Gone To Texas

The Next Great Adventure: A True Story

Gone To Texas!

Mom, me, Neil, Cindy, Jennifer

My annual performance review at Kraft in 1984 was nothing but good news, or so Harry, the Accounting Center Manager, informed me. I graded out as the top accounting center supervisor, I received the highest percentage raise possible (3%!), and if I went back to school to get an MBA I could be eligible for a promotion in 5 or 8 years, by which time he was sure there would be some retirements to make room for me. Harry didn't really understand me. The review did nothing for my enthusiasm towards the corporate world. I wanted to learn and conquer new things. It seemed more like a prison sentence than an "attaboy."

I couldn't let myself look for another job; that wouldn't have been the practical, grown-up thing to do, especially since I thought my role was to be the career person in the family. There was no internet to search for jobs back in Texas, and though Cindy was making friends, enjoying her job, and keeping us busy socially, I knew she wanted to be closer to home. Fortunately, my friend and mentor, the man who taught me everything practical about managing people, David Johnson, called from Texas. Jerry Hancock and David were planning on opening some Grandy's franchises in South Texas, starting in Victoria, and he called to ask if I was interested in being part of the launch.

It took me about a nanosecond to decide ... we would be back in Texas, I would be working for David, doing much more tangible work than shuffling papers, and it would be an adventure. It took me a little more time to sell Cindy on the idea. She had reservations. Though we would be in Texas, it's a six hour drive from Victoria to Rowlett, and was there even a shopping mall in Victoria? Neither of us had ever heard of it. She actually agreed pretty easily and her project management skills came quickly in to play to get us moved back.

We lived with Darvis and Frances for several weeks while I completed management training. Cindy

Early Grandy's crew

took a trip or two to Victoria to find an apartment and get the lay of the land. Before we knew it we were settling in to the Villa Chateau apartments on Miori Lane, directly across the street from Victoria High School, Home of the Stingarees. We later learned that the marching band practiced pretty early in the morning, and since the stadium was across the street, too, Friday nights would generate the nearest thing to a traffic jam in Victoria around our apartment. It was a great apartment. The only thing Cindy didn't like was the squirrel that harassed her from the courtyard fence, and the avocado green counter tops and harvest gold appliances.

Once again, Cindy got a job via a temporary agency, with the idea that she could do the "temp-to-perm" thing like she did in Atlanta. It didn't quite work out that way. She was placed at the Dupont chemical plant outside of town as an Accounts Payable clerk. Dupont wouldn't hire her as a full time employee, but they did hire her as a contract worker through the temp agency. At some point the Cain Chemical Company bought out a portion of the Dupont plant. Cindy had an opportunity to leave the contract and go to work directly for Cain in 1987, which she did. Less than a year after Cindy was hired, Cain sold out to Occidental Chemicals, and Cindy began her career with Oxy.

Cindy, Kathy P. & Vickie
Dupont Santa volunteers

I was working at a restaurant so my schedule varied. David always did his best to make sure I had either Sunday or Saturday off, because those were Cindy's days off, and if I had to work those days I usually worked breakfast shift Saturday or night shift on Sunday, which meant I either came home early or left for work late. Cindy, of course, was not one to sit idly at home. She started going to Victoria Community College, taking classes to earn her real estate license and at one point taking a golf class with her buddies. She never finished the real estate classes, though she did make some great friends. Even though she learned to swing a club and play a little golf, the major outcome of that class was that I started playing golf. I would go to the driving range to watch her practice and think, "I can do that." When I couldn't, it made me determined to master that frustrating sport, which I still haven't accomplished.

The real estate education prompted Cindy to start looking for a house to buy. I was not keen on the idea. It seemed like it would be an enormous amount of debt, not to mention the effort and expense involved in maintaining a house, but Cindy was determined. I was fairly confident that she wouldn't find anything. Our credit was mediocre, we didn't really have any sort of money for a down payment, and frankly, the economy was pretty terrible at the time. Oil and gas had taken a big hit, which consequently had a big impact on the restaurant expansion plans, which were now on hold. I couldn't imagine anyone loaning us money to buy a house.

Well, of course, Cindy found a house. It was a neat little 1300 square foot house on Suzanne Lane

The house on Suzanne today
according to Google

and we got the house by assuming the mortgage. The owners couldn't afford the payments and the bank was willing to let us assume the loan. It cost us about $700 to close and we were suddenly home owners. It was a gamble, one that we worried about the following year when the interest rate went up on the loan. We wrote the bank and told them we needed to renegotiate the rate or we wouldn't be able to make the payments. They apparently already owned too many houses so they worked with us and actually lowered the rate.

Many of the Dupont employees who went to work for Cain were given or purchased equity in the company. Unfortunately, equity was only available to employees if they had transferred from Dupont or if they had worked for Cain for more than a year. It turned out that of all the Cain employees in Victoria only Cindy and one other person were not eligible to share in any of the profit from the buyout. The owners decided to give Cindy and the other person a bonus equivalent to one year's salary. The impact on our financial situation was tremendous. Aside from the mortgage we were able to get out of debt from credit cards and car loans. Without those payments we were able to actually start saving a little. This was a major turning point for us in several ways.

Cindy had always been a high performing employee. When she went to work for Oxy she began to envision a career instead of just a job. The idea that someone thought enough of her work to give a year's salary as a bonus shifted her self-perception and her future plans. She was already making more money than me, and had better benefits in terms of insurance and retirement plans. She was good at her job, she enjoyed it, and she was appreciated.

A rare ice event wrecks the exit sign

It was the 80's. The accepted wisdom of the day was that women needed to find satisfaction in a career in order to be happy, that being a wife and mother were no longer enough. Cindy actually struggled with that. She would get frustrated with me when I didn't appreciate her homemaking skills. I thought she was doing those things because she wanted to. I certainly didn't expect her to do cooking, cleaning, etc on her own. I'd been doing those things since I was a kid. My Mom certainly made it clear that housework was not her task alone. My only problem was that my homemaking efforts were rarely up to Cindy's standards.

Both of us were in uncertain territory. Cindy felt like she should be homemaker first and career person second. I felt like I should be contributing more financially and have an actual career instead of just a job, or at least a plan for a career. I worked an odd schedule and Cindy always had work and social activities going on. We basically lived separate lives throughout the work week; she was often asleep when I got home, and I was asleep when she left. She would make plans for our time off together, but rarely for just the two of us.

There were times when she seemed to be upset that I didn't demand more of her time and attention, like it would have been simpler for her if I was a husband who demanded dinner on the table at 6PM sharp, and I know there were times that I was jealous of her time at work or with friends, but we never kept score. We just focused on things in front of us, looking forward to the next adventure.

We learned to be independent partners. There were some clear lines of responsibility. Cindy always did the finances because I didn't want to and she did. I always did home maintenance, car repair and whatever she told me to do on weekends. That's not a complaint. I didn't truly mind doing what she wanted to do. I just wanted to spend time with her. The exception was church. Cindy joined a Lutheran church that her friend Vickie attended, but I wasn't willing to go that far to be with her.

There was one planned weekend activity that had long term repercussions. It was my 30th birthday and Cindy decided that it was a big enough milestone to plan a party, despite my protests. She thought the way around it would be to plan a party in conjunction with Vickie's birthday, who was turning 40 around the same time, sort of a share-the-spotlight thing. She and some friends planned a joint "70th Birthday Party" for us, because 30 + 40 = 70 or something. They rented a pavilion at Coleto Creek Reservoir and there was barbecue and a couple of kegs and a bunch of people.

I was miserable. I looked around the party and realized that every single person there was from Cindy and Vickie's friends and family. All of "my" friends were working at the restaurant. I endured endless questions about all variety of things from these people that didn't know me. Yes, I'm a restaurant manager. Yes, I have a college degree. No, it's not in restaurant management. Yes, Cindy is amazing. No, we aren't planning children anytime soon. No, I don't think Cindy will become a stay-at-home Mom someday. No, I don't belong to a church. It was absolute torture and I let Cindy know it. She never planned another birthday party for me again, and I remain grateful for that.

Katy's 60th Birthday Party

We were back in Texas and took full advantage of the proximity to family. We would go to Pampa or Rowlett for Thanksgiving and Christmas, though they were often abbreviated trips due to the demands of restaurant scheduling. We would drive up US-59 to Jefferson and "camp out" with the Calhouns for vacations at Lake O' the Pines. I only recall one trip when I drove directly to Pampa from Victoria, which was about a 10 hour drive.

Cindy's family came down fairly regularly, too. We had a birthday party for Aunt Katy in the Chateau Villa apartment, and everyone came down to help us move into the house on Suzanne Lane. My father-in-law Darvis bought a truck from the Chevy dealer in Cuero, and Steve, Rodney, Darvis and I all went fishing on the Wharf Cat out of Port Aransas in 8 foot seas (never again). My father even made it down for a visit. He never knew Cindy, only meeting her briefly before we got married. While I was working Dad was home with Cindy, who doted on him and let him tell her stories. For supper one night she made lasagna and Dad, who would regularly refuse to eat pasta of any sort, ate it without complaint. I told Cindy that was a sure sign that he liked her, and he did. A lot. He often told me "She's too purty for you, you better watch your step."

Breckenridge ski trip - very 80s

Though the birthday party was torture, we made many good friends in Victoria and at some point I no longer considered them "Cindy's friends." There was Vickie, who taught me to waltz properly, and her husband Glenn, who loved our Dalmatians, Pearl and Cosmo ... getting a dog was a pre-requisite for me agreeing to buy the house. Cindy's carpool buddies (along with Vickie) were Jeanette and Kathy, who taught Cindy it was okay to stop for beers in paper bags on the way home on Friday evenings. Jay and Kathy Page were our party buddies, everything from trips to Wurstfest in New Braunfels to all day & all night cook outs in their backyard. We vacationed with a wide range of engineers from Cain and Oxy in Breckenridge for skiing and for our first trip to Las Vegas. Connie Filley, who Cindy met via the real estate classes, and her husband George, who was the District Attorney at the time, were good friends. We went to Stingaree football games in Corpus Christi with them, and George found Cindy a snub-nose .38 Special S&W to carry when she was driving back and forth to Houston for work. I still have it.

You know they're true friends when they'll board your dogs, feed you, buy you beers, plan vacations with you, and arm you when they think it's appropriate.


So much more happened in those years. There were so many opportunities to grow and learn about each other and simply learn how to be married. We had so many positive role models for marriage. David and Barbara. Jerry and Nancy. Jim and Kim, who were our peers as a young married couple, but had a different and very "in this together" partnership model compared to our more independent one. All the couples mentioned above. Glen and Vicky. Leroy and Jeanette. Garry and Kathy. Jay and Kathy. Joe and Evelyn Laza, Vickie's parents. If Atlanta was the honeymoon, Victoria was the proving grounds where we learned to work together and become true partners, even as we learned to become the individuals we were meant to be.

At some point in the late 80's Cindy forced me to go to the dermatologist. And I mean forced because she said "I've made the appointment. Be there." It turned out that I had a mole on my chest that was malignant, most likely caused by too many summer sunburns as a kid. They biopsied the mole on Thursday and said the results would be back Monday. We spent the weekend agonizing over what a bad result might mean. On Monday I called the dermatologist, Dr. Cox, during my morning break. When the nurse said, "Oh hello Mr. Turner, let me get those results" and then returned to the call and said "Uh, the doctor will call you back shortly," I knew it was bad news.

I waited before calling Cindy, because I knew she would want to know the plan. They scheduled me to take even more tissue on Thursday that week. For two weeks we walked on eggshells, waiting for the second biopsy result, not knowing what might happen. In the end it was all fine. The cancer had not spread, but we learned what a cancer diagnosis looked like, and it served as a reality check for both of us. Nothing is promised in this life, no matter how badly you want it.

There is one other story that must be told from our time in Victoria, because it was a fork in the road where a choice was made that changed the course of our life together. It's remarkable how much clarity there is in hindsight, isn't it?

Cindy had been asked to serve on a high-profile project team to implement a new accounting related computer system. As part of the kick-off for the project she had to travel to San Francisco for a week long planning meeting with the vendor and the Oxy team. She left on Sunday and planned to fly back on Friday night. On Thursday morning she called and said she would be coming home that night and she would tell me about the trip when she got home. I thought the project had been cancelled.

It turned out that in the meeting on Thursday morning, in an Oxy only meeting, some man stood up, pointed to Cindy and said "I just want to know who she has been sleeping with to get put on this team." Cindy was the only woman on the team. There was, apparently, some concern from some wives that a woman was on the team. She was shocked. Hurt. Confused. She said nothing, packed her stuff up, went to the hotel, checked out, called me, and came home. When we finally had a chance to talk about it we had a long talk about careers and jobs and goals and our expectations for each other. I told her that I only wanted her to be happy, to do whatever she wanted and to come home to me. She said she only wanted me to let her try, and to trust her. She wanted to prove that she deserved to be on that team, which she did, for the next 30 years.

In Victoria we made the decision, though not in specific terms, that Cindy would pursue a career, and I would support and encourage her. It was an important inflection point. I had no responsibility to become the primary bread-winner and career oriented partner, though I've always worked hard and honestly. She had no duty to be the wife/homemaker, though she managed to do that to her high standards, which were above my expectations.

We moved forward, eyes open, understanding the choice we had made. I had moved us from Texas to Atlanta and back to Texas in pursuit of my nebulous career goals. I now knew that future moves would be driven by Cindy, and I was okay with that, truly. I just wanted her to be happy. She got so much satisfaction and validation from work, in ways that I could never provide, that I knew it was the right thing to do, though I did have to learn to share her with work. It was an unspoken agreement made with the best of intentions, and for the most part, it worked out well.