JIM'S LITTLE HAPPY PLACE: Jim's Bio 002 (for 70th Class Reunion)

Thursday, October 14, 2021

Jim's Bio 002 (for 70th Class Reunion)

[click on most any picture on my blogs once, maybe twice, for a larger view]

Mrs. Jim and I helped to get us away from our port for a cruise, a 14-day Princess Cruise of New Zealand and Australia. We would sail down the east coast of New Zealand from Auckland, stopping almost every day to explore and do our sailing at night. See more from Princess Cruises (click here). Our cruise is not available right now, we also visited Tasmania and Melbourne on our way to ending at Sydney (area map).

Jim Hovendick -- http://jimmiehov.blogspot.com/

I was born October 30, 1933, in Burt Country, Nebraska, 7 miles northwest of Herman, on a farm up in the hills. Check this link for some pictures and stories, http://jimmiehov.blogspot.com/search/label/Jim%27s%20old%20home%20place . That was a long, long time ago. Way before we had electricity. Now we live west of Houston at Katy, Cinco Ranch, Texas.

My father made a living off that farm for the four of us, Mom (Marjorie), Sister Lois, Dad (Vernon), and myself. Mom was born in South Dakota but got to Nebraska as fast as she could. She was not a farm girl at all until she married my dad. Mom died in 1999 at age 88, Dad followed her in death in 2007 when he was 97.

I was the older kid, age five, when sister Lois was born. I had to give up my nice upstairs bedroom for her. Dad and Grandpa screened and glassed in the front porch for me. During the day it was a couch and two chairs out there, come bedtime the couch made into a bed for me. On the coldest of nights there would be frost on my blankets as the porch was not heated.

We kids went to a one room country grade school about a mile from home, there were always from six to ten kids there. At first I had a classmate for whom I was held back a year, but she left after the second grade for parochial school.

Lois and I shared a bicycle, we mainly rode it to school and to Grandma's house. It was a Sears girl's bike, Dad made a seat-lowering hook so that I could ride it for the second grade. When Lois was able to ride we took turns.

For the first two years of high school I rode our horse, Minnie, to another school, two room, in Washington Country. That was about three miles from home. There were three of us in class. In the winters I rode bareback to keep warmer. Minnie probably would have liked the saddle to keep her warm. My last two years were at the Tekamah High School. Dad bought a new Ford pickup and that was my school car on most days. I only had three wrecks during those two years.

After graduation I attended the University of Nebraska for a year and a half on a Regents Scholarship, in the spring I had taken the Regents Exam as I was in the top ten percent of our class. My experiences at U of N are too long a story for this page. A summary, I played too much Chess in the Student Center or at the local drug store across the street. One prof said he would have passed me if I had attended more of his lab classes. I was good, very good, at Chess

After dropping out of college, I stayed in Lincoln and worked at the Elgin National Watch Factory for three years until I got drafted into the Army. This was a fun three years out of school in Lincoln, Nebraska. A couple of us had a really fast 1934 Ford coupe modified stock race car, I dated some, hopped up my '52 Ford into a street rod that would beat all the stock Chevy's, bought a 1956 Ford Sunliner convertible new, got married, and was drafted, not necessarily in that order.

All five of my Army years were in Texas, the first eight weeks were spent at Fort Hood. The rest of my Army time was spent at Fort Bliss near El Paso. Gerald Rapp of our class was stationed there at the same time. My last three years were in electronics maintaining, operating, and repairing Nike Hercules Fire Control Systems. This experience and my 43 week Army School prepared me for 19 years of Aerospace Engineering at Fort Bliss, New Hampshire, and NASA Houston with the school and Army experience in lieu of a degree.

While I was working at the Manned Space Center Houston for Ford Aerospace Corporation as a flight controller and training person, I also finished my college. I first earned an Associate Degree in Pre-engineering, then a Bachelors of Science in Economics, and ended my education with a Doctor of Jurisprudence from the University of Houston Bates College of Law.

After getting the law degree and passing the Texas State Bar, I began to teach night Business Law Classes at San Jacinto College in Pasadena. In 1980 I quit my day job and began teaching full time for 22 years at the college as a Professor of Business. In addition to the two different law classes, I also taught Entrepreneurship classes and an Introduction to Business class.

I retired in 2001 to join Mrs. Jim (Arlene) in retirement. She had retired from school social work in 1999 when we moved from Friendswood (Texas) to Bentwater (suburb of Montgomery County). That was from the south of Houston metropolitan area to the north, about a 100-mile move. Bentwater is a golfing and boating community on the north banks of Lake Conroe. We didn't boat but did play golf on two of the golf courses in Bentwater and at local courses in Conroe.

In addition to golfing, I taught a senior couples Sunday school class, am a Baptist deacon now, kept up with my three Fords (a 1950 Tudor, Mom's 1974 Mustang II Ghia, and a 1998 Mustang GT convertible), and Mrs. Jim's 2011 Cadillac, travel several times a year, participate in men's activities in the subdivision, stayed active in the Montgomery Country Early Ford V8 Club, did ham radio things (Extra Class, presently licensed as K1TLT) since 1960, blog writing (meme stuff, poems, and pictures) and YouTube.

We moved again in the Fall of 2016 where we are near to our younger daughter, youngest granddaughter, and son-in-law. We live in Cinco Ranch, an unincorporated Yuppy community. The extraterritorial jurisdiction here is Fulshear, Texas, but our mailing address is Katy, Texas. Oh yes, I did sell the 1950 Ford at moving time. I guess I lost less than $1000 on that car.

My active blogs are JIM'S LITTLE BLOG (the main one), JIM'S LITTLE PHOTO AND POEM PLACE, and the newest one but seldom updated, Ask Dr. Jim (blog). I also have five other blogs that only get an occasional update. My YouTube is Jim1Jim1 on which I have 17 getting-old videos, almost half are of Adi. Adi was a beagle dog, she and I were a trained Therapy Dog Team where we tutored kids in reading and visited in nursing homes and in assisted living homes. Adi died September 17, 2012 as did Katrin, our toy poodle, a year later. Searching my blogs and/or a Google search will help you find writeups on my blogs.

Besides Mrs. Jim and me at home, we have five children and their spouses who live in the Houston area. One and her family lived in London (U.K.) for almost five years, 2009 to 2014. In addition there are six grandchildren, one at home still, another working in the Washington D.C. area, three work and live in Houston, one works in Colorado and California. Five of the adult grandkids and three of the kids are married (older daughter, Susie, lost her husband to the COVID-19 and heart complications early in 2021). We have four great-grandchildren and two great-great-children. No pets.

With me teaching and taking six weeks off in summers and Arlene having about ten weeks we were able to travel a lot. After we retired, Arlene in 1999 and me in 2001, we have traveled extensively. We have visited all 50 states and 76 countries. At first we traveled Europe by driving, ranging from Inverness, Scotland to Gibraltar to the tip of Italy to Berlin, Germany. With younger daughter living in London for her five years meant we had to visit her for long periods of time a couple of times a year. To avoid getting too badly on the family's nerves we would get away by launching trips around Europe.

Lately we have relented on the driving and turned more and more to cruising. We have cruised the Princess line for 15 cruises, 158 days, also a few other lines. My favorite was the Moscow to St. Petersburg River cruise back in 2006. It finished my short bucket list, China, Russian, and Alaska visits. Another favorite was from Dubai to Capetown via India and other places for five weeks including before and after land activities. See some of it here, 2019-20 Dubai to Cape Town . Our latest cruise was from Southampton, Britan, U.K. to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. A posts of parts of it, https://jimmiehov.blogspot.com/2022/11/letter-u-fridays-weekend-roundup-09.html . We had to cancel two cruises coming up which would have taken us right now into the Amazon River and another next year going through the Suez Canal. We have rescheduled the latter for 2024 (22 Day | World Cruise Segment - Holy Land, Turkey & Aegean Sea -- Dubai to Rome via the Suez Canal)