He looked like a handsome movie star in the photographs in the family album. In his white Naval Air Corps dress uniform, he could have doubled for Robert Redford in "The Way We Were." In another photo, he looked like a young John Wayne in his leather flight jacket.

Those photographs captured Calvin Turner Bishop at the height of his glory days, standing tall and strong, ready to make his mark on the world. His smile was beguiling, and there was a mischievous sparkle in his piercing blue eyes.

Graduating from college as the class poet laureate, C.T. embarked on what promised to be the road to a bright future. His father, a farmer, struggled to make ends meet. He had only enough money to send one of his two sons to college. Having already distinguished himself as an exceptional student, C.T. was chosen instead of his brother Claude to go to college. Claude was kept at home to help his father farm.

C.T.'s good luck continued. At a college social he met the lovely woman he eventually married, danced with her for the first time to a Cole Porter tune and fell in love.

In Pensacola, Fla., he experienced his first major disappointment. While on his initial solo flight to certify as a Navy pilot, his plane crashed and he was critically injured, requiring two months of hospitalization. When he recovered and it was time to try again for his pilot's wings, C.T.'s shattered nerves wouldn't let him climb back into the plane. He spent the rest of his hitch in the service behind a desk, growing more and more despondent. That's when he first sought solace from whiskey.

For a few years, C.T. managed to keep his drinking under control enough to operate his own construction company. He and his wife had two children, and life was comfortable enough for the family.

But, as the roller coaster nature of the construction business took further toll on his nerves and the demands of his family grew, C.T. turned to the bottle more frequently. His company eventually went bankrupt. It nearly killed C.T. when he had to ask his brother Claude for money to pay bills until he found a job. Claude had become a wealthy tobacco farmer and had his own construction company.

C.T. began working for another construction outfit. He was a hard worker. His coworkers called him a genius. Once after perusing a blueprint, he discovered a flaw that, had it gone undetected, would have seriously jeopardized the structural integrity of a multi-story office building. One day there was an explosion and fire on the construction site where he was working, and C.T. suffered severe burns over much of his back. He was out of work for months. He drank to ease the pain and the frustration. His alcoholism completely alienated him from friends and even family.

C.T. died at the age of 49, a broken man whose dreams of soaring to the heights of success never got off the ground.

Looking at photos of C.T. in the family scrapbook, you'd have thought this fair-haired young man would have grabbed life by the horns and conquered all of its obstacles. Instead of weathering the disappointments and bad curves life threw him, however, C.T. gave up.

Graduation speakers this time of year gush about the bright futures and the doors of opportunity that lie ahead for graduates. The best advice any of them could give these young adults is to learn to bend in the wind, take their licks and bounce back with the resilience required to make it in this challenging world.

The best and the brightest don't always make it. The strong do.

T&D Region Editor Carol Barker can be reached by e-mail at cbarker@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5525. This column first appeared in May 2000.

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