Bobby got out of the Air Force and enrolled at the University of Texas, in Austin.

He was one of the few black students enrolled.

I asked him how the faculty treated him and he said they patronized him, talking loud, as to a foreigner. They tended to assume he had less knowledge of the world, sophistication, and intellect than he had. He had more than they had.

He later went to Huston-Tillotson, in Austin, and graduated there.

He and Joyce were poor. Scuffling. Bobby worked as a porter in a bowling alley.

He said he would shuck and jive and act like Stepin Fetchitt. He got bigger tips from the white fraternity boys that way.

The last time I saw him he said to me, "I used to dream about having an album out, seeing my picture on the cover of Downbeat, but now all I want is a big chicken dinner."

Ain't it the truth, though.