So I grew up in a small town called Gatesville. The people there have hearts of gold but by golly nothing ever really happens. I mean, us kids had to drive 30 miles to Waco in order to go bowling or watch a movie or do anything remotely interesting. So most of my anecdotes happen in that setting when me and my friends were just killing time trying to figure out what to do in a small town. Heck, for all I know kids in Houston or NYC are just as restless but somehow I think not.
I used to ride with some of my buddies in their trucks up and down Main St. We would come to a little restaurant called Grants and turn around in the parking lot and go West down Main St. Then we would come to the Square and circle the courthouse then go East on Main St. About 5 minutes later we would be back at Grants and turn around and go West again.
We would do this about 20 times I think. And this was a night of entertainment. If you were really lucky you would see other highschool friends doing this and you would wave them down or try to beat them off the line at the stoplight or pull over and chat from your windows in some parking lot until a policeman rolled up and flashed his lights to say "No loitering!".
Some of the people doing this liked to add alcohol (or "alki-hol" is probably how we said it). This always made for interesting conversation whenever a truck would pull up next to you with their window down and someone would yell something unintelligible at you. "Who's that?" we'd say. "Aw, that's just Kelly and I think he's drunk."
I never drank. Not that I was better than anyone else (though some may have thought I was a goody-goody) but I was scared that I would get caught. I don't believe there is anything wrong with consuming alcohol. Of course, if I would have drank it then I would have been underage and breaking the law. Also, I do believe it is morally wrong to get drunk but I'm getting off topic here. So at the time I also felt that I would be sinning by drinking.
As fun as it was to drive up and down "the Drag" as we called it, it was also a little discomforting. I mean, we were not just looking for fun we were also looking for meaning in life. Was it found in spending time with friends, or agitating the police, or drinking? The scary thing that I realized at the time were there were not just high schoolers cruising the Drag but there were people in there 20s and 30s that were still doing it which seemed ancient to me at the time (I am 27 now). There they were still driving up and down and up and down slowing down only to give an inebriated shout at highschoolers who were scared of them. It made me wonder if I would ever leave the town.
Well, I did leave the town when I went to college at UT in Austin. I sure do miss my friends from Gatesville. However, I regret a lot of the stupid things I did there.
There's more stories to come about some of my mistakes and what happened after I left Gatesville. Tune in next time for more anecdotes from a hick.
