I thought I might as well bite the bullet and let everyone see my little belly, plus, the beautiful lady I stays with , my wife of 44 years, Sally. Don Allen Below: My daughter, Melisa, and the old man last Father's Day (2005).

I hope this doesn't bore you to tears, but if so, I'm sorry.  After our senior year, which was miserable for me, I went to Texas A & M with Earl "The Pearl" Cooper and we were roommates until Cooper got mad and moved out on me.  The summer after my Fish year at A&M, I worked on a pipe line with Burl and Bill Kirby, Larry and Joe McWilliams, Larry Hendricks for a while and a bunch of misfits just like us.  They all were going to North Texas at the time and since I couldn't afford A&M @ $365 per semester, I transferred to North Texas @ $69 a semester which included the annual.  I roomed with Frank Snow for a time until he got married.  I am forever indebted to Frank and Sue for feeding this poor soul during some lean times.  Frank and I have been in touch ever since then.  I graduated in 1962 with a BBA degree in marketing.  I married my wife Sally that same year and then was hustled off to the Army one month after the wedding.  After I was discharged from active duty, I went to work for Crawford and Co. and they sent us to Los Angeles, green as gourds.  That job was not for me, so we returned to Dallas in 1965 and I worked for a Shamrock Oil & Gas distributor until 1972.  Our daughter, Melisa Leigh, was born in 1966.  I went to work for a friend of mine in a used truck and auto parts company and we formed a separate company called Bishop Truck Parts, which my friend and I later bought.  My partner died of leukemia in 1991 and knowing he had little time to live, he sold me his part.  Our main business was used trucks and truck parts for export.  I traveled Mexico, South America (mainly Colombia, which I could write a book about) and Europe.  Business was great and life was good until 1997 when all the countries, at the same time, developed problems regarding their imports and I came close to folding up my tent.  That's when my partners son, Bart, came of age and wanted to be involved in the truck parts business.  It was a God send.  We became equal partners and have been growing ever since.  Bart is thirty six and I'm sixty five.  A match made in heaven.  Sally and I adopted our son, Jason, in 1981 at the age of four.  He was a ward of the Dallas County Child Abuse Program and he has made a fine young man.  Melisa is a dental hygienist and  has two daughters, Maggie and Mallory.  Jason is a computer engineer for Southwest Airlines and has two sons, Jaycee and Jackson.  Sally and I will celebrate our 42nd anniversary this November.  I do not think I will ever retire from work, just cut back on days.  I have certainly been blessed and I am thankful for every day of life. Below: The first one I'm telling my son in law he doesn't know the first thing about lining up a putt, the next one I had a senior moment and got lost on the course and the third is what I love to do most of all.