It was a pleasant Friday afternoon on the outside, in the fall of 1948, but inside Shuddie Brothers Hat Factory it was a sweat shop. There were about eight different locations in the shop that had steam pots where live steam was used to soften the felt enough so that the hats could be worked by hand or machine. There were also three huge and three smaller electric irons, four electrically heated sand bags the size of number 2 wash tubs, four large steam heated hat brim presses and a few miscellaneous electric hot plates.

Billy and I had been working part time for Shudde's since the spring when we decided to take a hiatus from high school to work for a while. It was only a short time after the end of World War II. Boys of only fifteen and sixteen year had been quitting school to fill adult jobs since the early part of the war when the lack of manpower became critical. Nobody needed an education to make good money. At least we thought so way back then. A short time later we both went back to night school to finish earning our high school diploma's .

"Hey, John, you have a phone call," Herbert called out. Mr. Ben Shuddie, the boss, didn't like personal phone calls during working hours so I hurried toward the front of the shop and the telephone.

"Hello."

"Hey John, it's Pete. Do you want to go to a football game tonight?"

"Sure." I answered in my naiveté. "Where is it, at the high school stadium?" Of course, I knew It had to be a Houston school.

"Naw, it's at the Aldine Stadium. Just catch the Bluebell Bus when you get off work. (a private bus company that ran from downtown Houston to the area on Interstate 45 near the present Aldine High School) Then after the game you can spend the night with me."

"OK, see you later."

I hadn't seen much of Pete for the past year. He and Billy and I had been long time friends when Pete lived by Settegast Park near us. Then he moved way out in the country to the area near the present Aldine High School with his parents and we had almost lost touch.

After we hung up, I caught up with Marian, our company's delivery truck driver and ask him to pickup a new shirt for me and put it on my account. He still had to make his afternoon run to the Shudde Brothers men's store downtown. A charge account at the men's clothing store was one of the perks (maybe the only one we had) for working at the factory.

When the quitting bell rang at 5:00 O'clock I quickly washed up at the wash basin and put on the new shirt. After a quick city bus ride out Houston Avenue to North Main, I caught the Bluebell bus and was on my way.

Like I said, it was 1948. New cars had only been back in production for two years and even used cars were still very scarce. Most young people and a lot of adults just didn't own one and had to ride bsses or walk.

Pete had borrowed his father's 1938 Chevy for us to use to get to the stadium. That was both good and bad. We were big shots with our own transportation, but we had to pickup Pete's father at work by 11:00 PM that night.

When we left Pete's house he turned south on Sweetwater street. "Hey, isn't this the wrong way for the stadium?" I ask.

"Oh, didn't I tell you, I have to pick up my girlfriend, Mary, she's going to ride to the game with us." He answered, without looking at me.

"You're taking a girl with us" I ask cautiously.

"Aw, don't worry she's in the Pep Squad, it'll just be you and me at the game."

After the introductions and we left Mary's house, Pete turned south again on Sweetwater. "Hey, isn't this the wrong way for the stadium?" I ask again.

"Oh yeah, well, we have to pick up Mary's girl friend, Nellie. They're in the Pep Squad together.

Needless to say, I certainly wasn't impressed by the two "kids" who were going with us when we finally turned north toward the Aldine stadium. After all, I was a grown man of 20 and Nellie was just a kid fixing to turn 16. It was a great football game, Aldine had a little quarterback who could get a running start and jump completely over the linemen. Just his jump alone was always good for at least three or four yards when it was badly needed. The Aldine team also had a sure touchdown play that always worked once in almost every game. The first time they got possession of the ball the defense would trot off the field and the offense would trot on. All ten Aldine players took their positions at the line and the eleventh, who didn't trot in with the others, stood on the edge of the field just inside the boundary line looking like a third stringer who would do anything to play in a real game. When the ball was snapped, he ran down the field like a scared rabbit to catch a long pass and dance across the goal line all alone.

After the game I ended up in the back seat with "the kid", Nellie, but I was very nice. After all it wasn't but ten minutes back to Pete's house. When we got back to Airline and Bluebell where we should have turned into the neighborhood to take the girls home, we kept going toward town.

"Well pick up dad first," Pete said, "we don't want to make him wait."

When we picked up Pete's dad at the railroad roundhouse at the edge of downtown Houston (Navigation and Dowling streets.) He climbed into the back seat and Nellie was sandwiched between us in the middle. Now 1938 Chevy's weren't that big so I had to put my arm on the back of the seat behind Nellie to make enough room to breath. We sat that way all the way back to Pete's house to drop his dad off.

I guess Nellie and I both lacked the confidence to move, as we stayed in the same position all the way back to Bluebell. By then my arm was dead and didn't work anymore. Nellie confessed years later that her neck was also pretty stiff and painful by that time, I guess from avoiding intimate contact.) Don't laugh, boys and girls were raised different in the dinosaur days. Walking Nellie to the door wasn't anything but a walk to the door.

The first thing out of Pete's mouth was, "Well, how did you like her?"

"Who?"

"Nellie."

"Aw come on man," I answered, "she's just a kid. She's kind of cute, but just a kid."

"Do you want to go with us again? He ask.

"Naw, she's just a kid."

On Sunday afternoon, that next weekend, I got a craving to visit with Pete again. With my kind of luck, after riding the city bus for 30 minutes to downtown then the Bluebell bus 45 minutes, all the way from downtown, there wasn't anyone home at Pete's house. That left me with the choice of sitting beside the highway for an hour waiting for the next bus or finding some way to kill time.

Well, Nellie didn't live but about four blocks away and I didn't know anyone else in the neighborhood, so I decided to walk down to her house to kill time.

I really enjoyed Pete and I being close again and being together on weekends. Of course it seemed that somehow, Pete and Mary and Nellie and I ended up together quite often after that. Many more football games, movie, picnics and just quite walks to the drug store for a malted and to listen to the juke box.

There was never rockets going off or bells ringing and I still don't remember ever asking the kid to marry me, but suddenly one day I realized we were talking about the things we were going to do after we got married.

That's when it dawned on me that I was in love, firmly committed and that I was very happy about it. Pete and Mary went together for nine months and were married in June1949. Nellie and I also went together for nine months and were married in July 1949. And even better, after 49 years Pete and Mary are still married. Nellie and I are not only still married, but above all else still best friends and lovers.

Now for all the old granny women finger counters, who see a significance or some kind of hidden message in the fact that we had nine month engagements, Pete and Mary's first child was born three years after they were married. Nellie and I had our first child after four years of marriage.