Joe Barton: “We have had a number of Congressmen come on the House floor and tell anecdotes about Ralph, about how funny he was and…”

“We have had a number of Congressmen come on the House floor and tell anecdotes about Ralph, about how funny he was and how smart he was, and they are all--at least the ones about how smart he was--very true. We have heard the urban myth about waiting on Bonnie and Clyde, which I do not believe is true. We have heard about Ted Williams and Ralph and Ted playing on the same baseball team in World War II, and that is true. We have heard about the offer to serve as a fight promoter for Cassius Clay, who later became Muhammad Ali, and that is true. A few more that you may not know: He was good friends with the Hunt brothers in Dallas and Clint Murchison, who was the original owner of the Dallas Cowboys. At one time, he was asked to be general counsel for what we today call the NFL, which he turned down. {time} 1630 I got to know Ralph when I got elected in 1984. He and I served districts that touch each other. We both live in our districts in Texas, and so we became good buddies because we were always on the first flight to Texas after the last vote at the end of the week and on the last flight before the first vote to Washington at the beginning of the week. Once we built up enough frequent flyer miles, when there was a complimentary upgrade--we never spent taxpayer dollars to fly in first class--we would fight over who got seat 4F. Because Ralph sweet-talked the special service people at American Airlines, he always won.…”