Health Problems Spark Change

Tom: Any little thing had happened, and one I remember. I had a house that was vacant, for rent or for sale, but it was going to be constantly for sale. A fellow came out and wanted to rent it. I said “well, I’m going to put it in the lease that you have to show it every time that somebody wants to see it. It is for sale, it’s not permanently for rent, and if you want it under those conditions I’ll rent it to you.” So I put it all in writing, and he got all ready to move in, somebody came along and bought it. He was downtown, I had to call him and tell him the house was sold. And he just jumped straight up and down on the telephone. As simple as that might have been, it hit me in the belly, just everything knotted up. And that’s when I knew if I couldn’t take a little thing like that, it’s time for me to do something different.

And just anything was stressing me at that time.

Well, that’s when I called the doctor, Charlie Lard. He said “you need to go to the hospital, right now.” So he put me in the hospital and did all kind of things. And I’m not sure — well, that’s the time he, anyway he cut me up through the side. Appendicitis I think it is. Now today it’s a little thing about like that, back then it was a cut that big around, you had to reach in there. And he said when I came to, he said “I’ve had my hand in every organ in your body.”

Then they had to have a drain put in when he sewed it up, where it’d drain. And it came time to pull it out several days later. He said “I got somebody I want you to meet.” I said “alright.” So a nurse came in — I mean she was a good lookin’ nurse.

And I said “well, how do —” and when I said “how do you —” he pulled that thing out, I said “oooh!” [laughter]

He said during the war he had operated on more people than most doctors do in their lifetime. It was just one right after another. But in that process, that’s when he told me this, if I kept up what I was doing I would be dead in, I believe he said six years.

There was no day but when I did some work. Saturdays, Sundays, and it just about killed me. I was enjoying what I was doing, but my body wasn’t keeping up with what I was trying to do. But after I got — the doctor told me that, Joe came back, I started then enjoying East Lake, started playing golf and my world just turned the other way.

I needed something different, relaxation, and it turned out good for my health. It wasn’t good for business, because when I started out I mean I got into it.