OK! I have been away for a long time. I promise my family not to use Facebook and Instagram for a while, so I am jumping over here.

 I have been a faithful spouse to my wife of 51 years. It has not always been an easy time. We have had our differences and our arguments, but we have also had had many wonderful times together. 

Overall of those years, I have worked in fields where I have had a lot of female colleagues: Medical research, Medical illustration, Instructional design, Teaching, Organizational design, consulting, and art and illustration, all are full of female professionals. Over the years I have learned to appreciate the talents, skills, and leadership provided by my female colleagues. I have also developed many sincere and loving relationships with my female colleagues. Never has there been a romantic relationship but rather a deep understanding and feeling of companionship and love for so many of them, I can truthfully say that some of my relationships could very easily have slipped into illegitimate relationships, but I often struggled to keep the proper professional perspective, but in each case, I was able to keep the relationship proper.  

In my last session with my therapist, we peeled back some of the issues that haunt me to this day. Why do I feel like an anachronism when it comes to my moral and ethical character? We dug a bit into my family relationships, my education, my religious upbringing, and my natural desires for love, affection, and sexual needs. I grew up in a loving and engaging family where the physical expression of love was almost non-existent. I never recall ever hugging or kissing anyone else in my family until very recent years. The only time that I told my mother that I loved her and that I hugged and lightly kissed her on the cheek was when she was on her death bed dying. I never told my dad that I loved him or ever gave him a hug like I do with my son John. On the other hand, When I married Carolyn Cantella and was around her family things were quite different. There were plenty of hugs and kisses and a physical show of love and caring. I blame a lot of it on the different family cultures. My two German grandmothers surely must have been rather stodgy from what I can gather from the few descriptions that I got from my parents surely set the stage. The few old photos seem to depict such characters. Can't tell much about my grandfathers. I never knew my maternal grandfather Kennedy from Ireland. My fraternal grandfather, I did have an afternoon with him when he was 95 and we talked at length about my great grandfather and his times on the Chisholm trail when I was in high school. Carolyn's family was of French Acadian Landry stock (my MIL) and Sicilian stock (My FIL). They were not at all stodgy from my perspective. This difference in family cultures would cause me considerable distress in the early years of our marriage and would ultimately result in my estrangement from my family in my middle age.

Back to my upbringing and why I feel like an anachronism.

I was brought up in a Catholic family. My mom, a Kennedy, made sure that I went to Mass and attended Catholic schools (St Pius School in Pasadena 1st grade, St Mary school in Houston (grade 2-8), and St. Thomas HS, Houston (Grade 9-12). So I had a solid grounding in Catholic education and doctrine. Note that St. Thomas was all male, so I no longer had girls around me in the classroom, like I did in grade school. I was an altar boy, as well, through the 6-8 grades and at St. Thomas, as well. The Dominican nuns kept me in line and indoctrinated us.

In College I went to the A&M College of Texas and was in the Corps Of Cadets for two years, So I had no women classmates for five of my six years in college. I went to the University of Texas in my fifth year to get a degree in Architectural Studies, so that was the first time to have been in a classroom with women in 8 years. All of those years in college I was active in the Neumann Club (a Catholic-oriented extracurricular organization, and went to Mass every Sunday, and would often step up as altar boy. I became a leader in the clubs both at A&M and at UT, and even UH and Rice during the summers.

At TAMU I was early on introduced to Lawrance Sullivan Ross. an icon in the history of the university. On his monument in front of the Academic building, his epitaph read "Soldier, Statesman, and Knightly Gentleman" That statement would drive my character for the rest of my life. I became a soldier (not much of one), I was never a real statesman (I was elected to various campus positions, to a block grant commissioner position in the city of Houston, to a school board vice president, and a few other quite minor positions, and I tried to be a Knightly Gentleman. That last goal is the one that has me feeling like an anachronism in a world where women are treated like second-class citizens and objects to conquer and abuse, etc.

In my therapy sessions with a couple of different therapists, one a male and the other a female, that character trait came out loud and clear. My therapists have commented on that character, but I still feel so out of place in this world, but I like being out of place! To me women are special creatures to be honored, blessed, cared for, loved, and guarded.  I just became a Knights of Columbus member and am currently reviewing a series of blogs on the role of men in the Church and the world and what I am seeing so far is right on. I am also in a Wednesday morning breakfast group called "This Man is You," a group trying to create men for leadership roles in the church, the community, and the family. I think that I am finding a lot of support in these two groups 

 Good Sunday morning in Houston, Texas!! It is a beautiful Fall day. 

 welcome back to my blog, "Pintail Flights"

It has been over 7 years since I have posted on this blog. A lot has happened since my last entry, so let's catch up!!!

I have been back in Houston since 2011 - some 10 years!!!! : Let me give you a quick summary of the past 10 years!! 

OMG, a lot has happened. I find myself now an Octogenarian!! I turned 80 on August 4, 2021!!!! I never thought that I would make it this far!

Since my last entry, I have left my contract job with Aramco. I spent four months in Mexico in San Miguel de Allende to fulfill my time out of the country for foreign tax exclusion in 2010. It was a wonderful time for me, but for Carolyn, it must have been hard since she had to return to Houston to take care of business at home and then she returned to enjoy the Christmas season.

Once back home in Houston Carolyn and I drove the F-150 to Austin, TX to see our new granddaughter, Brooklyn Hall, and then on to Saratoga, CA to see our other new granddaughter, Jolene Sicore!! It was a long but enjoyable drive across the Southwest to San Diego and up Highway 1 along Big Sur to Santa Cruz and finally into Saratoga.

Over the next few years we made several trips back out to visit our daughter's family in California. These trips were by plane. We went out to see our last born grandchild, Clyde, when they were living in Los Gatos. He was a beautiful infant, but he soon begin to exhibit seisures and was diagnosed with a rare form of malformation of the brain tissue that has left him as a bedridden child requiring constant care and love.

Once I was back home I picked up a consulting gig with John Wilson Associates working on a BP project for the Thunderhorse project designing and teaching a course on dropped objects for crew on the rig. I made monthly trips to Houma, LA to teach the large group of crew and visitors to that massive offshore rig. As I was working the Thunderhorse project I picked up another gig with Shell Oil Company at the Bellaire Technology Center working with Stu Furgang, a former manager for a previous gig with ExxonMobil,  in the Shell Upstream Learning where I designed and developed numerous engineering and Geoscience courses. I was later pulled into the Shell Global Learning Design Team to work on the Shell Project Academy and spent a deal of time going back and forth to The Hague, Netherlands.  This Shell gig lasted three years before the funding dried up and I was left looking for another consulting gig.

Within a month of leaving Shell, my old Exxon colleague, Brian Nicholson, pulled me into a gig with BP working through Intellinex/Xerox functioning as the project manger for BP Refining Academy and later as the US learning lead for the Chili Programme out of the London Offices. This gig was a huge global change management project affecting all subsurface activities. The projects lasted four years. 

That took me into 2016.  I had been visiting artists studios in The Sawyer Yards on 2nd Saturday Open Studios for a number of years. With no consulting gig in hand, I decided to get a studio in the newest building in the Sawyer Yards Creative Campus - The Silos, and give my art career a full time effort. I am now enjoying the community of creative individuals less than a mile from my house. I have become a fixture in the community for five years now. I do miss my consulting gigs, but my caregiving demands for Carolyn, now in late stage Dementia/Alzhiemers, make gig work and the travel involved not an option for me. I suppose that I could work virtually. I did work virtually for BP long before the Pandemic forced the workforce to do so. 

Ok, so now your are more or less up to date with my professional life. I will continue this blog as I move forward. It will explore facets of my life and the world. I will try to keep it up to date and on target to help others.

Today I will be at my studio for the October 2nd Saturday Open Studios. If you can make it please visit me at studio #227 in The Silos, 1502 Sawyer Street, Houston, TX77007

Cheers,

Richard

Paragraphs On Padre Boulevard More than a BookstoreR

Paragraphs On Padre Boulevard More than a Bookstore



Sam Listi, my husband's friend since St. Thomas High School,  suggested that Richard should have a book  signing in South Padre.  We are going down again, soon.  Would love to meet you!



Carolyn Hall

rshall1@swbell.net



519 Bayland Avenue

Houston, TX  77009

Finally, after many years of effort, I have received a shipment of my book on Texas Lighthouses today!! Sometimes, I wondered if I would ever finish it, but perseverance pays out in the long run. I will post details soon, but for now I going to tip a glass of champagne in celebration and breath a long breath of relief.

 

I am back to my blog after a long hiatus. Things have been crazy since I last posted. A demanding new job, some health issues,  a great deal of time culling through and sorting 30 years of accumulated stuff in our attic and storage room out back and a lot of work going into my book on Texas lighthouses. I plan to post frequently from now on out.
Richard