No one else that I know has his first car 50 years later. Much less all the paper work that came with it.

If I could write about all the things that happened, just when it was the two of us in that Blue “68” Roadrunner, it would fill several books. Some things would be worth telling, yet others we may not want to admit. We drove the streets of Marble Falls and the roads all around Burnet County almost nightly for a few years, almost always in that Roadrunner. Many times our adventures wouldn’t start until we had each separated for our dates that happened earlier. It was like we each lead a double life. He had our time apart and we had our time together. There was very little we didn’t know about the comings and goings around town.

We kept up with who sneaked out to who’s house in the early morning hours. We just observed and filed away most of it. Saving it for a rainy day. There were remarkable things happening in Marble Town.

For some reason we stayed on the same clock when it came to going to school or rather not going to school. I usually came to town early in the morning and he and I would ride around before school. Lots of times just a few hours since we had parted company. It’s strange, for all the times that we spent together we never visited each other’s house. I was never in his house, nor him in mine that I can recall when we were growing up.

But many times we would be driving along before school took up and we’d look at each other, nodding our heads, without a word spoken we’d be on the way to Austin to check out the city. We didn’t cause any mischief back in Marble Falls or when we went away. We would drive to different car dealers and look at cars or head down on East 1st Street to the Honda Motorcycle dealership. There was never fast driving or spinning tires. Tommy didn’t do that.

As soon as they would open we would go to the Kentucky Fried Chicken place at Barton Springs and South Lamar. We would get a bucket of chicken and each would get a quart of mashed potatoes and gravy. That was eating we couldn’t do back in Marble.

After a little more driving we’d be headed back to Marble Falls by the time school let out. By the way this was an activity that we seldom went more than a couple of weeks without repeating. Never once do I remember either of us being called in about our absences. We would either write a note ourselves explaining our absence or get some girl with nice hand writing to write one for us, I guess they didn’t file those notes away, because it’s doubtful that any 2 would have like signatures on them. Our report card seldom showed nearly as many absences as we had. The record keeping must not been very good. I actually think we both learned more on the days we missed than when we went to school. It’s just that neither of us were putting ourselves on a path to college. I doubt that either of us ever even considered a career that college was needed for.

Friends like Tommy come along seldom in our lives. I’m glad he’s been in mine. Not long ago Tommy told a friend of ours that he only remembered us having one fight. It was over me reaching over and adjusting the radio. That couldn’t have lasted more than 5 minutes.