It feels somewhat embarrassing, sitting here trying to come up with a tribute and writeup for my fellow Houstonian, Dr. Denton Cooley. His grandfather helped create the Houston Heights neighborhood, where my grandfather settled down and lived till he died, where my parents were living when I happened to drop in and kept them there a few more years until they could get their own place and out of the rental. Denton, though, was that family's hero to my family. My kid sister was born with a hole in her heart, which was suspected to be due to a rubella infection while she was being carried (I was too young for the technical details, but I believe it was this. Dr. Cooley and his team got her through until she was old enough for him to go in and make the surgical repairs. Thanks to him, she ended up the jock of the family. (I was the only boy, and had a good enough build that the football coaches were always interested, but all I ever did was run track. She played basketball.) She's still around, living on a lake near the Louisiana/Mississippi border, working as she needs to to keep herself in bait and beer for fishing purposes. And this last May, during a phone chat she made it very clear that the numeral 50 meant 35 when talking about years (though 60 still meant 60 in my case).

Thank you, Doctor Cooley.

--Team Bubba