Durwood Ball

About twenty five years ago, I met a successful businessman by the name of Durwood Ball. On several occasions, I'd met with Durwood to discuss potential business opportunities. Nothing really came of it. But it was certainly not hard to like the man. The thing about Durwood was that he was in his eighties and still going strong in the business world. He also had a wife who who appeared to be in her forties. .... Durwood could easily be mistaken for a man twenty years his junior.

One evening, Karin and I visited his home for business discussions .... And to socialize. As we walked down his entry hall, I couldn't help but notice several very old framed black and white faded photos of cowboys ... Complete with chaps ... Some with pistols on their hips. I asked Durwood about the photos.

Durwood told us these were pictures from his youth. It turns out that his father had owned one of those massive ranches in South Texas .... In the neighborhood of 500,000 acres. He told us that he rode in the last cattle drive up the historic Chisolm Trail. He told us stories of riding in open cars for a day or so to the border, and then transferring to horses for a two day ride to visit a Mexican neighbor who had a similarly huge ranch.

I was amazed by the richness of the man's life, having grown up during the dawning of the industrial revolution ... Before the first world war. He grew up in a time and place where horses were still a major mode of transpertation and tool of his father's trade.

I was reminded of Durwood when one of my grandchildren was asking what we had when we were kids.

Q: Did you and Grandma have video games?

A: no ....

Q: Did you and Grandma have TV?

A: Some people had TV's ... But we had only a few programs and TV didn't run all day. TV was in black and white only.

Q: What about Disneyland?

A: no ... Disneyland was built when we were a little older.

Q: What about Telephones?

A: We had telephones, certainly. ... But using long distance was costly and rarely used. We didn't have cell phones

Q: Well, what did you do?

A: Hmmmm ... seems we had plenty to do.


It occurred to me, that to our own grandchildren, our youth was as distant to them as Durwood's was to me.

When we were young, space travel was a dream, the stuff of science fiction. To our grandchildren, space travel is history. To us, cars that routinely communicated with satellites wouldn't even be dreamed of. Today, it's common. .... And the list goes on.

Is there a point to this little essay? .... maybe that as the world turns, it's not a bad thing to remind the next generation what our history really is.