Shon Lovelace (Marty'S 1St Cousin)
July 15, 2021
The Garland Lovelace family . . . Charlotte, Shon & Ross send condolences to Linda, Randy, Sharla and all of Marty's family. We regret that we are unable to attend the services. I've had some great memories of my 1st cousin Marty over the years. Before my Daddy, Garland moved us to the Texas Hill Country back in the early 70's, we lived in Port Neches & Nederland, where our two Lovelace families got together often for shrimp boils and Gumbo feasts. Even as a young boy back then, I always thought Marty's outlook on life, his attitude & his BIG smile . . . were so catching and I always looked up to him . In the summer of 1979, when I was 17 years old and Marty was 24 or 25, my Daddy had "Roped-in" Uncle Buddy & Marty to come to Burnet to help build a house. Those summer months was when I really got to know Marty. We worked hard, side by side with each other and with our Daddy's, all summer. But we did find some time off . . . And did a lot of fishing on Lake Buchanan & from time to time would secretly launch my Daddy's boat to take a spin across the huge lake. Every time we commandeered the boat , Marty would say . . . "IF Uncle Garland catches us doing this . . It will be hell to pay on the job site tomorrow !" But seriously, as a young adult Marty really made a huge impression on me. Just as his daughter-in-law, Heather pointed out regarding his hard work ethic . . . I too, really admired his hard work ethic. To this day, I truly believe that Marty helped me form my own life-long work ethic. . . Especially in the way he always approached ANY challenge of ANY project . . directly HEAD ON ! Uncle Buddy & Marty used to drive back home on the weekends while building that house. But my favorite memory of my time with Marty that summer, was when I persuaded him into staying with me one weekend, as Uncle Buddy drove home to see June. I told Marty that I had a little adventure lined-up for us this weekend. He seemed cool with that, plus we were both ready to get away from our Daddy's for a while ! So, I was a part-time tour guide at Longhorn Cavern State Park. And that weekend, I got permission for the two of us to go into the cave after hours . . . to do a little remote exploring on our own, where the guided tours never go . I was able to talk Marty into this little "spelunking" adventure . . . Although he thought it sounded a bit risky, but he finally agreed to go for it . SO, on our backs & on our bellies, we crawled thru many small & long passages, even going under water at times. We took different forks in the trail & ended up exploring parts of that cave that very few (IF any) people ever saw or experienced . Anyway, we found ourselves actually LOST . . in one of those winding remote passages. Needless to say, we both became very nervous, wondering how this adventure would turn out. Fortunately as it turned out, we had left a few of those little Schlitz Baby Bull bottles along the trail behind us, and we were able to find our original trail & backtracked our way out of there to safety . As we finally exited the cave way after midnight, we did manage to laugh about our close call, as we were very relieved. I remember we always talked about that little adventure every time we saw each other for years later . That is totally a true story, but over the years we both seemed to embellish the story of our cave adventure each time it was told . . . Especially when we told it to our other 1st cousins ! I am really glad to have become close to Marty & I am so lucky to have learned so much from my older cousin . Cousin Marty - Your wisdom & your smile with live with me, always . . . .
