JOLENE WRIGHT MCMASTER’S 40-YEAR JOURNEY—MORE THAN A NUTSHELL BUT LESS THAN A BOOK. (If it’s too long, just click out of it. Fair enough?)
Summing up the past 40 years with a single word really—Mmmm…“challenging” comes to mind. I’ve always enjoyed pushing the envelope ever since doing something totally out of character in my junior year at Jones, running for Vice Admiral of Records in Commodores—and winning. For a shy insecure wannabe tomboy, the winning part surprised me more than words can say—and I won it because “they” loved my essay on why I wanted the position. Of course, once I won, I had to live up to it. The rest of my life people have told me I should have been a writer. Sorry I missed all those days I could have had working on the Jones papers and yearbooks with many of you—but I just didn’t know I was creative.
For many years my writing consisted mostly of office memos and working my way up from legal secretary, to paralegal (there really wasn’t a term for it in those days). I was a legal secretary who specialized in medical malpractice work. (I loved the big words.) I’m so thankful for my wonderful English teachers, and especially Mrs. Batek for her terrific teaching skills. I was so enthralled with English classes I immediately enrolled for more at the U of H, beginning the summer of ’62.
By early ’63 I was married to a ’60 Jones graduate and we were living near the Naval bases in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. I loved my year in the NE, attended U of New Hampshire for a couple of semesters. I also loved coming back to Texas—and never really left again. My daughter Charlotte was born about 9 months and 2 weeks after getting married. Whew! She has two birth certificates. One says she was born in Kittery, Maine, and the other says Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Bureaucracy was as bad then as now—well maybe not.
Julie was born two years later, and Laurie Leigh, two years after that. By the time Laurie was three, I was divorced—a single mom, no child support—life got really challenging. I don’t recommend it. By then I had worked my way up the law firm ladder to the position of legal administrator, a glorified name for law office manager, managing a 28-attorney law firm with 50 staff for about 16 years in downtown Houston. In 1979, I married a really great guy (though not the easiest to live with)--a district court judge (criminal court), and we enjoyed life, while also dealing with some very tough problems. All my girls loved the music and drug scenes, starting in Spring Branch schools, and later around Austin (where my parents had moved) and they experimented to extremes—didn’t every teenager in the ‘70s and 80s? My youngest however did more than experiment while in college at Southwest Texas. She dropped out of school in her 2nd year and moved to Austin’s 6th Street. I really thought she would die there—but gratefully God spared her—her best friend wasn’t so lucky. After many years of heroin, and denial, she finally experienced successful recovery at a rehab hospital here in Houston. Now 6 years later at age 34, her life is sober. She has married, has a beautiful home in the inner city—she and Andre completely restored it. Andre is a wonderful husband—a skilled and creative cabinetmaker—they have three beautiful children—all within 6 years. I have 10 fine grandchildren altogether ranging in ages from one to sixteen—5 girls and 5 boys. Charlotte’s a stay-at-home mom, and Julie is a single-mom, working and raising her four children. She just had to one-up her mom.
But I’m getting ahead of the story. When everyone else was buying a house, as a single mom living in a Spring Branch apartment, I bought a 26-foot sailboat. It was my salvation. I loved it. Had many terrific weekends at Watergate and on the waters of Galveston Bay and the Gulf, and met some truly wonderful people along the way. When I D and I married I sold the 26-footer and bought a 32-foot ketch, and then a 37-foot sloop, which we actually chartered on weekends. She was christened ISLA MIA. My sailing period ran from about 1976 until the early ‘90s, and also included the scuba diving and bill fishing periods. Favorite sailing and diving spot: the coast of BELIZE!
In 1990 I entered my entrepreneurial period—and I’m still there. It’s been like walking a tightrope without a net. I.D. and I divorced. Not believing in reincarnation, I had to pursue my dreams. He kept the bay house. I have a townhouse in the Galleria that I share with my significant other and partner Rob McKinnon, originally from Boston, an honors graduate from Boston University with a degree in Film and Broadcasting. My favorite past times have gone from reading, motorcycles, underwater photography, and sailing to still photography, reading, writing, movies, and volunteer work in the Arts. I’m on the boards of Women In Film & Television/Houston, and a new film festival non-profit for downtown Houston called Festival of Dreams which will be an annual event at Angelika Film Center (once we raise the money), and on the auxiliary board for TALA, where I chair the film club for Texas Accountants & Lawyers for the Arts, and co-chair their annual Texas Filmmaking Institute. Rob and I provide movie reviews for our website, www.iten.net, or www.watchingmovies.com. The site also includes in-depth audio interviews with interesting people.
The law firms and my marriages gave me ulcers, so I gave in to my creative side—and surprise, no more ulcers. Producing a daily radio show for three years was a thrill a minute but absolutely no security in it. Glad for the experience, but also glad to be out of it. We recently produced an award-winning (for creative use of music and for writing) video for Houston-Galveston Area Council working with Houston’s gang kids, entitled CHANGING COLORS. The preservation of jazz and blues is important to us. Last month we did an interview with B. B. King from his tour bus which will be a part of the concert documentary were producing on Houston’s living blues legend Calvin Owens (though few in Houston know of him). He has a 15-piece blues orchestra right here in Houston—after returning from 13 years in Belgium in ’98. He was B.B.’s bandleader/composer/arranger for many years until 1984. We’ve also incorporated our feature film company, Pure Horror Films, Inc. I’ll produce, Rob will direct, write and score, and we’re looking at scripts from others—mostly the thriller/horror genre. The plan is to produce Texas-based movies with budgets around $3 million. Why horror, you say. Well, Rob’s love of horror has been life-long and influenced through his study of the writings of H.P. Lovecraft, the author who truly represents the very best in American literary horror. Plus horror films make money for their investors. It’s a win-win: We get to do what we love, and the investors make money. We’re not talking slasher films, but good psychological horror, you know, Psycho, The Exorcist, and more recently, The Sixth Sense, The Others, and Jeepers Creepers, to name a few. Good versus evil has always intrigued me.
I do love this, my creative period—and believe it will keep the two of us challenged and vibrant for the rest of our days—which I pray will take us at least into our 90s, God willing. It’s great to finally have an answer to that question that’s haunted me all my life: What do you want to be when you grow up? It’s been quite a trip. I admire those who knew their destiny from their early years, but I needed variety and adventure to get there. I still welcome it. My email address is iten@flash.net. I’d love to hear from you, and hope to see you all during the Friday gathering of the class of ’62.