Buffaloed

Remember a little while ago, how I told you about taking my buddy's sister to her prom, how I was her first and she was my second? Well, I forgot to tell you her name. On her birth certificate and her driver's license, it's Samantha Ann Lane, but once one of her grade school classmates figured out that her initials spelled SAL, people started calling her Sally, and for the most part, she goes by that now.

About a year after that fishing trip to the Buffalo, I had a little extra money and was feeling a little lonely. From what I'd heard, Sally wasn't seeing anybody, so I asked if she wanted to go out one Saturday night. We went out that night... and then we went out again a few weeks after that. Pretty soon, we were keeping regular company; after a year, I brought her, and her mama and daddy, around for Thanksgiving dinner, since that's right there close to Sally's birthday. I proposed at that dinner, and she said Yes. We were engaged for two years, and now we just got through celebrating our eighteenth wedding anniversary. Her brother still doesn't know what we did that night, me and her, but being as we're married, that doesn't matter anymore.

I own my own heating and air conditioning business in Warwick, and Sally answers the phone and keeps the books. We have three kids, and a life I wouldn't trade for all the gold in Fort Knox.

I don't hear from Jacinda anymore, but from what I hear about her from the likes of Jeffrey Wayne and Karla Jean, she's not doing too bsd at all. She married her Vanderbilt med student, and now she's a high society doctor's wife in Nashville. She lives the kinda life a lotta Warwick folks just dream about -- fancy cars, three kids in private school, trips to Broadway, you name it. And sometimes, she and her husband will come back to Warwick, to show their kids where their mama grew up. Other times, they'll throw this town a whole bunch of money to name a park, or build Warwick High's new "Fine Arts Center," they call it. She and her husband were even able to pull some strings and bring her favorite actress out from Hollywood for the dedication.

But like I said, I'm happy with the life I got, and happy to have Sally by my side. I just hope Jacinda's happy with her life, too... and I also hope she remembers that once upon a time, she wasn't too good to go fishing with her cousins, and drink cheap beer with a good old boy.