Comprising a Life

When I was in college studying horticulture I met a fellow student named Bill Nicholas, also a horticulture major.  The war in Vietnam was raging at the time but both of us had student deferments until the lottery system was introduced. When that happened,  first I  and later Bill, were drafted out of college and sent to Vietnam.  But in the last summer before the draft got us we had planned to take a bicycle trip from LSU Louisiana to Estes Park Colorado, just in case things didn't go well for us in Vietnam. Last-minute though Bill was unable to make the trip and so I decided to make the trip alone.

When I returned, I sure 'nough did get drafted and soon found myself on ambush patrol in the middle of the jungles of Vietnam.  After only half my tour served in the jungle I was shot during a particularly violent ambush and after healing up for a month in a Rangers Company pulling permitter guard I was transferred further to the North to an Army aviation battalion on the South China Sea.  There I took the position of battalion draftsman.

One day while in morning formation, some new guy pass in front of me that I recognize, it turned out to be Bill Nicholas.  Of all the thousands and thousands of GIs stationed in Vietnam at that time, he pops up on my base as a ward medic.  During our months on the same base we concocted a scheme to put together a horticulture service company when we were both back in the States.  Naturally I returned first and while waiting for Bill to finish up his tour in Vietnam I worked as a cartographic draftsman at the Corps of Engineers in New Orleans.  When Bill returned we formed a very small business but Bill soon left to take the position of horticulturist for New Orleans Parks and Parkways.  I soon incorporated, my company never changing its name from Nicholas and Banting.

The following photographs record the slow building of my company, first housed at my apartment above Vic's barbershop (where I also housed the remnants of my bonsai collection after returning from Vietnam) and then later in the driveway and in front of my first home located on Ridgeway Drive in Metairie Louisiana.  When my business outgrew my home I leased property at two different locations as my business grew.  Finally I bought and improved a half a city block in midcity New Orleans. When I was diagnosed with brain cancer I sold my company to a then current employee but had to foreclose on her for lack of payment.  This forced me to come back into the business now was seriously diminished mental acuity and tried to build it back up until I could sell it again to another owner.  A good friend and owner of property adjacent to mine again began to buy my property (he a landscape architect and owner of a similar type of business) and I helped him get started by sinking $12,000 of my own money into his company which included outfitting all the offices with new computers and other improvements.  Together we got the business running again and I had just begun to pull away from it again and had just signed the papers that would have provided me income from its gradual purchase from me when hurricane Katrina hit.

 My friend had now just purchased a business that was subsequently buried under 8 feet of water for almost a month.  When my friend through the water to survey the damage he found all the brand new computers floating in a stinking mix of raw sewerage and chemical seepage of of every description.  I offered to let my friend off the hook on his recent purchase but he was able to find our carpetbagger firm that was eager to leased property in New Orleans for a staging area from which to help rebuild New Orleans and decided to keep to his agreement to purchase my land.  Now I had a source of income again and went back into my forced retirement caused by my brain tumors.  However when I was forced to divorce my wife who had been misappropriating my funds without my knowledge I found that I had put her name on my business when I sold it to my friend.  This meant that the income derived from my selling my property to my friend was now cut in half while I pursued a lawsuit against my ex-wife for breach of trust.  My ex-wife is still healthy fully able to work but now she's sucking off the income of my past labors.