It was January of 1978 and I was a sophomore in high school. One of my closest friends had just turned 16 and had his driver’s license. Another friend had his permit and a car. The guys were ready to get out for the first time on our own. I told my parents that we planned to go out on Friday night. Our plans were sketchy at best. We might go see a movie. We would definitely ride around town. One of the big activities for a lot of teenagers my age at that time was to ride down the main drag in our small city of Alamo. The house where I lived was on this main drag so if my parents were wondering what I was doing, they could usually just wait a few minutes and see us ride by the house. Riding the strip as high on our agenda and that took up some of our time. At some point, we decided to go to Jackson to the movies. When we got there, we were late to see the early showing of Mel Brooks’ High Anxiety. We decided we would hang out until the late showing. In the meantime we went to a bowling alley and hung out. We didn’t bowl. We were trying to cram everything into this night that we could like we would never be allowed to hang out together again.
As we returned to the movie theater, it began to snow. It was a light snow but probably enough to freak out our parents. We still went to see the movie. When we got out, it was close to midnight and the snow had piled up high. The roads were more treacherous than what new drivers should have been out on, but we managed to take it easy and make it home alright. We thought we would never get to go out again but soon every weekend was filled with movies, bowling and riding the strip.