After
high school, I didn’t have much contact with John Jr. (Squeaky). On one
memorable occasion he rode by my folk’s house on College View in Bryan; while I
was sitting on the front porch with a high school friend drinking a beer.
John
had already been indulging, so he joined us and we started discussing topics of
the day. John was very unhappy about the “busing” of students to achieve racial
balance. He launched into a very eloquent denunciation of this concept and
while waving his arms, lost his footing and fell into my mother’s hedge.
We
pulled him out of the hedge and he continued his oration as if nothing had happened.
During this time I learned that Squeaky had secretly placed a football goal
post on his grandfather’s ranch and had taught himself how to kick a football.
He
had never played in junior high or high school so I was amazed to see him
suited up with the Aggie football team during the pregame and booming kicks
through the uprights on Kyle Field. He was a walk-on and never got to play in a
regular season game; but the fact that he was willing to even try out for the
team showed his enormous courage and spirit.
It
was when I served as his campaign manager in the 1978 Democratic Primary, that
I became close to John and realized that underneath his surface he was a man of
great intellect, compassion and sensitivity. He was an original, completely
honest and devoid of any pretense or hypocrisy.
Despite
his natural shyness and other personal issues he was able to defeat a brilliant
young attorney named O.E. “Ed” Elmore, who had just moved to town and subsequently
became a successful and respected member of the Brazos County legal community.
John ran extremely well in the Black and Hispanic precincts and I believed it
was because those voters knew instinctively that John Jr. was a fair and
sympathetic man.
Our
local bar just observed the 6th annual Atticus Finch day, and in
retrospect John M. “Squeaky” Barron, Jr. had many of the qualities that made
Atticus Finch such an iconic linchpin for the legal profession. I appreciate
all the kind words and encouragement I have received for writing about Squeaky.
It has been very therapeutic for me to reminisce about him. As is often the
case, we don’t realize how much we care about certain people until they are
gone. Thanks for helping me to remember a very special man.
