I live for those who love me,
Whose hearts are kind and true;
For the heaven that smiles above me,
And awaits my spirit too;
For all human ties that bind me,
For the task that God assigned me,
For the bright hopes yet to find me,
and the good that I can do.
I live to learn their story
Who suffered for my sake;
To emulate their glory,
And follow in their wake;
Bards, patriots, martyrs, sages,
The heroic of all ages,
Whose deeds crowd History's pages,
And Time's great volume make.
I live to hold communion
With all that is divine,
To feel that their is a union
Twixt Nature's heart and mine;
To profit by affliction,
Reap truth from fields of fiction,
Grow wiser from conviction,
And fulfill God's grand design.
I live to hail that season
By gifted ones foretold,
When men shall live by reason,
and not alone by gold;
When man to man united,
And every wrong thing righted,
The whole world shall be lighted,
As Eden was of old.
I live for those who love me,
For those who know me true,
For the heaven that smiles above me,
And awaits my spirit too;
For the cause that lacks assistance,
For the wrong that needs resistance,
For the future in the distance,
And the good that I can do.
- George Linnaeus Banks -
I was born on September 26, 1939 in Little Rock, Arkansas. My mother, Catherine, died when I was six years old; my father, Warren, remarried. My stepmother's name was Lenore. I nicknamed her Sally.
One of her sons, David, six months older than myself, attended the same grade that I did at school. When someone, like the neighborhood barber, remarked how much we looked alike, and indicated that we must be about the same age, dad would say, "Yes - 6 months apart!"
Very athletic and intelligent as a youngster, David went on to rear a good sized family. All turned out to be exemplar citizens. Her other son, Richard, although a good friend, did not live with us because he was a few years older and married.
In the photo below, I am in the checkered shirt; next to me is Richard. David is at the far right.
Below is a picture of me as a child at my maternal grandfather's house in O'Fallon, Illinois. He was the Chief of Police in O'Fallon. (He was also their only Policeman.)
I did not always look that forlorn. I was really a happy kid. See!
As you can see from the following summary of where I lived, when, and what I was doing, my family moved a lot during my youth.
09-1939 to 09-1942 [birth] Little Rock, Arkansas
09-1942 to 09-1946 [dad served in WW II] Topeka & Pratt Kansas etc.
04-1946 to 04-1952 [grades 2 through 6.5] Indianapolis, Indiana
04-1952 to 06-1952 [one school term] Strasburg, Virginia
06-1952 to 06-1954 [8th grade; 1 year High School] Belleville, Illinois
06-1954 to 06-1955 [1 year High School] Washington, D.C.
06-1955 to 09-1958 [2 years H.S. & 1 year college] Indianapolis, Indiana
09-1958 to 08-1964 [years of college] West Lafayette, Indiana
08-1964 to 07-1970 [taught Senior High School] Jonesboro Arkansas
07-1970 to 04-1998 [employed by DeVry Institute] Fort Worth, Texas
04-1998 to present [retired] Fort Worth, Texas
I currently volunteer as a docent at the Fort Museum of Modern Art and as an assistant with Senior Net, an organization that teaches computer usage to seniors, at the community center on Lafayette Street in Fort Worth
The following depicts my stepbrother, David, and myself at our eight grade graduation.
The following photo was taken while I was an undergraduate student at Purdue University.
The following photo was taken while on a canoe trip down the Brazos River with a group of students from DeVry Institute of Technology.
The following photo was taken before my barber started using grey hair dye on my head and beard.
The Photo shown below is one of me while still in my prime.
Here is a more recent portrait taken in my Jazzy electric wheelchair which I use for short trips around the neighborhood. It was taken in May of 1999.
My hobbies include Amateur Radio, My Computer, Mystery Books, Crossword Puzzle Generation over Mystery Books, and Spanish.
I have traveled in England and studied in Mexico!