1. Brady Country Music
“I saw the look on your face,” my dance savior says as he whisks me onto the floor.
“Oh, no,” I say. “I hope it wasn’t obvious to him. I was hoping for a variety of dance partners, but it doesn’t seem to be that kind of crowd.”
“No, I don't think he noticed. He was concentrating on his dancing too much.”
Once leaving, I thank his wife for allowing me the dances with her husband. The glue is thick and strong for these local couples. I need to respect that.
Heart Of Texas Country Music Museum
But then there is the free Heart of Texas Country Music Museum. Housed in an old brick building, showcases line every square inch of floor real estate possible...suits and boots, dresses and shoes, guitars, record jackets, odd paraphernalia.
The staged glitz of country stars past and present are preserved for historical posterity here in the tiny "heart" of Texas known as Brady. "Please sign the guest book," the blue haired woman at the entrance table requests, and I scribble my name and state under the previous log. I imagine she grew up listening to every one of the stars represented in the museum. |
Not being an ongoing country music fan, many of the names behind the glass don't mean anything to me at all. But here I am in the "heart" of it, according to Brady. The culture is strong here, and these performers took it seriously, sort of like the Academy Awards fashion show of modern day Hollywood. I like the "red lips". What was he thinking? And I wonder how long it took someone's grandmother to crochet a whole dress.....and then, my childhood cowboy fantasies bubbling back up from having watched Roy Rogers on television decades ago.
On the Trail of the Blooming Bluebonnet
2. Albert Dance Hall and Icehouse
"Are you here by yourself?” A tall rancher in his 70’s asks me.
I tell my story yet again…the traveling…the desire to two step, honkytonk Western swing, and waltz across Texas.
“Well, you missed a good dance last week in the hall.”
“Last week?” Bummer, the calendar said the third Wednesday of the month. At least there is live music to listen to.
Fumbling with his unlit cigar, he cries tears into his beer with a tale of his fairly recent divorce, complete with an old joke that's more stale than a cigar dried out from the hot sun.
“All women are great housekeepers, though” he says, with a smile.
I know it's coming, but just smile back, happy to have any connection other than listening to the live music alone from the bench along the periphery of the wooden deck.
“Yep, in the divorce, after forty two years of marriage, she kept the house.”
Ouch.
“Are you still ranching?” I say to change over from the classic storyline of heartbreak and anger. I’m definitely a fish out of water here in this hill country dive, but I wade in a bit anyway as the full blood moon rises through the bare tree branches up over the dance hall. Maybe another time I'll get to dance here in Albert, but I can already imagine the glue I would need to break down in order to get partners.
But then again, there is my cigar smoking, beer drinking, bitter rancher who is no longer attached by the hip to a woman. Maybe he’ll dance with me?
3. Luckenbach Dance Hall
Amid the German immigrant history around the area hill country towns, Fredericksburg hosts a plethora of tourist shops in the midst of burgeoning wine vineyards. “Come to Luckenbach” roadside signs advertise. It’s on my dance hall list from a state wanting to save its honkytonk heritage. Every day, tourists can partake in the Luckenbach past—listen to acoustic picker music jams while sipping beer, eat fried food, buy souvenirs, watch the historical video in the dance hall and in the evening, dance to free live music. | It's on the list, so I go. I listen to the jam, eat grilled chicken and greasy fries. I pull on my boots and place myself in full view of the dance floor. I can’t be in the back at some obscure table like in Brady. Based on Fredericksburg’s main shopping district activity, I imagine the majority of couples here to dance are not local. | “It’s the hall,” I remind myself. I want to feel the history of a hall that once was indeed the local hub of the German immigrant farmers and ranchers. I want to leave my boot DNA along with theirs, atoms settling in between the wooden floorboards. |
My aloneness, emanating out from my bench near the dance area, summons up the age old question of whether I’m connected to the band. At some point, I should just say yes, and leave my own story behind. We’re out there though, in our pick up trucks, forty foot RV’s, or tents. I’m not alone on the road of discovery, so I dance—with a dance instructor traveling alone from Michigan. |
According to an old newspaper article, the Gillespie County governor,
Hondo Crouch, "...didn’t leave the Hill Country but rather appeared to turn his back on the world by settling twelve miles west of the LBJ Ranch — in Luckenbach, a town with one general store and a population of eight. Luckenbach had been there since 1849, but Hondo created it, much as Thoreau invented Walden Pond. Hondo declared that 'everybody was somebody in Luckenbach', and by celebrating what was small and simple, he made fun on a world that had become too large and complex."
Well, I'm all for small and simple. It's nice to feel like "somebody", but only since I'm actually dancing.
| I mean, what’s a stray elbow in the face when Lisa is yodeling out Patsy Montana’s “I Want to Be a Cowboy Sweetheart”? Eventually it becomes our private joke. "Stay away from the other eye or I'll have to wear a face shield." |
5. Austin Gentrification
Because Austin is a music town, any day is a dancin’ day. Sunday late afternoon, a small dancing group crowds the small concrete floor of the Austin Beer Garden and Brewery, known simply at the ABGB. Country swing belts out from The Saddle Sores, and the hat ratio is bleak: Dancers: 1, Band: 5. There is however, the stray baseball cap, facing forward or backward. Either way, I'm not impressed. There is nothing, I mean nothing, like looking up at a hat brim. It’s me, I know—I just get giddy and happy all over. And the bounce in my heartbeat shows up in my dance steps.
“Can I buy you another drink?” A man asks.
You know, these Texans are just generous and welcoming to us travelers.
“Oh, how nice. Sure.”
Not until later, conversing with a close male friend wintering over near San Marcos, south of Austin, do I realize that “savvy” on the road DOES NOT mean “savvy” with social cues. I have a different male friend from Maine who will suggest, when we’re visiting, getting a beer in a bar. He wants a beer, of course, but he also likes to see me squirm. Bars are not my thing. I walk in a different reality, one of taking people for face value, expecting that they will say what they mean.
“He bought you a drink because he was hoping to get lucky later on,” I am told in my San Marcos visit.
“No, can’t be. He knew I was passing through.”
“I’m telling you as a man, if I buy a drink for a woman, I’m looking for something. Doesn’t matter if it’s a one shot deal. Sometimes that’s preferable.”
“Hmmm. No wonder the guy seemed a bit miffed when I declined dinner with him.”
So much for thinking Texas men have been welcoming me to their dance culture here. I guess I’ll be buying my own drinks from now on………
6. Return to the Broken Spoke
We can’t return to the past. But, every now and then, I try. Four and a half years ago, I got off a Greyhound bus in Austin—for the sole purpose of two stepping in some local Austin honkytonk halls. The Broken Spoke, now part of Texas’ dance hall history for tourism, is what made this dance culture special. The restaurant has mediocre food, but live music during dinner every evening the establishment is open. The band plays for tips. Some folks might get up to dance around the tables.
But, it’s the back dance hall that is iconic. Ceilings are low, the wooden floor framed by railings. Picnic tablecloths cover small tables on both sides of the dance floor. The women’s restroom contains two toilets behind curtains that rest against your knees. One counter of the bar faces the hall.
My new circle of friends hustle dances for me.
“Our new friend Gail is visiting Austin, and she’s a really good dancer. We’d love for her to dance with other men too. Take a chance on her….” they offer, whisper, invite to men they know that can un-hip themselves from their wives and girlfriends for one dance with me.
And with a sigh of gratitude, relief, nourishment, and joyous wild abandon, I dance, then prepare myself for moving on.
*small town honkytonk halls still are a place for date night, even for those who have danced together for decades, now never looking at each other, but so in sync with their steps that they feel each other with a minimum of communication
*There are no free drinks
*cowboy hats diminish in ratio as gentrification grows stronger
*We all belong to our humanity, and while in Texas, I feel “Texas” in my psyche, as I feel “Utah” when in Utah, or "Vermont" when in Vermont.
Did I succeed?
I did. I honkytonked my way across Texas, not getting to every small dance hall and saloon, but certainly a few of them. And did I waltz? I sure did!
Ernest Tubb version of the Texas song that every band plays, every time they play a dance. Texans don't ever tire of it. Although I tired of other song lyrics: "the keys are in the mailbox, just come right on in..." and "green snakes on the ceiling". Now, there is poetry in some music, and in others...well.....hmmm....I'm just passing through, and will dance to what is offered. | |