So your mom’s friend, Luis, didn’t kill me and remained an awesome Mexican and became a friend. I remained painfully white. Your mom and I began to talk about our own culture, our dreams. We dated and hung out together non-stop through the first week. Literally every day, every night. I wouldn’t drop her off at Luis’ house until around 3am. I was living with Granny and Grandpa Perry at the time – a 45 minute drive. I would be back at work at 8am and do it again.

Luis brought your mom to the shop that Monday July 15, 1991 when we met over the Corgi at the chain link fence, and had our first date… on a Monday night. She didn’t want to go to the shop with him that day. He really didn’t wanna have to kill another white boy.

Regardless. Papa got the date and Luis didn’t kill me. I polished my ’76 Camaro, wore my best white jeans, tucked in my shirt, and what you can’t see are my white snakeskin cowboy boots.

This would be me getting a six pack to drink with my minor date.

And this would be me drinking and driving her around.

We were very, very dumb back then.


And very good looking. We used to crash apartment hot tubs late at night.


Hey Sunny, this is where you get that look.
So mom did go to Del Rio on the Greyhound and came back with pictures. And a criminal record. In Mexico.

These pictures.

When returning to the states with her friend, the cops found a bong in his car. She was only wearing this. It took them all day to figure out they weren’t smuggling and she says she doesn’t actually have a record. I still find it strange she wants nothing at all to do with Mexico considering her maiden name is Trevino. But I believe her.

Because I wore stone washed jeans. This would have been one of our many trips to Port Aransas in our sick white boat shoes.

We also went camping a lot – this would be Canyon Lake, Texas with our buddies, Ron & Christine.

We liked Austin a lot even back then. This would’ve been on 6th St with Robert. Our first conversation included talking about our desire to move to Austin.

And we were trying hard to fit in. This must be some sort of family dinner on papa’s side – that’s Ditty, your great grandma on my left. She would hate that I posted this picture of her. She was always so proper.

Your mom & I started working together at the hot rod shop in San Antonio soon after meeting. She came in to help out in the office, answer calls and all. I primarily managed the place.

One of the mechanics owned this drag racing car, Yosemite Sam. It was very fast.

What’s hard to see is the fantastic burnout I was doing here… nor could you know from this picture that this was in the parking lot of the shop and the car had lousy brakes. I almost drove through a building after this burnout.

We used to go to the dragway quite a bit and bracket race. Basically, you pick how fast you think you can get your car down the quarter mile and whoever is closest to their chosen time wins. As in life, I won some and lost some.

After dating for several months, Jenn and I were often sneaking in and out of Granny’s house where I was living to spend the night (totally not acceptable by Granny, like really really not acceptable), or spending the night at the shop in an office. That was always weird. It became less common to make the trek to drop Jenn off at Luis’ place because of the amount of time we were spending together. So we moved in together in this travel trailer parked near the shop.

This is the same trailer I lived in when I went to school in Abilene. Our first home! Rent back then was $150/mo for the full hook up spot. There was no public restroom or shower. This was truly a trailer park.

We really enjoyed this a lot. That would be our clothes drying over the rear kitchen table, couch and your mama cooking some eggs or pork chops. It was a fifth wheel, so the bathroom was in the middle and the bed up top.

We had a couple of cats. The one on mom is ‘Dallas’ that she brought home randomly, the other is ‘Scratch’ that your papa had for a while.

Then this happened…. (had nothing to do with the cats)

Welcome baby Trevino! (that you would be you, Austin)