All Weird Roads Lead To Tyler
Someone I met late last year told me something that I didn’t understand until this past week: “All weird roads lead to Tyler.”
Tyler is unusual in a good way. Like the folks on the island in “Lost,” but in a more positive way, I’ve had a sense of fate and destiny ever since the first drive here up U.S. 69 from Beaumont. My family was meant to be here.
Since then a number of ties to the past have emerged.
During a recent business reception, some folks whom I had no idea lived in this neck of the forest showed up.
One was Toni Moore, University of Texas Health Science Center media specialist. I hadn’t seen or heard from Moore since we worked together at the Midland Reporter Telegram in West Texas back in the early 1990s.
Also at the event was Kerry Yancey, a journalist for the nearby Canton newspaper, and his wife, Shirley. A decade ago, Yancey was photo editor and a writer for the Killeen Daily Herald, where I was managing editor. Yancey was the photographer for my wedding in 2000.
Last month. I had lunch with Ann Fitzgerald, Greater Tyler Association of Realtors president. On Monday, I randomly drew her card for Business Briefcase fodder. Last week, I happened to draw Toni Moore’s card, but she was out of town.
Usually, this column is a collection of vignettes about the people behind the cards. But something different seemed warranted this week.
Fitzgerald has seen some weird roads herself in Tyler.
During her early days here, she thought she had hit a career peak when she scored the listing for former Tyler Junior College President Ray Hawkins’ home.
The sellers had one simple request: Don’t let the cat get out.
“I was so proud of myself for getting this listing and got a big head,” Fitzgerald said. “They basically said, ‘Ann, don’t let the cat out.’”
Of course, the cat got out. After chasing the cat around, Fitzgerald managed to herd it inside. And it got out again.
“I was a wreck by then,” Fitzgerald recalled.
She found the cat in some bushes and put it back inside. Three days later, the sellers called. They wanted to know where their cat was, and what the deal was with the strange cat in their house.
Fitzgerald had apprehended the wrong feline. Mercifully, the sellers’ cat was still around and quickly put back inside.
“They were very nice about it,” Fitzgerald said of Hawkins and his wife. “I wanted to die.”
From that point forward, the sellers referred to her as “cat woman.”
The cat incident underscores a colorful career for Fitzgerald in Tyler, an SMU graduate who started her realtor work here in the mid-1980s.
“I married a Tyler boy, and we wanted a change of pace,” Fitzgerald said of her reasons for moving to Tyler.
Now divorced, Fitzgerald and her ex-husband continue to co-own Ben Fitzgerald Real Estate, which they bought in 1996.
And their third partner?
That would be commercial real estate specialist Jerry Tate — who happened to be my high school band director in Houston.
Band members I’ve kept up over the years — including my sister — have rampantly speculated about what became of Tate after he left Westchester High School in 1981. I played the trumpet and hung it up upon high school graduation.
When Fitzgerald named her third partner, a fusillade of questions from my end ensued. She later called Tate to confirm that he was indeed the same guy.
This was the guy who gave me a well-deserved detention for messing up the marching band photo by wearing a bunch of bogus medals on my uniform, making me look like a Mexican general.
This was the guy who confiscated the jaw harp I smuggled into band and “boinged” anonymously behind a music stand during lulls until I finally got busted.
He also seized a collection of my underground stories and cartoons lampooning him and other people in the marching band.
Fitzgerald said Tate didn’t quite remember me. Maybe he will when I meet him soon.
I can’t wait to tell him that those dumb little stories wound up being the crude foundation for a journalism career.
And, after a 20-year layoff, I picked up the trumpet again a few years ago and now play in a band. In another weird coincidence, I’ve heard that a fellow trumpet player from the old marching band is now a Methodist minister church in Tyler.
And my sister is a band director.
Yep, all weird roads do indeed lead to Tyler, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Weird on.
Tyler is unusual in a good way. Like the folks on the island in “Lost,” but in a more positive way, I’ve had a sense of fate and destiny ever since the first drive here up U.S. 69 from Beaumont. My family was meant to be here.
Since then a number of ties to the past have emerged.
During a recent business reception, some folks whom I had no idea lived in this neck of the forest showed up.
One was Toni Moore, University of Texas Health Science Center media specialist. I hadn’t seen or heard from Moore since we worked together at the Midland Reporter Telegram in West Texas back in the early 1990s.
Also at the event was Kerry Yancey, a journalist for the nearby Canton newspaper, and his wife, Shirley. A decade ago, Yancey was photo editor and a writer for the Killeen Daily Herald, where I was managing editor. Yancey was the photographer for my wedding in 2000.
Last month. I had lunch with Ann Fitzgerald, Greater Tyler Association of Realtors president. On Monday, I randomly drew her card for Business Briefcase fodder. Last week, I happened to draw Toni Moore’s card, but she was out of town.
Usually, this column is a collection of vignettes about the people behind the cards. But something different seemed warranted this week.
Fitzgerald has seen some weird roads herself in Tyler.
During her early days here, she thought she had hit a career peak when she scored the listing for former Tyler Junior College President Ray Hawkins’ home.
The sellers had one simple request: Don’t let the cat get out.
“I was so proud of myself for getting this listing and got a big head,” Fitzgerald said. “They basically said, ‘Ann, don’t let the cat out.’”
Of course, the cat got out. After chasing the cat around, Fitzgerald managed to herd it inside. And it got out again.
“I was a wreck by then,” Fitzgerald recalled.
She found the cat in some bushes and put it back inside. Three days later, the sellers called. They wanted to know where their cat was, and what the deal was with the strange cat in their house.
Fitzgerald had apprehended the wrong feline. Mercifully, the sellers’ cat was still around and quickly put back inside.
“They were very nice about it,” Fitzgerald said of Hawkins and his wife. “I wanted to die.”
From that point forward, the sellers referred to her as “cat woman.”
The cat incident underscores a colorful career for Fitzgerald in Tyler, an SMU graduate who started her realtor work here in the mid-1980s.
“I married a Tyler boy, and we wanted a change of pace,” Fitzgerald said of her reasons for moving to Tyler.
Now divorced, Fitzgerald and her ex-husband continue to co-own Ben Fitzgerald Real Estate, which they bought in 1996.
And their third partner?
That would be commercial real estate specialist Jerry Tate — who happened to be my high school band director in Houston.
Band members I’ve kept up over the years — including my sister — have rampantly speculated about what became of Tate after he left Westchester High School in 1981. I played the trumpet and hung it up upon high school graduation.
When Fitzgerald named her third partner, a fusillade of questions from my end ensued. She later called Tate to confirm that he was indeed the same guy.
This was the guy who gave me a well-deserved detention for messing up the marching band photo by wearing a bunch of bogus medals on my uniform, making me look like a Mexican general.
This was the guy who confiscated the jaw harp I smuggled into band and “boinged” anonymously behind a music stand during lulls until I finally got busted.
He also seized a collection of my underground stories and cartoons lampooning him and other people in the marching band.
Fitzgerald said Tate didn’t quite remember me. Maybe he will when I meet him soon.
I can’t wait to tell him that those dumb little stories wound up being the crude foundation for a journalism career.
And, after a 20-year layoff, I picked up the trumpet again a few years ago and now play in a band. In another weird coincidence, I’ve heard that a fellow trumpet player from the old marching band is now a Methodist minister church in Tyler.
And my sister is a band director.
Yep, all weird roads do indeed lead to Tyler, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Weird on.
posted by Brian Pearson at 4:17 PM
2 comments
