Kineño Remembers: From the King Ranch to the White House

5. The Road from Kingsville

C H A P T E R 5 3 The Road from Kingsville Shortly after graduating from high school in 1944 I enlisted in the army, and I reported for duty as soon as I turned eighteen.In September 1946 I was put on terminal leave and honorably discharged at Fort Lewis, Washington. I was given one hundred dollars as discharge pay, a train ticket on a chair car to San Antonio, and a bus ticket to Kingsville.The second hundred-dollar increment of my discharge pay was to be sent within thirty days. Feeling rich, I boarded the train in Tacoma, Washington , and two days later I was in San Antonio. From there, I caught the bus to Alice,Texas. As promised, Dad was waiting for me at the bus station.We shook hands; he welcomed me and told me how good it was to have me home again. He expressed his appreciation for my service to our country. Wedrovethetwenty-eightmilesfromAlicetoKingsville.Asweentered the town and went past the Texas College of Arts and Industries (Texas A&I College, now Texas A&M University–Kingsville), Dad wanted to know my plans for the future.I replied that I had been giving my future a lot of thought. Reminding Dad that I was an ardent fishing enthusiast, I told him of my plan to seek work as a commercial fisherman on a boat out of Corpus Christi. Dad glanced at me, turned his head back to the road, and said he wanted me to go to Texas A&I and enroll. He said new classes were starting the next week,and he went on to say that what I studied was up to me, but I was going to go to college. I expected Dad’s response. When we were children growing up on theranch,IrememberDadsayingtimeandtimeagainthatallof hischildren were going to go to college. We were in the depths of the depression , and as a family we had little money. Even as a youngster, I thought college attendance was not possible for me.I knew it required money we didnothave,andIwasnotsureIqualifiedacademically.Still,myparents continued to raise our expectations that we would go to college. My childhood on the ranch was before television,so we did not have that as adistraction.Wecouldnotaffordaradio,butwedidhavebooks.Whenever Dad traveled to stock shows in Fort Worth or San Antonio, he returned with a box full of used books he had purchased.At least a couple of timesamonthMotherdroveustothelibraryandwecamehomewith anarmloadof books.Eventually,asDadpredicted,allfiveof hischildren went to college,and all of us received at least one degree. So, having heard Dad’s plans for our higher education for many years, his current insistence that I go to college and give up my fishing career did not surprise me. As far as he was concerned the discussion was ended. I had learned years before that when Dad made a decision, there was no use debating the issue.I replied,“Yes,sir,”and so ended my fishing career. But as that dream ended, my academic career began. texas a&i c ollege I enrolled atTexasA&I College and planned to major in journalism.For two years I had worked on the high school newspaper, the last year as editor. I thought I could write, so perhaps a job on a newspaper was a possibility. In addition, I wanted to write the great American novel. I was not sure what its topic would be, but I was convinced that I had at least one good book in me. Having declared journalism as my major, I was told that for a bachelor of arts degree I needed a two-semester science course in biology, chemistry, or physics. I told the registrar that I would take biology to The Road from Kingsville 113 fulfill my science requirement. I didn’t know it then, but it was one of the most important academic decisions I ever made. As the first semester progressed, I enjoyed my journalism, English, and history courses, but the biology course was far better than I expected . It was one of the best courses of study I had every undertaken, and the professor, Dr. James C. Cross, was outstanding.Although a demanding teacher, he truly made the subject interesting. I did well in the course, and the following semester I signed up for another biology course under Dr. Cross. I read far beyond the course requirements, and if I had difficulty understanding some aspect of biology, I soon...