Larry Walker, Jr., – A man of his ‘word’

Larry Walker, Jr., was such a huge presence/voice in this newspaper. Meaning he was such a huge presence/voice in this community.

There’s no way I can capture a legacy the size of the U.S., but I did want to go back through a good bit of our archived newspapers to revisit/capture a snippet, a drop in the ocean, of his legacy within these pages.

I so wished I could have found him in our first year of “bound” archives – 1931 – but then he would have been 11 and it would have been a rare find.

His birth announcement does show up in the March 12, 1942 edition. (He was born March 9, 1942, if you read his obituary in our Wednesday paper, you knew this.)

A graduate of Perry High School in 1960 (if you read his obituary you knew this, too) I did find him in that year’s bound edition. It was in a basketball picture: “John Matthews (43) Roberta’s prospect for college ranks, gets away a shot despite trouble from Perry’s Pierce Staples (23) and Larry Walker (11).” (Sidenote he would have found humorous: It appears from where his hands were that he probably drew a foul on the play.)

From there – the rest of that year – he shows up in box scores from time to time; doesn’t appear he was an offensive juggernaut with typically two points scored, but he did play for legendary coach E.P. Staples (924 wins and eight state championships). (Team photo with Walker in it: Feb. 11, 1960.)

To fast-forward some – because that’s a “lot” of newspaper pages and I’m on an early deadline this week – I first came across the “adult” Larry Walker, Jr., (I’m sure I missed a number of his accomplishments that were written about) on Jan. 6, 1990.

In that one, it says he is going to introduce a bill to create the Perry Area Convention and Visitors Bureau Authority.

As Perry’s first municipal court judge, Perry city attorney and state representative, no surprise he pops up all over the place from there; road projects, recognizing individuals for their accomplishments, et cetera.

One of the main things I was interested in finding when I set out on this journey was when he wrote his first column. It was Jan. 11, 2001. Perhaps appropriately, “My daughter, Wendy, and my new son-in-law, Bob, brought me from their honeymoon trip a 1942 ‘Life’ magazine.” The article was titled: “What’s life? A magazine,” and the whole article summed up just that. Great quote within: “Once, I asked a rich man how he got rich. His reply: ‘Selling out too soon and not taking a big enough profit.’ I understood. It reminds me of another. ‘Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.’ Good life’s lesson here.”

And so it went. “The summer of ’63,” about his “little turquoise and white Corvair” and experiences with friends Jerry Wilson, Jerry (Do-Tricks – guessing a nickname) Horton and Bobby Jones on an 11-week trip to Texas.

“Thank you, Perry’s mayors,” about just that – them and their historical accomplishments. “Things we used to have in Perry,” about things lost in town: “We used to have four automobile agencies … three drug stores … several ‘ladies shops’ … grocery stores …”

“Neither by accident nor because of entitlement,” with the theme “few positive community developments occur by accident or because we are ‘entitled’.”

The first column after I had taken over as managing editor; and I thoroughly enjoyed the years I was able to work with him. (And I speak for others who were here at the time and have reached out and said the same.) As personable as it gets. It was just a pleasure to just converse with him about nothing in particular.

The column: Jan. 26, 2008. The headline: “Traffic flows, water woes, taxing foes.” The first two paragraphs: “I was in Atlanta, last week, and said at a Department of Transportation committee meeting, which I chaired. A state representative, who shall go nameless, opined something about like this: ‘We don’t need to build commuter rail, because it will spur development along its tracks, and this will further intensify our traffic problems.

“I inquired: ‘Can’t you make the same argument about building new highways or adding lanes to existing ones’? His answer: ‘Yes.’ This exchange reminded me of what was said by that great philosopher, Pogo: ‘We have met the enemy and he is us.’ Pogo was a ‘possum’. Reckon’ the possum will survive humans.”

Maybe Mr. Walker, but a possum won’t have this, and neither will most of us: Week after week, column after column, hundreds, perhaps thousands. Who he was. Who he wasn’t. What he stood for. What he stood against. His sense of humor. His wisdom. His intelligence. 

Still alive and well in the hearts and minds and pages of The Houston Home Journal.