Janice Williams Loves Austin

March 31, 2011

Awkward Family Photos

Filed under: Radio stuff — Janice @ 10:20 pm

My sister sent me a forward this week from the website Awkward Family Photos.  I will warn you not to go there unless you have a lot of time to spare, it can be engrossing… and grossing, too. The one’s Mackie sent were particularly funny and had funny captions. But that email reminded me of this post that I put in this blog ages ago. Please read it if you weren’t reading back in 2009. I was funny.

But writing about family members I can’t write about because they might read it reminds me of disc jockies that I also can’t write about. I started a little Facebook group a few weeks ago. I am not prone to creating Facebook groups, but I’ve created 3 that I’m proud of and one that flopped with me as the only member before I abandoned it. But this new group is called “I was a DJ when DJs jockied discs and I don’t mean CDs.” Yes, a rather belligerent name. A radio friend and I were exchanging emails and talking about the days before giant corporations took over the most fun business in the world. We said we should write a book. Instead, I took the easy path and created a little Facebook group and added 17 friends that I have that I knew played records back in the day. We decided the “requirement” (that we really could not enforce, of course) was that you had to have played records, used carts to play your commercials, and had to have taken meter readings.  I also added that you had to have either smoked in a control room or worked with people who did. Tomorrow makes 3 weeks since we began this little venture and there are now 249 members of the group, all posting fun stories constantly! I have no idea how many are from the Amarillo area — which bred a bunch of disc jockies — but there is a lot. But there are major market, big-time DJs that we all looked up to, too. We are having a lot of fun with it.

But one thing that I didn’t expect was all the memories it would bring back! I really had some fun times in my early days of radio. I got to talking via Facebook tonight with a disc jockey I worked with 30 years ago and had not heard a word about or even had a passing thought about in most of those 30 years. Now I’ve caught up with him a little and learned where he’s been and what he’s doing. I don’t have a lot of hilarious stories about him, but I have some stories that I wouldn’t tell in a public forum because I wouldn’t want to embarrass him, even though they aren’t all that embarrassing, he’d never read them most likely, and you don’t give a hoot. I suppose if I were a better writer I would disguise the names and the places and you’d never know if this all really happened to someone or not.

In fact, that may be what you can expect from me soon… DJ stories that may or may not have happened to me or have been committed by me or someone I knew or someone I never knew or no one at all…   DJ stories to come with all the names and places and identities disguised. I may write them all in first person as if I was an honest-to-God witness to these shenanigans or might have even been the instigator myself. Hopefully no one (and by that I mean my mother) will know which ones really took place in my life.

March 27, 2011

Our First Bluebonnet Trip of 2011

Filed under: Bluebonnets,Cemeteries — Janice @ 10:40 pm

I stress that this was our FIRST bluebonnet trip this year because I am bound and determined to get more than one.

Mark and I got married in bluebonnet season on purpose in 1993 and took a fabulous honeymoon with bluebonnets along the roadways everywhere from Dallas to Austin to Fredericksburg to Bastrop to Jefferson to Mount Pleasant and back home to Dallas. After that, we took a “bluebonnet trip” each year in the spring to celebrate our anniversary and to see bluebonnets. We had some great trips.

Then we moved to Austin in 1999 and suddenly we were surrounded by bluebonnets on every trip to the grocery and downtown and to work and back. We quit taking bluebonnet trips! Oh, we still occasionally made some trips out to the Hill Country, but we kind of lost some of the specialness of a specified bluebonnet trip.

We started back on that bluebonnet trip path last year with a great Sunday outing on Easter Sunday and we went to LaGrange. We stumbled upon a beautiful cemetery just overgrown with bluebonnets and I discovered that combining three of my favorite things:  Mark, cemeteries, and bluebonnets, into one day is a wonderful thing!

This weekend was Mark’s first days off in 3 weeks. SXSW is just a nightmare in his job and the work didn’t end when the people went home. He had worked all day and into the night every day this week so we planned on running away on Saturday and not answering a phone.

We started the day in the barbecue capitol of Texas:  Lockhart!  We stood in line a while at Smitty’s, our favorite place, and decided we were too hungry to stand in line, so we moved on to Black’s Barbecue. I’ve always liked Black’s because they have real side dishes and real silverware and they even offer barbecue sauce. I find them much more accommodating than the other 2 barbecue joints in town. (oh, btw, I know there is another one, but that place is the WORST and I don’t even count it when I’m thinking about Lockhart and bbq).

After we ate a LOT of brisket, sausage, ribs, and great side dishes, I chatted with Mr. Black a little bit. He’s 85 now and as sweet as can be. I met him when I did a radio lunch down there in 2007. He’s a very outgoing, friendly man. He said he’s turning the business over to his sons and grandsons most of the time now. He was visiting with a grandson that was about to begin working in the business on Monday.

After lunch we made our way toward Smithville and then LaGrange. We stopped by Plum, Texas, where we found the spectacular Indian paintbrushes last year, but there was no field of them, just a few. It might still be a bit early or it might just be a bad year. In LaGrange we went back to the cemetery where we found so many last year and found the same thing there. The best plot still had a lot on it, but they were sparse through most of the cemetery.

So on to Independence, Texas, which was our destination all along. We barely got there with enough daylight in the day. There were lots of people around the pillars that mark the beginnings of Baylor University in Independence. Many were taking pictures in the bluebonnets, including a couple of brides having professional shots done. We bypassed the people when we saw the sign that said “historic cemetery” and an arrow and we drove north until we found a beautiful cemetery and a nice mound of bluebonnets!

We parked and had a great time admiring the stones and mostly the bluebonnets. I always try to take a picture of Mark taking pictures:

We read all the stones and were surprised (spooked?) to discover that two of the graves that were covered in bluebonnets had died on March 26… the day we were visiting. Each in different years. Kind of an odd coincidence.

Mark has the best pictures from our trip, I hope, but I haven’t seen them yet. These are all from my phone (which gave me a heck of a time getting them! I ended up having to email each one to myself.).

Here is one picture of us, bluebonnets, and graves in the heart of Texas Independence on the eve of the 175th anniversary of the Massacre at Goliad. History, bluebonnets, cemeteries, and time alone with my best friend and sweetheart. It was a fabulous day.

March 20, 2011

SXSW

Filed under: Austin,Music,Radio stuff — Janice @ 11:35 pm

I would like to put off posting about SXSW until I can put some pictures with the story and digest it all a bit, but knowing my history (remember reading all those posts about my great New Year’s Day trip? No, you don’t.) I guess I’d better post something, anything, to remember the events of the past week.

I won’t go into the worst part about SXSW… No, it isn’t that town is in a gridlock for 10 days. It’s that Mark works 12 to 16 hours days for a solid week. He is so beat up and exhausted that it isn’t even worth the big paycheck that’s coming. No one should have to put in the overnight, impossible hours and frustrations. Yes, that’s the worst part.

But, for the good part…  I got to see a couple of artists that I like. I didn’t really discover anyone that I hadn’t heard of before this year. But two years ago, I heard a guy named Brian Wright at a little daytime show that I think John Patillo put on. I truly don’t remember being knocked out by the show, but I met him afterward and he gave me a CD. The CD was by his group Brian Wright and the Waco Tragedies… memorable name, right? I really liked the CD and as two years have gone by and I’ve weeded out CDs and thrown away many by dear friends, I have always kept that one around because it was unique and memorable. Last week I was doing some of my work on my job and discovered that he has a new CD coming out March 29 under just the name Brian Wright (no Waco Tragedies this time). That surprised me and reminded me of him immediately and I was SO happy to discover that he would be at SXSW. I got to see him play Friday afternoon at his record label’s private day party  (Sugar Hill Records). The new album is great and I recommend the song Accordion. It has a lyric that says something like: She’s never gonna be bored again, she’s gonna get herself an accordion.  Perfect lyric! See how he rhymes “bored again” with “accordion”? You don’t hear Kenny Chesney writing lyrics like that, my friend. Don’t go getting this CD expecting it to be country. It’s not really. Unless you think Steve Earle is country. Then maybe it is.

My other highlight of the festival was seeing Jon Byrd today at Amelia’s on South First… with about 8 other people. I had never seen him before, but his was one of the very few CD’s that I received while I was at the radio station that made me sit up and take notice. Truly, there are probably 10 CD’s or less that made a GOOD impression on me during the five years I was at the station. That doesn’t mean all the others were bad — though most were — but there were only a few that made me listen over and over and hang on to them. His was one. From his liner notes, I knew he knew my friend Walt Wilkins and some others, but it was also apparent that he doesn’t do a lot of touring. For a while I would check his site, hoping he would tour and make a swing through Texas, but it seemed like he only played in Nashville. I lucked into knowing that he was in town when I saw a post on Facebook about my friend Karen playing with “Jon Byrd.” I had to check to make sure it was the right one because there is a folk singer named Jonathan Byrd that has been playing locally a lot, but she and her husband Jim assured me that this was the one that had the CD Jon Byrd’s Auto Parts. So I got to see him today at Amelia’s with just him and a sideman (Tom Mason I think he said) and it was great. He has a great voice, a terrific way with words, and good stories to tell. I would go see him a lot if he were to play here, but I’m glad I got the opportunity today. And I’m incredibly grateful it was down south, uncrowded, I had a place to sit, and I didn’t have to walk 6 blocks to get there. My get-up-and-go had gotten-up-and-went by today and some of those things I did for music on Thursday could not have been done today.

So those were my two musical highlights of the week, but I truly enjoyed many other venues, artists, parties, and experiences of the festival. But I’m also glad that life returns to normal tomorrow…

Well, sort of. I’ve been called for jury duty so there may be all sorts of excitement in my days ahead.

March 17, 2011

…and Post Occasion

Filed under: At home,Austin — Janice @ 6:50 am

I hoped turning 52 would give me the wisdom and time and impetus to write more often. That drive has not shown up just yet. I’m waiting.

Meanwhile, I thought I would put in an early morning Happy St. Patrick’s Day and report that the birthday was a wonderful day. Cake and ice cream with my co-workers (I have the best boss who makes cake for every person’s birthday in our department — and it is no small department!). Cards and gifts and attention and then a great party along with Ray Benson who has a birthday 3/16, but celebrated with a big party on my day this year. He’s very kind to share. And I had a very kind friend that let me be her +1 for the party. It was fun and I saw many people I hadn’t seen in a long long time — some, I’m sure, in over 3 years since the days of radio.

Yesterday was a SXSW day for me. We are having big group meetings at work with many of our co-workers from around the country, but we were free to pursue our SXSW agenda after noon. I made the rounds and saw some favorites and some new artists. I hope to delve more deeply today. My day was cut short yesterday by other work.

The nicest present of my birthday — walking outside to see the first blue of a Texas bluebonnet in my own flowerbed. You know how the song “It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas” says the prettiest sight to see is the holly that will be on your own front door? I love that (and agree) and that’s how I feel about the bluebonnets. I thrilled at the first one I spotted last week by the roadside, but having one in my own front yard is beyond that. And here’s the most beautiful photo of it, by the brilliant photographer I live with:

I have that beautiful photo as my desktop on my work computer …. impossible to get any work done, though, I keep closing my work so I can just inspect it a little more. More close-ups as this baby develops. Looking out my front window right now I see about 5 of them with their heads held high in about this stage or a day or more further. No full heads — the typical photo — just yet, but it will be here by the weekend I’m sure.

March 14, 2011

Upon the occasion…

Filed under: Uncategorized — Janice @ 10:54 pm

Of my 52nd birthday, I suppose I should look back and come up with something wise to say.

Nope, nada. I got nothing.

Tomorrow is the big day and I’m already receiving lots of nice greetings by phone, email, Facebook, UPS, and face-to-face. I’m sure there will be plenty more. I already had a lovely surprise chocolate cake from Marsha, Denise, and Jenni last week. That was certainly all the cake I need.

I am sure I have “babier” pictures, but we’ll go with one year old. That’s over a half a century ago, you know. The picture is an antique and so am I. I’m trying to think when was the last time I had a picture made when I was wearing a dress. Quite likely a funeral a few years back.

I could go into  my own personal “Janice Williams THIS IS YOUR LIFE!” and recount many of my favorite birthdays, but they’ve all been wonderful and I wouldn’t give back a one. I’ve earned every wrinkle and gray hair and I know full well that 52 is the new black (or something?).

March 13, 2011

SXSW Week

Filed under: Austin,Music — Janice @ 11:28 pm

I”m falling behind, so don’t think I’m only ignoring the blog. I’m ignoring the house, my job, my other jobs, my appearance, and the laundry. The cats are not being ignored, don’t worry about them. And it is about to get much much worse as the busiest week in our household has begun.

This is SXSW in Austin. If you aren’t familiar with it (and if you aren’t, I don’t know how you found my blog…) it is a big ol’ music festival. I guess it is THE music festival for professionals and music industry people. It’s the one that has a blog on CNN and other national coverage before, during, and after.

And I am not a fan.

I went with a badge (admission to everything! — haha) the first year I lived in Austin and mildly enjoyed the vibe and the excitement of standing behind 300 people in a room built to hold 150 and listening to Ryan Adams berate everything and everybody from the stage. Actually, I don’t remember the words or the content, I just remember I decided I didn’t like him. Nothing since has ever changed my mind either.

In the following years, SXSW became more of just a bother. You can’t drive anywhere in town without encountering fools walking across the street against the light or just plain jaywalking. They fill up the restaurants and all the places I frequent. The bars I like suddenly have showcases and outrageous cover charges. Restaurants change their menus and up their prices. And the performances are 30 minutes long and before the next band is through you’ve forgotten the name of the one you liked before. No one makes any money at it … at least the musicians sure don’t. For every band that has ever been “discovered” at SX, there are hundreds that sink a lot of money and time and effort to play for no one that matters to their future at all.

But I really began to dislike SXSW once Mark was working it so hard. He works for the premier company that supplies the gear for so many of the bands that come to town. A band that comes from overseas or even from a long way in the U.S. can’t bring their own drums or amps, so they are rented. Or a club might rent the gear so that all the bands can get on and off the stage faster by not having to break down and set up their own gear. So Mark has already been working long hours for several weeks in preparation. But the big challenge begins on Wednesday. That day the trucks will roll out with 25 to 30 drum kits that Mark has configured according to the specifications of each band that needs them that night. After 2 a.m. when the bars close, most of those drums are packed up and brought back to the warehouse and dismantled and reconfigured for the 25 or 30 bands that need them Thursday night. So Mark will be working on every kit as they come back into the warehouse and turning them around so they can go back out on trucks in the morning. Some years he has literally worked from 2 in the afternoon until 10 or noon the next day, come home for a quick nap and then gone back to do it again. Things got a little easier in the past few years — partly because they’ve become more organized and streamlined. Last year the economy was down and fewer bands came to town, so that helped a little bit. Of course, that made things “easier,” but it isn’t good for the business, so we don’t want that to happen again.

If I had a “normal” life (… what is that, does anyone have one?) I might be able to be home and keep him fed and do those protective Mother Bear kind of things while he works so hard, but I always have a job that is involved in this crazy week as well. In some years it was the blankety-blank rodeo (and I think I’ve written about that before so I won’t belabor that) and also having to arrange the radio station schedule to accommodate a winning basketball team during the big tournaments and then having to scramble when the team lost. Now, I have my regular job, which is very involved with SXSW and I’m expected to participate a lot in it, and I still have my part-time jobs that may not take into account that I’m “busy.”

Oh, and yes, and I celebrate my birthday this week, too. That’s a whole ‘nother story!

So I’ll quit my bitchin’ and you will hear me rave this week about some great music I will see and hear and some experiences that I wouldn’t trade for the world. I wouldn’t want a “normal” life at all, but I do wish out-of-towners would learn how to cross a street and I hope Mark gets some rest before he completely burns out.

March 10, 2011

Sesquicentennial!

Filed under: Austin,Family,Music — Janice @ 9:23 pm

Last week Texas celebrated it’s 175th birthday. It didn’t seem to get as much attention as the big Sesquicentennial did in 1986. Maybe it’s the economy. Or maybe it’s my perception. But it seems like 1986 was a big deal. I know it was a big deal to me.

In March of 1986 I was living in Dallas, but had only been there six months. One of my roommates from Amarillo had decided to move to Dallas, too, and joined me a few months after I moved. Diane and I were two wild single women on the loose in Dallas. Neither one of us knew anyone (except my sister and her husband), so we did a lot of going out and exploring for a couple of years. It was a lot of fun.

But for the Sesquicentennial, we decided the place to be was Austin. I don’t remember how we heard about concerts and things back then. What did we do before there was an Internet? I have no idea. But we knew there was a concert at Auditorium Shores so we came down and stayed at my Aunt Leta’s and with her husband Dick for a night or two.

Except for the fact that we went, I don’t have a lot of memory of the event except that Joe King Carrasco was playing and it was all quite lively and fun. Then I dug out the pictures and I see that we also saw Delbert McClinton play. I know I would have enjoyed seeing each of them because I had seen Delbert in Amarillo a few years before and loved his music, and Joe King was from Dumas. I hadn’t seen him before, but the Panhandle connection was always worth commenting on when the subject came up.

So here I am at my first concert ever at Auditorium Shores. Yes, there’s been many since then…

And here’s Diane.  I always like to look in the backgrounds of old pictures. MAN people wore short shorts back then!! Check out the invisible shorts on the left. I’m sure we were wearing long pants. It was, after all, only early March and I can testify that Austin isn’t warm enough for short right now.

And we went to the concert with my cousin Wynd and his friend, whose name remains lost to time…

Again, check out the short short shorts on the left … and Wynd’s mullet. Good times.

I don’t know if it was that night or the night before that Wynd took us to a Sixth Street club. I wish I knew where he had taken us that weekend. He did his best to keep us entertained. But even though I was a chipper 26 at the time, I still was not a party girl and I know Di and I were just exhausted. Either we had just driven down that day and were out all night, or had been to this concert out in the sun all afternoon and then were out… or maybe even both. We were beat. But I remember trying to be a trooper. Wynd was having fun and dancing and partying so I thought, well, 2 a.m. will be here eventually and the place will close. I was looking forward to it desperately, as was Diane. I watched the hands on my watch go slowly around to 2 a.m. and beyond!! What the heck? Nothing slowed down, no lights came up, music still blaring, no last call…. I retrieved Wynd from the dance floor and asked “What the heck?” He said that they quit serving liquor at 2 a.m. but this was a dance club and it was open until 4 a.m.! I had never heard of such a thing and, at that point, I had to admit that I couldn’t take it anymore and I had to go back to Aunt Leta’s. He thought I was a lightweight.

It’s a sad memory, but my other vivid memory of that time came about a week after I had been there. Aunt Leta’s husband Dick, her husband for less than 5 years, died of a heart attack in his 50s. I had just been there, seen him and talked to him (though I still didn’t know him very well) and now he was dead. It was really a shock. So I had to turn around and go back to Austin for his funeral.

I also remember two of my co-workers from that time. I was working at the Zig Ziglar Corporation in an entry level position in their warehouse and cassette-making/audio engineering department. I had two co-workers there. One always grated on my nerves and justs rubbed me the wrong way every day in many ways (Diane used to delight in my daily stories about him). Then there was another co-worker, who was fun and much cooler and I liked very much. I may have even found out about my uncle’s death while I was at work that morning. I was a little bit stunned. The first co-worker came over and was patting/rubbing (ick) me on the shoulder and offering sympathy and asking “Were you close?” I’ve always thought that was a stupid question to ask someone. Am I supposed to say, “No, not close, so it doesn’t bother me at all.” Finally he got his sympathy over and done with and went back to his job. A while later the more fun, cool co-worker came wandering in. Without beating around the bush, he said, “I’m sorry about your dead uncle.” That, of course, made me laugh and feel better.

It is very hard to believe that 25 years have gone by since that day. On the other hand, it seems like a million years ago.

March 6, 2011

Mom’s Birthday

Filed under: Family — Janice @ 10:17 pm

Today is my mother’s birthday and I wish I were in DFW to celebrate with her. Our birthdays have been close together — all of my life! — and we’ve always celebrated together. This year we will postpone the party until she comes down to visit, which will have to be after SXSW and my possible jury duty are over.

I looked through my pictures and did my usual fruitless search for what I wanted. I’m sure there are great pictures from my childhood of just her and me. I remember one I have of her and me sitting on the front steps of our house in the country. I do not have it in the computer digitally and I doubt I would put it if I did. I know Mother would think it is not a flattering picture of her (because she thinks that of most of her pictures) and I am in a bikini in the picture and I don’t care if I was 7 years old, we can’t let pictures like that get out on the internet.

Instead, I’ll put a picture of mother and her two favorite men in the world:

They are quite fond of her as well. I love how together or individually they will drop by and visit her and take her to lunch or dinner. I didn’t have that kind of a relationship with either of my grandmothers and I think it is very special.

Some of the the things I love and admire about my mother:

She had a career before she met and married my dad. She worked at Southwestern Bell in Quanah and then in Amarillo and might have even been a working mother except that they moved to Beaver, Oklahoma, for a short time and there was no phone company there so she ended up giving it up to be a stay-at-home mom. I’m glad she had a career, that was a good role model for me.

She was a stay-at-home mom. I am very grateful she did stay home with me and was home when the school bus dropped us off each afternoon. I remember following her around the house before I was five asking her to spell words for me. I would be writing something and I knew how to write, I just didn’t know how to spell or read.

She taught me how to play the piano. I had a lot of good teachers through the years, but before I ever had a teacher, Mother made a piece of paper with numbers on it that she put behind the keys. Then she wrote out Christmas songs with numbers so I could just play by numbers and not have to read music. Mackie had already had lots of lessons by this time and was miles ahead of me, but this made me feel like I could play a song.

She went back to college when I went to college. When I was starting my sophomore year at West Texas State University, Mother enrolled, too, and took some business and secretarial courses. We went to registration together, I think. I never saw her on campus once school began, but I was living at home and it was fun to come home and talk about her experiences on campus.

She went back to work once we were all moved out. A friend had a job in a uniform store and they needed extra help and Mother went back to work for the first time in 25+ years. She dressed up and looked lovely and had a good experience (at least from my perspective) being back in the workforce. [This is about Mom, but I have to admire Daddy at that point, too, because I don't think he was that thrilled to have her working. But, bless is heart, I know at least once he put together dinner so it was closer to ready when she got home after he did.]

Gee, she fought well-house fires, milked cows, broke the ice on frozen troughs of water, fed horses and cows and chickens and dogs and cats, gathered eggs, scared off coyotes and skunks and strange men that skulked in the neighborhood. I don’t recall her ever getting on the tractor and plowing, but I expect she could have if she thought it was necessary. She did everything else to run the farm the 5 of the 7 days that Daddy was out of town many weeks.

She did all of our household finances and paid all the bills. She taught me the trick of rounding up in the checkbook so that there was always a little extra before you hit rock bottom. Sadly, that doesn’t work anymore with online banking.

She took care of her parents in their old age. She didn’t hesitate to get in the car and drive to Eastland if she needed to and was willing to take care of them at her house for a long period of time. She also took care of her mother-in-law for a too-long period of time. She has given me full permission to shoot her before I ever have her move into my home.

She knows how to tell a good joke and has a great sense of humor. Even last week she was cracking people up. We had a big party 3 years ago for a “big” birthday. Mother did not want a big party and has told us about once a week for the last 3 years that we do not have to give her another party for this or any “big” birthday in the future. She has stressed it again and again, but, last week, she and my sister were at the doctor’s office in the waiting room and somehow the subject of her birthday came up and Mother, deadpanned, said, “Are you going to give me a big party?” Of course, my sister is just as quick and came back with her deadpan, “No.” That set them both off into the gales of laughter that my mother, her sisters, my sister, my girl cousins, and grandmother, and I have enjoyed for a long, long time.

I expect I could go on and on about the things I love and appreciate about my mother. I know Mark will read this and say “You didn’t even say what a wonderful mother-in-law she is.” I know both of her sons-in-law would testify to that. She has been a great help to both of our families for years and years. In fact, when I do or say something that prompts Mark to say, “You are just like your mother,” it is the most sincere compliment he can pay.

Happy Birthday Mom! I love you!

March 3, 2011

South Austin!

Filed under: Austin — Janice @ 12:41 am

Tonight I went to see a band play and enjoyed the night very much. I will keep the club and the band anonymous since I’m going to dish about the people that were there. We were very much amused by the variety of people on hand. If I had a.) ambition, b.) time, and c.) a lot more photography and web skills than I have, I would start a website of the People of South Austin. I’m sure you’ve seen the bizarre pictures on People of Walmart, like this one:

There was enough variety there tonight to get us a good start on the website if anyone was brave enough to take a picture.

The main subject of our amusement was a woman with silver lame’ leopard skin silver pants. Got that? Silver lame’ with black leopard spots. And very very tight. She also had a leopard skin print top with spaghetti straps, but it wasn’t shiny. The spaghetti straps allowed us to see her big tattoo on her back. I couldn’t read it, but it had words across the top like “This Side Down” possibly, I’m not sure. She had bright red hair, the kind that doesn’t exist on this planet, and was shorter on one side than the other and I believe she was wearing a hat of some kind. I’m not a good reporter because my eyes kept going back to the pants and the muffin top waist (not fat, but no one — truly no one — looks good with skin tight pants and a short top). I don’t think she would mind having her picture on my new People of South Austin site because she certainly wanted everyone to look at her. She took great joy in dancing and occasionally was the only one on the dance floor. I saw her dance with one perplexed man that just stood in one place sort of doing the Rock’em Sock’em Robot dance while she danced around him and toward him and away from him and then was bending over and swaying her arms with her butt pointed at him.

She found a female dance partner for one song and though this did appear to be a perfectly normal woman, she was wearing beat up Keds and denim pedal pushers that tied just below the knees. I’m not fashion expert, but I don’t think they’ve sold those anywhere but thrift stores in a long while. Yes, the woman was adequately attired for South Austin and did not look as weird as Austin likes to look, but her outfit did seem to lean more toward Saturday gardening and a trip to Lowe’s than toward going out to hear a band and dance.

As I thought about this project, I realized it really needed to go beyond the weird, because there were absolutely beautiful people there, too, and men that were wearing nicely starched shirts and knew how to dance. There is an older couple that is often there. I would suspect they could be 80. Probably are. He looks a little like the man that used to be in those weird Six Flags commercials. Little guy with big glasses, but this man doesn’t look quite that weird. He looks like a pleasant enough man. The wife is lovely with hair that I’m sure she has fixed at a beauty shop once a week. They dance so well together and it is obvious they have been doing it for years and years. It’s not even just a matter of him leading and her following, there are dance steps they do where he isn’t leading, but they mirror one another and twirl around and you know they learned that step together and they communicate with a glance. They don’t smile or laugh while they are dancing, but there is no doubt they are having a good time.

After I left the club, I stopped at Walgreen’s and snapped another picture in my head for the website. It was a girl in her pajamas at the Red Box thing where you rent DVDs. She had on flannel pajama bottoms with cartoon characters all over them. They were long and floppy so I couldn’t even see her feet, but she may have been barefoot. She had a flannel blanket with stars and cartoon characters all over it draped around her like a cape, holding it tight up under her neck. And she had wet hair. This was a child just about to go to bed and now she’s at the Walgreen’s at 10:30 renting a DVD. And I really think she was renting, not just running to drop one off before bedtime. I say she was a child. She looked about 12 to me, but I didn’t see anyone in the car that was nearest to the box. So maybe she drove herself there. Any parent that would let their 12-year-old go out in pajamas and wet hair at 10:30 at night probably wouldn’t notice if that child took the keys and drove on their own.

***

Today is Texas Independence Day. I am remembering where I was 25 years ago on the Sesquicentennial and I have pictures to play show-and-tell with, too, but that will come another day (the pictures have to be edited, etc.). I will do that soon. Mark had a lovely day at the Battleship Texas and San Jacinto Monument. I’m usually the one singing Texas Our Texas and raising the flag and refusing to eat Mexican food on March 2, but this year he got to go all out and have a great exploration of that historic April 21 battlefield. He’s in Houston working and had some free time this afternoon.

March 1, 2011

My Thought Process

Filed under: Family — Janice @ 12:51 am

Don’t think I don’t think about writing in my blog. I think about it a lot. I have a long list of things I want to write about. Stories from my childhood. Comments on things I see each day. Every morning that I get to work and am lucky enough to get to ride the elevator alone I think, I really should blog about this need to be alone. But then, when there is time to blog, those things seem too big or too time consuming. So then I think, I’ll just pick a picture and write about it. Then I get lost in the thousands of wonderful pictures in my computer and never reach a decision. Will it be another gravestone and creep people out completely? Another picture of my adorable childhood? Some long dead person that you will never know?

How about a sweet one from childhood. Me, my sister, and my grandmother:

When I scan pictures, I like to keep the edge and the details. Like November 1961. Yes, I’m sure this was in the summer, we were just slow to develop pictures. This is at Lake Leon, south of Eastland, Texas, where my grandparents lived. I can assure you that there was gross green moss all over that rock and that is probably why I look so uncomfortable. That is my biggest memory of those trips to the lake:  moss grabbing at my ankles and trying to pull me under.

I think this is a good example, too, of why grandparents shouldn’t wave off the camera and say, “Don’t take a picture of ME!” Doesn’t my grandmother (“Mamma”) look sweet and adorable? She was only 59 when this was taken. I’m almost that age. I certainly never saw her wear shorts (yes, those are shorts to her) anywhere other than the lake. The girls in the family didn’t even get to wear shorts at their house for a long long time. When Mamma finally progressed to pantsuits in the 70s it was an amazing transition for a hose-and-dress woman, even around the house.

I especially love the sign for paddle boats in the back because that was the very best part of going to Lake Leon. Mamma would get on that paddle boat and we’d be along for the ride and I loved how you could see the water underneath her feet where the pedals were driving the paddles. The boats were in bright colors. I remember a cousin and her friend getting too far out on the lake one time and having to use both of their strength to get that boat back to our shore.

I don’t have a lot of memories of these trips to the lake. I don’t really remember my grandfather there at all except maybe driving wildly as we headed that way. Everyone in the car would be watching the roadway for him as he looked every other place and gestured at sights along the way. It might have been on trips to the lake, though, that he would stop and catch an armadillo for us. They must have been more abundant back then (and of course we were on a narrow two-lane road and not an interstate). He would spot an armadillo, stop the car, chase it down and hold it up by a back foot to our delight. It’s a wonder he didn’t get leprosy.

I’m the baby in this picture, by the way, with the blond hair. I always think people know that I’m the younger of the two sisters, but I know there are people that read that don’t know us that well or even at all. And, of course, anyone that knows me now might automatically think I’m the dark-headed one, but I was all blond back then.

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