Who in the hell would be interested in the life of Tom Fitzgerald ? I can't even venture a guess, but here goes.
Two weeks after graduating from HHS in 58 myself along with Tony lacovelli and Billy Stare, found ourselves at Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Illinois with a Company Commander (the Navy's version of Drill Instructor) shouting in my face, informing me that I was a no good scroungy SOB that somehow managed to slip through the screening process and unfortunately made it into his company. While it would be a challenge he would do his damndest to mold me into a sailor.
With these highest of accolades I became determined that Commander Kluck ( no kidding, that really was his name) was going to be truly challenged if he was going to make me into a model sailor. As fate would have it after a week or so of double timing it around the gridiron with my Springfield rifle at present arms I probably should take the pressure off of Commander Kluck and conform to his wishes. The Navy was a blast. I toured Italy, France, Spain, Greece, Cuba and North Africa.
While the accommodations weren't exactly first class- they were sufficient and occasionally I would rescue a downed pilot or retrieve a body from a crashed airplane just to help them out. Once while in Livomo, Italy just before Christmas I was in an Italian jewelry store looking at a Swiss watch for my mother and thinking that the saleslady may give me a better deal if she thought that I was a paisano I told her that my name was Antonio lacovelli. She was elated and promptly closed the store and insisted that I go with her to meet some of my Italian cousins, aunts and uncles. I never tried that again.
In my next stint I found myself at the Univ. Of Mass. Majoring in Animal Science. There was a cute little Irish girl in my class that could ride a show horse unlike anyone I had ever known. She had a problem though of being a spoiled little Daddy's girl so I took it upon myself to direct my efforts to mold her into a caring, nurturing woman .What subsequently happened was that we fell in love, married and the day after graduation left for my first job at the Santa Fe River Ranch in Santa Fe, Florida. I was show cattle herdsman and horsebreaker. That year at Santa Fe I fitted and showed two of the top ten Polled Hereford heifers to sell in the U.S. They sold at auction for $12,000 each for which I was compensated $250.00 per months salary for my efforts.
My next job took Sue and I to North Georgia and the Lazy X Ranch where I was cowherd manager. Yeah, we were really getting up in the world with the big salary increase to $300.00 per month. This was fortunate for our first child was born in Canton. Ga. .The Doctor bill was $75.00 and the hospital bill was $175.00. I don't see how we could have ever paid that on our previous salary of $250.00 a month. We had chosen the name of Patrick Michael for our first child but Sue insisted that a little girl might prefer to go through life with a name such as Sheila Elizabeth. With our next two children the same situation occurred. Timothy Sean and Thomas H. IV became Kathleen Camille and Rachel Ellen. I can assure you that little girls do love their Daddy's for our daughters are now in their thirties and call nearly daily and end the conversation with I love you Daddy.
It was becoming apparent that when you hired on to a ranch, that whatever salary you agreed on was going to be what you got if you stayed there for fifty years so when the Double T Ranch approached me for the cowherd and sales cattle herdsmans jobs I didn't have to think about it very long. At Double T, I initiated an artificial insemination program to breed the bulk of our 800 cows. The program was successful enough to attract the attention of Codding Cattle Research in Okla. and NOBA in Ohio. The companies were involved in a joint venture to attempt to convince beef cattle ranchers that artificial insemination could work as well in their herds as it did in Dairy farming. Together the companies hired and trained me to evaluate and process bull semen for artificial insemination and ultimately travel the southern U.S. teaching other cattle managers and assisting them in initiating their own breeding programs. The purpose of this was to promote and sell NOBA and Codding products
This was an enjoyable job but an opportunity presented itself in Florida that inspired the cowboy in me and was impossible to turn down. A 100 square mile Ranch in Fla. was in need of a Purebred Operations Manager. The herd consisted of 2000 registered Santa Gertrudis cow., 500 registered Brahmans and 500 registered Herefords plus 40 registered Quarter Horse broodmares and 3 stallions. All of the cattle work was done horseback. Goodbye Codding/NOBA, hello Florida. This job was a dream come true and looking back the most enjoyable years of both mine and my family's lives. As nothing is ever perfect the flaw with this Ranch was such that I could not overlook it. We had two large airstrips on the ranch and the frequency of low flying aircraft at night was becoming increasingly greater . I'm not talking about Piper-Cubs but rather DC3&--alld DC 4s. It doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to figure out that our airstrips were being used by smugglers to deliver Columbian cargo with the permission of someone higher up than me. Aware that if they were to be caught Tom's ass along with whoever was allowing this would be hauled to prison made it apparent that a job change was in order. What's next?
My years with Codding/NOBA taught me technical skills that few people knew so we moved up to Georgia and with some financial backing from my parents and an understanding banker I formed Southern Genetics Laboratory. With a completely mobile laboratory I would travel to the farms and ranches ,fertility test their bulls before breeding season, collect and process semen from their superior bulls for artificial insemination and do pregnancy examination of their cows after breeding season was over. This venture grew to the point that my customer base ranged from Dover, Del in the north to Hialeah, Fla. in the south and west to Waco, TX. After constant traveling for 18 years and having my own cattle on three different farms in Ga. that Sue and the girls for the most part fed and cared for I made up my mind to sell Southern Genetics. One might think that after all of these efforts that I would have accumulated a fair bankroll but I can truthfully say that it was a living and not much more.
My riches come from a loving wife that put up with me and three wonderful daughters. I have been employed by the Univ. Of Ga. For the last eleven years as an Agricultural Research Assistant and starting to think about retirement, although not too hard. We have a stable and breed registered Quarter horses and a kennel of Jack Russell Terriers.
In reviewing this .........It hasn't been such a boring life after all.....
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