Richard Lewis Dixon
Almost not born in a hospital in Lebanon Virginia July 15, 1944, because his mother had to crawl over a fence and walk down a hill to get to the car due to in-law fighting about egress to the forty acres his grandfather (Jesse Cleveland Cantrell) acquired when marrying his grandmother (Dora Avis Grizzle).
Attending elementary and junior high schools in Wheaton, Md.; Augusta Military Academy, Staunton, Va.; Adams Jr. High School, Tampa Fl.; Chamberlain High School, Tampa, Fl.; St. Petersburg Junior College, St. Petersburg, Fl.; University of Tampa, Tampa, Fl.
While attending school in Tampa Richard worked at Frisch’s Big Boy restaurant and became friends with the local police due to Frisch’s giving half price food and free coffee to law enforcement officers. This resulted in much less traffic tickets than deserved in his teen years!
Dropping Accounting 101 made a draft notice appear, but because Richard had Army ROTC in military school he decided to join the Air Force (1964). Richard stated “Four years of good beds and chow halls, instead of digging ditches in Vietnam for two!” That plan almost worked except he spent one year in Crypto School and eighteen months in the 1st Mobile Comm. Group out of the Philippines doing TDY to Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos. Then on to Dayton, Ohio where he married the former Joyce Kay Yeager and they had their first child, Denise, before getting orders to go back to Phan, Rang, Vietnam in 1969. Orders to MacDill AFB in Tampa in early 1970 was the reason Richard did eight years in the Air Force. While in Tampa Richard and Joyce had a son, Michael Lewis Dixon and then Air Force orders to Guam. Richard declined Guam and got out of the Air Force to join Delta Air Lines. Moving to Newnan, Georgia in 1984, Richard enjoyed his Delta job excelling in all Customer Service areas and ironically ending his career in accounting when Delta after 9/11/01 offered a retirement package too good to pass. Richard then went to work for the FAA until the forming of the TSA where Richard was a manager in charge of explosive detection device maintenance. Fully retired now, living in the same lake home they built in 1985, Richard and Joyce now enjoy the closeness of son and daughter and their families, the five grandsons, one great grandson "Little Man", and church friends. Richard says, “I try to keep the speed down on the Harley, and the Hot Rod Monte Carlo, because I don’t know the local law enforcement anymore! Life is good. God Bless.”
