CHAPTER FIVE: THE NOTE ON THE TEXAS FLAG

Location: Backroom of a Beauty Shop Slaton, Texas 1960

The loud voices of the beauty operators penetrating the plywood makeshift wall jarred me out of a deep sleep. It was nine a.m. and I had missed my first class. I got up, got mad, pulled on my clothes, and rolled up the vellum-colored door shade. A foot of a late winter snow had turned my car into a giant marshmallow.

After a quick tip toe dance through wet snow to the bathroom, I was back in my room heating a pot of water. I pulled a blanket around my shoulders ripped open a box of tea bags and glared at the bright white landscape. The maze I now found myself in was a schedule of washing dishes and pushing a broom  with a full load of college classes I hardly had time to attend much less study for. I was the lab rat scurrying to find his way to the cheese but there was no cheese. The book dad had given me had something about a burning desire. His book was perched on the edge of my drafting table. Flipping through the contents, chapter two “Burning Desire” was found and chapter three “Faith.”  Reading the chapters then one more time to make sure I grasped what Napoleon Hill was telling me. As I absorbed the words I breathed more heavily, my forehead creased and my teeth clenched, not in anger, but in determination to get something better, something for me. My symptoms began taking on Hill’s description of burning desire. I wanted to change.

I had to stop the bleeding of my energy. First, drop two of the five classes I was attending; second, find a better job with more money and a better place to live, a warmer place to live.

My architectural note book had three hole lined paper ready for class work. I reached across my desk and tore out a single sheet of notebook paper, took a deep breath and scribbled the following:

“I WILL FIND A NEW PLACE TO LIVE AND

MAKE MORE MONEY. I WILL FIND A NEW

PLACE TO LIVE AND MAKE MORE MONEY. I

WILL FIND A NEW PLACE TO LIVE AND MAKE

MORE ….

As I forced my pen, my message cut into the paper. I could hear my dad’s voice as he had said many times when we were working together, “Son, if you think you can, you can.” I continued to write, like in grade school when the teacher made me write over and over to correct the mistakes I made in class. I was writing my positive statement dozens of times using both sides of the paper. With each repetition I strengthened my confidence to make my decision a reality.  Thumb-tacking the page to the wall, I stood back to look at my note in the middle of the Texas flag. I had fashioned my definite plan right out of Hill’s book, not his exact way but it would suffice.

Soon it was spring and I was looking forward to seeing my folks and not-so-little brother over spring break. After work on Friday I drove out of Slaton with the windshield catching a few droplets of a late afternoon shower. My big, blue Chrysler hugged the road as I settled into the 55 mile an hour drive and relaxed.

I drove the five hours home with great excitement at seeing my family. I arrived late in the evening, parked, and went in by way of the little room off the drive. I stood in shock. I was filled with anger.  My wonderful mural was gone. I glared at the wall of new green paint. My Mother had painted over my artwork. Again I realized that what I wanted and what was important to me didn’t mean anything to my mother. Dad yelled from the back porch, “That you Warren?” I don’t know who was more excited to see the other. We exchanged good bear hugs and then we settled in for a long talk.  Dad said, “You’re doing well. I knew you were man enough to be on your own.” His support meant a lot. We talked about my architectural studies, cleaning the beauty shop, and washing dishes for Harold Medlock, a longtime friend of my mother and father’s. I told Dad about my long hours and how I had reached the end of my rope. I related how I had read Hill’s book and wrote my burning desire statement now thumb tacked to the center of the Texas flag. He applauded my actions. Brother Charles told me about his job at the air conditioner supply company and the newest junker car he was overhauling in the driveway. We laughed about my lack of mechanical ability and how good I was at holding the light as he worked. The two days were filled with home cooked chicken-fried steak, and visiting with family and friends. The weekend was over too soon. Sunday morning we had an early breakfast then attended service at the Vine Street Church of Christ, and lunch at McEplines’ cafeteria.

The season’s first sand storm hit when I was on the outskirts of Slaton. Spring always blows the sand so fiercely in West Texas you can feel it in your teeth and hear it pealing the paint off your car as you drive. One sand colored day in April, my parents called me at the restaurant. They told me to talk to a Mrs. Wicker of the El Lora Motel in Slaton, a couple of blocks from the beauty shop. I drove over to the motel and introduced myself. Mrs. Wicker was a thin woman, about 60. Her dark hair with wisps of white was gathered in a tight bun. Glasses dangled from a gold chain against a dark flower print dress. Her thin long fingers held a cigarette that seemed to have an inch long ash poised to fall, but never did. We talked. She needed assistance at the motel because her long time employee had moved away to be with her family. Mrs. Wicker was serious, polite and reserved. I’m sure she saw me as a young kid without direction just going wherever the wind blew. She offered me a job if I could meet her needs. The requirements were simple: I would check in guests after 11 p.m., run errands for the guests, be a semi-night guard and do small jobs around the motel. Next to the office living room I would have a quiet bedroom. A maid would clean the room and Mrs. Wicker would prepare my evening meal. I was free to go out nights until 11:00 when she was playing bridge in the large living room. She offered to pay me $50 a month and I accepted with a smile from ear to ear. Now, I was a believer in the power of burning desire. I had put my faith and desire into action, written my affirmation and was now reaping the rewards. I would repeat this burning desire ”goal setting” process throughout my life.

In my old dingy room, I yanked the thumbtacks out of my note and read it out loud for the last time: “I will find a new place to live and make more money!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. Dad’s voice echoed in my head.

The Texas flag was folded into a correct military triangle, a symbolic act that I was leaving the kid in me behind. I would never allow myself to be caught in that kind of depressing situation again in my life. Achieving my goal was a grand experience. I had a new job, a better place to live and more money. Moving was fast with no two week notice. I announced I had a better offer and was taking it. “Thank you” for the room. By late afternoon I was packed, moved, and settled into my new space at the motel. My bedroom had nice drapes, even a carpeted bathroom. I had never seen anything like that before.

Mrs. Wicker and I became acquainted in small conversations over the dinner she prepared. Although the food was good and filling, I was more appreciative than hungry. Since it wasn’t a bridge night we spent the evening reviewing the procedures for checking in guests and where to purchase cigarettes and other items the guests might need.

After we finished, I walked around to the back of the motel down the alley for another couple of blocks. I looked down the depressing empty street, a few dim lights reflected off the brick street where I had lived for many months. It already seemed like a lifetime ago. My self confidence was improving by the minute.

I had a grand comfortable place to live, Mrs. Wicker was pleasant and my salary was much improved.

Mrs. Wicker retired to her bedroom and I stayed up watching the late night news for the first time in months, getting acquainted with my new surroundings. My room was decorated with exquisite antique furniture, and satin-like green drapes. I did a “walk about” on the plush carpet of the enormous motel living room and viewed my surroundings. Finding few books of any interest and none in my room, I unpacked the remainder of my belongings. I slid into a soft arm chair, the bedside table lamp perfect for reading. I opened Hill’s book and retraced my thoughts about the first part of the book and how it was working in my life at that very moment. The entire room lulled me into relaxation.

I placed Mr. Hill’s book carefully on the bedside table and slept well until the office door bell chimed at 12:32 a.m. Duty calls. With my new job and new living situation, my focus was on the remaining classes with more time to study. My hours of washing dishes were cut and didn’t seem so overwhelming. I was smiling much more. Life was becoming exciting and wonderful. I was even spending Friday evenings sitting on a quilt-covered porch swing with a sweet sixteen-year-old, blue-eyed blond talking about my architectural studies and her high school activities.

Faith in yourself is the ability to get up one more time and start over. When you find yourself in a position where the status quo is intolerable, draw your line in the sand. Find the faith to step over that line and seize a better life. You have to have Faith in yourself and your decisions to move forward. To build your faith, stop for a couple of moments, remember a time when your faith succeeded and repeat the emotion, the feelings and the accomplishment. Remember the emotion and repeat. The first part of Think and Grow Rich is about determination, burning desire and one’s belief system. As I had skimmed and read the book several times, I was beginning to believe. After the message I had thumb-tacked on top of my Texas flag was engraved on my mind, I discovered the “burning desire.” I hadn’t fully understood the burning desire step until I was so exhausted and depressed that I had to change. When I finally hit the floor and picked myself up, I discovered I had not been in control of myself. I re-committed to earning my college degree and wrote my first goal to find a better place to live and make more money. In a short time I accomplished my goal and became a true believer in the secret found in the book. As my desires expanded I would continue to refer back to Think and Grow Rich for guidance. I had come to believe and think for myself.

Mr. Hill: “Faith is the visualization of and belief in the attainment of Desire. Only those who become money conscious ever accumulate great riches. If you do not see great riches in your imagination, you will never see them in your bank balance. A burning desire is the starting point of all achievement. The method, by which desire for riches can be transmuted into its financial equivalent, consists of six definite, practical steps.

Just have Faith that goal setting works. I proved it then and I have been doing this for fifty years, I am prosperous because of goal setting.

1. Fix in your mind the exact amount of money you desire.
2. What will you give in exchange for the money?
3. Establish a date when you intend to possess the money.
4. Create a plan for carrying out your desires.
5. Write out a clear statement, amount, date and what you will exchange.
6. Read your statement morning and night.

“Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.” Voltaire 1694-1777

 Word count 2,150

CHAPTER FOUR: WORKING TWO JOBS / COLLEGE

Location: Beauty Shop Slaton, Texas 1960

Restaurant, Lubbock, Texas

Fall semester, I could have been the poster ‘‘green’’ freshman kid. The first day, I got lost looking for the registrar’s office at Texas Tech, in Lubbock, Texas and wound up in their agricultural farms. Eventually, I did find the registrar’s office and entered into the school of architectural engineering, the design option.

My parents helped pave the way for a job, washing dishes for Harold and Francis Medlock, owners of the Top of the Plains Restaurant. The restaurant was not fancy but it was on the top floor. The tallest building within a hundred miles in any direction, square in design had a commanding panorama from the twentieth floor with a landscape view best described as drawn with a ruler. On special events such as graduations, weddings or any occasion for a banquet, everyone headed for the large windows to look out. I learned to wash dishes in the devil’s hot water and was compensated with a late afternoon snack, supper and seventy-five cents an hour.  My schedule was to attend classes early morning, architectural labs in the afternoon and drive downtown at three to wash unending stacks of dishes I would never finish.

I got off work from washing dishes at eight pm, drove sixteen miles to Slaton, Texas,   where I would wash towels and push a broom at a beauty shop. Cleaning the shop earned me a room in the back. The shop was a house in a residential neighborhood.The accommodation consisted of a nonworking kitchen used for storage of beauty supplies. My room was sealed off with a 4’x 8′ sheet of raw plywood from the front part of the house. The bathroom was inside the beauty shop which required going outside by my side door and around to the front door to use the shower and toilet.

Finishing my first Saturday morning at the restaurant I drove back to my room. I felt moved in after three days. The worn key opened the old lock that must have had a million turnings during its lifetime. Entering the warm somewhat stale room, all was as I had left it. The small half bed made up with a quilt I had brought from home that had been made by a distant aunt was showing signs of many years of use. It was clean, soft and fading with the batting showing like the frayed seats in my dad’s old truck. It was good to stretch out on the bed. Looking up at the ceiling, the once bright colored wallpaper images of small groups of flowers were turning the color of old ivory punctuated with concentric circles of brown lacy water stains. Years of rainwater had made its way from the asphalt shingle roof into rivulets of water on a journey that would eventually bring some of it to the paper ceiling where it would be absorbed adding yet another layer of stains. An ancient oriental carpet with a half dozen worn spots covered the bumpy wooden floor. My room came with a dresser and a vanity, opening the dark well used dresser gave off a distinct smell of old from the twenties.

My door was open to add fresh air to my well organized space. On Saturday afternoons, the beauty shop was a bee hive of women. Almost every high pitched word spoken on the other side of the plywood wall was audible.  I put on one of the seven piano concertos records on my 45 record player to escape the noisy hair dryers and gossipy chatter.

I dozed off for a few brief minutes and woke up thinking about dad and the book he had given me. I decided to sit at my drafting table and read a few pages. I opened the book for the first time and discovered my father had written a few lines on one of the first pages, I smiled as I read. “Warren, I have dated this book March 26^th, 1960, not the date I gave you this gift, but the date  I told you that your mother and I loved you and  you would always be welcomed here. I was breaking your plate. Telling you I was breaking your plate was a rough day for me knowing you needed your wings and it was time. I love you and Charles so very much, both very different, but both good young men. Keep your faith for it will hold you together more than anything else in this world. Live life with courage and conviction and always be true to yourself. I am proud of the man you have become.

 Respectfully, your father, Loren Taft Cullar.”

I had a lump in my throat the size of a baseball and all I could do was stare out into the driveway. I was emotionally spent for a few moments. I took a deep breath, stood up and went into the kitchen, poured myself a big glass of water to wash down that lump. Walked out onto the small concrete porch and remembered dad and his brief farewell talk; he really hadn’t finished his thoughts in the broom factory until now. Sitting down on the cement steps, I placed the glass on the second step and opened the book.

What was it about this book that was so special to dad? I opened the book, read the chapter’s long introduction and the table of contents to familiarize myself with the writing. The book was full of quotes, interviews and self-examination. I was impressed by the fact the author had spent 25 years in research interviewing 500 of the wealthiest, looking for answers of how men think and grow rich. Returning to my drafting table the sunlight coming through the old slatted wooden blinds was making sun strips across the Texas flag I had thumb tacked to the east wall. I continued reading and without realizing it, I had started on a journey I am still on today.

One Saturday a month I worked at the restaurant cleaning the wooden slotted boards one stands on to cook and a trip to the roof to clean the grease trap, a most unpleasant job. The metal box that collected cooking grease from vents in the kitchen needed to be scraped clean. My only thought as I cleaned the smelly grease trap, it was not as bad as working in the city dump. Remembering, made the greasy work seem tolerable. Back in the kitchen I tossed my apron in the cleaning basket, walked down the hall and pushed the down button on the elevator.

Under a dim street lamp in the alley I fumbled with my keys and discovered that I never locked my car. I looked into the empty back seat. All my drafting equipment had been stolen. I pulled myself into the back seat and stared out the front windshield under the visor. I realized the thief had missed my drafting compass set lying on the floor. I had no extra time or money. The day I left Abilene for college I had a total amount of two hundred and fifty dollars.  My tuition took $50, books, gas and a few things for school took a chunk of my capital. Although I was taking home a whopping $18.75 dollars a week, a pack of Juicy Fruit gum was a luxury.

My freshman first semester was measured in hours of work, study, classes and then more of the same. If I were to add all of those hours for a day, each day would total more than 25 hours. It was during this period I started to slip; my grades were going over a cliff. Often I was so tired I did not study after cleaning the shop around ten o’clock. Life in the hamster wheel was going faster around and around. Weekends were full of things to do, washing clothes, study and architectural projects, odd jobs and church.  I was able to manage, but after months of the same thing over and over, I became so tired, lonely and discouraged. One night after cleaning the shop I locked up and slowly trudged around the corner to my room, the cold penetrating my bones. I sat on the edge of my bed my head in my hands, tears and sobs exuded from my body. There was nothing except exhaustion left inside of me. I pulled the covers back, kicked off my shoes and crawled in without taking off my clothes. The next morning I managed to get to class almost in a daze of mental anguish. I put myself on automatic and wash dishes for six hours. After we closed the restaurant, I pulled a small crate from under my sink, quickly stepped up onto the edge of my sink and opened the large sliding window. All I needed to do was to take one step into twenty stories of nothingness. I looked down into the blackness and was mesmerized by the changing tiny street lights. The kitchen door opened and Harold walked in still reading his evening paper. I turned as if I was cleaning the vent hood. Was I going to take that step out? I was scared. Instantly, I made a decision, I was going to improve my life situation and earn a college degree. I drove home on a dark winter road with a couple of inches of blowing snow, back to my room that was cold enough to hang meat in.

I stomped the snow off my shoes, pushed open the door which had collected a drift of snow at the threshold, turned up the gas stove, pulled on long underwear and two pairs of socks and piled on a second blanket. Lying awake for a long time, I watched the shadows dance on the ceiling from the gas stove and could see my breath in the cold room. I was feeling warm under the covers. I wanted better, something better.

I reflected on dad’s words while getting warm remembering the broom factory conversation. Dad told me that my desire to go to college was a good decision and working with my hands was good, but working with my hands and my mind was better. I was only washing dishes and cleaning a beauty shop. I wanted more.

Dad: “We don’t change until the power of changing becomes greater than the power not to change.”

Napoleon Hill: “Tolerance and an open mind are practical necessities of the dreamer today. The dreamers of today with the fire of hope, faith, courage, tolerance, and a burning desire can and will succeed.”

Word Count: 1,796

Foot note: Napoleon Hill and Think and Grow Rich