WHAT’S CAUSING ALL THIS? | Looking back on a chaotic week after Thanksgiving 20 years ago

Happy Thanksgiving.

I know – I’m like the 3,542^nd person to tell you that in the last two days. And I really mean it (not that they don’t.).

Be thankful today for all of your blessings. Then eat. Watch football. Most of all, spend time with people you love.

I’ll be in Corsicana, Texas, and then Athens, Texas tomorrow to cover football playoff games, like I’ve done about every year for 30 of ‘em.

To me, Thanksgiving has always been about seeing folks – people you don’t get to see all the time, people you’d like to see more. Challenging you to find someone today that you don’t normally spend time with, and have at least a 5-minute conversation about what THEY have going on without saying the word “I” one time.

Maybe the reason I like Thanksgiving so much is because I appreciate it more now. And don’t mistake what I’m about to say. I love high school football, and I’ve been blessed to cover Kilgore and other teams that have played on into the playoffs beyond Thanksgiving weekend.

Let me tell you about one particular Thanksgiving aftermath, 20 years ago.

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We had just celebrated Thanksgiving, and a few days later, on December 2, 2004, we welcomed Ashtyn to our family – Teresa Leigh was eight, Jacob just four, when Ashtyn was born, 20 years ago on Monday.

At the time, Kilgore was in the middle of what would be a historic football playoff run. Kilgore football dates back to the mid 1930’s, but none of the Bulldogs’ glory years in the decades before would equal what they would pull off in 2004: a 16-0 record, and a state championship win over Dallas Lincoln in a double-overtime game at Waco.

But we had to get there first, and the week after Thanksgiving – the day after Ashtyn was born – Kilgore was set to go to play La Marque, who had been kind of the kings of the hill in Class 4A back then, and the game was to be at Kyle Field, the home of Texas A&M.

The day of the game arrived, but I had been up for 24 hours: Ashtyn’s birth the day before had me awake all day Thursday and into the day on Friday. I was completely, totally exhausted, but had the trip to College Station in front of me. I could not miss it: I was the Kilgore News Herald’s sports editor, the only sports writer, and completely, totally invested in it. Missing it would be devastating, would make me the town laughing stock, and thus, not an option.

Several people told me (and I agreed) that I really didn’t need to get behind the wheel of a car and drive four hours to College Station, cover a game, and then drive back in the middle of the night. Even driving one way and staying the night probably wasn’t the best idea.

To top that off, the day AFTER Kilgore and La Marque were to play, Kilgore College was to play Pima (Ariz.) in the 2004 Pilgrim’s Pride Bowl in Mount Pleasant – about 5 ½ hours away from College Station.

My plan: go to College Station, come right back, and get up Saturday morning and hit the bowl game. Sleep? The heck with it. Didn’t need it, had no idea when I would get it. I guess I was thinking I’d sleep between the games, on the trip home.

Yeah. I was really thinking that. That’s almost as stupid as the people yelling their frustrations over Trump being re-elected at Lake Michigan (for your viewing “pleasure:” Liberal Women Protest Trump’s Victory With ‘Primal Scream’ on Lake Michigan).

So my father-in-law, Pete, volunteered to be my driver. Pete, an Air Force veteran who flew in some pretty tight spots, is now retired, and retired from his teaching career as well. At the time, though, he was still teaching.

Pete is one of those “unintentionally funny” people. You know the type.

An example: a friend of mine wrote on Facebook last year that he was probably the only one on planet Earth that had not seen an episode of “The Walking Dead.”

Pete was the first one to respond. “No,” he said, “there are two of us.”

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So we’re off to College Station, after about three hours of sleep, and I’m in and out of consciousness on the way down. I do vaguely remember Pete getting his jacket stuck on his arms, kind of like “Planes, Trains And Automobiles,” and thinking to myself, “So… this is how I go out.”

But he apparently fixed it, we survived and made it to College Station.

We were running behind, though: kickoff was only 30 minutes away, and we’re just getting into the city limits.

We get to George Bush Drive, right near Kyle Field, and there’s an accident, of all things: nobody looks to be hurt at all, but the area was already busy because of the game. Now it’s twice as busy, and to give you some idea of my routine every week, I normally get to a game about two hours early.

Pete barks the solution. “Get out,” he said.

“What?”

“Get out!,” he said again. “Move it, get to the stadium – you can get there faster on foot. If you sit here in traffic, you’re gonna miss the first quarter. Just go; I’ll park the car and see you inside.”

He’s right. I jump out of the car, with my ID around my neck, and hoof it to the stadium.

I make it in a few minutes, looking like an idiot running the whole way. I’m pretty sure someone yelled at me that old, great advice from the ‘80s: “Run! You’ll get there faster,” a bright notion if there ever was one.

I get to the stadium, and my ID is in my shirt – I run inside a garage-area portion of Kyle Field. Before I know it, security guards are all over me. “GET HIM!,” I hear someone shout, and I realize, crap, they’re talking about me!

Before they can reach me, and pummel me into submission, I jerk my ID out of my shirt. “Hey, I’m good! I’m a reporter! I’m a reporter! I’m here for the game!”

They actually detain me for a second, and I explain I’m there to cover Kilgore-La Marque.

And in a real hero move, one of the security guards hops on a golf cart. “Get on!,” he shouts, and off we go, to the field.

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Kilgore wins the game, 26-21; the clock expires and I am relieved, that Kilgore won, and that maybe I can finally get some sleep.

I find Pete, and we both agree: a drive-thru, and then north: north to Mount Pleasant for the Kilgore College bowl game. Pete takes the first driving shift, navigating us out of College Station, and after a couple of hours, I’ll take the second.

Or so we thought.

We go through a Wendy’s (you know, back then, “Eat Great, Even Late,” and all that stuff – their drive-thru is open late). After what seems like an eternity, we finally get to the window to collect our food.

Pete ordered my food right: a spicy chicken sandwich, plain, with fries and a drink. We get the food, and I hand him his, fixed so he can drive with it. I pull mine out.

Loaded. Mayo, lettuce, tomato, the works.

“Oh Good Lord,” Pete said, and starts to drive around the Wendy’s.

“Wait, don’t get back in line,” he said.

“You hate it like that, you won’t eat it,” he said.

I take a huge bite. Pete’s eyes are as big as saucers. He really knows me. Honestly, it almost made me sick.

“I DO hate it. But I’m whooped,” I told him. And we go.

We get to the outskirts of Navasota, of all places, and I hear a thump, thump, thumpthumpthumpthump.

We’ve got a freakin’ flat. At 1 a.m. In the middle of nowhere.

Because God is good, all the time, and all the time, God is good, we come around the curve and there’s an old-fashioned Wal-Mart (Yeah, even with the hyphen – they used the hyphen back then).

We pull into the parking lot. It’s not a supercenter, and it’s about to close.

We get out of the car, and pop the trunk. My car at the time was an old Buick – one that I had serviced earlier that week.

And then I remembered.

Pete goes to the trunk, and I’m getting out. “Hey, let’s just get the spare out – “

I reach the trunk, where Pete’s standing.

The trunk is empty.

“Where’s your spare? I guess it’s underneath this cover –”

I stop him. “The spare is in Kilgore,” I said, softly.

Pete laughed. “No, where’s your – “

“Pete, the spare is in Kilgore. I had the car worked on this past week, and I remember now, the mechanic and I left the spare and the tire iron sitting in the garage.”

Pete was not laughing anymore. In fact, his face at this point was like three different colors: white, blue, and maybe a little red.

If we hadn’t been in such a mess, I would have laughed. I almost did, in spite of myself.

He sighed. “OK. What now?”

The parking lot is almost empty. This store is not a supercenter, and it’s about to close.

We go pick up a can of Fix-A-Flat, or whatever it was called, and head back to the car.

It did NOT fix our flat, as the tire was too damaged for it to work.

So I pull out my cell phone, which today’s phones make look like an ancient artifact, and try to get the insurance company. And we’re in a bad cell area; there’s hardly any service. I try for an hour and finally get an operator at about 2 a.m.

I explain to her our situation, and she breaks the news to me that the tow truck will be there – around 5:30 a.m.

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That means Mount Pleasant the next morning for the bowl game is out. It means getting back before 9 a.m. is out.

And I found out pretty quickly that it meant SLEEP was out.

I take the front seat, because I’m smaller than Pete, and he takes the back.

“Just let me know when the guy is here,” he said, and I told him I would.

I go into a 10-minute explanation of what the last few days was like, where Kilgore might play next and who, talk about the call to the insurance company, an then I realize…

…Pete is snoring.

And he gets louder.

Bless his heart, I’m using the steering wheel for a pillow, and I swap up so that my head is at the other end.

After what seems like a sleepless eternity, the tow truck arrives a little before 5, and he winds up towing us to the shop to fix the tire, or put another one on, instead of doing it there.

By the time we leave NAVASOTA, it’s 9 a.m. Saturday morning.

That’s right: 20 years later, Kilgore is playing Navasota on Friday at 2 o’clock, although we’re not going to Navasota. That might give me chills. The game is actually in Corsicana, a little less than two hours away from Kilgore. Corsicana is also known as the home of the Collin Street Bakery (Collin Street Bakery – Wikipedia) and where Wolf Chili was born (Wolf Brand Chili – Wikipedia).

Our family has kind of had a discombobulated Thanksgiving this year: my daughter Tee and her husband Nate came up from Katy for some early holiday time and went home; Jacob is doing his usual thing, in New York City for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade with Spirit of America and the Rangerettes; and we’re home.

But Ashtyn is 20 on Monday. We’ll celebrate her birthday now, then again at the Christmas holidays. We kind of do a month-long deal for everyone’s birthday here.

We also celebrate the 20^th anniversary of Kilgore’s state championship. There are so many connections to that team on this 2024 version.

Good luck to Kilgore, and to Overton, in their playoff games tomorrow.

Oh, and happy Thanksgiving.