Thirteen years has now passed Ron since that great Reunion, and I want to get back to talking about Joe. And this transition back to Joe also happens to coincide with what happened at that reunion. Joe and I always talk about when I introduced you to Joe Ron. You guys knew so many people and it was back and forth stories. I ate my maple soaked pancakes and bacon, and drank my sweet tea while I sat enraptured at listening to you and Joe talk. I couldn't even join in the conversation because you and Joe were talking about stuff and stories I had only heard about or read about some years before I even got my tennies wet the first time. I have told this before, but I am bringing it back up because of something Joe and I talk about all the time. And this thread is about Joe.

I finally told Ron and Joe that we need to get to the Lone Star Boat Racing Reunion. The breakfast crowd at the Cracker Barrel had long since departed, and the mid morning coffee crowd was drifting in. To cut to the quick, when all was starting to settle in and registration procedures were established by Cookie Houghkirk, and all was going well Joe Rome and Russ Hill, Jr. found themselves together at a table making things work in a hot building. I do not remember how it happened that Joe and Russ ended up together helping with registering the racers, pit crews, etc. and getting the bags together, but it happened. Seems to me that after the initial onslaught of the registration, they might have found a corner to observe and comment until they were (maybe) needed. But the final result was that in just a very little time period, Joe Rome and Russ Hill , Jr. became very fast friends. I wandered in and out from around their table taking pictures and visiting with old friends and listening to their feisty banter as they were getting to know one another. On the drive home from the reunion Joe recounted how much fun he had talking with Ron and sparring with his older brother Russ. We talked about it many times over the years, about how much fun it had been around the Hill brothers.

It was not until I talked with Ron a couple of months ago that I found out that until Russ passed away, he and Joe talked every few weeks. I knew that Joe and Russ were tight, but I am glad that Russ got to know my good friend Joe much more than I had realized. But then Joe talks to a lot more people than to me. He is always talking to Alan Ishii, Craig Lawrence, Denny Henderson, Gene East, Charley Bradley, Steve Wetherbee and others that are not boat racers, but are friends of mine as well. Joe's life is boat racing and he will tell you that if he never got involved in boat racing, his life would have been dull and never have gone anywhere.