My Cousin Brandon Junior

One of the miracles of the Internet age is connecting to strangers that were once close to your own family, but you had never known. One such person who found me is Oliver (Bud) Guillot. Bud went to a small communi¬ty school in the western part of Lamar County, Texas. The little community was Shiloh and it was centered around the church and the school house. Several of my older siblings went to the Shiloh School along with Bud Guillot. Even though the community was small, Bud did not know my maternal grandparents who lived only about a mile away from him. It must have been a tight-knit community. Both Bud and my eldest brother John (known in my family as Jack), after com¬pleting the grades that Shiloh School offered, went to high school in Paris, the county seat of Lamar County. When WWII started, both Jack and Bud ended up in the military and were involved with planes--Jack with fighters and Bud with bombers. I guess they never saw each other afterwards.

I submitted a photo to The Roxton Progress many years ago and I wrote a story to accompany the photo. The photo showed my brother Jack just as he was released from a Japanese POW camp after surviving 3-1/2 years of brutal captivity by the Japanese after the American forces surrendered on the Bataan Pen¬insula in the Philippines on April 9, 1942. Someone showed the photo and story to Bud, and Bud did a bit of searching and found me. That was perhaps 30 years ago.

Bud is such an amazing fellow. He is still very active in many ways and is especially well known for his plumarias. (Try a Google search for “plume¬ria bud guillot”.) He is credited with developing and naming a new variety. Bud does wonderful painting, photography, and gardening.

Bud has recently written a story about one of his relatives. It is a story that he feels must be told, and he has allowed me to share the story with you. Here is Bud’s story:

This is a story I have long known needed to be written and I also realized that, if I did not write it, the story would never be written and lost forever, as so many great stories have.

Myrtle, one of my father’s 5 sisters, married when she was very young; I would suspect about 16. Myrtle married Brandon Adcock who was much older than she. Brandon was probably about the same age as Myrtle’s Father. During the dust bowl and depression years, Brandon was much more prosperous than the rest of the Guillot family. He owned and managed a real-estate business and owned a modest home in Paris (no, not that Paris, but Paris, Texas.) At that time none of the Guillot family owned real estate property; they were sharecroppers who lived and worked on cotton farms in the community of Shiloh.

Paris was a clean, nice, little city with a popula¬tion of about 10,000 residents. Paris was the county seat for Lamar County. The founding fathers, to mimic their namesake, developed a two-acre park in the cen¬ter of Paris, Texas with an extravagant and beautiful Paris, France-type fountain with cascading waterfalls. And—oh yes—many years after I left Paris they built their own Eiffel Tower north of town. Regardless of what Texans say, their tower is not as tall as the one in Paris, France. All the fashionable boutiques like Sears, Penny’s, S.H. Kress store, plus banks, drug stores and haberdashery stores circle the Park and Fountain. Most of the stores were constructed with bricks. About half of the stores, like banks and office buildings, were two stores high. The others were only one-story buildings.

When I was about 4 years old, Myrtle and Brandon had their first and only child. They named him Bran¬don Junior. Physically, Brandon Junior was a healthy, normal child but mentally he had problems. In my younger years I did not recognize that Brandon Junior was retarded. In those days there were no schools for the retarded. Brandon Junior never went to school. All his cousins, and there were many, tried to play games Brandon Junior could join. He was very nervous and jumped at every loud noise. One soon learned not to say “Boo” near him, and the popular children’s game of the time, Hide and Go Seek in the late evening when it started to get dark, was out of the question. From my vantage point, Myrtle was the strong one and worked with Brandon Junior and taught him to excel in the things he could achieve and did not fret about his limi¬tations. Brandon Junior loved and respected his moth¬er and never questioned or challenged her instructions or corrections to him. Brandon was kind to his son but there was never the love and closeness that Brandon Junior had with his mother.

When Brandon Junior was in his early teens and a big strong boy, he thoroughly enjoyed doing nice things for their neighbors. He did not have the mental capac¬ity to think of chores to do for neighbors but if he saw a neighbor trying to roll out a trash barrel he would run over and take out all their trash barrels and tell them he would put the barrels away after the trash had been picked up. If a neighbor started to mow his yard, Bran¬don would go over and take control and mow the lawn, sweep the sidewalk clean, and put away the lawnmow¬er. Brandon Junior’s father passed away when Brandon Junior was about 16. Myrtle always made sure Bran¬don Junior was dressed well with a long sleeve dress shirt and necktie, long dress trousers and freshly pol¬ished shoes.

Brandon Junior liked long walks and often walked to the park and stores in downtown Paris. He would never take buses. On one of those walks he went into one of the most exclusive, upscale men’s store in Paris and told the owner/manager that his windows were not very clean and that he would like to wash them. The owner was taken aback because his regular window washers had just done the job two days earlier. What a surprise that a young retarded man dressed as though he was going to church wanted to wash his windows. The answer was a resounding “Sure I would like you to wash my windows”. He took Brandon Junior to a building in the back of the store and said “Here are the window cleaning tools we use to clean our own win¬dows”. After Brandon Junior cleaned the windows, he went to the office to tell the owner. The owner reached into a drawer in the back office to pay Brandon Junior cash. He refused the money insisting the owner first inspect the windows to see the quality of his work.

A short time later, I was visiting Paris and stopped by the office to visit Brandon Junior and the owner told me the story and said Brandon did the best window cleaning job he had ever seen. He also cleaned up the sidewalk in front of his store and still looked like he was dressed for church. Brandon Junior asked if he could come the next day and clean the windows again. He told Brandon the windows would not need clean¬ing that soon but if he wanted a regular job, he could start on Thursday and clean them every Thursday. The owner wrote on a piece of paper the date and future cleaning schedule for Brandon. The other merchants on the circle with one story buildings started asking the Men’s store owner who was washing and keeping his windows so clean. After other store managers saw the quality on Brandon Junior’s window cleaning skills and dedication to a job well done, they started hiring him to wash their windows.

About every other year I would visit Paris and go by the men’s store to visit Brandon Junior. This was one plush men’s store. The back office and meeting room was just as luxurious as you could find in Las Vegas: large lounge couch, reclining chairs, small table, refrigerator, microwave, and TV. This was also Brandon’s office where he was graciously accepted and liked by all the employees and customers.

Brandon Junior loved lying back in this luxury and smoking a cigarette when not washing windows, going to the bank to get change for the store, or taking the days sales money to the bank for deposit. The Men’s store started dressing Brandon in their latest model suits and shoes. Brandon would be out washing win¬dows in a $250 dress suit and $150 pair of shoes. Bran¬don Junior was a great model for their latest fashions. The owner told me it was amazing that Brandon Junior could wash all his store windows and not get a drop of water on his fancy suit or new shoes. When I went to visit Brandon Junior he was always trying to sell me the very latest fashion dress hat.

You may ask why they trusted Brandon Junior, a very retarded man, as their bank carrier with all the store’s money transactions with the bank. Brandon was probably better known in Paris than the Mayor. The chief of police knew Brandon and made sure his dis¬patcher knew when Brendon would be going to work and going home in the evening. It just happened a patrol car would be assigned the same route, same time. The patrol officer picked him up as he was walking home and drove him home or to work in the morning. Prob¬ably the same police surveillance for the bank trips.

Brandon Junior used his hard-earned money on gifts for children. He loved the little ones but seemed to sense they might be frightened by him so he bought stuffed toys for them. When he would see a child and a mother walking down the sidewalk, he would take one of the new toys, still in the wrapper and run to catch up and give this gift to the surprised and happy child.

Myrtle passed away when Brandon Junior was about 40. The city wanted to put him in a long-term care facility but Brandon Junior objected and wanted to keep living in the home he had lived in his entire life. It was settled that he could stay in his home if our cousin Evelyn, who lived in Paris, would take care of his finances, pay all of his bills for him and keep his cupboards stocked with the foods he liked and be cus¬todian of Brandon Junior and his finances. Brandon Junior had money in the bank and did not need finan¬cial help from anyone.

The last time I saw Brandon Junior, the City of Paris had moved him to a long-term care facility. The facility was a large, spacious, one-story structure sit¬ting about 200 feet back from the street with no guard fences surrounding the place. When I entered the large community hall with lots of care givers/patients, I asked a staff member about Brandon Junior and she pointed him out. He recognized me and greeted me and immediately wanted to show me his private room. He was very proud of his room. He says “I would like to offer you a cigarette but they won’t let you keep them in your room or smoke in your room”. He took me back to the large community hall to a desk and told the lady in charge he wanted his cigarettes. She took a package out of his personal locker and gave him the pack. He offered me a cigarette, took one for himself and returned the pack to be locked away until he want¬ed another one.

As we talked he seemed startled and said “There goes Susie escaping again”. I looked in the direction he was looking and there was a small, frail lady walk¬ing on the grass and halfway to the sidewalk. Brandon Junior ran toward her and just before he got to her he slowed down to a walk and calmly put his arm around her shoulder and started talking to her. I could see he was gradually turning her as they walked and he soon led her back to the door she had just escaped from. A few minutes later Brandon says “There goes old Sam, he is trying to escape again”, same technique. Bran¬don soon had Sam back in the comfort and safety of the large community center. My Cousin Brandon had a twinkle in his eyes but that once strong body was shak¬ing and frail and as I left him. I knew we both were saying our last good-bye.