I have no idea what the kids from Loop, Wellman and Union do now on Saturday and Sunday night, but I remember what we did. If you didn’t have a date, which was most of the time for the majority of my friends and me, we either went rabbit hunting, or we hit the drag in Brownfield. The drag in Brownfield was maybe three or four miles long, and it began on the South end of town at the Village Grill Restaurant, and went north to the Fina Station.

There were four or five stop lights along the route, and that’s where all kinds of things might take place. Things like simply taking a quick look over at the girls in the car that caught the light with you. Things like gunning the ole engine a little to see if the guy next to you wanted to give it go off the line. Things like mooning or being mooned. Once you got tired of making the drag the United Supermarket was located just about at the midpoint, so you could just pull into the parking lot and sit for while. Sitting offered a great opportunity to check out everyone else on the drag as they drove by.

The drag is where we got to know the kids from our rival towns a little better. Wellman and Union were both schools we played against in sports, and on the drag is where we came to realize that we weren’t really enemies, just good old fashion rivals. We spent a lot of time sitting on a parking lot somewhere talking about the games we had played against each other. We spent a lot more time talking about each other’s girls. Wellman had quite a few good looking girls, and we had our share of chicks in Loop too, but you know how it is…that ole “grass is always greener” thing played a part. In my eyes Wellman had the prettiest girls of all the schools we played against.

About the only other thing we could do in Brownfield was go to the movies. We had three choices of movies. They had a theater with two screens, and out the west side of town there was a drive-in theater. For the most part, the two screen theater was where you went if you had a date. The drive-in is where you went if it was just a bunch of guys, or if you happened to be cruising alone on a Saturday night.  The two screen is where I saw The Godfather my first three or four times. The drive-in is where I saw my first movie with necked women.

The drive-in is where I would lay in floor board of the back seat with a coat on top of me in order to sneak in without paying. Or, we would stick three guys in the trunk, leaving one lonely soul driving the car going to the show all by himself, only to find out that it was dollar a car load night. The drive-in was also the absolute best place in the world to get chili-cheese-fries.   I can still taste those things, and I still believe they are the best I ever had. Back then when the guy on TV asked, “How long has it been since you had a big thick steaming bowl of wolf brand chili?” I could usually say, “Within the last few days.”

 It was a fun time, going to Brownfield. I could put a hundred miles a night on my Chevy Malibu just making the drag. Until I left home and moved to Lubbock, Brownfield was the center of my minimal dating life. It was twenty-three miles from  my house to Brownfield, and my 1970 model Chevy Malibu could, and did, make the trip in ten minutes on many occasions. I’ll tell you about one of those occasions on Monday.

Till next time,

Grump