Something had taken Kenny & me to Burnet one day back in our youth. Mostly likely it was to Bill Heckman’s Parts Store so we could get parts to fix something that was broken down.

Clay Simmons had ridden along that day in that 1966 Chevrolet pickup with us.

We were returning to Marble at about the only speed Kenny Lewis knew, about 90 MPH or greater. It was typical for us to have a 55 gallon drum of gasoline with a pump screwed into the top of it, to fill up any of our old dump trucks, as the need might arise.

As we passed the Fairland cutoff that ol 283 CI engine sputtered a couple of times. Knowing he could shake the steering wheel back and forth and get a couple of miles out of it but there was no way we’d be able to make it up River Hill on the other side of town to get out to the Pure Stone Quarry where we had gas storage tanks.

Without him saying a word, or missing a lick, I crawled out right side window and into the back and started pumping. I topped it off before we ever got out to the Pure Stone Quarry.

Don’t you know that was a sight, a kid standing in the back of that pickup pumping gasoline into the tank while going right through the middle of town?