"I didn't know who he was or why I was there. But I can tell you what he wore. I can tell you how he stood and what he said. That's how big the impression was that he left on me."
Those are the words of Morton H. Meyerson, one of the many people we talked to with memories of their encounters with Dallas' H. Ross Perot.
Here is a collection of some of the best stories about the Texas billionaire from those who experienced the life of the man who was just 5-foot-6, but whose presence filled a room.
Family
The circus dog, traveling outhouse and other tales he left behind:
"When our friends got a practical joke, I'd tell them, 'You're really fortunate. You're at the top of the pyramid of Dad's friend group,' " Ross Perot Jr. said with a chuckle. " 'But be careful. If you try to compete, he will win. He'll be more creative. He has more time. And, if he has to, he'll outspend you.' "
Allan McArtor
"Since Ross Sr. was a Naval Academy graduate, and I'm an Air Force Academy graduate, we had this natural competition between Air Force and Navy. Little did I know what a practical joker Ross was," said Allan McArtor, the former head of the Federal Aviation Administration.
Tom Luce
Getting tapped to authenticate a Magna Carta and bring it safely to Dallas
"Ross called me one day when I was sitting in my office. He said, 'I just agreed to buy the Magna Carta. I did it over the telephone with one condition: It was subject to you personally authenticating it for me.' " said Tom Luce, Perot's longtime lawyer.
Morton Meyerson
The boss had a complicated but never dull relationship with employee No. 54
"Ross was light on aesthetics -- art, music -- he wasn't into those subjects particularly," said Morton Meyerson. "He would go to a symphony or to a museum because [his wife] Margot took him. He wasn't liberal artsy. He was an engineer. But there was a side to him that understood symbolism and imagery in a way that an advertising or social media expert would today."
Kay Bailey Hutchison
After dozens of prominent folks failed to persuade Margaret McDermott to relent to having a Dallas bridge named after her, Ross Perot, Kay Bailey Hutchison and Gail Thomas, longtime advocate of Trinity River corridor projects, went to McDermott's home, hoping to numb her into submission. Perot's creative approach to convince her "was the most perfect timing of the most perfect comment. And that did it," recalls Hutchison, the former U.S. Senator who's now U.S. ambassador to NATO.
Tom Meurer
Striking back with a Norman Rockwell joke
"The Chinese and Vietnamese were involved in a border war," longtime friend Tom Meurer said. "Han Xu walks in, shakes Ross' hand. And Ross says, 'Mr. Ambassador, I hear you're having trouble with the Vietnamese. I hope you have better luck than we did.' "
Tom Walter
To catch a thief, Perot drove the getaway car
Perot and Tom Walter got wind that the guy who was using intellectual property of EDS was going out of town. So they rounded up a posse to see if they could find evidence of the IP theft in the guy's apartment.
"Ross picked me up to go with them," said Walter, a consultant to the Perot family and former EDS executive. "He was driving the getaway car -- a brand new [1965] dark maroon Lincoln. I don't know if we broke into the apartment, but we certainly entered."
Pete Dawkins
Landing in jail with his buddy
"We scrambled down the passageway believing that the event was over," laughed Pete Dawkins, the 1958 Heisman Trophy winner for Army who joined Perot, a naval man, in a prank at the United States Military Academy. "But when we got to the door of the chapel, the military police were there, and they arrested us."
Ken Langone
East Coast lawyers get lunch plates they'll never forget
"Here are all these white-shoe [i.e.Ivy League] lawyers from New York standing with plastic trays in front of this self-service counter," recalled Ken Langone, co-founder of Home Depot and Perot's pick to handle EDS' complicated initial public offering with a team of attorneys.
They asked what to order, and the specialty of the house was suggested -- barbecue armadillo, cooked well done. Afraid of offending Perot, they all ordered it.
Orson Swindle
The grand fete for returning former POWs
"The Supremes were performing at the Fairmont [in the Venetian Room] that evening, and, Ross being Ross, he had them stay afterwards. We all sat around while the Supremes sang to us," said Orson Swindle, the retired U.S. Marine lieutenant colonel and former Federal Trade Commissioner who helped with Perot's 1992 presidential campaign.
Linda Pitts Custard
Dallas' doyennes discovered green goddesses in their gardens
Perot enlisted a five-man crew to sneak 12-foot-tall, naked-lady fake topiaries into the yards of some of his favorite prominent women -- including Linda Pitts Custard, Nancy Dedman and the late Ebby Halliday, Ruth Altshuler and Margaret McDermott.
"Ruth told Ross to take it out immediately," said Custard, the director of the Baylor Health Care System Foundation. "She was not impressed."
Gene Aune
Taking Blue Cross into the computer age
The state welfare department had given Texas Blue Cross Blue Shield a contract in 1961 to handle the hospitalization of 220,000 Texans in its old-age assistance program -- effective three months later in January. Gene Aune was a 37-year-old junior executive with Texas Blue Cross Blue Shield.
"Ross used a loophole in IBM's ordering process so that we could leapfrog to the head of the delivery line for the computer we needed," said Aune.
Ken Follett
'On Wings of Eagles' was 'largely' friction-free
Ken Follett had never met anyone remotely like Ross Perot when the Texas billionaire tracked him down in 1981, hoping to get the bestselling author to write a book about the daring rescue of two EDS employees from an Iranian jail in 1978.
"Ross said to Margot one evening in bed, 'Who do you think should write the book of the rescue?' " Follett recounted in a phone interview from his office just north of London. "She happened to be reading Eye of the Needle, and she said, 'This guy's really good.' "
Kern Wildenthal
Perot didn't just give money, he helped bring superstars to UT Southwestern
Perot made his first gift of $200,000 to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in 1983 to support a diabetes research project as a friendly gesture to the late Ralph Rogers, who had been chairman of Parkland Hospital.
But Perot's most pivotal gift came in 1987, when he gave $20 million that was to be used in large part to expand UT Southwestern's embryonic M.D./Ph.D program. Students in such programs are offered full-ride scholarships and stipends because they are seen as the next generation of medical superstars.
Cyndi Bassel
Getting a door-size dose of inspiration
Ross Perot and an employee presented Cyndi Bassel, who was UT Southwestern's vice president of external relations at the time with what Perot said was his original painting of Rockwell's Lincoln the Railsplitter, a 7-foot depiction of the nation's 16th president as a young woodcutter.
"He said, 'I want you to hang it on your wall and remember me every time you walk by it. Let him inspire you to do great things.' I was going, 'I can't accept this!'
Mitch Hart
Our first encounter was the most memorable
In 1952, Mitch Hart was a plebe at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. Perot was a first classman, three years his senior.
"Door slams open and this short guy walks in and snaps, 'Somebody in here's named Hart.' And I braced up against the wall along with my two Texas roommates. I said, 'Yes, sir.'
