My Redacted Life: Chapter 15 (Cont._2)

It was sometime during early 1972 that we began amassing one of the most amazing group of young professionals ever known in our city. With an engineer’s name on the wall now, we needed an engineering tech. The boss told me to look. He only interviewed secretarial staff himself by then.

It was an easy job I had. Need a skilled civil engineering drafter and tech? Just let the word go out to the Arkansas Highway Department. (Yes, in one of the cruelest acts of linguistic mendacity our state has ever known, they later added “Transportation” to the title, but that's for another day.) Anyway, they tended to pay staff less than did the private sector. Cherry-picking experienced and skilled people was easy. The department changed salary policies later to stem the outflow, but this was now, not later.

It wasn’t long before I received a call for an interview from an employee of that very department The caller sounded like a sincere young man, so I said, “Come on in.”

Next morning, while all the bosses were away, the receptionist buzzed that a man was there to see me.

That’s when I met Ron McConnell.

He wasn’t much over 20 years of age, a pleasant looking man with spectacles and a friendly face. I took him into our conference room for an interview.

Was he what we were looking for? Hell yes. He had worked for the highway department for some time doing exactly what we needed. He was modest, erudite, and pleasant. I had no way of knowing at the time, but his abilities and talent were beyond exemplary. He was a native of North Little Rock. He had brothers and had grown up middle-class and eager to learn. His dad worked at Horace Terry Pontiac, the dealership across the street from my first apartment.

I felt as if I knew him already.

As I mentally congratulated myself on my good and great fortune, he lowered his voice and studied his hands. “There’s one problem,” he said.

“No, no, not a problem,” I thought. “We don’t need problems. We need an engineering tech.” What could it be? A felony record? Unmanageable fits of violence? Was he about to be drafted? No, that couldn’t be it. They had stopped that cruelty by then.

I sighed and asked what the problem might be.

“Tom Hodges is a relative,” he said. I think maybe he said a third cousin or something like that.

“Hell,” I said. “No problem. Everyone knows you don’t bring your kids into a business, but cousins? It ain’t no big deal.”

He frowned. “It’s this way,” he said.

“What way?”

“Tom asked me to come to work for him when he started this company,” he said. “I turned him down.”

I took a deep breath. “It might be a big deal. I said. I said it ain't no big deal, but I meant to say it might be a big deal.”

At least he wasn't a
felon or draft-dodger,
and being the Boss's
cousin doesn't make
a boy all bad.