A very interesting lunch

On saturday, after taking down the equipment from the previous two weeks of National Geo classes, I went out to lunch with my roommate to one of the only we places we knew of that would have football on TV. We started watching the LSU vs SC game and pretty soon an older gentleman takes a place near us and starts talking to us about football.

He tells us he is a huge sports nut and actually played for the University of Oklahoma in the fifties. He brings it up casually that he was a Defensive End on the team that won 47 straight games and two national championships in 1955 and 1956. That 47 game win streak record will probably never be broken.

Anyway, he was in Santa Fe on a trip around the midwest riding all the narrow gauge trains. He was stopping in to the bar to get a beer and watch a little football before he had to catch the next train. So he left and my roommate was excited about meetin a legend.

But, about 5 mins later he strolls back in and says he was thinking in the wrong time zone and has another hour before he’s gotta catch his train. He pulls up a chair at hour table and we buy him a beer and talk to him for another hour.

Turns out he has led an amazing life. After football he became a doctor and started up a clinic for stroke victims. And now, even though is 69 years old and retied, he still volunteers at the clinic a few days a week. He has 5 children, two of which were cardiologists (one of them actually performed his open-heart surgery), one of them is an eye doctor, one of them started this restaurant, one of them is married to a General in the Army. Like I said, he is a huge sports nut and has been to almost every major sporting event there is. He owns the Baseball Bat and Ball from this legenday playoff game. He used to hang out with Mickey Mantle and Joe Dimaggio and other famous baseball players. He told us how to get to an amazing Nude Beach in Amsterdam and where to find the Russian Navy practice grounds. There was a lot more that he told us about, but I’m already forgetting some of it.

Towards the end of the coversation, I said, “So it sounds like you have led and amazing life and have an amazing family… What do you think is the key to your success and happiness?”

He said that without a doubt, getting married to his wife 47 years ago was the single best thing he could have ever done. She is the key to his success and happiness. Nice huh…