Say, that was a super senior citizen soiree that surfaced last week down there on the Texas coast. The event was the 14th annual Road Buddy reunion, which this year took place in Galveston, with the participating parties being old friends from Texas Tech and also Lubbock High School, all 10 of whom have been married to each other in the neighborhood of 50 years, plus or minus. If "marriage is bliss," then you might say that we're just a bunch of "bliss-ters."
Leading the longevity pack with 57 years together were Orville and Claire Summey of North Richland Hills, a Fort Worth suburb (Orville's a retired architect); James and Beth Sides of Lafayette, La., at 56 years (James scored both touchdowns back in '51 when Lubbock High beat Baytown 14-12 for the state championship and was the starting fullback for Texas Tech when it downed Auburn 35-13 in the 1954 Gator Bowl. He went on to become an oil company executive); Bill and Sharlene Gaither of Richardson, a Dallas suburb, at 54 years (Bill's not the gospel songwriter of the same name, but rather a guy who grew up to become an oral surgeon); wife Pat and I of Prescott, at 49 years (I'm a retired newspaper bum); and Leon and Jeanne Taylor of Fort Worth, at 47 years (Leon is a retired accountant with Bell Helicopter).
We all headquartered at a La Quinta motel on Seawall Boulevard (Bill helped us along by pointing out that "La Quinta" translates to "next door to Denny's" in Spanish). As was the case with much of Galveston, the motel was hit hard by Hurricane Ike in September 2008. Its ground-level floor was flooded, and the renovation took a year before the place could be reopened.
Anyway, we all had a fine time doing such things as visiting the Lone Star Flight Museum housing vintage and latter-day aircraft; hopping the Bolivar ferry ("the greatest free ride in Texas"); enjoying some fine dining that included a dandy dinner of seafood succulence at the 100-year-old Gaido's restaurant; and checking out some of the grand old homes on the island, many of which featured elaborate carvings that various artists fashioned from the stumps of olden oaks that Ike took out in its fury.
The most unusual occurrence of the get-together, though, took place while the 10 of us were batting the breeze in the lobby area of our motel. Nothing too heavy, of course. In fact, James, Beth and I were reminiscing about our time at Lubbock High. For example, there was a mention of Bill "Toe" Davis, who came by his nickname honestly because of his being the punting specialist for the LHS Westerners. (The guy could be counted on to kick the ball out of bounds inside the opponent's 10-yard line with regularity.)
Well, Beth mistakenly referred to Toe as "Moe", though, which is understandable because the team in that era did indeed have a "Moe" - Morris "Moe" Turner - but he was a quarterback who never got into punting. He was a class of '50 grad who would go on to serve as Lubbock's mayor in 1972-74. (As an aside, Beth was a '54 grad - one year ahead of classmate Buddy Holly.)
Moving right along, there was a certain amount of hilarity and guffawing going on when a fellow approached our happy group and commented that he enjoyed "listening to stories" and asked if he could join in on the listening, and we of course welcomed him. Well, after identifying himself as Greg Brummet, the inevitable "where ya from?" question came up and he replied that he was from Richardson. Since Bill and Sharlene hail from the same city, Bill asked him what part of town he lived in, and they both expressed a mutual awareness of their mutual whereabouts. Then when Bill provided him with his own full name, the fellow interjected something quite unexpected.
"Hey," he said, "you pulled my wisdom teeth back in 1969!" Then he gleefully extracted his cell phone and called his wife to let her know of the chance meeting with the guy who extracted his chompers 42 years ago.
Yes, this is indeed a small world in which we live.
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