I had the good fortune of growing up in the 1940’s and 1950’s in Del Rio, Texas, and on a ranch near Juno, seventy miles north of Del Rio. My father and uncles and grandfather were life-long ranchers.

Our ranch was adjacent to my Uncle Bobby’s ranch. The picture on the home page is of our three grandsons, Tony, Nate and Michael, standing at the crossroads leading to my uncle’s and my father’s ranch houses.

When we rounded up, Uncle Bobby and his two sons, Bill and Jim, rounded up with us. My dad, Virgil, my older brother, Bob, and I joined Uncle Bobby and his sons when he rounded up. I was the youngest of the four boys.

The Juno ranching community was made up of eight families who owned ranches around Juno, a country store and gas station that had once been a U.S. Post Office. Juno also had a one-room schoolhouse for the children of the area ranch hands.

The Juno ranching community was a close-knit group. We had an all-day picnic on the Devils River in summers and Christmas and graduation parties and dances together. It was almost like having an additional seven families. Another way to express it is to say it was like having a big cheering squad in your corner rooting for you.

After graduating from high school in the spring of 1960, I attended The University of Texas at Austin, undergraduate and law school. I clerked for the Texas Supreme Court 1967-68 and would have stayed in Austin had I gotten a good job.

In 1968 I joined a fine law firm in San Antonio, Tx, where I remained for 15 years practicing business and banking law. In my early forties, the West Texas spirit of independence crested, and I became a solo practitioner. Later, eleven other attorneys joined me until once again I chose to be independent. In February 2012, I was employed to be the administrator of a family trust established by a client for his grandchildren. That position relieved me of the daily pressure of practicing law and gave me the opportunity to expand my interests.

In 1974, Clarence, my law school roommate and dear friend, suggested we form a prayer group. At one point, there were ten of us. We are now in our 47th year of sharing our lives with each other on Friday mornings—heart aches, losses, failures, successes, celebrations and lots and lots of laughter and love.

In 1994, some young men challenged two friends of mine, Baker, Jack and me to meet together to hold each other accountable. They said that a Christian man stops growing when he lives without accountability. Four other men subsequently joined us. We continue to meet every Wednesday morning. We see ourselves as Holy Friends. A Holy Friend is one who challenges the sins we have grown to love, who affirms the gifts we are afraid to claim and who helps us dream the dreams we would not otherwise dream.

In 2006, Bishop Lillibridge asked me to serve as Chancellor (lawyer) of the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas. As the Bishop put it, if I would serve as the Diocese’s attorney for free, I could have the distinguished title of Chancellor. And, if I kept the Bishop out of prison, the Bishop would get me into heaven. How can anyone turn down a deal like that? I served as Chancellor from 2006 until Bishop Lillibridge retired in 2017.

I attended The University of Texas at Austin, undergraduate and law school, where I met and fell in love with Elizabeth. We married in the summer after my first year in law school.

Elizabeth, Charlie (our eight-month-old son) and I moved to San Antonio in August 1968, just as Hemisfair was coming to a close. Patrick, our younger son, made his appearance in 1970.

In our first year of marriage, Elizabeth worked for the library at The University of Texas, as she said “shelving books”. She used to glare when someone came in because that meant more books to shelve. Fortunately, it did not burn her out on books (just on shelving). She worked as the general manager of Viva Bookstore for many years. Now she has her own publishing company—Material Media LLC, which is the sponsor of this blog. Material Media recently won the Benjamin Franklin Metal for Mary Earle’s poetry book, Did You Sing Your Own Song.

Charlie, our older son, hit his stride in high school as a swimmer. He won All State honors in water polo. His college choice of Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, was largely made because of their swimming program. It was in the swimming pool that Charlie met the love of his life, Sarah, who is a terrific athlete and scholar as well. They have the three finest young men there are (our grandsons), Tony, Nate and Michael. Charlie is in his 31st year teaching math in an Alternative Learning Center. He also teaches in a county jail two nights a week.

Our son, Patrick, is our citizen of the world. He attended college in Lugano, Switzerland, spent a year in Siena and Bologna, Italy, before graduating from The University of Texas at Austin. It didn’t take Patrick long to find New York City. Patrick is a computer programmer.