Take off your hat, I want to stand up.

Chapter 15: Texas.

Texas.

In the spring of 1962, Grandma Blair was diagnosed with breast cancer. This was a horrid disease which not many back in the sixties was about to walk away. In fact it pretty much was a death sentence.

Laetrile, peach pit cancer cure was the buzz of the cancer wards. It offered a sense of hope where non existed or could exist. Grandpa Blair would try anything to help relieve the pain and suffering of his loving wife. She was a good women and money was not going to stop him from trying every possible avenue of cure either real or imagined.

The clinic that offered the treatment was in Texas. The cost was substantial tens of thousands of dollars per treatment with no guarantee of success or indication as to the number of treatments were to be administered. It was an open ended question that was looking for an open ended wallet. It had scam written all over it, yet Grandpa put faith in the people and it looked like Jessie's only hope.

He bought the tickets, paid the upfront costs and flew down to the Texas clinic in early August of '62. While Jessie was resting in the hotel room Grandad went to the bar. He was high jacked by a couple of good old boys, who all of a sudden became his two best friends. They plied him with enough booze to loosen his tongue. They found out who he was, what he was doing in Texas, what business interests he had, how much money he had and a shoppers list of who, what, where and when. Granddad was laid open like a wide mouth bass.

They took a polished and practised approach to find out what Grandad was about. Grandpa was a talker, he was also a Christian, bible reading, God fearing honest man, who expected the same of others. He was a man of his word, a handshake would cement the deal, look a fellow in the eyes and know he was honest and could be trusted. This was the type of man Grandad Blair expected others to value.

Unfortunate.

Save today, he crowed too much, too long and too foolhardy to the wrong type of low down scoundrels. These were thieves bottom feeding flimflam men of disreputable concern. They had their fish. The hook was about to be jerked heavy, hard and firm.

As it played out, the cowards gained access to Grandma's hotel room. Then they kidnapped her, tied her up and threw her into the closet at another location.

They stated their terms for her return, threatening her with mortal harm if Grandad did not do exactly as instructed.

They sent Grandpa Blair home to Canada with just enough information and instruction for him to know his wife was safe for now. It would change if he did not play ball. They wanted money.

He was to fly home get $50 000, in cash, small bills and fly back, pay up and get his wife back. He followed their instructions to the letter. They said they would be watching him, he believed them. By this time he was paranoid and did not trust anyone.

He flew home, retrieved the cash from the bank. He stopped at his own home on Cameron street just long enough to sew the bills into his long under wear. He put on his only suit, which happened to be made of thick wool, flew back to Texas. He was so hot, itchy and head sick, because of the circumstances that he only thought of one thing, to get his beloved wife back in one piece.

Grandad paid the ransom. Jessie was free. In reality after three days locked in the darkened closet it took away Jessie's personality, rationality, sense of up and down. She became a different person all together. Jessie was not the same, she had suffered a complete mental breakdown.

My grandpa was never the same. He became mortally saddened. He never smiled, laughed or gibitzed around. The thieves stole his soul. They cheated our family by taking away our loved ones, Grandpa and Grandma.

There is no place sufficiently dark to repay the despicable thieves for their dastardly cowardly nature. The people who performed this kidnapping had the practised moves of common repetition, they had done this many times before and would have carried on after. This scam was like shooting fish in a barrel.

This made me think it was an inside job and prepared right down the line, from top to bottom. There was far too much organization and method to the process other than mere chance and happenstance would suggest. I would theorize there are other victims out there wondering what injustices shook their reality.

Grandpa never reported the crime, that in itself was a crime. The kidnappers planted the idea into Grandpas thinking that they had some one on the plane, watching his every move. So he told himself, do not make a false step or else she dies. Fear drove him to distraction, he followed their conditions. He followed them to the letter, as a result he won his precious wife Jessie back home, but at a tremendous cost.

The people who pulled this off are long gone and dead, good. Our family is fine. Grandma Blair passed on in the time shortly after Christmas of '63. The mashed potato tossing dinner time episode was the last time I saw her. She seemed genuinely happy at the time, it is nice to remember her from time to time. As my mom would recall she lived a good life, she was a happy person, except for the time she got her right tit caught in the old ringer washer, to hear mom tell the tale she screamed bloody murder. The depression era people often made due, suffered in silence, until a watershed moment changed the dynamics of life.

Time goes on and the simple things are recalled with fondness. Gandpa would quote some scripture and say life goes on, the lord is all knowing and good. Yet he wondered how airplanes stayed up in the air and sweated with the lads on big time wrestling.