A new opportunity and the old man next door
Mr. Lawson was a retired English professor who loved God, guns, opera and the Houston Astros. He bought my first bicycle — a yellow Huffy with black handlebars — and even though we met before I started kindergarten, he quickly became a dear friend and one of the most important influences in my life.
He and his wife, Kay, didn’t have children of their own, but they had an affinity for the boys who rode their bikes and played pickup baseball games on the black asphalt of First Street in Jasper, Texas. My family lived in the house next door and my parents would spend evenings talking with the couple while sitting on the concrete steps between our homes. The Lawsons had a great love for teaching and soon they turned their attention to me.
Mrs. Lawson and I would sit at their small kitchen table and read the weekly Mini Page from the Sunday Houston Chronicle. Mr. Lawson would play opera from the living room and we’d talk about Shakespeare. As I got older, he taught me how to measure gunpowder and make bullets in a shop he converted out of his garage. And on warm summer evenings, my family would join them on the concrete steps, drink iced sun tea and listen to Astros games on his tiny black radio.
An avid reader, Mr. Lawson had an extensive library and subscribed to what seemed like every magazine ever published. Happily, he shared titles with me once he had finished: Smithsonian, Outdoor Life and Readers Digest. But, the magazine I couldn’t wait to receive every month was National Geographic. While Mr. Lawson filled my head with the writing, music and art of a world that existed well beyond our tiny town, it was in the pages of his National Geographic magazines that I got to see the world for myself.
My bedroom walls were covered with the maps occasionally included with the magazine. And I’d spend hours studying photographs, following the stories of exploration and exotic animals and dreaming about the world I’d yet to see. Years later, I still have every issue he gave me.
We moved several blocks away before I got to high school, but I mowed his yard every week during the summer and visited as often as a boy who was discovering girls and sports could. (Oh how he hated when he found out I liked Rock and Roll. “Simplistic and deafening,” I can still hear him say).
Mr. Lawson died on Halloween, 1991, six months after his wife of 62 years. I don’t know that I ever deserved the amount of attention he gave me, but there is no doubt I’m a better human being because of his mentoring, teaching and love. I will be forever in debt to him.
I’m telling this story now because I want my friends to know how important Mr. Lawson’s influence continues to be in my life—from my love of Shakespeare, the arts and baseball—and just how sweet it makes the news I have to share. Recently I accepted the position of Director of Design for National Geographic Partners. Working there is a life-long dream that started in a small town when I was five, thanks to slightly read magazines and a lot of life lessons from the old English professor next door.
