Bio for B. J. Brice

 I hope Mrs. Gresham is not looking down reading this or my English grade is in jeopardy again.  So here is the Readers Digest version of BJ Brice.

           After one year in Howard Payne, I decided that I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I grew up, so I joined the Air Force.  Actually I decided not to grow up.  I trained in Atlas missiles then moved on to Jet Engines.  Some where during that 27 years and some odd months, I visited 27 countries, taught Scuba diving, tried parachuting,  traded wives and spent most of 9 years somewhere in Southeast Asia.  I even ran across Marvin Brincefield in Thailand .  I became the Chief of Propulsion for the Strategic Air Command for 5 years, and that’s no job to make you friends but you can sure influence people.  After the inspection team, I was sent to Abilene TX . to get it ready for the B1-B Bomber.  The day #1 was delivered, I decided that my military fun meter was pegged out and retired before someone started calling me a lifer. 

          Actually as far as I got out was to move across the room to another office and come to work in a tie instead of a uniform.  Rockwell International needed some one to speak GI for the delivery of the 100 bombers.  We delivered all of the B1-B’s and after about 5 years things started to get slow so the company offered to move me to sunny Florida to be a Quality Engineer for Space Shuttle Engines.  Right here I must stop a long standing saying.  The reason that lots of things don’t take a Rocket Scientist to do “it” is because some of these fruit cakes can tell you how many nanoseconds it is to the sun but can’t find their car in the parking lot.  Guess it is a matter of priorities.  After 5 years of Shuttle, it was back to the B1-B for modifications in Abilene for about 18 months then to retirement in Florida .

          Once again, retirement lasted almost all day.  The hospital where my wife worked, decided that they needed a transportation department.  Looked like fun and who doesn’t need new Harley money. After 6 years, we had both had about as much fun as we could stand.  I retired, Linda finished her PhD in nursing, Texas Tech needed a professor, and so Lubbock here we came. 

          Now you all know that Lubbock is not really in Texas , it’s in “the Panhandle”.  It’s not pretty like Brownwood or actually any where else in Texas that is not in “the Panhandle”.  It is my theory that when God finally decides that the world needs an enema, the nozzle will be stuck in Lubbock Texas , probably on the Texas Tech campus.  I tried to adapt to the dirt storms and cold weather and nothing to do for about 6 months and finally took a job in Oak Ridge TN for about 6 months writing tech data for nuclear detectors.  Linda said I had been gone long enough and cancelled my kitchen pass so, I came home to lovely Lubbock , Texas (make that “the Panhandle”.

          Some of you may remember that I kind of like motorcycles.  When I got back to Lubbock , there was now a BACA Chapter. “Bikers Against Child Abuse”.  I had tried to start a chapter in Florida and failed, but the thing that I had been chasing for 5 years, was now in Lubbock .  I began BACA, trained to be a CASA (court appointed special advocate), got on the board of the Child Advocacy Center, volunteer at the Parenting Cottage, worked with the Children at Risk organization and what do you know, Lubbock wasn’t so bad any more.  Ok, I lied; it’s still bad, just not unbearable.  It only took me 63 years to figure out what I was supposed to do.  I was supposed to protect abused children.  That seems awfully long but what the heck, some people never find out.  (When you have a minute, check out www.bacainternational.org )  Nothing comes without a commercial. 

          I guess that’s about the whole thing.  It has been a fun ride.  I would change a lot of things but I will have to be contented with the fact that God forgives sins and takes care of idiots and GI’s.  A few things I learned along the way.  When you love someone, tell them often.  You don’t know when it will be too late.  Look at nature and know it didn’t get there by some cosmic accident.  No child should ever live in fear and it should not hurt to be a child.  Find an organization that is so right, that you not only will volunteer to do it for free but will spend your money to get it done.  Look around and find something to laugh about.  It can even be done in Lubbock , Texas.

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