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T M C P U L S E | F E B R U A R Y 2 02 0 13 B y A l e x a n d r a B e c k e r Facing page: Roger Creager (left) and his father, Bill Creager, perform together at the Armadillo Palace in Houston, Texas on Dec. 28, 2019. I t was nearly 11 p.m. on the Saturday after Christmas and the sold-out show was coming to a close. A deluge of rain had just passed over the covered patio at the Armadillo Palace—so common for Houston that concertgoers were anything but fazed—when Texas country music star Roger Creager made an announcement over the microphone. "Back in July," Roger began, "my dad, 1 st Sgt. Green Beret Bill Creager—he's 85 years old— he had a health scare." The raucous crowd grew quiet. Roger continued, speaking candidly to his fans. His father, he said, had needed surgery to replace one of the valves in his heart. "We brought him to Memorial Hermann in the med center here in Houston, Texas," Roger said, to cheers and applause. "Earlier this month, my dad went in with, I think, just the finest surgeons and the finest medical staff in the world, and they saved his life. Y'all, welcome to the stage, my dad, Bill Creager." The crowd roared as Bill emerged from the side, beaming at his son. A cowboy hat covered his military-style haircut, and he was decked out in an Ariat button-up and western-style boots, jeans and a belt. His face was weathered, but youthful, and he moved more like a rock star than an octogenarian. Together, the pair performed "Rancho Grande"—a rowdy Spanish ballad and one of Roger's most popular songs, in no small part because of Bill. Neither father nor son took the performance that night for granted; both knew that without the surgery, it never would have happened. Nearly a year earlier, in January 2019, Bill had just returned to his home in San Diego, Texas, after performing with Roger at his annual concert in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. It is one of Bill's favorite places to travel with his son, but after- wards, he began feeling ill. He said things only got worse throughout the year. "I just had a whole lot of trouble breathing. I didn't have a whole lot of energy; I couldn't walk very far," Bill said. A lifelong resident of San Diego, a South Texas city that boasts a population of about 4,500, Bill drove to the closest big city to get checked out—60 miles east to Corpus Christi. There, doctors determined that his heart valve, which had been replaced in 2009, was failing. But they couldn't offer much hope. "The guy there scared the hell out of me," Bill said. "He told me the thing was bad enough that he wasn't going to try [the surgery], and he said, 'If I do it, you've got about a 10 percent chance of surviving it.'" ® A COUNTRY BOY CAN SURVIVE The father of Texas music star Roger Creager takes the stage after lifesaving heart surgery at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center