Everybody has Special People in their lives. Some we know only for a brief moment, some for a short time, others for a lifetime but there is just something about some people we run across in life that makes them very Special People. These are just but a few that have touched my life that I'd like to share with you.

Click on photo to enlarge.

I met Lewis Vernon "Doc" Atchley when I moved to Granbury, Texas from Fort Worth in about 1987 with my son Daniel, who was a little past three. We were staying with my sister and her husband until we got settled and my sister met Doc and introduced us.

I instantly took a shine to Ole Doc. Daniel and I soon found our own place. Doc and I both being single at the time and having a lot of the same interests found ourselves hanging out and enjoying each others company a lot.

I'm probably the biggest boxing fan in the world. I discovered Doc had been a boxer from a young boy until a man in the service where he became ill and had to retire. There probably wasn't a single boxing match on television that I wasn't at Doc's house or he at mine enjoying the bout.

Both of us being two samll town Texas boys from the same kinds of backgrounds and having so much in common we'd spend days on end telling lies (well hey, that's what Texas Good Ole Boys do!) and male bonding and building a friendship that will last for life.

I had a boat and we would enjoy early morning boat rides down to the slip and tie up and eat breakfasts at McDonalds. At times we'd get in the boat and go out and shut it off and just drift for hours sometimes talking and sometimes not saying anything at all just drifting and watching the scenery go by with our own private thoughts.

I was studying Martial Arts and spent several nights a week at the Dojo in Fort Worth. During that time I became pretty heavily involved with what was then called THIF (Texas Head Injury Foundation) and another program for Head Injured People starting up with my friends George and Marie Bolden and Darlene Plyter and her husband Larry.

Ole Doc and I being thicker than thieves and doing so much together I somehow got him involved in the world of head injury. I introduced him to a lady social worker I knew, Jo Ann (see photo above) who would soon become his Blushing Bride and Much Better Half.

At this point in this story to save a lot of bandwidth there is a story I wrote about Doc and Jo Ann on their Home Page on the Congregational Corner Page under the header "Excuse Me" that would fit right in this paragraph. Or you may learn all about them by visiting their Main Page by clicking on the blue banner at the end of this story. Stop by and pay them a visit and sign their Guestbook, The Garden of Peace.

After the story of how all our lives came together in the story in the afore mentioned paragraph Doc and Jo Ann Moved to Galveston on the Texas Gulf and for about five years we saw each other only on rare and all too short visits.

Now they live in Azle northwest of Fort Worth about an hour and a half drive from our house and we visit frequently. Daniel says it's his favorite place to visit.

Doc likes to work with plants and has a lot of built up wooden walkways, raised flower beds, hanging plants, lighted alcoves with statues and a quaint Chapel and it looks like an Oriental Garden. Daniel says it reminds him of the Temple in the old television series, Kung Fu.

Doc has a little library and Dan usually comes away with a few books. Jo Ann's Hobby is doing Southern Cooking (that's obvious by looking at pictures of Doc and I) making that another bonus reason it's Dan's favorite place to visit. He really enjoys Doc's Sunday Service in the quaint little Chapel.

We spend lots of weekends at their house enjoying camraderie. Often one of us will visit the other for a short daylight visit and end up spending the dark together. When our household has emotional turmoil a phone call and two hours later Doc and Jo are here to Calm our Troubled Waters. They are truly our Special People.

Doc and Jo you really are our Special People and Daniel and I love you with all our heart.

Myself entering the world of Webtv and the Internet a year ago I maybe "encouraged" the Loveale Ole Ganunchel Doc into Webtv. When I finally convinced him into getting a Home Page he said, "I don't want anything but a plain grey page with nothing fancy on it." With a little encouragement I've gotten Doc and Jo work on and edit their own page now.

Jo Ann is even starting her own page. Click on this link Jo Atchley SocialWork Network Center bookmark it and watch the progress as it unfolds. Doc is putting his Sunday Sermons on his Inspirational Sunday Sermon Page now. Give it a read.

Click on the banner below to see what really Special People they are and while you're there sign their Guest Book and tell them ogie sent you.

Being a truck driver I had the radio on all the time. I used to hear Walt Rayburn's records all the time as he was quite popular locally. It seems that many days as I was pulling into the driveway, coming from work, the radio would be playing one of his songs. Of course I wouldn't leave the car until it was over and would call my wife out to hear it.

Being an aspiring song writer I noticed he wrote he most of the records he put out. His background tracks were Killer and were filled by some of the best studio musicians on the West Coast. I would often think, "Gee, I would love to get to know this man."

To my total astonishment my phone rang one day and I picked it up and it was Walt introducing himself. He said, "I've been hearing songs being sang in some of the local clubs and house jams and when I ask them about it they say you wrote it and I've been wanting to meet you." I told him, "You're one of my heroes and I've been wanting to meet you for a long time." We meet that evening.

Walt and Dee, arrived in a long Caddy. He was wearing cowboy boots and ornate western slacks and shirt complete with the ornate western belt and lagre buckle. I may have been about 27 and he was 50. After a very pleasnt visit of getting to know each other and them leaving my wife said, "Boy, won't the neighbors be buzzing about who's big Caddy that was sitting in our driveway?" I had no thoughts of that I just knew I was going to take a real liking to these folks.

I learned that he had come from Oklahoma and worked in the oil fields in his younger days, had two adopted sons, and played for barn dances and road houses for years before moving to California. He had a song he wrote stolen from him and recorded and it became the song of the year, I believe in 1947, "I Hate Myself."

We instantly became very close not only on our shared intrest of the love of song writing and picking but on a real personal level. It was not uncommon for him to call me, or vice versa in the middle of the night to say "Come over" or "I'll be over" to either write or just talk and share feelings wheather it be that we were up or down.

Walt had the ability to say more in one line of simple words than most can in a book. My strength was in tunes and with a combination of his words and my tunes we wrote songs that still stir my soul today.

On his second visit we were talking and he said, "I guess if a man could see as far ahead as he could see behind, we'd be better off." I said, "That sounds like a good title to a song." He said, "Yeah, I've written it three times and I can't come up with what I want yet. If you can write it take a shot at it." We collaberated on it and that was the first song I had recorded.

I called him one night and told him I was writing a song about a man that was in the Arizona Desert and came across a crumpled ruins of an adobe house with three graves nearby and camped there overnight and was trying to figure the mystery of the story as if the walls could talk. I said, "I've gotten him through the night but I'm stuck on how to get him up and started on the next verse." That's when he knocked me out with his writing talent when he wrote the next two lines:

Up at daybreak, craving coffee.
Looked for wood to start a fire.

Coming from a broken home and not being around my father but very little in my life and my mother being deceased for a few years besides being pals to hang out with there became a feeling of parental love and I adopted them as surrogate parents to go to for advise and counseling when I felt down or insecure about something.

Since a small child I had dreamed of hearing a song I wrote played on the radio. I had the wonderful fortune of hearing the first one and realizing my lifes dream and sharing the exerience with my hero co writing it with me, one of the biggest moments of my life.

One day the phone rang and and Walt said, "Are you alone, and are you going to be alone for a while?" I said, "Yes, my wifes out shopping and will be gone for a few hours." He said, "I'll be right over I need to talk and there some things I want to tell you."

After our usual cordual greetings he said, "I'm dying and theres some things I want to say to you before I go." He said, "All the years of my life good and bad theres only one thing I regret not being able to do in my lifetime." When I asked him what that was he replied, "Being able to adopt you as my third adpoted son." What bigger compliment in my life could I ask for?

I had the priviledge of loving this man for five wonderful years before his death of lung cancer just two months after our conversation.

Shortly after Walt's death my father called and asked if he could come visit. I hadn't had any contact with him since I was about twelve. He and his wife and my wife and I went to dinner and visited. He said, "I know I haven't been much of a father and we have never been close and I would like for us to get close now." I never really like my real father in his lifetime due to his personality. I told him, "I had a friend that just died and in addition to feeling he was a best friend he felt like a father to me and that feeling of having a father has been fullfilled in my life and he's gone now so with no disrespect, I'll pass."

Shortly after Walt's death I was divorced. Dee had been in a terrible car wreck years before and had one leg that was full of rods, pins and screws and some days she could walk on it and others had to have a crutch to get around. After Walt's death it was unsaid but realized I just called her Mom from then on. On the days she couldn't drive due to her leg bothering her I would drive her around and she was my rock for the next four years until I moved to Texas. After moving we stayed in constant close touch with a letter or phone call every week or two until her death in 1980. She made me a large Afgan that is still in use today. Everytime I cover up with it I can go into a restful sleep feeling like Mom has put me to bed and has me wrapped in her arms.

Walt once said, "Sometimes when I'm with you I feel by being quiet and saying nothing I can express my love for you far more than words could ever express. From now on when I say "Words" you'll know how I'm feeling." Needless to say we nearly wore that word right out of the English Language.

Twenty years have passed since I've seen these Special People and at times I find myself still speaking aloud to them feeling they are sitiing next to me. I find solace knowing when they left this plane they KNEW someone loved them with all his heart.

Boy gets to not only meet one of his heroes but gets to share one of the greatest loves of mankind with him, could you really ask for a story with a better ending than that?

Walt, "Words." Mom, "I love you."

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