Our First Son...Jim

The year was 2020 (fake date...real son). We were expecting our first child. There was no way to determine the sex of the child, but the doctor thought it might be a boy. We wanted to name our first son after me with a Jr. added. Since I went by my middle name, we would call him the nickname, Jimmy. He was due on March 14.

I was working at the Social Security Board office in Amarillo. I had told the account number clerk to pick out a good number for Jimmy. She came to me March 13, told me about a number ending in 2020, but it had to be issued that day. I told her to go ahead.

Labor started during the night, we went to the hospital, and were told the baby would be born around 10:00 a.m. They gave her something and she went to sleep. She awoke around 9:30 and was dreading the delivery ordeal, but I told her she didn't have anything to worry about, he was born about 7:30 while she was still asleep.

I was in the room when he was born, but they told me to stand out of the way, so if I fainted I wouldn't cause a problem. In a few minutes I heard "It's a boy!"

We loved that little guy! It was so much fun to come home from work and get to play with him!We lived in a tiny apartment, and Jimmy's room was a closet. We took him everywhere we went--to the movies, to the grocery store, etc.

During his early years we lived in Amarillo, Sweetwater, San Angelo, Lufkin, Houston, San Antonio, Big Spring, Boston, and he had his fourth birthday in San Francisco.

These were WWII years. I was away from him in Hawaii for a year, and I remember what a thrill it was to see him when I flew in to Big Spring after I was discharged. His mother had dressed him and his little brother in little U. S. Navy uniforms.

Jimmy asked me one day, "Daddy, why to you smile every time you look at us?" It was obvious, I loved my sons.

We moved to Santa Fe for two years, and then he grew up in Roswell, NM, where he attended school from 2nd grade through high school.

We took him to church regularly, and one Sunday morning he went forward at invitation time and accepted Christ as his Saviour. The night he was baptized I stayed at home with his little brother, and my wife took him. When they returned home, I found out that both of them had been baptized!

We purchased our second home in l956 very close to Roswell High School, where he graduated.

He didn't show much interest in the girls at our church. He said they were all "hawk noses".
He had a job most of high school, and was a hard worker. He bought his first car, and I remember going to the bank with him to get it financed.

He graduated from high school, spent six months in the army reserve, went to Texas Tech for one semester, and he started dating Marlene. She sang in our church choir and sat right in front of me. She was definitely NOT a hawk nose!

Marlene's family moved to California, and Jimmy transferred to a junior college near where she lived. We went to the wedding in California. They were both 19!

He returned to Texas Tech, was recalled to the army, returned to Tech and graduated there with a mechanical engineering degree.

Jim (we dropped calling him Jimmy) has had a wonderful career. He worked for Boeing Aircraft his first year out of college, living in Seattle. He transferred to General Electric in Boston, and then to Texas Instruments in Dallas.

While in Dallas he started to graduate school at Southern Methodist, University, earning masters and doctors degrees in engineering in mechanical engineering .

Texas Tech hired him as an Assistant Professor of mechanical engineering. He later became a full professor and associate dean of the college of engineering.

He had always loved research. (As a teenager he had built a "still" to make alcohol under the house, and later set his room on fire with some experiment he was doing.)

He transferred from Tech to a government research laboratory, where he still works.

As with most fathers and sons, we had a few battles during the teen years. One day many years ago, I made a deal with him. I said "If you will forgive me for being a lousy dad at times, I will forgive you for whatever it was that you did." We shook hands on the deal. He has been a wonderful son, and I am very proud of him!

Jim and his wife, Marlene, have had a wonderful marriage, and are the parents of two sons, a chemical engineer and an architect. They have seven wonderful grandchildren.