Correction Concerning Dr. Hepcat Lavada Durst

Dear Mr. Barbaro,
    Sometime during the last two or three months, your tabloid published an article with a picture of my father, Albert Lavada Durst Sr. (aka Dr. Hepcat Lavada Durst), between photos of Bob Marley and Willie Nelson on the cover of High Times [“If You’re a Viper,” Music, May 25]. The caption under the picture insinuates to any reader that my father indulged in marijuana. The insinuation is a lie. No one living or deceased has ever witnessed my father indulging in marijuana. My father never smoked cigarettes, not to mention marijuana. Also, he did not consume alcoholic beverages. Why did the Chronicle publish this insinuation? My family in Texas sent me this photocopy. Had I been informed sooner, I would have responded to it sooner. The insinuation under the article says it all. My father had one “weak” eye, and that is the reason that he is wearing sunglasses, not because he indulged in marijuana.
    I am 62 years of age. I am a Vietnam veteran. My late brother was a veteran of the Korean War. He received four Purple Hearts. I grew up in Austin when blacks had to sit on the back of the bus. I graduated from high school in Austin when the high schools were segregated. I grew up in Austin when my father could advertise an establishment on the radio, but my friends and I could not eat inside of the establishment. We had to eat at the tables outside. I graduated from college in Houston. The same social consciousness that was taking place in Austin was also taking place in every little city between Austin and Houston. I attended Columbia University one summer on a scholarship. I attended Haverford College on a scholarship. I attended New Mexico State University when I was stationed at White Sands Missile Range after returning from Vietnam. I also attended Los Angeles City College on the GI Bill. I am telling you all of this because I want you to know that I know “what is right and what is wrong.” Insinuating lies regarding my father is wrong, and I am thoroughly upset. Unless the author who wrote the article can produce a picture of my father actually indulging in marijuana, he or she should be dismissed.
    There is no way that my family and I will let this matter go unaddressed. You would do the same for your father and your family. I will not let you or anyone else destroy my father’s reputation or his good name. At the time of my father’s death, Oct. 31, 1995, he was 81 years of age, and until his health started failing him, he was an associate minister at Olivet Baptist Church. My father has been deceased for almost 12 years, and your newspaper is the only newspaper in the world that has printed something negative about him. My question is, “Why?” Will you answer that for me, because my family and I don’t have the vaguest idea as to why you, the publisher, and Mr. Black, the editor, would allow this to happen, especially in a city that was formerly as racially prejudiced as Austin was? It would seem that since you have the resources of a newspaper, you would attempt to take the city of Austin forward, not backward.
    I don’t know if either of you had ever met my father. I don’t know if the author of the article ever met my father. If either of you did, you would know that he only indulged in conversation and not marijuana or alcoholic beverages. I intend to make sure that his good name and reputation rest in peace, no matter what I have to do.
    My family and I deserve an apology and an explanation as to how something like this was allowed to happen.