Challenging Circumstances

by Suzanne Small, RDR,CRR,CBC,CPE

Freelance reporting in an era of warped-speed technological change is challenging.  When the popularity of tort reform is added to the mix, things get scary.   Topping off the recipe with changing business models and “flat-world” globalization sends me searching for how others have dealt with change, problems and challenges.  Hal Monk has spent many of his 76 years proving that, oftentimes, a problem is the answer. 

Hal was born during the Depression, not far from the barren land of Texas that is described in The Years of Lyndon Johnson:  The Path to Power.   It was so desolate that you had to move your tongue around to get the dirt from between your teeth before digesting the full description.  Hal had some forging to do to forage a productive life in that scenario.  His mother was blazing the trial of a single mother and worked two counties away as a telegraph operator, leaving Hal, a knickered, pomaded five-year-old, with her brother’s family during the week.  On Fridays, Hal waited impatiently atop the post oak fence as he squirmed and squinted to glimpse as far as he could see in a land so flat, he claims he could watch his recalcitrant mule run away for three days.  The billowing dust would signal that his uncle’s Studebaker would soon eject his mother, who would have inflicted major damage to her weekly earnings to produce a melting Mr. Goodbar for her only son, a son who had missed her more diligently than she had dot, dot, dashed all week. 

The barren land and dire circumstances produced in Hal an ambition like that of fellow Texan, LBJ.  It was an ambitiousness, tenacity and single-mindedness also similar to the mule Hal’s uncle employed to plow his meager cotton crop.  Gumper’s cooperation necessitated Hal applying blinders; and that was only accomplished by paying Gumper’s fee of a respectable, pocketed chunk of Mr. Goodbar.   LBJ began planning his presidency as a toddler; Hal formed the idea that significance could be attained by elevating the importance of those around him.  With the haunting loneliness of an only child, he worked to form friendships with the handful of boys in town.  With the exception of a few practical  jokes which would have garnered him a few years of hard labor had they been perpetrated today, Hal followed the advice of LBJ’s mentor, Sam Rayburn, and ‘went along to get along’.   The problem of being a lonely only helped form strong, now 70-plus-year, relationships with those whom he shared his Mr. Goodbar.   At the all-too-frequent funerals where they gather, they reminisce and speak of everything from Metamucil to their now sweetly remembered chocolate-sharing days.

The problem of having no father around – his father living in another state with a newer wife and son -- was ameliorated during Hal’s teenage years by taking on odd jobs and maintenance work that no one else cared to do at the local airstrip.  The pilots became surrogate fathers to Hal and would sneak him flight time before he was allowed to drive the Studebaker.  Hal fueled, cleaned and admired the planes, including the one that carried Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson as they were defining ‘campaigning’ as we know it.  Lady Bird took an interest in Hal while she waited for fuel.  He was distinguishable, perhaps, because he sported a white “beanie” bandage on top of his head, the result of jumping up too quickly while under a low-winged plane after chocking the wheels. 

Shortly thereafter, the Army Air Corps began to “gear up.”  Hal used his height to compensate for his lack of years and signed up while 15, a year after having soloed.  Having lived in a flat, ugly – except when the bluebonnets bloomed – piece of land, his dream of flying was an important part of how he saw things.  Hal negotiated and navigated his way to and through the Army of Occupation in Japan.    After his service years, he returned to Texas, married, quickly had three children and faced the problem of no formal education.  The ghost of Gumper re-appeared, brandishing a well-worn optical device.  Hal applied the offered vision directors and received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees as three kids under 10 years old sat on wooden bleachers and squirmed and squinted to see him walk across the stage.  To accomplish this, the chocolate bar had been divided into smaller pieces.

He then worked as a federal employee with duties such as supervising elections in the Deep South and implementing the Merit System and other EEOC mandates.  He moonlighted as a private investigator.  The lure of the law was not unlike Hal’s dream of flying.  He “read law’” at every opportunity.  Soon after the State of Texas had declared no one would be allowed to sit for the State Bar examination after 1977 unless they had graduated from an accredited law school, he faced the problem of wanting desperately to learn more about the law and become an attorney.   The time constraint was forcing him to take the grueling exam while being unprepared.  Gumper galloped back onto the scene, and blinders were re-applied.  Once the Finkelstein prep course was digested, Hal sat for the bar and passed it on the first attempt.

He returned to the feds their grey office and his almost-earned retirement to begin the career of his dreams.  Money didn’t roll in.  In fact, it was expensive to defend criminal cases and prosecute civil cases when the other side usually had much more support.   Hal used opportunities and relationships to further advance the careers and political aspirations of those around him.  Slowly, many acquaintances became attorneys general, judges – heck, a few even became court reporters – and he was able to hone pending legislation, re-organize governmental departments that affected citizens’ everyday lives, support candidates for Congress and promote a recent Supreme Court nominee years after helping her secure her first “lawyerin’ job”.  He volunteered to serve as the attorney member of the sometimes-rambunctious state court reporters board.  Happenstance arranged for him to be seated next to the First Lady while attending a meeting during Johnson’s administration.  Lady Bird asked Hal if he was “the boy with the beanie.”  Hal relived his embarrassment as he smiled at her political acumen and regretted that the time had not come for a First Lady to consider putting her name on the ballot.  The satisfaction Hal received by witnessing others succeed was much like that of a young boy perched on a fence watching a plane take off for the first time. 

Soon after receiving his bar car, his distant father passed away.  Hal pomaded the hair of his son with Brylcreem, straightened his daughters’ pigtails and took his family out of state to the funeral.  With hat in hand, Hal’s half-brother asked if Hal would provide the legal work to probate their father’s will.  The newly-licensed lawyer appreciated the opportunity to do what he could.  The problem of being an attorney without much billable work was solved by the opportunity to provide a gratuitous service to some tangential family members.  Perhaps not everyone would recognize that as an opportunity, but Hal did.  My brother, sister and I did as well, as we eavesdropped at my grandfather’s funeral and learned that while Hal was not named in his father’s will, the legacy he gave to us of seeing opportunities while others might see problems is priceless.  We then and there inherited Hal’s idea of opportunism and adopted the idea, along with our newfound family. 

I know I can find those antiquated blinders, spend some time with my more technology-savvy cohorts and recognize that a changing work environment may offer previously unseen opportunities.  Once vision is adjusted, I think it will be clear that life is like a box of chocolates, and there are lots of opportunities inside and outside the box.