Gladys’s new 1970 car was parked under the shade of a big old pine tree. The hood was up letting the over-heated engine cool down. We were sitting on a picnic table nearby eating the lunch that my mother-in-law had packed for us. Although the cooler of beer wasn’t as full as when we started Gladys had been sampling on the long journey. I opened two more beers for us and took another sandwich from the container. One of Gladys’s oldest and dearest friends had suddenly passed away; we were on our way to
