENT’s new wife called our bank in East TN to inquire about a possible business loan for a new greenhouse business they were starting that she would operate. They were located in my assigned territory, so I took the call, went to see them, and had a good time catching up on everything with him. About ten years later he became the ENT my mother-in-law used until her passing. He is still practicing in this area part time, so I will leave his name out as well and just call him Nose Doc.

A year or so after we married and unbeknownst to me at the time, Wifey decided she would check out her ability to have a child. She told me she had a routine GYN exam scheduled and would drive herself. However, she had other plans. She knew she needed an OB/GYN who specialized in high risk pregnancies due to her age and to a nightmare first pregnancy, It was an emergency delivery prior to our marriage that landed her in a coma for several days. Her long term GYN made a referral to a practice with three OB/GYN physicians who worked out of an office adjacent to a preferred hospital.

As it turned out it was a practice located next door to the OB/GYN of the Warrior Queen, Pat Summitt. Her OB/GYN was a banking client of mine. This was discussed a bit in another past BIMD. Wifey got the all clear during the exam, we discussed it that evening and went on with life. It was not long until she was pregnant with Daughter.

Imagine my surprise when I saw Baby Doc’s name on the sign at the door when I joined her for one of the first appointments after becoming pregnant. I had not noticed it a year before when I was visiting with my customer, Pat’s doc. I had no idea Baby Doc had joined a practice in Knoxville after his residency was completed. I wanted to see him again to ask how things were going, however, he was never there when I came with her to exams. He seemed to always be in surgery or delivering a baby.

The big night came and the labor pains grew more frequent and so we headed to the hospital. Guess who was on call for their practice and waiting on us when we arrived? Hello, Baby Doc! We had a quick, happy visit and then prepped for the delivery. I had taken classes with Wifey to enable me to be in the operating room during delivery even with it being a planned, more extensive surgical procedure that involved tube tying. Baby Doc even allowed me to record the blessed event on my video camera, just behind a surgical curtain that had been erected on Wifey’s torso on the operating table.

Both Baby Doc and Nose Doc knew Kenneth well and went to UT Medical School during the same period. Both lived in the same small town in rural NE Arkansas when I lived there before moving to the same area nearly 500 miles away during the same year. One ended up delivering our daughter, the other taking care of my mother-in-law. Yup.

Then there was my interconnection with the families of the former residents of Caruthersville, MO. One’s father became my mentor. The son and a friend grew up and played sports together through high school and passed away at about 73 years of age about two months apart? Yup, Kenneth and Charlie.

What city did they all have in common? Memphis. in what city did Wifey and I first meet during the same general time period? Memphis. The same city that Dr. Adrian Rogers preached from, who so strongly influenced my spiritual life’s development. Memphis has been home to many very good and horribly bad things within our nation’s history. Most of my personal experiences were very good. With that in mind as well as past BIMD stories I give you…

Introspection

When I consider that all of these men, women, their families and friends were from and/or living in the same rural, podunk farm country of the Mississippi River delta; with several choosing to move to spend their lives where I do now without knowing we were doing so, I am blown away. Only a God who cares deeply for His children could arrange all of these connections and events in the manner and sequence they occurred. Sad, difficult situations led to better, happier ones. Life affirming relationships carried forward that led to helping others for decades. Taking the proper fork in the road led to joy and peace. Doing what was right in God’s sight when nobody was looking or paying attention led to lives well-lived.

These folks are heroes as far as I and many others who knew them are concerned. I give thanks for all and especially my Lord for His love and care. The evil that could have happened to me – did not. In essence I was alone and exposed without an understanding of how to use the armor of God. He provided people, many more than even described here, to be truth tellers and helpers that encouraged and educated me. I learned to pay closer attention to the Holy Spirit within me. And everyday since my awakening I simply pay it forward to others as opportunities are presented.

Some would call this inner sense or consciousness providing guidance as having intuition. Others say it is just being crazy. However, I know the truth is that it has always been the Hand of God through the Holy Spirit guiding me away from destruction, taking care of things, leading me toward the light, who is Jesus Christ. Run on sentence time. It happened because I made a decision at 8 years old in a steel mill town of the Midwest after listening to my pastor who was from a small rural town in Kentucky who once was a partying musician in a band who felt the call of God on his life who then went to seminary and became a great evangelist that brought the gospel to my young ears and understanding. The deal was sealed when I publicly said, “Yes.”

Over the years that followed I learned that all of my subsequent striving, failures and sin did not cancel that day of redemption and the state of being forgiven and accepted into the family of God forever. I truly had experienced being born again and could spend my life in service to others as my Lord desired. Jesus changed everything.

Conclusion

I offer special thanks for a couple of friends from those days. Mike and Phil – you will never know this side of heaven what inviting me into the Bethel Bible Series meant at a time when I was slowly drowning. Mike, your courage in abruptly leaving the society scene upon receiving the Lord’s call on your heart and then diving into helping others understand the Word served as an example as a man on fire for the Lord. Along with Phil, the Lord walked both of you into the lives of me and many others to teach and deliver the truth of Christian living.

Phil, you were there for me with an encouraging word, prayer and reading material when I was hurting and alone during the divorce. I will never forget and have tried to follow your lead with others through the years. I still have the paperback you gave me the month before I left; Winners and Losers by Sydney J. Harris. You gave your best wishes for success in my new career as well as for good health and happiness. You asked God to bless me. Then you wrote that the book was for me, your friend, “a winner”. Looking forward to seeing you again in Heaven, my winning friend.

To conclude, I dedicate this part of the story to the Normas, Jana, and Wifey. You were the rocks that never crumbled for your families and communities. You took care of the wounded, hurting and hungry without fanfare. Your children reflected the love and values of your families. You earned your crowns in Heaven.

There is one more special person to express love and appreciation from BIMD that I will discuss in the finale next time.

For some reason this version of the great classic reminds me so much of the music in the Mississippi River delta around Memphis. The talent on that stage – wow! Enjoy.

Which reminds me of the time we broke bread over breakfast with Gregg, Dickie and most of the Allman Brothers Band at the downtown Mariott in St. Louis the morning after a concert in St. Louis in the early 1980s. Hearing “Ramblin Man” on the car radio in August 1973 as I was driving home from working the graveyard shift at the steel mill hit my inner redneck self square in the heart. Having the occasion to actually meet and visit with them was a treat. It was a time when Gregg was clean, sober and rational; although I doubt Dickie ever was.

It was the same Mariott I had stayed in a couple of years before with a couple of utility company execs when we were called to testify in a fight the company had with the IBEW union before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) there. Did I tell you I knew some things about how the NLRB scratches the backs of union leaders and that it is all a scam?

Darn, there I go with another story or two. Nope, not gonna do it. See you next time with the BIMD Finale.