My Friday Nonsense email for Gene Burns was returned this morning as undeliverable. I asked Q. Gregory who apparently asked Joe Hawkins who produced Gene's obituary. Thanks, Joe.

3 stories - In 1962 Gene gave me a ride home on his way to Riverside after spring semester at Cal. We drove into our ranch in Dunlap about 5:30 am. There were 3 horses in the truck. My father said “Stow your stuff and change; I’ll catch you a horse”. I said that I was going to bed. Gene said “Have a fun summer” and fled.

In December1963, I got out of Engineer Officer Basic at Ft Belvoir and Gene out of Platoon Leader Course at Quantico. We drove my VW bug to LA in 72 hours non-stop with my wife sitting shotgun and keeping the current driver awake while the off-duty Lt. slept in the back seat. All our stuff was in a rack on top. In north Texas at night we were coming to the end of hours of icy road and the VW swapped ends. Gene tried keeping it in the lane while looking in the rear view mirror but it spun again, hit a dry patch and tuned over on it’s side. Ever the smart-ass, I said: “ Jesus Christ, Gene, if you wanted me to drive all you had to do was ask." A Cadillac stopped and 4 Texans with boots, hats etc stepped out: “Need any hep?” We got the VW upright, pulled the fender out away from the tire, put the luggage back on top and went to LA.

After 57 years, I was headed for Oceanside to finally visit them as I was returning to Norcal from Phoenix where spring training had just been interrupted by COVID. I called to check and he said Willa was sick and I better not come. Morale: Don’t wait so damn long to visit old friends.

Bo Davis