AJ McGraw of Baytown Texas was born on January 7, 1938 in Mount Pleasant, Texas and passed away at home during the peak of Hurricane Harvey on August 28, 2017.
AJ is survived by his best friend and wife, Barbara Ann Miles McGraw; daughters, Sheila Ann McGraw-Hall and Rhonda Lynn McGraw-Arnold; Sons-in-Law, Russell Ryan Hall and Trevor Arnold; and grandchildren, Reagan Kelsey McGraw, Patrick Trevor Arnold, McKenzie Ryann Hall, and Grayson Avery Hall.
His loving and devoted mother, Artie Mae Smith McGraw, precedes him in death. Despite the presence of
an abusive and cruel father, AJ grew to be an honorable man full of compassion and immense love for his wife, daughters, sons-in-law, and grandchildren.
AJ and Barbara loved the State of Colorado and kept a vacation home there for nearly 35 years. However, AJ lived all 79 years, 233 days of his life in The Great State of Texas.
While the term “Jack of all Trades” was originated in the 16th century, no one embodied its original meaning more than AJ McGraw. During his life, AJ owned dump trucks, two paint & body shops, an air conditioning & refrigeration business, hardware stores, and a goat farm. (A goat farm . . . Who in the world actually owns a goat farm? Answer: AJ McGraw.) This potpourri of entrepreneurial endeavors doesn’t include the years he spent as a general contractor.
AJ, who often surprised Barbara with unexpected gifts, once put a beautiful diamond ring in a takeout container from Monterey House in the small wax paper pouch the traditional Mexican candy was usually wrapped. For years, Sheila and Rhonda rushed to open their takeout containers looking for a similar prize. To their disappointment, they never found one. In Autumn of 1970, AJ said to Barbara one evening, “Hold out your hand.”
“Jewelry?” Barbara thought to herself.
He placed in her hand a small piece of cardboard that had obviously been torn from the corner of an old box. Written in AJ’s unmistakable handwriting was an informal bill of sale. With a devious grin, he said, “I bought you a hardware store.”
Recognizing Barbara’s confusion, AJ reminded her of his frustrations of how long it took to buy the building materials and supplies he needed for his contracting business. “So, I thought I’d buy a hardware store,” he concluded.
It made sense really. Long before the days of the big home improvement stores and decades before “Prime” shipping, AJ could only shop for his supplies between the hours of 9 and 5. Although it was unconventional, this was the solution to that problem. A 12-year-long chapter of their lives began. Working side by side with Barbara, AJ taught his young daughters about many things during those years. Sheila and Rhonda often went to work with their parents on Saturdays, and they were always excited on those days. Many years before Wal-Mart “greeters,” Sheila and Rhonda welcomed each usually familiar customer who walked through the door.
Rhonda would barely wait for the door to close. “Good morning, Mr. Jones. How can I help you?” “Well, I had a cold, but I’m feeling better now. Need some nails to fix the door on my rickety shed.” Sheila was 11 months and 22 days older than Rhonda and much more patient. She waited until the customer walked in and closed the door behind them to say, “How are you today, Mrs. Smith? Can I help you find something?”
“My grandkids are staying with me this week, and the faucet keeps dripping in my bathtub.” Leading customers to different parts of the store, Rhonda expertly weighed a pound of 8-penny nails and scooped them into a bag. Sheila chose the proper replacement part for Mrs. Smith’s kitchen faucet. Either girl would “ring up” the items on an old cash register, manually adding the amount of sales tax from a tattered piece of paper taped to the register. “That’ll be $1.74.” The customers would carefully count out the money and place it on the counter. Often it was exact change. When it wasn’t, the girls would place the money on the cash drawer, calculate the amount of change due the customer and proudly count it back to him or her. “So, a penny makes 75, and a quarter makes one dollar. Thank you for coming in; have a nice day, Mr. Jones.”
AJ and Barbara thought that counting back change to a customer was a fundamental and necessary life
skill that would become unnecessary in the coming years with new cash registers. AJ complained that
these “smarter” cash registers made the people “more dumb.” In the coming years, he would blame
computers. Later in life, he blamed it on iPhones.
Speaking of iPhones . . . the man ran kicking and screaming from technology. Anything more complicated than a pencil (or the occasional pen) was not in his skill set. He was enthusiastically encouraged by
Barbara to carry a cell phone, and he eventually obliged. On rare occasions, he used it to call Barbara.
“Hello? Barbara?
“Yes, dear,”
“This is AJ.”
Every. Single. Time.
AJ was never a typical husband and father. He didn’t like sports, hunting, or golf, and no one remembers the last time the man put bait on a hook. However, what he did love, every single minute of the day, was his family -- Barbara Ann Miles McGraw most of all.
A few days after his death, Barbara found an old legal pad under some papers on his desk. With a ballpoint pen, AJ chronicled a short history of his life. While there were some painful details, his story had a happy ending.
“I am a happy man,” he wrote on the last line. With absolute certainty, his family and friends can say that he was.