I went back making burgers while Donna served coffee. The cafe seemed  warm that night. I was congratulated several times about the song as I took a trickle of orders. Kim did her thing and the crowd had gotten used to it. She had lost her ability to shock. I kinda grinned at how that had become. After it was all over with Donna and I started talking.

Donna looked at me and said, "You know I feel that lonely. Sometimes I don't know what to do with New Braunfels. I hear the news I can't help but care but I know it is no longer my business. Shoot I know you but you are not the same person I knew in High School. You don't do the class envy thing there is no one to over throw. You fight like the dickens your with if anything has gotten at times more caustic and your emotional intensity has grown. Yet the anger towards individuals in you is gone replaced by pity and sympathy." I looked at Donna, "You know I had always wanted to hug you and be your boyfriend but now shoot I need to date you like I need a hole in my head. New Braunfels at time seems like a lifetime ago and others frightenly close. I don't know what I am in that town I wish I did not care but the opposite is true. Denton was a course that I had passed but a place I know longer is an active player. This Plateau and this valley have been the closest thing to constants in my life but I can't be as close to any one as I was with that Senior Bible study. Sometimes my head spins with all the people I have met and all that I have been through. Sometimes it is hard to convince myself that I had been really been they're done that and it was not some strange dream or movie. I feel myself withdrawing and that is the last thing I really need to be doing." Donna responded, "New Braunfels all seems like a bad dream to me now except I can look at my year books and count the corpses." I looked at her and said, "Well the quote Robert Earl King Jr 'the road goes on forever and the party never ends'." We laughed together at the time it sure beat crying our eyes out.

The rest of the week continued. After open Mic Thursday was slow at the café and Friday night brought the usual clientele of state trooper's sheriff's deputies a professor coupled with a few local ranchers. Saturday was slow with the exception of 3 cubs carrying three airline pilots. I had to keep myself from gagging when they talked about the growing stock market and their various investment portfolios. Donna decided to play joker when she made comment after they had left, "I think one of them was Ellen's dad." We both looked at each other and shouted the same line, "The road goes on forever and the party never ends."

Sunday night found Donna and I on 2 patio chairs on the Front porch of the cafe looking westward. We just sat there watching the sunset. I once again was catching that old familiar backbeat of God working. There was a timeless feeling as the sky became alive in dazzling colors and clouds took on all sorts of hues above rugged land. The act though was growing in rebellion against Satellite Cinema cable TV gated communities and the like. I knew that what we were doing had been done repeatedly since this area was first inhabited. We sat there watching as the breeze blew over us and we were surrounded by an ever changing, beautiful scene. We both drank it in we both came in sink and we both rose like buzzards riding a thermal. At that moment though instead of history teacher I was going to be

She started singing a familiar line from a classic rock song I both knew and loved by Bob Seger, "Sometimes at night I see their faces I fell the traces they've left on my soul these are the memories that make me a wealthy man." I asked her if she had ever listened to KZEP. She responded it had too much testosterone for her liking she did like the song though. We then smiled at each other and uttered the same prayer. I drove off to school and barely made my morning class.

That afternoon I spent an hour over the YO ranch spinning looping and rolling too my hearts content. I was slowly getting a decent loop. My rolls were far from decent but improving and I had gotten the old spin down pat once I realized I had considerably less tail to play with than the Pitts did.

I got to the cafe with a smile on face and I was hungry. Donna was surprised as she heard my stomach growl and saw a pattern on shirt that could only come from the aerobatic harness and being flung against it. The run had also created its own munchies. Donna and I settled in for a typical night. I loved this place. It was becoming a haven for tired truckers, troopers patrolling lonely Texas highways, ranchers and their wives out for a meal. The cafe had become my rebellion and in Leakey it was succeeding. It was not a chain store it had eclectic charm and was as far away from cookie cutter uniformity as one could get. It was a bit like the Boar's nest from the Dukes of Hazard in construction. It though lacked the obligatory corruption and humor. It was a café nowhere somehow managing to pay the bills and nothing more. Monday night went and I could not help but smile as thought of it as I dialed in the localizer for Kerrville's runway 12.

Tuesday night at the cafe brought a friend of one my English professors. He could not help but grin as he heard the "Front Porch Song" from Robert Earl Keen. He looked at me, as I was still wet from walking in from the rain and made comment, "I should have been expecting that music when I got in here." He had a wistful look in his eyes. He then looked at me and made the comment, "Gosh I miss that porch." I shot him a puzzled look and he told me the story how him Lyle Lovett and Robert Earl Keen where housemates in building that should have been condemned and the building that the landlord should not have been taking rent on. He gave the low down on how life was there and where it stood in College Station. I could not help but laugh as the story took on as much color as the song did.

It was not hard to imagine the three as roommates but it was so entertaining. He as an oddball mixture of nationalities Italian, Creek Indian and the family had grown up in of all places south Texas. I sat back as the tale was rattled on about how would water-ski irrigation canals pulled by a pickup from shore. He offered to come to the next open Mic. I told him that he would be more than welcome.

The following Wednesday I decided to take my vengeance on a cross-country course that had humiliated me over four years before. I had managed to snag a map from Schreiner Athletic department files from the hero Dr. (Coach) Wells. I walked the course on Tuesday and than I ran it. I remember that sickening feeling, as halfway beyond the first mile I felt not one but two side stitches coming on. At that point I knew I was the butt of a joke and I accelerated knowing that nothing I would do would slow them so I tried to make the best of the time I had left. I wound up running my worst time of the year. Three months later at a Speech and Debate Tournament I blew the perfect extemp speech straight oblivion as I stared out a window instead of a judge. As I ran the course I could not help but grin as of all places I decided to go to college at I picked the one where I did the worst in UIL sponsored competitions. I wound up getting my revenge on the course. 6 months down the road I had to deal with UTSA the course that taught me how bad heat and still air could be.

The winds howled as I drove along the top of the Edwards Plateau heading for the cafe. I still found it hard to believe that I was in my beloved hill country. I still could not get over the sweet taste of lime in the water and sights of land that I had been shaped in. Twenty-seven from Ingram to Mt Home was gorgeous as drainage for the Gaudalupe was right besides in the pretty valley that reached its end at Mt Home. From Mt Home to 83 the road had a distinctly different character. It was simply put plateau top. It was flat and rocky as the wind could howl down clear from the Cap Rock only hitting trees here and there along its path. Below the two-lane black top was solid rock. A few trees dotted the landscape. This was the former wintering ground of Captain Schreiner's cattle. On his fortune the first endowment for the college attended was funded.

As I got in the cafe Donna started passing out an open Mic sign up sheet. I had written an essay about a cloudburst in October. It was the story of another run, a run that I never hope to forget. I placed myself third in the list. "Possum" was up first. He was a plumber on the college's maintenance staff. I heard him pour out a good song on his guitar and was transfixed by his power. I sipped my coffee and realized how good of thing was developing here. A hat could take on such significance was mind blowing as one generation passed it to another and the tradition grew on love and respect. This was real and this was special. One didn't have to take much time to care about the story. It was well told. Following him was Robert Earl Keen's former housemate singing "Hurray Hurricane." The driving guitar and chorus line the story of the battle between responsibility and recklessness within a man's soul. I could not help but thunderstruck darn that was good music I was hearing. The story was intense with the guitar hitting the mind as raw straight emotion they lyrics providing the details. I had found myself in the preverbal monster thermal. It was the story of a man who went out to wreck his boat to collect the insurance money. This was good as we were getting down to what was real within the human existence truth was right there thick and heavy in the air. I rode it for all it was worth. I was up next and I thought to myself gee whiz what an act to follow.

The clouds were low and the air still heavy and moist. All was quiet in this section of the Gaudalupe Valley the Guadalupe Valley State Park was all but abandoned. In few more weeks the Persimmon would be ripe indicating fall's arrival. Right now though summer time was doing its darndest not to go down without a fight. The promise of rain though showed the futility of the battle. We ran down the park road our sweat not evaporating. We were running into the heart of the Guadalupe Valley. Something was about to happen we knew it. You had to blind as a bat and your heart a stone not to. The clouds above us heavy and the hottest part of the day had just passed. We ran in anticipation, rain sweet rain was soon to come. We all hoped it would come sooner rather than later. The coming rain was no secret even for those who had never learned the subtle rhythms of God's creation. The anticipation though was so loud and heavy that it blasted through even through ignorance. The summer had been a harsh one now we could taste the promise of sweet relief we hoped we would get to run in it.

We were running parallel to the river when it began. The white dust of the limestone gravel was put down. The first drops were welcome as they mixed with our sweat and dropped heavily onto the ground that was going from dust to mud. It was coming down and coming down hard. The air was warm and the water cool refreshingly so. We were the sole humans in that section of the valley and something special was happening. We were witnesses to an almost private show. The sound itself was soothing. Life was returning to the parched hills. I could not help but be happy. I had seen pictures like this but nothing on film could capture the sheer beauty of rain falling down all around. Nothing on film could capture the miracle of God ordained life falling from the sky. The hill country was getting renewed cedars wiregrass oaks and all. From the limestone and graveled bottom river that was flowing with new vigor to the few Mountain Laurels, and Persimmons hose wide leaves were now wet. We could feel the change from drought to life. Dead earth became oozing with mud. Grass started perking up looking almost instantly greener. The river's flow increased harder and faster. We ourselves were feeling refreshed as the rain-washed the stifling heat away. Our eyes were given the whole spectrum of greens, grays whites blacks and browns as the sweet sound of rain coming down filled our ears and its cool wetness was sweet relief on our hot sweat soaked bodies. The cloudburst was something friendly. We all felt euphoric as the rain kept coming down and our feet impacted the mud and puddles. We were kids again this time though we were not being chewed out for playing in the rain. The rocks of the cliffs besides grew moist. The hill country was getting a soaking of life giving rain. We were witnesses to the hill country getting another rebirth.

The open Mic continued with gripping cowboy songs and little bits of cowboy poetry. Donna and I poured coffee and listened intently. I had gotten used to it and I was loving every minute of it. Someone brought up the joke: "How many cowboys does it take to change a light bulb?" The answer was: "Four one to do it and three to reminisce how good the old one was." The night ended and a good time was had by all I had an hour's drive to make.