The Boy from Stonewall

[November 25, 2024]  His name was ”Lex” Walker, and he was from Stonewall, Texas, the same town as the late President Lyndon B. Johnson was from. I didn’t make friends easily in those days.  Maybe it was my outstanding personality (that’s sarcasm) or the Brylcreem hair gel that I used on my head that made me so popular. Nope!  Actually, I was a little bit introverted, especially around girls and young women.

My first year in High School was tough, and adjusting to bigger, older, more athletic boys was scary in our new hometown.  But I was fortunate to have a Senior Year classmate from Cooper High sort of adopt me and act as a mentor, teaching me how to appreciate what I had, the need for good friends, and occasionally how to chase off a bully. And there was never a shortage of bullies who wanted to show the girls how tough he was.

I thought “Lex” was a science genius because he would ace all the tests in Chemistry.  But, no, he had a suspicious way of getting top grades; he cheated. How our teachers couldn’t figure this out was puzzling, but our classmates didn’t seem to care. Maybe his teachers knew and didn’t care either.  It took me a long time to catch onto his not-so-legit way of getting good grades.

Well, there was nothing like being in Mr. Chaffee’s “Advanced“chem class because students could handle all the equipment and materials, and we did. We learned which materials were the most dangerous: acids burn your skin, nitrogen compounds can explode (we thought this was cool), and some would catch on fire easily. We learned why, and that is what ultimately attracted me to Chemical Engineering in college.

At the time, I couldn’t describe Lex. Today, I might call him a closeted narcissist, but at the time, he was just the coolest guy in class. We’d do the very things Mr. Chaffee told us not to do. When Mr. C. was out, hevwould get mad.  Our favorite act was to get a small piece of sodium from the oil jar, throw it on the floor and stomp on the sodium. It went pop and we all laughed until one day Tex cut off a large piece. We didn’t laugh when he had to be sent home to change his pants and get another pair of boots. Sodium plus air (oxygen) plus water (also oxygen) equals student entertainment.

I liked it when Lex showed off to the few girls we had in this course. He breathed in Helium and talked like Daffy Duck. He poured liquid oxygen on a lit cigarette. And he put a snail in Sodium Chloride (aka table salt) to see it shrink. His antics earned good ole Lex a few half-day school suspensions and a note from the principal about classroom etiquette. Tex, being himself, laughed it off. What would petrify us, he took in stride.

So, why am I writing this about Lex? Looking back, it would be hard to believe that Lex could succeed with his “humor,” his rule-breaking modus operandi, and his adoption of the weakest in class like me. But Lex did succeed. He did a tour in the U.S. Marines somewhere in Vietnam, worked later in the oil fields, and then got married and had a bunch of kids.  I lost track of him for a couple of decades until his wife contacted me out of the blue.

Lex had joined the Texas Rangers, and his personality fit perfectly. He would rise to some higher rank and prestige in law enforcement as he specialized in drug interdiction and the smuggling of young women. His wife and I laughed about how our two paths in life had diverged in our chosen professions. He remained in Texas and retired to a small ranch north of Ft. Worth, where he raised cattle and a flock of children.

Later, he would take in troubled kids for a two-week stay. Hard work, learning cowboy skills like roping, and living closely together in a barracks (teaching them how to get along with others) were his promise to change the kids for the better. He would tell them about his past in school and they listened and sometimes laughed. Sadly, Lex was killed in an accident when his horse threw him, causing a catastrophic brain injury.

Lex, you da man. I’m glad I knew ye.

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Please read my books:

1. “55 Rules for a Good Life,” on Amazon (link here).
2. “Our Longest Year in Iraq,” on Amazon (link here).