The spring of 1971 found me and my friend Jimmy in Austin one Friday afternoon. Probably for no other reason than hoping to find some excitement.

I had a new Chevrolet pickup and we decided a drive down to The Drag. We got as far a 34th street on Guadalupe, heading south when we encountered a red light. A couple of pretty young UT types were in the car in right lane, with us in the left lane.

Paying more attention to the girls than to driving, when the light changed as they eased off, so did we. The only problem was an older lady in a Chrysler New Yorker that was in my lane, stopped, waiting to turn left onto 34th.

We had beers that were sitting up on the dash (why were they sitting up there ?) dumped right back on both of us. We had a full case of beer sitting in the seat between us. Things weren’t looking too good for these two Marble Falls teenage boys about then.

The very well dressed lady got out, carrying her little poodle dog. She seemed more concerned about the poodle dog than anything else.

She said she needed to go get her husband (they owned a business just a couple of block north of there). So that left Jimmy and me in charge of the scene. She ran down the sidewalk to get her husband. I can still see her running with those rather large hips swaying, tight knee length skirt with high heels on, carrying the dog.

I looked at Jimmy. I could tell we were of one mind. Everyone seemed to gave gone on with there afternoon. So we both headed for our respective seats in the pickup, waited for an all clear in the traffic and made a quick right turn across and down 34th. .

I never realized how many back streets and roads there were getting the heck out of Austin. Somehow we weaved and dodged our way and came out on RM 1431 at Lime Creek Rd. We hadn’t had the good sense to ditch the case of beer, not wanting to waste it I guess.

We made our way to Lago Vista. We both had worked up a real appetite by that time, so I pulled in. There was a steak restaurant that was next to the old country store. In typical Jimmy fashion he caused a bit too much confusion and they tossed us out of that place and threatened to call the law. Not wanting to take a chance of an encounter with the cops I got him loaded and we were soon back on our home turf in Burnet County.

Two or three weeks later I was passing the Circle Inn, a local beer joint at the Blanco/Burnet County Line, on my way home from San Antonio in the late afternoon on a Friday. I pulled in to see who all was out and about.

There was my buddy Jimmy. We sit and told the whole bunch that was gathered around the table about our close call in Austin a few weeks earlier. Everyone seemed to get a leg slapping laugh out of our story.

Afterwards I made my way on home in Smithwick. When I came in my mother handed me a letter that had arrived a couple of days earlier. It was official looking, from the Austin Police Department.

It was a notice for me to come to the police department, no later than the next Wednesday and to have with me my drivers license, the insurance policy and the plates off of the 1971 Chevrolet Pickup. Nervously I didn’t wait until Wednesday. On Monday I called and spoke to the Sargent that I was told to contact. I arraigned a time for later that day and went in for a visit.

Evidently someone at the adjacent Conoco Station had watched the whole thing and had written down my plate number.

He was really nice. He wanted to know why I had fled the scene that Friday afternoon. My best explanation was I thought it was such a light tap and didn’t think it did any damage and I thought the old woman was just being hysterical. When she ran away, I thought maybe I needed to leave in case her husband was as crazy as she was.

He seemed to understand my point but just asked me to in the future to stay around until an officer arrives. I told him I certainly would if it ever happened again.

He went on to say that when his officer got there and I had left, he was called. He said he actually hadn’t personally seen enough damage to warrant all the fuss. He took my insurance information and I was on my way.

When leaving there I knew he had picked the right line of work. I don’t think he had the critical eye to have ever been an auto-body man. I remember the back quarter panels on that new New Yorker having a considerable amount of wrinkles.

A sure disaster had been avoided. My insurance company paid for the damage to the car, which turned out to be more than a thousand dollars.