St. Paul is a long way from Watson. Almost all the way across the state. But I went to see Barbara every weekend I could, which means every weekend I was invited. I began to realize, her daddy didn't have any rules for this 17 year old girl. She was on her own. I didn't understand that at all, because my Dad was very strict. My sisters didn't date at all in high school. Over a period of time I learned why.
One weekend, her parents and all the rest of her family still at home, except Barbara, were going to her sister Frances' house for the weekend. But, Barbara invited me down anyway. No problem, Daddy won't mind.
Well, like I said, this sounds like I'm laying the groundwork for a really good part of my story here. But, when we got back to her house after the movie, she soon let me know it was time for me to head out. I didn't have any arrangements made, so I drove over on the levee, crawled into the back seat, and me and the Delta mosquitoes had a big party. Enjoyed more by them than me, I'm sure. Put simply, her Daddy and Mama just trusted this girl completely. And she never gave them reason not to.
Time for the senior play was coming up, and I was the man. When we started having practice at night, I soon realized I had my hands full. Sometimes, some of them would just not show up. Those that did had not been studying their lines. I knew a disaster was in the works, and I was right. When the big night came, I posted several prompters around behind the curtains. It really was not a matter of prompting, often they just had to read the whole line to them. And sometimes, the wrong actor grabbed onto a line and just ran with it. Halfway through, a very loud alarm clock that some junior had hidden in the couch on stage went off. I still have that clock. You just can't believe how loud that clock was.
Oh well, all's well that ends well. When it was over, they called me out on the stage, told me how much they appreciated my hard work, and presented me with a brand new fly rod.
The end of the school year rolled around. Time for the senior trip. I was again the man, with a lady out of the community agreeing to go along to watch after the girls. She really didn't do much of anything, I think she was on vacation. I drove to Little Rock and booked us in a big hotel. These mountain kids were awe struck. I began to realize most of them had never been to a city before. Some of them just wanted to ride the elevator, up and down, as long as I would let them. Some of them were older than me, and some of the girls were pretty and flirty. A 21 year old guy just really should not be responsible for them, that long. But my “do-right mechanism” was turned on and kept me in good stead.
We went on to Hot Springs. We went for a ride on a party barge. I had never driven one before, but I was again the man. As I came into a dock, I tried gracefully to shift into reverse. It would not go. I tried again, desperate this time. No luck. I yelled to the kid up front. “Hold it off, Max! Don't let it hit!”
Well, I was giving an impossible assignment to that little boy on that great big barge! BOOM! Everyone came running out of cabins, and from everywhere. I had to cough up several bucks to get out of that. I had made another big mistake. I passed out everyone's meal money for the whole trip the first day. Max, and some others, were big spenders – for about a day. Then they begged and starved the rest of the trip.
Coach Billy Max resigned, and they offered me the coaching job for the next year. I took it.
Now, I was good at not wasting money when I started to college. Can't waste what you don't have. But college had honed that ability even more. I had $310 per month take home during that teaching semester, lived, made new car payments, and still saved $800 that semester.
I decided to go to Oklahoma for the summer, maybe get a job on a pipeline, oil well, or whatever. Barbara was about to be off to A&M that summer, I knew what kind of splash she would make there that summer. I also knew she was not ready to put all her eggs in one basket yet, and she still had ties to some guy in the Air Force. But we parted on good terms for the summer, each with no ties on the other one.
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