Perry Jones’s father, Perry Jones Jr., is a mountain of a man — about seven inches shorter than his son but much wider. He has a gruff exterior but a sentimental core. As I sat with him and Terri in the living room of their small home in Lancaster, Tex., he told me how they first met on a playground basketball court when they were both in their late teens. He was shooting hoops at one end, and she was playing in a game with friends at the other. He had recently moved to Texas from a small town in Louisiana to find work. "I saw her, and I noticed how beautiful she was, so I went to talk with her," he recalled. "We had these coincidental things in common. Our names rhymed. We were both born on the 18th of a month. We even liked the same basketball team, the Detroit Pistons. Right away I felt like we were meant to be together."
