Brother No. 2

Born on March 31, 1944, my brother, Danny, made his entrance. Danny actually is a Junior. My Dad did not want him named after him but my mother insisted and they agreed to call him by his middle name. It would be a bone of contention at different times. When his first child was about to be born, he decided there would be none of that. He told his wife, Anita, that he would pick the boy's name and she should pick the girl's name. He selected Lawrence Scott and planned to call him Scotty. He thought he had it covered until his daughter, Danielle Marie, was born. I guess he was out-maneuvered.

Danny was always the center of "something". He was smaller than older brother, Jimmy. There were some health issues in his life. He was born with an enlarged thymus. This makes it difficult to breath, chest pains, fatigue. it was not possible for him to participate in organized sports. That is too bad because, of all the brothers, he was the most interested in sports. Always thought he could have been a punter. He could drop kick a football over our house. See attached picture of said house.

He also attempted drop kicking one over the second floor of our grade school.  When he was younger, but after I was born, he was isolated in a hospital with what they concluded was a mild case of polio. I recall this but was pretty young. I remember looking through a glass at him in the hospital. Then, there was the whole emergency appendectomy. He looked hale and hardy but these underlying conditions weakened him physically.

Danny was the child that could wrap anyone around his finger: Parents, grandparents, teachers - but he didn't have to try. He had a magnetism about him throughout his life. Never knew a girl or woman whose head wasn't turned by Danny. He didn't act as though he was aware. My mother-in-law met Danny in 1978 when she came to my mother's funeral. He was 34. Rich said she never stopped talking about him all the way back to Chicago.  When I returned she told me how nice everyone was but she gushed about Danny. I am sure he had no clue.

As a kid, he always had a plan for something fun.  Our cousins, the McGees, came for a visit many summers while their Dad went to conventions. Usually, they stayed about 2 weeks.  Jimmy McGee was about 3 years younger than Danny.  Danny was probably 12 at the time and decided to give his cousin a piggy back ride. Everything was fine until he accidentally lost his balance and Jimmy suffered a broken collar bone. To this day, I don't like to see anyone giving another person a piggyback ride.

Mrs Nell Brady was one of the few lay teachers at our Catholic school. She also was one of the few lay teachers who was also Catholic. Danny was one of those boys that had a twinkle in his eye and melted her heart. He was every bit as smart as his brother, Jim. However, he enjoyed having fun, making other people laugh and have fun, yet sometimes he didn't pay attention to his studies like he should.

Danny was an artist. He could draw beautiful pictures. His class projects for science and other subjects were in such a great detail and drawn freehand. While he was in high school he worked for McShann florist. His floral arrangements were stunning. After he left the Navy, Danny went to beauty college. He was great at creating hair designs. He once told me that men can make more money than women doing hair because women will listen to a man who tells her a certain look or cut would be attractive for her. He swore up-and-down that he would never work for Neiman Marcus the Flagstaff store in downtown Dallas. However Neimans came calling and Danny was offered a job that he couldn't turn down. He worked at the downtown store for sometime and at that time the only other one on the planet was at North Park Mall in Dallas. Eventually he left there to go work in a salon out in Casa Linda. Most of the men who worked for Neiman Marcus in the late 60s and early 70s were very effeminate and that's not who Danny was. One of his clients in the neighborhood salon was the wife of the very famous billionaire HL Hunt. At some point Danny left the world of beauty salons and became a PR manager for Columbia records. some of his duties involved wining and dining the Columbia record artists when they were in Dallas. He seemed to really enjoy that.