Back in my high school days in Beaumont, Texas we had the last of a grand old family pass away. Mrs. Phelan was the last of the Spindletop oil people to remain alive into the middle 1960s. She lived in her mansion, located at Calder and Eleventh street, where Saint Elizabeth Hospital now stands.

   I never knew Mrs. Phelan, but I knew her history of helping out oil company people when they had no money to pay Mr. Phelan. He was a grocer who gave them credit on a lick and a promise, until things could get settled in the oil patch. True to one man's word, a well blew in at the Spindletop oil field, making everyone richer than Croesus. The man whom Mr. Phelan supplied told him, if his well went through, he would give Mr. Phelan a share in the proceeds. The rest is history. The Phelans became rich beyond their wildest dreams.

   In 1966, Mrs. Phelan passed away at a very old age. That night as I was driving to my girlfriend's house across town in South Park, the news of Mrs. Phelan’s death was broadcast over KTRM, a local radio station. The disc jockey, knowing that the Phelans were devout Catholics, sent her soul to heaven with the Perry Como recording of “AVA MARIA”. Something told me to look north, toward the direction of the Phelan home. There before me, as Perry Como continued to sing, it seemed that the stars (in the shape of the great Milky Way), lowered down to receive the soul of Mrs. Phelan in her mansion. The thought that Mrs. Phelan ascended to heaven (via the Milky Way), sent cold chills up my spine. I knew there was an omnipotent GOD, in all His glory, taking Mrs. Phelan to her forever home to be reunited with Mr. Phelan once more.

   Today, I can't pace that location without the memory of that bright, white Milky Way as it appeared to this 19 year old boy, in the winter of 1966. The mansion was given to the Sisters for a residence, if I have my facts straight, and  it still stands, though hidden from immediate view by wings of the Saint Elizabeth Hospital.

   I now associate the Milky Way with death and the hope that all souls receive the entrance through the heavenly gates that Mrs. Phelan received back on a cold night in 1966.

More on other subjects later!