Senator John Tower

Houston – 1984

On David Letterman’s old NBC talk show, Late Night, he used to have a segment called “Brush With Greatness.”  He would invite audience members to tell tales of their encounters with celebrities.  There are clips of these segments on You Tube. 

Living with Dad, I had my own “Brush With Greatness” with Texas Senator John Tower.

When we moved into the mobile home in 1983, Dad was hiding out from the IRS. He decided to put the utilities in an assumed name.  It wasn’t a case of identity theft; it was just a fake name that he grabbed from nowhere.  The name he picked was Jack Blanton. 

I learned that Jack Blanton was a real person when I answered the home phone a couple of times and the caller was looking for Jack Blanton.  I was in college at the time; I typically had classes in the morning and worked at Kmart in the evening.

 The first phone call came in the middle of a week day. “Hello?” I answered.

A woman’s voice replied, “Senator John Tower would like to speak with Mr. Jack Blanton.  Is he available?” 

I assumed that the call would be some sort of recording where the Senator would ask for a campaign donation.  When you get a phone call for a name that you know is made up, you can be pretty sure that it is some sort of telephone solicitor. 

 “He’s not here right now.” I answered.

“Do you know when he will be back?”

“No, I really don’t.”

“Okay, thank you.”  She seemed confused by this answer.  I didn’t offer to take a message and she didn’t ask me to take one.  That confirmed to me that the phone call was some sort of effort to raise money for the Senator’s re-election campaign.  Senator Tower actually wasn’t running for re-election, but I didn’t know that at the time.

A few weeks later another call came in for Jack Blanton in the middle of a week day.

“Hello?” I answered.

A woman’s voice replied, “Senator John Tower would like to speak with Mr. Jack Blanton.  Is he available?” 

Again?  I decided to play along.  “I’m Jack Blanton,” I declared.

“Please hold,” she replied.

I waited for a moment and a male voice came on the line. “Uh, Jack?”

Oh shit! It’s a real person! I wasn’t aware of what Senator Tower’s voice sounded like, but the voice on the line had an East Texas twang to it.  “Yes sir?” I replied.

“Jack, we’re looking for someone to head up a fund raising committee to for the campaign against Lloyd Doggett.”  Crap!  This is the real deal! I’m on the phone with U.S. Senator John Tower and I’m pretending to be someone who doesn’t exist.  I later learned that Lloyd Doggett was running for John Tower’s Senate seat as the Democratic Party nominee. 

“Well, Senator, I’m pretty busy these days.  I don’t think I have the time to do anything like that.”  Get me out of this phone call!

“Jack, it’s very important that we get this committee going in Houston and we’ll need someone like you to help us out.”

“I’m sorry sir, but I’m a college student and I’m working a full-time job.  I just don’t think I’ll be able to do this.”

The conversation paused just slightly, “I think I have the wrong Jack Blanton.”

“Yes sir, I think you do to,” I replied.  With that, I was no longer on the phone with Senator John Tower.

I thought to myself, Who the hell is Jack Blanton and where did Dad come up with that name?

Dad swore that he picked the name at random.  I can only guess that Dad saw the name somewhere and it bubbled up from his memory when he picked a name to use for his phone, gas and electricity bills. 

We didn’t have the internet back then, so there was no way, other than going to the public library, to research and try find out who Jack Blanton was. I didn’t do that, but a couple of more clues came my way. 

The first clue was something I spotted in a business journal in the lobby of the Sugar Creek National Bank in Sugar Land. I was scanning the magazine while waiting and came across a full page ad for Texas Commerce Bank.  The ad had headshot line drawings of each of the bank’s directors on the Board of Directors. Oil Executive Jack Blanton was there.  The second clue about  Jack Blanton came to me at another time and place, I don’t remember where, but I learned that Jack Blanton was on the University of Texas Board of Regents.

John Tower died in a plane crash in 1991 and Jack S. Blanton died “peacefully in his Galveston vacation home” in 2013.

Lloyd Doggett is currently serving as a representative in the U.S. Congress from the Texas 35th District.