If you only want to hear about the Sally Show,
skip down 10 paragraphs. Otherwise, read on:

I was born in San Diego, California in 1965. My family moved around a lot when I was growing up. We lived in California, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. Since my dad was born in Texas, we kept coming back here. We lived in Fort Worth, Houston, a couple of places in Arlington, and finally Venus, Texas. I went to about 10 schools as I was growing up, so I couldn't keep many friends. I would develop a friendship with someone, and then it was time to move again. Sometimes I just wanted to give up on making any new friends, because I knew that it wouldn't last long. There were a few kids I became good friends with in almost every grade.

In 2nd grade, it was Kevin.(Sorry, I forgot the last name.) In 3rd grade, my first girlfriend was Regina Cantu. My friend in 4th grade was Keith McKnight.My 5th grade girlfriend was Norma Armenderez. In 5th thru 7th grade, my best friend was Keith Helms. My girlfriend in 6th and 7th grade was Teresa Harris. In 8th grade, my best friend was Kenneth. (Sorry again, I forgot the last name.) In 9th, 10th, and 11th grade, my best friends were Craig Fisher and Ward Thulin. As a senior at Venus High School, my best friend was our next door neighbor, Johnny Ray Taylor. He was my best friend for the next 4 years. He was only 13 when I met him, but he was cool. He moved away and I decided not to have another best friend for a while.

I graduated with 12 other students from Venus in 1983. It was a one building schoolhouse, kindergarten through 12th grade. I thought it was pretty awesome since I came from Arlington High School , where there were 1000 kids just in my grade. The population of Venus was 318 back then. I remember the day Mr McGeeHee asked me to write another mark on the chalkboard in his office, "99 students now enrolled in Venus", he said, "One more, and we'll be in triple digits."

A week before graduation, I vowed to come back to Venus and make it my home forever. I went to The University of Texas at Arlington to either become an actor and go to Hollywood, or get a teaching certificate and come back to Venus and teach. After a year, my funds were gone, and I started working for a living. I AM STILL WORKING FOR A LIVING. I began working for the school in 1985. I was a cook in the cafeteria at the Venus ISD. It was supposed to be temporary, but it turned into 6 years. I worked at the elementary, the middle school, and the high school. (Oh yeah. I forgot to mention. The school grew. Venus grew. My dear school that I loved so well burnt down in 1984, so we built another one, and another one, and another one. I was one of the last students to walk across that old wooden stage at graduation.) I really liked working at the school. It was kinda like being on a stage; serving all the kids and trying to make them smile and have a good day. I was trying to be humorous and all...so the actor in me was satisfied. My goal was to get to know every single one of the kids by name, and I did ! I ended up having 500 best friends after I quit working at the school. To this day, at homecoming games, or just going into a store in a surrounding city, I have "kids" in their 20's come up to me and say, "Hi Jon, remember me?" I thank God that I am good with faces and names, because their faces light up when I respond to them and I know their name!

The next best friend I had was actually 3 brothers, Abel, Pete, and Ruben Oviedo. They were sports heroes in Venus. They broke several school records and they were good at everything they attempted. I never played sports growing up, so they taught me how to play football, basketball, baseball, we ran for miles, we biked, we fished, we boxed, and we slept outside with the cows and the chickens. I helped their mom birth a cow. I watched them boil a cow's head for tamales. I ate goat...cabrito, and I drove them to their grandmother's house in Acuna, Mexico and the four of us slept in my 67 Mustang. I had more fun as a 20 something year old than I had had my entire life as a kid. They taught me to love sports, and the outdoors. It is hard to explain, but......the Oviedos helped me also to learn to like myself, because they accepted me even though I wasn't the greatest at everything.

I died in 1987, and was reborn shortly thereafter. (I became a Christian.)

I've had a few more best friends, since graduating from High School...Kevin Nelson, Tony Morales, Jason Arnold, Jeff Arnold, Jessica Brown, Steven, and Steven's little brother. There was also Mark Brunner, and Robert, Daniel, Kerry, and Kasey Stogsdill.

Kasey is the last person I will call best friend for a while. I met him and his older brother at a VYA (Venus Youth Association) football game in 1994. ( I will try to make a long story short, but it will be difficult putting almost 3 years into a few sentences. ) I used to tutor math, history, english, and science for free to kids in the community, and I was tutoring a boy named Robert Stogsdill. My car was wrecked, I was getting kicked out of my home, and I was almost completely broke. Robert's parents invited me to live with them. I stayed with this wonderful family for more than a year. They treated me like family. Robert's cousin, Kerry, who was just starting to become my friend, ended up in the hospital on April 27th, 1997. He had Leukemia. I visited the family at the hospital and I hugged Robert's aunt and I told her how sorry I was that her son was ill. I told her that I would do anything to help. I stayed there at the hospital that night and the next day. I visited at the hospital every day after that. I took off work for a week and stayed at the hospital, and then I started staying at the hospital a little more. When I wasn't at the hospital or at work, I was trying to entertain Kerry's little brother, Kasey. I took him to movies, we played cards at his cousin's house, I took him to baseball games in town, we went to the mall, we went to the movies, we played Nintendo.

Did I say we went to movies? We went to a lot of movies. I saw more movies while Kerry was in the hospital than ever before or since. During Kerry's worst times in the hospital, his parents, his aunt and uncle, his grandmother, his mom's best friends, (Lisa and Richard), and others stayed there at night and stood watch. Kerry was sedated, in a coma-like state, ( so he couldn't pull the tubes out of his arms and because he was in so much pain ), and these people who cared so much for him stood over him and talked to him day after day and night after night.The nurses and doctors explained how a person in a coma could still hear and Kerry could probably understand everything we said, so we talked and talked and talked to him as he slept and slept and slept. On the nights when I stayed at the hospital, Kasey usually did too. We became best friends and remained best friends until about June of 1998. I didn't realize that we weren't best friends anymore until about six months later. In January 1999, I finally "got a clue". ( I really didn't want to lose another best friend. ) I moved away from the Stogsdill's house February 10th 1999, right after my 34th birthday. But not before they thanked me for helping out with Kerry and the family.

Kerry's mom entered a contest on the Sally Jessy Raphael web page. And she won! It was the holiday season of 1998. I was told that Kerry won a trip to the Sally show and we were all flying to New York for a week. The day of the taping, I was standing offstage looking at the monitor as Kerry and his parents were being interviewed, and then they started talking about me. Kerry's parents said that I was a blessing to them, and they explained how I was a Sunday School teacher, and I helped people in the communities of Venus and Alvarado, and how one of the things I did was make birthday cards for people. For a lot of people. And they told Sally how I used my boss' computer at work, because I didn't have a lot of money, but I wanted people to feel special by getting a birthday card. I WAS COMPLETELY SURPRISED. I had no idea that the reason we were there in New York and on TV was for me. Sally interviewed me briefly and then gave me a Compaq Presario computer so I could make all the cards I wanted. That week we got to tour the city in limousines, we stayed in a nice hotel, we went to FAO Shwartz, "the world's biggest toy store"...seen on Home Alone, we went to a Broadway show, and we ate at a few fancy restaurants.

When I hugged Kerry's mom that day at the hospital, I wanted to be unselfish and help out someone in need. Little did I know that this whole family would help me so much. Little did I know that I was in so much need. I needed to feel loved and cared about, and they made me feel that way. I have lost touch with these friends of mine, and I miss them so much, but they will always be in my heart. I pray that someday, I will get a chance to visit with them again, and express to them my gratitude.

For all the talking to Kerry we did in the hospital, he now says he didn't hear a word, but I don't think we wasted our time. Kerry is alive and well now. After a lot of chemotherapy and a lot of physical healing, and a lot of sweat, tears, and encouragement from his family, (especially Mom and Dad) he is playing junior varsity football for Venus. He always wanted to play professional football and he may just do it. I believe that anything is possible.

I live in Alvarado now...just 3 minutes from Venus. I work in Mansfield at a medical equipment company. I have been there since 1991.(It too was supposed to be a temporary job). I try to go to all the middle school and high school football games, basketball games, and baseball games in Venus. I try to go to all the track meets and VYA sports too. I am a member of the Venus Athletic Booster Club, and I go to all the school board meetings. I belong to First Baptist Church in Venus, and I usually sing the Star Spangled Banner at the Homecoming Game every year. I always said that I would come back to Venus, but I guess I never really left.