Kathy!

On a Thursday in October, 1966 Tim Lucas called me for a favor. His sister Kathy was a student at Trinity in San Antonio and she had decided to accompany her roommate on a visit to Houston. She needed to be picked up at Hobby airport on Friday evening and he had a date with a young woman he had been pursuing so he was blocked. Would I pick her up? Yep.

I met Kathy Monfort Lucas in the main terminal building of Hobby early in the evening. A stunning redhead, I was smitten.

I took her to a bowling alley off S Main because I knew I could buy her a cocktail there. We had a great time and I dropped her off at Elaine and Carol’s. These were two slightly older young women who lived next door to me in my first off campus apartment. We were just good friends and they would let our dates sleep on their couch to preserve their chastity. I promised Kathy I would pick her up the next morning.

Saturday was hectic.

I spent the morning with Kathy and then went into high gear.

There was an evening football game followed by a dance at the Sonesta hotel in downtown Houston. My parents were coming to the game with expectations to spend some time together. I had a date to the dance with a fellow band member.

Smitten, I wanted to take Kathy. I broke the date at the last minute. I went to the game, saw my parents briefly, raced home, showered, changed, raced to E&C’s to pick up Kathy and proceeded to the hotel.

As we were walking in, the girl I had jilted was also walking in with her replacement date - an awkward moment.

Nonetheless, Kathy and I had a great time. Kathy was and still is a fabulous dancer and she was so pretty that night. We spent most of Sunday together before I took her back to the airport.

At this time long distance telephone calls were incredibly expensive so we wrote letters.

I invited kathy to the Rice homecoming, but through a communications mixup we did not get together again in the Fall of ’66. It wasn’t until the Spring of ’67 that our romance really took off.