how 'bout "billy reb?" or will johnny get mad?

last friday night i went to a hays high school football game. darren masur called and asked if jackson and i would like to go with him and his two boys, davin and dalen. it sounded just like something we would like to do. we met up at darren's house and drove to the game together. when we go to hays games, we are almost always found on the visitor's side of the field. the main reason is that it is much less crowded than the home side; the other reason is that the hays fans may be the rudest, most classless football fans this side of arkansas.

we took our usual spots between the 5 yard line and the end zone on the south side of the field. the boys had a great time and i always enjoy hanging out with darren; but, the game was pretty uneventful...hays won by 4 or 5 touchdowns. the prevailing result of the night was my remembrance of my uncle billy ray.

a couple of weeks before my uncle's death, i ran into him at a hays game. again, jackson and i were with the masurs, sitting in our usual spot. at half-time we started walking down the stands to the concession booth. i had almost passed uncle billy before i saw him. i sent the others on and stopped to talk to this old man i have always known. he told me he almost never missed a hays home game and he always sat in the same area where i had found him. he had been coming to these games since the school was opened in the late 60's. when he told me that he was always allowed in for free, i said that i needed some explanation. from his wallet he pulled a card he had purchased in the middle 1970's. it was a lifetime athletics pass for the bearer. it was old and worn (just like uncle billy ray); but, still got the job done (just like uncle billy ray.) we spoke throughout the half, and then he left. he said the games always finished so late that he usually left just after the hays band finished playing "dixie." uncle billy died before i ever saw him again. i can't tell you how happy i was to have happened upon him that autumn night.

uncle billy ray wasn't the oldest member of our family; but, he was the patriarch. he knew everybody up and down the family tree for generations. he loved to share the stories from his life as well as those that had been passed down to him. at every gathering, he was the first to perpetuate the ever-present game of "42." he literally knew where the bodies were buried. he knew the location of a "lost" slave cemetery on the way to driftwood; and, one spring afternoon a few years ago, he led jackson, dad, and me out to lockhart to find the gravesite of the first wilsons to move to texas. this line of my father's family first crossed into central texas some time in the 1840's. as we crossed the counties, he told me plenty of stories about girls from niederwald, the crosshouse, riding his horse to kyle, and the dance halls between kyle and lockhart that he used to frequent. old stories, four generations, bar-be-que and confederate flags...it was quite a day.

i miss my uncle billy ray. he is a good man and i can't wait to greet him and his beautiful wife, caroline once again. living here, in the place where i knew him; i am constantly reminded of this old man as i find myself in the paths that he left.