I received a text from a fellow I know this morning. He sent me a picture of one of my business cards. It was a card from sometime prior to 1985. That is when I sold my office on Montopolis Drive and moved on with a new address.

So that’s how I knew how old the card was. He found it taped to the wall in a house he had recently purchased.

Out of curiosity I ask where the house was, thinking that I may know the person that lived there. As soon as he told me which house it was found in, I said “I have a story for you”.

I was able to dig out the following stories that explained how that business card came to be there, about 43 years later.

Dave Cothran, thanks for contacting me and sharing the business card find.

These are actual posts from the early days of the Angora Chronicles that will bring the business card find full circle.

The Army Draft

At the risk of sounding unpatriotic, I’ll tell this story anyway.

The Vietnam War was a mess, seemed to be coming to an end or at least needing to. Never the less, the Draft was still very active. Kenny had been drafted a couple of years before.

It was the summer that I turned 20. My draft notice arrived. Madeline and I had married the previous November. I was already in the utility contracting business. By then I had about a half dozen employees that I felt responsible for. I had equipment payments to make.
I just couldn’t see how spending a couple of years in the Army was in the cards. Besides almost anyone in college was getting deferments that kept them from going.

A few months earlier had crushed the bones in my left foot with a backhoe outrigger and was treated by Dr. Allen at the Allen Clinic Hospital in Burnet. I reasoned that if I went to Dr. Allen and explained my circumstance maybe he could write a letter for me.

Coincidently we had just finished laying a new water main in front of his house and had visited with him several times. He seemed proud for me, being in business so young making my mark on the world.

When I ask him for the favor he was more than happy to oblige.
The day before leaving on a bus for Abilene to get my physical, I stopped by and he had “the letter” ready for me. He had written that in his belief I would not be a good candidate for marching and other medical language all sounded like l may actually be crippled for life. He ask me to stop in when I returned and let him know how it went.

Not wanting to leave anything to chance I thought it would even be better if my foot was swollen a bit when I showed up in Abilene.

With Big Jimmy Palmer holding me and Glenn Lewis in the pickup the plan was for him to drive over my foot. Except when Glenn felt the pickup ease up on my foot he thought it was a good idea to stop and get out and wait a little while before pulling off again. I wasn’t exactly prepared for how that felt.

The next morning I drove to Lampasas, where to Draft Office was located. We boarded a bus for Abilene. My foot showed no signs of swelling.

When we arrived they ask if any of us had any accompanying paper work that they needed to see. I handed my letter to one of the doctors. He looked at it he said “that’s a good ol’ doctor you have there”.

I was told to go sit on a bench, by myself. The rest of the bus load were taken back, stripped naked, probed and prodded and who knows what else. I just set there on the bench.

At the end of the day I was given my paperwork stamped 4F, meaning I was unfit for military duty.

Upon returning to Burnet I stopped in to see Dr. Allen at the hospital. He told me to go back and wait in his office. He came back after he was finished seeing a patient. He asked me how it went and I proudly showed him my 4F. He said “I figured you’d be alright,” then pointed to a framed certificate on the wall.

I got up and looked at it. It was a certificate showing him being named as Chairman of the Oversight Board of Army Medical Examiners.

Sometimes it’s who you know in life. In this case there is no way I would have had the nerve to approach him, had I have known about his Army connection.

Since I never served it makes me that much prouder of my Dad, my Brother, 3 Sons and a Grandson that did step up.

The Rest Of The Doctor Allen Story

After the very nice letter the good Doctor had written for me I asked if I could help him out in some way. We settled on pushing some brush on a place he had out east of town. A date was worked out and I borrowed a D-7 dozer from Cec. I met the truck hauling it out by the airport in Burnet, so I could lead the way. It was late in the afternoon on a Friday. I was going to work Saturday and Sunday if needed to be sure my debt was paid.

Just as we turned onto Highway 29 headed out to his ranch I met him. I motioned for the truck to pull over and I turned around to catch him so we could work out our schedule for the next morning. I caught up with him when he pulled up at the hospital.

He had forgotten out plans and had folks coming in to spend the weekend at his other ranch down at Doublehorn. He apologized about his forgetfulness. He said to just call it even, since I had made the attempt.

I felt bad, but I had done my part. Soon afterwards the project I was doing in Burnet finished up and we moved on to Austin. That was the summer of 1972.

A lot of things happened in the upcoming years. The business ramped up, Madeline and I had our first 3 sons before the end of that decade.

I was alway haunted because I didn’t get to pay that debt. So I called the good Doctor. It took a few moments for him to remember me. By now it was the summer of 1982. Ten years had passed. I asked him if I could come clear some brush for him.

He said he had gotten the brush cleared several years before, but if had a road grader the roads could sure use some work.

I drove up to check it out. We met and he was right. The roads were un-drivable except in a 4-wheel drive vehicle. We settled on a date, a weekend that I could come make his roads better.

On the Friday before the appointed day arrived, I sent both haul trucks to Burnet, one with a motorgrader and the other with a track loader. One went back to Austin for a compaction roller.

When Saturday morning rolled around 3 equipment operators and 2 dump trucks showed up. By Sunday evening he could drive around that place in a Lincoln Automobile.

He and Mrs Allen spent the whole time with us. Madeline and the boys were there, too. She was only weeks from delivering our final 2, twin sons.

When we left there that Sunday evening was the last time I ever saw or spoke to Dr. Allen. For what ever reason our paths never crossed again.

A few days later a nice check arrived in the mail. He ask us to use it for the benefit of our sons.

If It Seems Like I’m Bless (or cursed) With A Good Memory, it hasn’t always been that way as the following will show.

Today, talking about Dr. Woods, I am reminded of a time I got mixed up on the Doctor that actually deliver me. Let me try to explain. The story I once wrote about Dr. Allen in Burnet and how I swore up and down he delivered me. As the story will explain the Doctor did me a giant favor once. I had always presented to him that he had delivered me.

Only one small problem, that I realized later. Dr. Woods was the one that delivered me and Dr. Allen delivered my brother Kenny. Hence his middle name Allan. Spelled with an “A” instead of the more conventional “E”.