tonight we rise in support of the favorite son of rockwall, texas, the honorable ralph hall. and i think of so many wonderful stories about ralph. tonight, you'll hear many of them, mr. speaker, of the texas delegation, of the life and times as we not only try and gather together every week, but also work together. one of my favorite stories about ralph hall took place with a young woman, kay granger. one night, kay granger, member of congress and myself, this is probably 12 or 13 or 14 years ago, met ralph at the brand new reagan airport. and we sat doub down for a flight that got delayed 35, 40 minutes and about an hour and a half later, american airlines said, the flight left about 30 minutes ago, do you want to have dinner with us. and we looked up with each other and we missed the flight and that is because ralph hall was telling the funniest stories of taking time with kay granger and i, sitting around a small table a at reagan airport and he was doing more than just telling stories. what ralph was really trying to do was to mentor kay granger and pete sessions on not t

and one of the fine leaders of rockwall. for the past 32 years i've had the honor and the privilege of representing the fourth district of texas here in congress. i think it's just an honor to know that the -- there have been 10,4 4 men and women elected to serve, that i may be the oldest to ever serve. or to ever vote on the floor. there's others who have been here but didn't vote. i think that date comes up sometimes around the 21st day of december. but my first impression of house representatives when i got here began with speaker sam rayburn whose district i represent. his wife and my wife were good friends during college. that's what college name was before it was east texas state teachers college. and when i was in the senate i changed it to east texas state university. and my wife graduated from there, had the privilege of handing her a paloma. those are good things and that's a great institution over there. mr. rayburn was called by my mother who had known him back in the earlier days and was at mayo college with him