Two more:
Rick Perry: the Paint Creek boy who would be king
Ricky Perry (centre) with fellow Future Farmers of America officers from the Paint Creek School yearbook of 1968
Posted on 08/11/2011 3:06:55 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
…."I was burned out," he said. "In 1977, I didn't know what I wanted to do. And actually, was a little lost - as a person, both in my temporal life and my spiritual life, a little lost."
So three days before his 27th birthday, the man who had owned the skies and commanded a crew was finally heading home, where he would live with his parents, Ray and Amelia, and work on the family farm.
…..They formed JR Perry Farms in early 1978. And then it stopped raining.
The green stalks wilted, and the ground began to crack. The Perrys watched their cotton crop fade, and then the wheat wouldn't come up. The younger Mr. Perry had no money, and with no clouds on the horizon, he wondered if he ever would.
"I'm in the right place. I'm teaching Sunday school at the church. Life is good. I'm happy. But I'm broke," he said.
Mr. Perry earned his Airline Transport Pilot rating and then won a hard-to-get interview with Southwest Airlines.
….His father understood. "Dad said, 'You need to go do what you need to do. But it'll rain. It always does.'"
A few weeks later, in the first few days of August, the remnants of Tropical Storm Amelia rumbled across the plains and JR Perry Farms, bringing - finally, emphatically - rain. More than 30 inches in 24 hours.
"And I'm figuring, 'OK, I get it. You don't want me to go fly airplanes. You want me to stay here and farm,'" Mr. Perry recalled.
He skipped the interview.
"If it hadn't rained, I'd be a millionaire pilot with Southwest," he said.
The next bit of weather that changed Rick Perry's life arrived in December 1983……
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
Two more:
Rick Perry: the Paint Creek boy who would be king
Ricky Perry (centre) with fellow Future Farmers of America officers from the Paint Creek School yearbook of 1968
Perry/Palin?
I'd prefer the order reversed.
Hear, hear.
Perry can beat Obama.
And pull the country back together.
Palin can beat obama.
LLS
Thanks for posting this. (things about Perry I didn’t know)
Kinda nullifies those critics who say he’s always been a career politician with no private sector experience.
Anita Perry, a no-nonsense nurse, overcomes shyness in signing on to win votes for her husband
Interesting read, thanks for posting.
- - - - - - - -
“He had this old 310. Half of it was John Deere parts,” recalled longtime friend Cliff Johnson, a former state representative from Palestine. That plane, he said, “had duct tape all over it.”
Mr. Johnson recalled asking how the plane suffered some of that damage. Mr. Perry told him he “hit a mesquite tree herding cattle. Now that’s pretty darn close.”
I liked that too.
~~~~~~~
Can't help but wonder if most FReepers realize just how close to the ground the top of even the tallest Mesquite trees are...
Of course, only someone from the desert Southwest (and that includes West Texas) would call a mesquite a "tree". Over here in the eastern Texas Piney Woods, they would definitely be called a "bush"...
(Not rooting for Perry -- just putting his cattle herding remark in perspective...)
I wondered if he hit it taxing in a field.
At first I thought the same as you, but realized the article wasn’t clear.
Well, as a politician, he "might" have been taxing, but I think it was probably taxiing.....:^) (I owe you that for the Alaska zip code).
But I doubt he was taxiing.....too much possibility for ending up with hamburger instead of mooooooved cattle.
Thanks for the correction ;-)
I didn’t mean taxiing to herd, just taxiing prior to take-off. Just a possibility and it could have been flying, landing or showing off.
Come now....this is TEXAS (or more properly...the SOUTH...and a "good old country boy" is involved).....only one of those three choices is "really" likely......
A red-neck is a red-neck, after all.
Palin was always running for second banana.
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