Happening At The Hoedown
Tag: Austin
I’ll Tumble 4 Ya
Sea Brisket: Heavy Half, Extra Lean, Outside Cut
The Dang Lake Is Finally Full
I didn’t think anyone else would be fool enough to chance the overpriced mediocre food and touch-and-go service of Austin’s The Oasis on a blustery, 50 degree day, but then I remembered. Tourists. Tourists everywhere on a cold Spring Break.
Kinda makes you wanna run toward the railing and jump overboard, no?
Don’t do it. You would surely die.
Ugliest Man Crowned
What we’ve got here today is bald Brad Bourland crowning the winner of the University of Texas’s 1947 “Ugly Man Contest,” Ed Andrews. I don’t know about you, but Ed is certainly not the ugliest man to which I’ve born witness. Not by a longshot. As a result of the election, the Campus Chest received funds, which the pinned Jimmye Kimmey (that’s what the yearbook says her name is, folks) is delightfully clutching, alongside the repugnant Ed.
Friday Night Feeling
Paddleboarding On Lady Bird Lake
People On Grass And Probably “On Grass”
#post888
Are You Ready For Some Football?
Woot woot! So much zippered orange glory in this shot!
Trucker hat + aviator glasses + mustache = awesome
But awesome doesn’t last forever. Witness the power of the fumble to humble.
Now what do I do with this cowbell?
No, Virginia, There Were No Rules In 1978
During the 1977 University of Texas football season, the drinking age was 18, probably because boys that age were asked to die in Vietnam. But let’s wrap our heads around that. High school seniors graduating across the country TOMORROW would legally be able to go get LIT tonight. At a bar. Yes, selfie-taking teenagers. The ones who text and drive. The ones who were born in 1996, the year George Burns turned 100. You think they would make it to 100, car-surfing past the Incidentals Market like these dolts?
Alas, we forget how foolish we were in our salad days. This is what it felt like to be young, male, and jubilant in 1978.
Were there no seatbelt laws then? Because it appears they may have failed to Click It or Ticket. I can’t fathom why, but the drinking age was raised to 19 in 1979, and further raised to 21 in 1984. And there it shall stay. And there it SHOULD stay. Egads!
Austin In A Nutshell
The more things change, the more they stay the same (except now you’re not allowed to light a cigarette within twenty yards of Austin). This shot from 1978 was taken on The Drag, a strip on Guadalupe Street, across from the University of Texas. Cowboys vs. Dragrats? Some pictures just demand to be resurrected from the closed pages of ancient yearbooks.
Dry As A Dead Dingo’s Donger
Last night’s view near twilight was a sight to behold. I could hear Eddie Rabbit rise from the dead, singing, “Well, I love a rainy night, it’s such a beautiful sight…” Of course, folks around here have learned not to get our hopes up. We’ve been (literally) burned too many times to count, hopeful at the sight of darkening clouds and ominous thunder, only to watch it pass us by. While Al Roker chats gloats about rainstorms across the country, central Texas is essentially Penny from The Rescuers, constantly passed over by would-be adoptive parents. For years.
We’ve been in drought conditions for so long, it’s nearly time for Penny’s quinceañera (were she Hispanic, which would technically make her Centavo, and that doesn’t quite have the same ring to it).
But it DID rain last night, and I even went out and danced in it, prompted by fellow blogger, Liz, if only for a few seconds. P.S. rain is cold.
So what if the lightning and thunder kept me up all night long? I’ll sacrifice my slumber for the good of our state.
Award-winning weatherman Jim Spencer keeps us abreast of local changes on his “First Warning Weather,” deciphering the Doppler Weather Radar and making predictions, but (to quote the Aussies), it’s as dry as a dead dingo’s donger.
All of our lakes are hitting record lows. The Lake Travis restaurants like The Oasis and Carlos ‘n’ Charlie’s, so popular for water fun and frolic in the 1990s, now overlook a low-lying lake covered with dune-like islands. When I visited Volente Beach on Lake Travis fourteen years ago, I could see the dry islands popping up even then.
But now it’s much, much worse.
At this point, I don’t know how we’ll ever recoup enough water to get things where they need to be. Our water bills are always in the hundreds each month; that’s par for the course to live in this area. Cattle are dropping dead right and left, reservoirs are drying up. But we won’t give up hope.
Now Elijah said to Ahab, “Go up, eat and drink; for there is the sound of the roar of a heavy shower.” 1 Kings 18:41
More rain may be just around the bend.
I Don't Get It 