Year's later, May Sue and Charles Ray sat at College Station watching Little Jim receive his diploma in electrical engineering from Texas A.& M. University ‑ that was after his mother pinned a second lieutenant's bars onto his uniform shirt.

He knew what a Communist was and the way things were, he would be fighting them in Viet Nam before long. There were tears in May Sue's eyes. She proudly watched the boy who Jim Crawford started on a pickup truck seat after the state championship game up at Austin twenty‑one years ago.

After Little Jim graduated from A. & M., Charles Ray and May Sue started building a new brick house next to the old one. Even though they bought all new furniture, Charles Ray refused to get rid of their old mattress.

"Looks like you being a bank president and all," May Sue said, "you would want one of those big king sized beds with inter springs and all."

Charles Ray smelling the newness of a new home, walked up behind his wife and put his arms tightly around her. "May Sue, you and me had some good times on that mattress."

"Well, I just cannot imagine how you sleep with those springs poking you all night," she said.

"Well for one thing," he whispered into her ear, "I sleep on your side of the bed some."

She rubbed her body against his real hard before she said, "You sure do. But you are on your side of the bed some."

Charles Ray dropped his hands from her breast to her thighs. He knew when the movers left, they would try out this new room. Even after fourteen years, May Sue excited him more every night. "I curl around those springs which stick through." He finally explained how he avoided the probing metal that reminded him of his best friend, Jim Crawford.

The next day after he and May Sue married, Charles Ray adopted his two daughters. People in Crawfordsville talked about it for over a week. After that, rumors of the two girls being Charles Ray's kind of faded out of existence.

With Little Jim in Vietnam, both of his sisters were celebrities at school. People talked about how in spite of their worrying about their brother, they still made all A's while both of them were cheerleaders. The Austin newspaper devoted two pages in its Sunday paper. Norma Jean was the only cheerleader in the state who wore a steel brace on her leg while she did her job. Both of her parents were real proud of her.