Lupe’s Tortilla - SFA Dinner - 27 Aug 14

Pretty good group last night. Lots of locals, two from Houston and two from Austin. We could really use a lot more locals and we wouldn’t have to compete for space with the other B/CS groups plying for attention at the local establishments.

As soon as I entered the room at Lupe’s, I was forced to report on the sad occasion of Bobby Buntyn’s passing and the funeral that Jimmy and I attended last week—it was so sudden and unfortunate, I will miss Bobby a great deal. He was one of my first friends upon moving to Bryan in 1954 and attending my 6^th new school class in only the second grade. Bobby was one of the many that made the new kid from Montana/ North Dakota feel welcome.

On the other hand, I am glad to report that Sam Searcy’s knee replacement is finally working out for the better. Sam says “it gets better every day.” He and his wife had just recently returned from a short vacation to the Vermont area—doing a lot of day trips from their rented condo. Lots of time in the car and stopping just short of going into Canada; but he had several good anecdotes to relate. I ask him if while he was in the area in New Hampshire if he had the occasion to visit Mount Washington; I’ve always wanted to go there. For those not familiar, Mt Washington is located in upper New Hampshire and has the distinction of having the highest wind velocity (175=MPH) ever recorded on the face of the earth. Sam acknowledged that he did check the weather on Mt Washington on a daily basis while he was in the area.

I do not recall how the following came about. It seems we have inherited from our follow on graduates (Class of ‘66) their own Jerry Nance. Jerry has been at every dinner over the last couple of months or so. I have enough trouble having to Jimmy’s stories over and over; but now Jerry’s seem to be repeating themselves. While Sam and I were discussing adventures in Newark, New Jersey—one of Sam’s stops on his Vermont vacation—Jerry tricked us into listening his capture and utter humiliation of some scab he subdued and arrested in the San Francisco area some 35 to 40 years ago. Well, we eventually survived. I do not know if a ransom discussion with the Class of ’66 would do any good or not. Maybe we could take up a collection and they would come and get him (Ransom of Red Chief sort of situation).

 

The recent heat was the foremost topic of discussion around the table last night. Seems we are all looking for some place to escape it. I, for one, am considering trying to talk Janell of Cynthia into renting me a room in their northern abodes for the summer next year.

 

Thomas and his wife advised me of some of Thomas’ “musical” haunts that I intend to pass along to my brother. Thomas plays three or four times a week and I believe my brother would fit in with them.

 

The “girls” sitting to my right all seemed to be having a great time but would stop—in mid-sentence—if I showed any interest in their discussion. I have no idea who they thought I was representing—some CIA eavesdropping effort, I assume. I never could break into their conversation.

The other end of the table was far too distant for me to hear what was going on down there. I thought Jimmy would give me the G2 on our way back to Austin, but that didn’t happen. As soon as we got in to my vehicle, he started up on the discussion we suspended when we pulled into our parking place. He didn’t miss a beat and took right up where he had left off.

Prior to departure, there was a secret meeting to select the meeting place for the end-of-September dinner. The vote resulted in the top of Mt Washington being selected. See you there!

Jaybird and Peas – Reminiscing about Classmate Diner

Laying here jaybird naked after having finally arrived back home from a night out with the girls—as Patsy calls my monthly trip to dinner with my high school classmates—and having moved the leftover Popeye’s Chicken box outta the way for room, I’ve stuffed the purple hulls that I had retrieved from the Farm Patch in Bryan into the fridge to be bagged up first thing in the morning. I bet ya haven’t been able to get that jaybird reference out of your mind yet, have you? Well, the excitement of getting home and taking the pups out back one last time before ascending the stairs to end an eventful evening had caused the heart rate to elevate just a bit—I needed to cool down prior to stacking some zzzzs.

Purple Hulls from the Farm Patch

I couldn’t start the zzzzs until I had reviewed the evening:

Foremost in my mind was the trip home. While listening (read struggling to stay interested) to Jimmy’s fifth time through the guys in his unit procuring an replacement night scope so they could turn in a tank somewhere in Germany, Jersey or maybe Ft Hood or maybe it was the daughter in California requirements; I had been hemmed into the center lane approaching some night road work between Bastrop and Austin. As I slowed down to fall in behind him, he slowed also. As I speeded up, he again did also. Finally punching it and charging ahead in an attempt to gain the advantage, my truck hit 90 quickly. Hoping that I didn’t cut him off too sharply—his horn indicating that I might have—I commented to Jimmy: “I never knew those highway cones could fly so high! Well at least the road crew has the rest of the night to get them back in place.”

Thinking back to the dinner with the girls; I had ordered (again the last in line to do so; last to be served the previous month) a chicken fried steak as it seemed to be the safest only to have it wake me up during the night—I think the last chunk of chicken fried trying to exit back the way it have entered. Hagar the Horrible never had a case of indigestion this bad! Tossing and turning, I hoped I had dozed for three or four hours and hoped that it hadn’t been just an hour or so. I definitely didn’t want to spend the next seven hours suffering like this.

Everything kept running through my brain.

I know Thomas and I discussed the entire past season of “Duck Dynasty” and all the characters highs and lows. Then we moved on to the coming season and each of our hopes for that.

Tonight, I got my entrée just about the time everybody else did. I gazed down at a chicken fry that roughly looked the size of a miss-sharpened home plate and thought I hit the jackpot. Little did I know that it would return to haunt me later. Then there was that stack of mashed potatoes leveling off about chest-hair high and a good little bowl of corn. I had entered redneck heaven.

At some point, I made sure I had everybody’s attention in order to make some witty comment in response to an utterance from across the table about how thoughtful the restaurant was to have put Thomas’ snow peas in a separate bowl so the juice didn’t mix with his chicken fry—by the way: snow peas! How does that come about? I had just dumped my corn (and its juices) into that stack of taters and said: “Vicky! Wasn’t it nice that the restaurant did the same for me?”

Well Vicky took exception to the comment. First by insuring that her name was Kay and not Vicky and then affirming my comment to be right on target. There I was; right back in high school and embarrassed by something I had done that was outta line; stripped completely of all my dignity. Me face should have turned red but couldn’t. All the blood had just flushed completely like Universal Rundle had taken over all bodily fluids. I looked to see if I could crawl under the table but our positioning was so tight I stood not a chance. I had to sit there and take it as if nothing had changed in forty plus years. I apologized to Kay—I have no idea why I called her Vicky, she wasn’t even there.

Eventually the conversation passed on to another subject and I began to feel better about my situation.

Sam took us off on a tangent and assigned us all homework to watch some TV movie coming up over the next couple of weeks having to do with four guys (2 black and 2 white) that had been chained to the floor by Barry Gordy and made to suffer awful punishment somewhere in Detroit for year after year. I’ll look for it, but don’t think it can compare to the Cleveland stuff currently playing out.

We got into a rousing conversation about ancestral searches and who had made what discoveries and who had had problems getting to information. Some of the cemetery searching that some of the girls had been up to sounded sorta creepy—had enough of that kind of play growing and don’t want to go there again.

Still not able to shake the chicken fry attack, I turned to thinking about gathering a crew somewhat earlier the coming afternoon and hitting one of the Austin eateries, say around 4:30 PM (My son sings to me about eating at 4:40 PM to the tune of the Village People’s YMCA all the while thinking he’s getting over on me. I’ll take the harassment over the indigestion at any time.) With the Legislature not due back until Monday, I don’t know where I’ll be able to come up with a class of clowns. Don’t worry, I’ll scrape together some from somewhere. Still thinking about that jaybird?

Once again, I’m sorry Vicky. DAMN, I mean Kay! Good friends, good food, good night!