Gary Gill

My parents and I moved to Arcadia Village in the second half of my fourth grade.  I don’t recall knowing Billy at Sam Houston Elementary, but I must have because I do remember going to his home.  Kenneth, you say he lived just around the corner from you.  I believe you lived on Annapolis Dr, and I think he on Florida Ave.

With Billy going to Wynn Seale, and me to Baker, I didn’t reconnect with him until Ray.  We had physics class together with a Mr. Morrison, I believe it was.  We both ran track, and with Jeff Gaddis and Oscar Buck, were on the mile relay team in our senior year.  At the regional meet, during my leg of the race, I dropped the baton, and ended our collective hopes of going to the state finals.  Golly but I felt bad about letting those three guys down.  All that work on everyone’s part, gone in an instant.

Billy and I roomed together for awhile in Austin, in a small house apartment about a half block east of the stadium.  Looking at a map, I think that whole area has now been absorbed into a parking lot.  He was in the Naval ROTC, and I in the Army ROTC.  As Kenneth mentioned, he helped push and play the big band drum, and went to Washington, D.C. for LBJ’s inauguration in January 1965.  We graduated, and received our commissions, on the same day the following May.  The next time I saw or heard from him was in 2005, and the last time was in 2010.

Stretch out those long legs of yours Billy, and lengthen that stride.  Hope to catch up with you again.

My mom, dad, and I moved to Ellis Drive in Arcadia Village, and two doors down from the Cousers, midway through my 4^th grade.  Larry was the first kid on the block there that I met, as he quickly came down to see who I was.  He and I became good friends, and were in the same class for the remainder of that year, and the next two, at Sam Houston Elementary; Mrs. Teeley in the 4^th, Mrs. Robideau in the 5^th, and Mrs. Hatch in the 6^th.  We were in Boy Scout troop #216 which met in the hut on the edge of the public grounds at the school.  There were numerous camping trips to Camp Karankawa on Lake C.C.

If you can believe it, during those years, I could relatively easily beat him in physical strength activities.  We had lots of clover fights and wrestling bouts in Vanderbilt Park, which was in front of our houses, and laughed through them all.  Of course, returning home brought the inevitable scolding from our moms because of the green stains on our clothing.

Larry and I were also part of the neighborhood kid crowd that formed pick-up games of football and softball, depending upon the time of the year, in said park.  Larry developed this style of spinning, when he carried the football, which made it almost impossible to grab on to him as he moved along toward the end zone.  On Saturday mornings, this same crowd gathered either to ride our bicycles back and forth the 2-block length of the street, or to head up to the Ayres Theater, where, as you remember for nine cents, there was a cartoon, the Movietone News, a short, a serial, a preview of coming attractions, and finally the feature.

Larry Russell and I stopped by to visit with Larry in his home at the time of the 2010 reunion.  We had a nice visit, but did not meet his wife as she was ill.  That was the last time that I saw Larry.

It was certainly great knowing you Larry, and I think a lot of our youth together.  God speed, my friend, on the next leg of your continuing voyage through the cosmos.