My Man

A Son That Loves His DAD

Now that I have introduced myself to you, I am going to take each of my immediate family members and for the next few posts, introduce them.

I have to start with "my man"! We have been married for almost 37 years. When I was a cheerleader in high school, he was the high school football coach. That immediately makes it sound sketchy. NOT....

Jack is nine years older than me and that has always been a plus for us. We did not date until I went to college and he was at the same college that summer to finish his Masters Degree. We dated for a year and married the next June. Our main connection back then was our love for football. Today, I our greatest connection is sharing the same kids and grandkids. I loved being a coaches wife. And that I was for the next 20 years.

If you ask twenty people that know my husband well to describe him in one word, they would all say "servant"! His greatest love is helping people and making people (especially his family) happy.

Let me backtrack a bit and tell a little of his story. He was put in foster care at a very early age, so for the first 15 years of his life, he was a ward of the county and went from one foster home to another. When he was in the 10th grade, his Junior High School football coach, who was only 13 years older than he, stopped him in the hall and ask him if he would like to come to live with his family. A year or so later, they offically adopted him. So for the first time ever, he was a part of a family at 16. You can see why "FAMILY" means everything to him.

We spent the next years on children and football. We had a son and then 6 years later a daughter. Jack was a head football coach in several places in Texas and moving was just part of a coach's life. As I think back, it was quite a journey and so many treasured friends came from those coaching jobs. Finally we stopped in Shreveport, coaching at Evangel Christian Academy, and have lived here for the past 20 years.

After retiring from coaching, sitting around was not in Jack's vocabulary, so he found the perfect job. He had lots of bus driving experience from his coaching days, so in the past years he has driven chartered buses for college athletic teams. A job he can do as much or as little as he wants. That leaves lots of time for trips with the grandchildren.

No two kids have a better Dad than mine do. They know they got super lucky in the Dad department. He is the best! And equally good at being POP to the three and almost 4 grandsons, that we adore. But there has never been a day that I have not known that I was his Princess. And if I do forget it, my girlfriends quickly remind me.

We have shared so much. Good times and not so good times. In the past years we have gone on some wonderful trips...I have had the opportunity to travel with him on some really fun bus trips to some fabulous places. Our favorite trips are "grandparent trips" and we do them often.

I am so blessed to walk this road called life, with such a great MAN!