Lee Note 47 Tom Rhodes / Ben Clopton Visit

Am on my way back to East Texas via my son's home in College Station. Yesterday and today were wonderful days. I spent most of those two days reminiscing with Ben Clopton, my childhood friend and college roommate.

I arrived at Ben's brother's home at approximately 2:30 PM. Before going there I made a side junket to Smithville, where Hope Floats was filmed and took pictures of several of the buildings that were in the movie. Not only did I get a great picture of the house on Olive Street, but actually walked up on the front porch.

I also got pictures of the photography shop where Sandra Bullock's character worked, the Honey Cafe, the Employment Agency, but most importantly, had a beer in Huebel's Bar where Bullock got smashed and told off several people in the movie.

I went on to Bastrop and had a great reunion with Ben talking about bicycle trips we took together working on our cycling merit badge. We went to Crosby, Texas for our 20 miler. Reminisced about our Scouting days together. You know we started the first grade together at Lamar Elementary School on North Pruett in Mrs. Lee's class. Mrs. Lee, a wonderful lady and teacher was Mary and Martha Lee's mother. Martha was in my brother's class and Mary was in ours.

We went and visited Mrs. Grace Clopton, Ben's mother, in an assisted living facility where once again I was identified as the boy who got her son in trouble. Her first name fits her to a tee for she is truly a wonderful southern lady. Spent quite a bit of time there and got more pictures.

Last night Ben and I went to dinner at the Yacht Club in Bastrop where we continued our memories. Hmmm..never did see a yacht come up the Colorado though. We talked about fishing with our days when we were boys, and swapped different lies about the fish we had caught. However, I found out that Ben's dad, caught what is probably still the record today in Bastrop, a 105 lb catfish from the river.

Tuesday morning we drove into Austin and met up with Ben's son, Brian, a neat young man and his girlfriend Charlotte. Well, I say young man, I think he's 31, but then I look at everyone younger than us as being young now. We caught each other up on our lives for the last 41 years since we roomed together our freshman and junior years at Texas. We also, each roomed with David Hall for a year, and Ben roomed with Rand Evans also. Remembered Jerry Lynn Walters living across the street in Moore Hill hall and cranking up his stereo with the soundtrack to Ben Hurr.

You'll have to ask Ben about the "waterfall" he created at Robert's Hall one holiday when everyone else was lucky enough to go home. And, also the James Bond escapade of he and Rand stringing a Ham radio antenna up from an upper floor of Robert's while you and the Longhorn Band were playing in the stadium at a game across the street. We visited Robert's Hall where as freshmen, we lucked into rooming on the ground floor and sharing a suite with a private bath with the dorm dad. We walked the campus and remembered that neither of us went through graduation.

We walked and talked and walked and talked. We talked about the 10-cent movies we took our dates to.... blind dates that David Hall got Ben and I our freshman year...(they surely were "blind" to go out with a couple of Baytown boys. ...the suds that mysteriously appeared in the main fountain during our freshman year.)

We walked the student union which is much changed but the ole theater is still there where we spent many a weekend evening watching movies with our dates...Boy were we cheap. We drove around and looked at the other places we had lived and found the ole dilapidated garage apt. where we lived together as juniors. We both remembered that our sink was always filled with dirty dishes.

I worked at Scottish Rite Dormitory as a dishwasher and then a waiter for four years, finishing off my senior summer being the lifeguard. Ben worked there too, but only for about a week. Dishwashing was not for him (ha, ha). Well, it really wasn't for me either. We remembered that Jerry Lynn Walters, Ben, and I had an 8:00 a.m. chemistry lab on MWF and how many times we were running to get there on time. The professor the second semester started locking the doors at 8:05 a.m., which cured everybody of being late.

The campus has changed so much in the last 40 years, but we could still pick out and remember incidents and events that we shared back then. It was so good to see him and talk over our childhoods that we shared, elementary school, the junior high English teacher that we both had and were in love with. She came back after the Christmas holidays of our 7th grade year and announced that she was getting married...which killed us both. Ah first loves...We remembered playing marbles at Horace Mann together after lunch with some of the teachers.

All in all, as I said at the beginning of this... it was so, so great. Another good memory with my childhood friend, Ben Clopton...

Thanks,

Tom Rhodes