Avoiding a repeat mistake ... slowly
Chuck drove up to the dorm one Friday in his VW and rolled down the window.
"Can we leave yet?" he asked. We'd finished our classes for the week, and he was anxious.
"Nope," I said, standing beside my 1969 Galaxie 500. "We're missing Henry and Matthew. Travis called and said he'd be here in a little while."
After unwrapping himself from the Bug, Chuck stood and stretched. His shoulder-length hair fluttered in the breeze, as did his bell-bottomed jeans. He reached back inside and turned the radio up. Led Zeppelin roared through the air.
Inspired, I returned to my own car and hand-dialed in the same station. I left the door open. Zeppelin filled the parking lot, essentially giving us mono stereo. Times were glorious back in 1974.
"How far is the river?" Chuck asked.
"From here? About two hours," I said, waving vaguely toward the northeast. Chuck looked in that direction as if he could see the Little River in distant Oklahoma. Instead, the nearby women's dorm and the administration building of East Texas State University blocked our view.
"I wish they'd hurry up," he said. "We only have two days, and I have to get back here early Sunday night, so I can study for my photojournalism exam."
"You haven't studied since we enrolled," I said.
"I did once."
"Wasn't that for the class you failed?"
"Yup. Here comes Henry."
Henry strolled out of the men's dorm, hands in the pockets of his jeans. He was built like a fire plug. On his head perched a fishing hat we'd given him for Christmas. He had a battered old Zebco 33 in his right hand and a metal tackle box in the other.
"All we need is beer," he said. Of German ancestry, Henry felt everything needed beer.
"We need gas money worse than beer," I said.
Travis appeared from around the building's corner.
"He's right," Travis said. "J.B. brought two cases back from home the other day, and I have them in the car. All we need is food and gas money."
Matthew joined us.
"I have the food. Mom and Dad dropped by this morning on the way to Oklahoma and brought a bunch of groceries. They're supposed to last me until next week, but we can eat them this weekend. I have enough money left over to eat on if I only eat one meal a day."
"Lunch at the cafeteria?" I asked.
"Nope. Ninety-nine cent Midnight Munchies at Ken's Pizza."
We sighed in shared bliss. There was nothing like all-you-can-eat, 99-cent pizza at midnight. It was our sustenance.
"So, whose car we taking?" I asked, knowing the answer. But I had to ask. It was protocol.
"The only car big enough for all of us is yours or Terry's," Henry pointed out. "He went home for the weekend."
"All right guys, put your stuff in the trunk and let's get out of here."
I opened the Galaxie's massive trunk, and my college buddies threw in one cooler of beer, several sacks of groceries, rods, reels, tents and bedrolls. The trunk was only half full.
Chuck dug in his jeans for gas money.
"I have two dollars."
"Uh oh," I said. I dove into my own pocket and pulled out a handful of change and one bill.
The other guys weren't much help. Altogether, we barely scrounged up enough money for gas. Travis, the mathematician, asked me for my estimated gas mileage and cringed when I told him what the 360-horsepower four-barrel sucked out of the gas tank.
We were living in the age before calculators, so Travis dug out a pencil stub and paper.
"We can just make it up there and back," he announced.
Elated, we climbed in and pealed out, white-smoking the tires and cutting off about two miles per gallon, which eventually ate up our fuel allowance and left us stranded 48 hours later that Sunday afternoon, about six miles from campus.
Thirty-four years later, Doc, Wrong Willie, Jerry Wayne and Woodrow arrived at my front yard after work on a Friday afternoon.
"C'mon and hurry up!" Wrong Willie shouted. "I'm ready to get after those Little River smallmouth."
I carried a small mountain of gear out of the house and loaded it into the back of Doc's Dodge diesel. It joined several coolers, sleeping bags, two dozen rods and reels and several new high-tech tackle boxes.
Climbing into the truck, I slammed the door.
"Glad we're going in your truck," I said. "I had to loan mine to my brother."
"No problem," Doc said, shifting into gear but waiting before he took off. "All we have to do is fill up at the station right around the corner, and we're on the way."
"How much is diesel there?" Woodrow asked.
I told him. There was silence in the truck while he punched numbers into the calculator he'd gotten out of a cereal box.
"You guys won't believe how much this trip is going to cost each one of us with today's diesel prices." Instead of saying the price aloud, Woodrow held up the calculator. Those not wearing glasses found spectacles in their pockets, and we squinted at the numbers together.
"Good Lord," somebody said. "That's how much my boy's college tuition was last semester."
I thought about the trip 34 years ago. "Doc, accelerate slowly and don't speed. Even though we have plastic, I want to be sure to get home Sunday night."
And as we drove off at a sedate speed, I explained my rationalization to the boys.
• Reavis Wortham's e-mail address is r.wortham@tx.rr.com.
Share this story:
Google
Yahoo
digg
del.icio.us
facebook
Slashdot
