Red Hickerson dropped out of school in the third grade when he was nine years old. That was sixty-one years ago. Most of the time a kid starting out like that would be doomed to failure. Some folks would say Red was a failure. They would say any man seventy years old unable to write more than his name, unable to read beyond the simplest of messages, this is a failure by any standard. By any standard except the most commonly used American standard, i.e. how much money does he have?

Red worked many kinds of jobs growing up. He cut timber, plowed fields, dug potatoes, hauled ice, worked construction. He found his calling when he tried his hand at dry-walling. Drywall is what covers the interior walls of practically every building, residence or commercial, in America today. Probably ceilings, too, and overseas, as well. It consists of nailing up large sheets of material usually four feet by eight feet, about one inch thick. After the drywall has been nailed to the wall studs the cracks where the sheets meet have to be filled and smoothed before the wall can be painted or papered. This process is called "mudding".

Red was known far and wide as an expert dry-waller. He started out working as a helper to another guy. Soon he was doing the work himself and before long he had moved from subcontracting work to submitting his own bids. Actually he didn't prepare the bids. His wife did that. She was a college graduate and had a good job as the controller in a large textile factory located about twenty miles away. How he got a wife like this is another story. Between what his wife made and his extremely successful business, Red had amassed a large sum of money. A great deal of which he kept on his person or hidden away in his truck or house.

A lack of formal education was just one of Red's problems. He also loved to drink. He had already taken the cure when I met him, but it was well known he was likely to fall off the wagon every year or two. During one of these times when he had been drunk for almost a week, he was crossing one of the local draw-bridges. Either the bridge hung or the barge couldn't get through or for whatever reason the bridge didn't come down so the traffic could continue to cross. Red needed to pee. Red needed to pee really bad. He couldn't get out of the truck and he didn't even have an old can or bucket he could use. Time went on and his pain was becoming unbearable. Finally in desperation he decided to pee in the floorboard of his truck. Trouble was it just stood there on the rubberized floor mats. He knew it was going to start stinking. Being god's own drunk and a fearless man, Red did the only thing that made sense to him at the time. He opened his glove compartment, took out his pistol, and shot two holes in the floor. The pee ran out.

Red always drove a new truck. He always drove them fast. In the joint we were hanging out in at the time, Garrett’s on Michigan Avenue in Pensacola, the old gas pumps had been taken down and a small patio with picnic tables had been added as a replacement. Late afternoons in warm weather found most of the regulars sitting on the tables with their feet on the seats having a cool one. There wasn't much room between the busy Michigan Avenue traffic and the patio, and the cars were always in excess of the 45 mile per hour speed limit. This day everyone was inside because it was threatening a storm. The clouds hung black and lightning flashed. Red was running late and naturally did not have his right blinker on when he approached Garrett’s. It was a well known fact that you couldn’t believe a southerner’s blinker anyway. If it was blinking it was probably broken. Anyway as Red approached Garrett’s at his usual high speed, no blinker, dark clouds, a sudden slow-down and a right turn, the car following him did not react in time.

At the same time Red was slowing to turn and the following car was about to bust him in the rear, Johnny the bartender, looked out the front window and said, "here comes Red." And he did. Right through the posts on the patio, over the tables and into the side of the building. Fortunately no one was injured. However we did thank the good lord for sending the storm clouds that kept us off the patio that day. From that day on every time Red’s truck would pass someone would say. "Here come’s Red." On his new truck Red had the words painted over his grill. On the tailgate he added, "there goes Red."

Red had a love for fast cars, or trucks, or motorcycles, or any thing else fast. Oh yeah, that included women. Even at age seventy women were never off Red's mind. He did not care about their age, color, size, health, looks, or financial security. Red was a man who mortally loved women-all of them. His age was being to have an effect on his ability to perform as well and often as his mind told him he wanted. For this reason he had become enamored with the idea of buying what he referred to as a peter-pump. Lately it was all he could talk about. He knew every type made and shopped doctors like a man looking for a new truck. He had become very upset with one urologist who wanted to know if Red had completely lost the ability to achieve erection. "Sumbitch ask me that right in front of this young nurse. I told him, 'set her up on that table and I show you a erection'."

One day as we sat around after work having a pop, Red was being particularly obnoxious on the subject of peter-pumps. Bobby Joe said, "Red, it wouldn't do you no good to have one of them peter-pumps. If you got one, you'd just wear it out showing it to people before you got a chance to use it!"

I heard from one of the old group just the other day who told me Red finally got his wish. He got his peter-pump and Medicare even paid for it as part of recovery from prostate surgery. They don't see much of Red any more. Just blows when he passes in his pickup, either on his way to the quarters to buy some, or on his way home after buying some. Somebody always says, "there goes Red."