I made a lame attempt at telling this story just after it happened. I don’t think I did justice to it, possible for fear that something might come along a bite my brother in the rear end and I didn’t need to be on a witness stand trying to explain myself. But since a couple of years or more has passed, I’m going to make another run at it.

Kenny asked if I’d like to ride with him up south of Dallas to look at a piece of machinery that he was contemplating buying. I thought we would enjoy the trip so I agreed to go. We stopped by and pickup up our old friend Ken Akins at his place out east of Waco. We had a great day of swapping stories. Ken knew a little about Kenny’s driving habits, from being the DPS Officer assigned to Marble Falls when we were growing up and he had received a refresher course reading about Kenny’s exploits here on The Angora Chronicles. We joked about several road trips the two of us had taken.

After we dropped Ken off on the way back that afternoon, we were headed on down I-35. I was watching my iPhone map app and saw where there appeared to be a huge traffic tie-up down in one of the small towns. The road was under construction (oh really, when has it not been under construction), so oftentimes there were tie-ups.

When I told him where it was the worst, he detoured off and took some backroads to get around it. He slightly miscued where to get back on to the freeway. When he attempted to get on at an on-ramp, a guy in a large pickup truck pulling a big fifth wheel travel travel decided to not let us get in. Kenny decided that he really wanted to get in.

I’m going to tell you that the story is a bit foggy to me from this point on, as I wasn’t really paying much attention, as I tell the cop later in the story, I was sitting there somewhere between dozing off while messing with my phone and in a pure daze.

Anyhow, from here on I’m more relying on Kenny’s version and the little bit that I remember.

When Kenny caught a moment in the stop and go of the traffic, his acceleration was far better than the guy pulling the trailer. Kenny won that battle pretty handily. But the fellow had Nebraska plates on that pickup, and for whatever reason he set down on his horn. It was a really loud horn. I guess the guy didn’t realize that Texan’s expect people to act neighborly and setting down on your horn can be taken as a major offense. The sound of that horn must have startled Kenny so he jammed on his brakes. The unneighborly fellow ran into the back of Kenny’s almost brand new pickup.

They each got out (I was still mostly napping) and had a discussion about it standing in the hot sunshiny afternoon on hot pavement. Kenny’s pickup didn’t sustain any real damage. The other guy wasn’t so lucky. Kenny’s trailer hitch hit at almost the top of the bumper and got up in the grill of the guys truck and made a complete mess out of the front end.

Kenny explained that when someone runs into the back of another vehicle, it means he was probably traveling too close, therefore it was the rear vehicle at fault. The guy consulted with his wife and decided it was best to just forget everything and we all should go our separate ways.

We pulled off and it wasn’t long before the traffic began to flow better. Evidently some do-gooder had called in the accident. A little small town cop pulled up behind Kenny and motioned for him to take the next exit. When we got stopped, another cop escorted the other pickup up and they parked behind us.

The cop came up to question Kenny and that didn’t go very well, so he asked Kenny to get out of his pickup and follow him back to his car. They all stood back there, including the other man and his wife until they we dripping wet with sweat. I had reclined my seat back and was enjoying the rest of my nap when the officer showed up at my window wanting me to roll it down. I complied fully and rolled it down, like a good citizen. He was wanting to get my side of the story. I guess what Kenny told them and what the other people told him weren’t lining up. I suppose he was looking for me to bring clarity to the whole matter. But all I could remember was I felt them hit the back of us, but mostly I was napping so I didn’t know the details.

After about an hour, with Kenny being threatened with going to jail a few times, they decided to just leave it like Kenny and the other guy had already decided. Kenny got in and we headed toward home.

Kenny is upset with me, because I didn’t tell the cop what happened. “So Kenny was I suppose to tell him you were pissed off and jammed on your brakes because the guy was honking at you. Or was the guy driving along and just ran into us. Or how about I thought you were backing down I-35 and backed into the guy”.

I’m not sure that he ever figured out how I was going to tell the same story that he had given without it becoming a trip to jail for him.