Once Kenny and I were fooling around doing God only knows what one Saturday in Smithwick. I was living in Austin and Kenny was at a “flexible stage” in his life. I’m referring to when he was blowing in the wind, unattached.

At some point something happened and it became necessary for us to go Austin. He wanted to go get his pickup, but knowing it was going to take up valuable time, I said “come on and ride with me and I can drive you back up to Smithwick tomorrow”.

He agreed and we spent the night at my house. The next morning the lazy’s hit me and the dread of driving all that way set in on me. An answer to my prayer came in the form of a phone call. One of our employees, Lyndon, called to say he was headed up to Marble Falls and did I need anything from up that way?

Bells went off in my head. “Yes, come on by. Kenny needs a ride to Smithwick”.

Lyndon and his wife, Paula, showed up in a little while. I then made an announcement to Ken that since they were headed to Marble, I had asked them to come by and give him a lift.

A few minutes later they were all loaded up in that old smoke belching Buick with Kenny in the backseat. The floor board full of Taco Bell wrappers, chicken bones, dirty diapers and who knows what else. With it being a time before car seats, Kenny enjoyed the next hour and a half with two little snotty nosed crying girls, about 2 & 3 years old, crawling all over him with soiled diapers and all.

This all happened while I was setting back watching the Dallas Cowboys play football, back when that used to be something I enjoyed.

Needless to say I had a very unhappy big brother on my hands. For some reason ever since that happened, I’ve had a hard time getting Kenny to go off with me anywhere.