Walking back to Addicks.

 

 

I’m Walking Back to Addicks.

 

            The dates and times aren’t exact.  They are like the rest of this story; approximates as I remember them.  After all, this story is more for myself than anyone else.  Feel free to delete now, it won’t hurt my feelings.

            My mother, Katherine grew up poor in the east Texas town of Shepherd.  And I mean poor.  Her father was a genius who could do everything, but make a living.  My father, Raymond, grew up poor in Houston.  His father died when Raymond was 12 years old, leaving a wife and 4 children.  Raymond, being the oldest had to go to work as a Houston Chronicle delivery person to supplement the family income.  I believe he had a love / hate relationship with his mother.  At 16 years old, Katherine was off to Austin and the University of Texas with a promise (to herself) that she would never return to Shepherd or the lifestyle she had lived through.  Raymond jumped at the opportunity to join the U.S. Navy during World War II.  It was a chance for an education and to get away from his mother.

            The met.  Raymond couldn’t believe that he had found this beautiful brunette with brains and the burning desire to succeed.  A desire that may have surpassed his own.  Katherine, who had many male courtiers, was attracted to Raymond’s mathematical genius and the promise that nothing would stand in his way of being rich and successful.  Their common goal to be something united them.

            I was unplanned.  Katherine actually had an appointment for an abortion the next day.  I’m told, by my Aunt, that my grandfather showed up and talked her out of it.  I choose to believe that God had something to do with it, also.  I was born at daylight on April 2, 1949.

            Raymond and Katherine started an electrical contraction company, R. W. Dickson Electric, Inc.  With their hard work and burning desire, the company took off.  Within two years, they were buying a brand new home in the middle class neighborhood of Timbergrove.  My sister Joan was born in 1951.  R.W. Dickson Electric was now bidding and getting commercial electrical jobs all over the State.  Raymond worked 12 hour days, was a chain smoker and closed most everyday “out with the boys” at the local watering hole.  Katherine, a non-smoker, who very seldom touched alcoholic beverages, accepted Raymond’s vices as an inconvenience to the financial security she so desired.

            In 1958, their business is going strong; Katherine is driving a new Buick Special.  Raymond is driving a new Cadillac and they are moving up.  They buy a 1 acre lot that backs up to Buffalo Bayou off Memorial Drive.  And, they built a California Ranch style home.  My sister Diane is born.  Raymond spends very little time with his children, but our rewards are the trappings of upper middle class living.

            It’s 1962, and it all unravels.  Hey the stress from success in one thing, but the stress from failure is almost unbearable.  R.W. Dickson Electric is going broke.  Raymond is drinking more and later.  Katherine may be having a nervous breakdown.  They are arguing more often, than not, and it’s not pretty.  Divorce is threatened.  Katherine decides to stay.  Why?  Maybe it was for the children.  But, I believe she still held out hope that Raymond would pull himself together, stop drinking and reach that potential she knew he had.  They had to sell the dream home off Memorial Drive and move into a run down rent house in the community of Addicks.  Addicks is located in west Harris County just east of Hwy. 6.  West of the Memorial Villages, west of Spring Branch, and north of the rail road tracks.

            Everything has fallen in around us.  I should be sad.  I should be depressed.  I’m not.  You see, Addicks is surrounded by thousands of acres of Federal Government Lands (Addicks and Barker reservoirs).  I can hike it, I can hunt it and I am the master of these pathless woods.  There is some strength that I got from the hours, days, and weeks of solitude with nature.

            I can’t remember if it was a conscious decision or something that just happened.  In those woods, in Addicks, I decided that I could live my life as a victim and be unhappy or I could choose to be happy and search for the positives around me.  I took the happiness.

            Katherine and Raymond quickly started a come back.  They bought 6 lots in Addicks Dam Addition and started building houses.  They built a comfortable brick home, down the street from the rental home, for the family.  We were on our way back up and Raymond started celebrating accordingly.  After all, he was the come back kid.

            Katherine divorced my father 2 years later.  Some months after the divorce when I had just turned 16 years old, Katherine asked me “Craig, are you OK?  How are you handling this?”  I told her the truth.  “Mother, really, I thought Junior High would be the absolute happiest time of my life - - - hunting, fishing and exploring Addicks Reservoir.  I was wrong;  I don’t think I could be any happier than I am now.”  Hey, I had a driver’s license and just got a brand new Ford Mustang.

            Well, in 1968, I graduated from high school, and was off to college.  Raymond was living in Spring, Texas.  Joan had married.  Diane was sent off to private school: and Katherine sold the house in Addicks.

            Raymond died of heart disease when he was about 55 years old.  Katherine almost reached 70 years old when colon cancer got her.  I’ve had open heart surgery and just finished, yesterday, a 12 hour chemotherapy for cancer.  SEE ATTACHED PHOTOS.

            All these challenges and I’m as happy today as I have ever been.  Friends, prayer warriors, relatives AND the King, Little Dixon.

 

 

But, for the last almost 50 years, when I get stressed and/or depressed,

I start walking back to Addicks.

Craig Dickson

craig dickson realty

www.TrueToTexas.com