By James Ragland
Published Sept. 15, 2000
The Dallas Morning News

Jim Reynolds has been nothing but trouble for me. He was my academic adviser in college 20 years ago. Even then, he was pushing me to take courses that required a lot of writing—“journaling,” he calls it—as well as a lot of reading and a lot of critical thinking.

Nothing like cramping your hands and brain at the same time. If all else failed, I figured, I could at least take very good notes standing in the unemployment line after college.

“Mr. Ragland,” I envisioned employers saying, “we can’t hire you—you have no experience and no real qualifications. But we must say, you keep an excellent journal.” Like that’s gonna help pay off those student loans.
But things turn out OK, and I’ve stayed in touch with Jim. That’s right—Jim.
Unlike an ex-basketball coach we’ve been reading about lately, Jim Reynolds won’t throw a chair at you or grab you by the collar if you don’t call him “Mr.,” “Dr.,” or “Professor.” Not this guy. His favorite bumper sticker says “QUESTION AUTHORITY.” He obviously never played basketball at Indiana University.
I should have known better than to answer so quickly when Jim called me recently. “Will you speak to my students?” the learned one asked.
“Sure. I’d love to.”
“Great,” said the professor.
“What do you want me to talk about?”
“The meaning of life,” the wise one said.
“The what?”
“Calm down,” said the tenured teacher. “I’m talking about the meaning of your life, not the meaning of life in general. Just tell them who you are, where you are and why you are.”

I told you he was trouble. So here I am, weeks later, still figuring out which path I’m on and where it’s headed. But I know one thing. I’m not making this intellectual journey alone.

I stop by Louie’s, a popular pub, to pick the brain of its proprietor. What does your life mean to you, Louie? I ask, leaving my tab open in case this takes awhile.

But his answer was shorter than a shot glass, clearer than a martini. And there was no twist.

“It’s all about family,” says Louie, whose voice has more gravel than a country road. “The meaning of my life is my children, my wife, my mother, my brother.” When he was younger, he says, “like most teenagers you think nobody’s ever lived before or experienced what you’re experiencing.” Over time, living lifts that fog.

About 14 years ago when Louie opened his place, his family’s importance hit home. His father, who died five years ago, and his mother mortgaged the family’s home in Illinois to help raise money for the venture.

“My old man looked at me like I was trading the cow for the magic bean, but he never said a word,” says Louie, whose mother and brother help run the place. “He wanted his children to be professionals, to go to college, but we’ve all followed the same path. My dad had a cafe, and his dad, and my mother’s father. We’re Café Greeks.”

Louie became more reflective six years ago when his triplets—two girls and a boy—were born. “Having children taught me how meaningless my own life is,” he says. “It’s like the old folks in my family used to tell me. The family was here before you got here, and the family will be here after you’re gone.”

Davia Madariaga, a senior paralegal-turned-businesswoman, learned how small the big city can make you feel when she left her small hometown to make her way in Dallas. “I went from Miss Everything to College Graduate trying to find a job, and everyone was telling me, ‘No, you’re not qualified,’ or ‘You don’t have enough experience.’ You have to quickly figure out who you are and what you’re about.”

In the beginning, she says, she was pursuing the wrong things: money, power, an office with a nameplate. “Yes, that’s what I was about,” she says. “I felt that I wouldn’t get respect unless I held those things.” Those things may matter, she says, but they must be kept in perspective. Only now, after experiencing one marriage, two children (now 8 and 7), a divorce, 14 years on the career treadmill, and a new husband does she believe she’s beginning to understand what her life means to her.

She recently quit her job to help oversee a fledgling family business that helps companies become more efficient. She has less spending money but she’s happier, she says, because she gets to spend more time on more important matters.

“To me, that’s what life’s all about,” Davia says. “Being a good mother to my children, a good wife to my husband and a good member of the community.”
Becky Chavarria-Chairez, a public relations consultant and children’s book author, found out years ago that selfless acts turn her on. “When I do good, and help other people, that just makes me feel wonderful,” she says. “I’m just discovering that it’s important to do what matters to you. It’s taken me a long time to see it, but I’m finally figuring out what I want to be when I grow up.”

She dedicates her life to her husband Joe, a banker, and their two children, ages 10 and 2-1/2. One of her pet peeves is seeing how wasteful some people are, both with their time and with natural resources. “It’s very easy to get caught up in the Dallas materialistic lifestyle,” she says. She finds meaning in doing things, such as recycling and owning only one family car, to help protect the environment.

All of that makes sense. But is it what the professor is looking for?
He’s a smart and slippery one, you see, waiting until the last day of class to tell his Texas A&M University-Commerce students what his life means.
“I go in,” he says, “and I tell them the meaning of my life is tied up in love, laughter and learning—all in the context of luck.”
If I can paraphrase Mark Twain, when I was a teenager, I couldn’t believe how weird Jim Reynolds seemed. Now that I’m 38, I can’t believe how much the old professor has learned in 20 years.

James Ragland’s column in The Dallas Morning News appears twice a week in the Metropolitan section and once a week in Texas Living. Ragland (BS 1984) in 1994 was honored as an Alumni Ambassador from the department of journalism and printing. He can be reached at 214.977.8270 and at jragland@dallasnews.com.

...And After His Talk
“It benefited me more than the students,” James said about his talk to Jim Reynolds’ students. What did he tell them about his assigned topic? “The meaning of my life gets back to relationships. . . . How do you make sure you continue to grow? When you’re in the storm you don’t often make those connections about how people affect you. But later you’re able to reflect, to put building blocks together. I’m still on the construction site.”