From 1974 to 1976, I attended kindergarten and first grade at Hawkins Elementary School in Vernon, Texas. Hawkins was a two-story brick building which no longer exists. One year (I don't recall which), the school had an open-house festival which I wouldn't even remember if it weren't for one incident.

There was a fishing booth, at which a child could stand with a stick, on which was a string with a clothes pin at the end. The child would go fishing by casting the string over a cardboard wall. Someone on the other side of the wall would attach a small prize to the clothes pin and tug the string a couple of times. The child would haul in their catch and have a new toy.

I was five or six, and I did this. I felt the string tug, and I pulled back a 45 record.

Did I understand that a person was on the other side of the wall? I'm not sure. Logic, and the world, was still kind of fuzzy. I didn't really care. I had a new record!

It was by a rock band called The Smubbs, a band I've never heard of otherwise (and you probably haven't, either). Side A was "It Can't Be Too Late." Side B was "Her Love."

I didn't (and still don't) really like the Side B song, but I loved the Side A song as soon as I heard it, and have loved it ever since. I've always considered it "my" song, in a way.

I still have that record. I'll always have it. "It Can't Be Too Late" is on my play list today.

It's just one of those weird things. The person on the other side of that wall no doubt had a bucket of trinkets. I'm pretty sure most of them weren't records (although they might have been). When my string went over that wall, they grabbed something at random. It was a tiny moment of triviality, yet what I got is something I treasure to this day, and always will.

The YouTube link to the song is below.