Even though gas prices have gone down here recently, I don't suppose they've gone down enough to justify cruising Key Avenue with no particular agenda in mind other than waving to your friends and honking the horn as they pass by going the opposite direction.

I remember a time when that was reason enough. And as much as I hate cliches, you gotta give credit to one: The more things change, the more they stay the same. You see, my dad was griping about all the gas I wasted "cruising Key" way back in 1985! And truthfully, for those of us who grew up in Lampasas, it almost feels natural to hit the right blinker at Storm's, doesn't it? We did it so many times in high school that it just feels right. In my teens on a Friday or Saturday night, it literally took half an hour to circle through Storm's. The "good ol' days" we call them. You were lucky if the traffic in the right-hand lane didn't stall at Junior O'Neal's gas station or Powell Supply at the least. So, we burned our gas idling around till we got near the tables. The pavilion sure wasn't as elaborate as it is now.

One Friday night the Badgers were playing an outof town game, and as we idled we listened to the last quarter on the radio. Pepper Procter had already stuck his nose across the goal line for one touchdown, and Richard Roach had zipped a couple more to Curtis Thrift with Jason Bednar kicking in the extra points, and Randy Boivin was just hammering the opposing running backs. Listening to the end of the game, I hadn't noticed that the traffic in front of us on Key was at a dead standstill. I remember asking my best friend, Joe Ball, "What's goin' on up there?"

"Oh, man," he said, "you gotta check this out. Shane Green's up there doing his Michael Jackson victory dance!" He threw the truck in park and left it running right there in the right-hand lane, and we walked across the front of Storm's toward the tables and sure 'nough, there was Shane doing the Moonwalk with an old cotton gardening glove on one hand. You know, the kind with the little black bumps for grip.

I also remember a time when I was about 14 or so, and I was riding with Jim Bob Clary and his dad. I can't recall where we were headed or what we were doing but we were there next to Shamrock easing left onto Key when Mr. Clary said, "Look over there at the burger joint!"

Well, look we did and saw Clint Canales standing on a blue Storm's tray, holding onto the tailgate of Bradley Johnson's truck as Bradley shifted into second gear so Clint could "surf" his way to Su-Mart (remember when it was called that?). Clint could ride the hair off a bull, but his feet got hot way before Su-Mart, so he had to pull himself up onto the bumper.

The crew I ran with was pretty much a rowdy bunch. It was made up of guys and gals both younger and older than me. We were all hard-core Key Avenue Road Warriors. As a matter of fact, I often wonder if we were to calculate all those miles together and then divide that figure by let's say 15 (miles per gallon), would the final tally be enough to significantly boost the U.S. oil reserves? I bet it would.

I guess if I could magically make myself and that whole crew 16 or 17 years old again, our parents would be having heart attacks and strokes over these gas prices, fainting each time we reached for the keys. Or do you think we'd cut back, save our gas, and not cruise Key so much? Maybe we'd just drive straight to school and back home.

Yeah, right! Who am I kidding? That crowd? We'd still burn up 5,000 gallons on Halloween night alone, trying to figure out how to get some advantage over Logan Fox and that old flatbed truck of his that he used in the annual water balloon fight. I still say adding those 4-inch sideboards was cheating.

I guess my point in all this could be that I'd like to have back all that gas I wasted. Nah, on second thought, I wouldn't trade even one of those memories for all the oil in Iraq.

Happy Halloween and long live the past and present Key Avenue Road Warriors!
Doyal J. Garrett
Kenedy