Several years ago an instructor at Huston-Tillotson asked me to come talk to her class.  The truth is, she wanted me to give them money but I went to give them inspiration, which is much more valuable than money.  That is something that my dad taught me as we listened to the stories Paul Harvey would spin over the car radio on the way to school every morning when I was a child.  Often the heater took FOREVER to warm up and still, I remember it fondly because of the love and wisdom my dad shared with me as I rode with him.

I also learned a lot of things about being in business from watching my dad work at Huston-Tillotson for over 50 years and operate his side businesses too, inclusive of a radio repair shop and being a rental property impresario.

Trust me, it couldn't have been very easy for him because this was back in the day when Black people weren't even allowed to drink from certain water fountains or to sit wherever they wanted in public places or even let their children play in public parks. 

I was there and I remember everything.

I grew up in the late fifties thru early seventies and I haven't forgotten the bad or the good.  I learned from it while keeping those memories filed away for perhaps only posterity... I hope.

My first job was helping my track star brother throw newspapers.  I hated it and instead decided that I would make money cutting grass around the neighborhood.  I soon learned that PRICE was not as important as whatever I would do extra, like pulling weeds or trimming bushes.  Soon I found a way to get other kids to work for me so that we all made money and had repeat business. Unfortunately cutting grass was not only seasonal but the money wasn't really enough to buy any big-ticket items with, so I quit and let a friend take it from there, who paid me a residual of twenty five cents for every yard they did that next year (a yard paid $3).  It was an excellent exit strategy considering I would've given it away anyway.

With the help of my brother James, I started selling programs at UT Football games.  I did pretty well because I always found the fortitude, rain or dry to sell them all.  At that time I also started working my first full-time job at the Varsity Theatre on the Drag as an Usher.  I made all of eighty five cents an hour and was happy. It was 1965 and I was 12.

I got a lot of satisfaction from that job and I met a lot of people who I hold in high esteem today because of those times and all the things that I witnessed about them during that time.  1965 thru 1969 was a terrible anti-war period that helped to define and shape the America that we are living in today.  It was a foundation for today's truth (and lies) of our government and still, I am smiling because adversity and strife define us.

I met a hippie named Ralph McElroy who turned out to be one of the most prodigious geniuses of Austin.  You never heard of him have you.  He's no doubt a stealthy billionaire many times over living in NW Austin, quietly doing what he does best: Making Money all over the world. 

I met Ralph by accident.  His best friend was a wire-rimmed glassed professor-looking engineer named Charles Garrett who lived a few doors up from me.  Charles had a new red MGB-GT with black leather seats and being the fact that I am a car nut, I naturally gravitated to the car.  I met Ralph at Charles' house and thought to myself, "This White man looks familiar.  Where have I seen him before and why is he a friend of Charles'?" 

I figured out where I'd seen him the next day when emptying the trash at the theatre but I still don't really know the whole truth about why he was meeting at Charles' house with those other UT hippies.  Ralph worked at the Les Ami restaurant behind the theatre on 24th street.  Actually he owned it and as I later learned, Ralph already owned the property on the whole block.  Talk about insight! 

Ralph McElroy was the 3rd entrepreneur that I knew, my dad being the 1st and my brother being the 2nd. 

Just think about it: When it comes to making money the scale of success shouldn't matter as much as the effort and the fact that you dared to try to win.  If you fail you keep trying until you succeed.  It's worked for me. 

I don't know Ralph's story.  I don't know where he started or how many times he failed before he started getting it right.  I know he's getting it right now.  This I KNOW.  More power to him.

I wanted to make my own money at first because I wanted to buy better clothes than what my mom was dressing me in so I worked hard and started shopping at Jack Morton’s & Reynolds Penland downtown and Horace & Jorace's on the Drag.  They had the finest duds.

Fast forward past my years of driving cab, working in law enforcement in Dallas and Austin to the early 1990's where finding out I had Diabetes actually made life better for the mobility impaired.