My attempt to share stories for each letter of the alphabet featuring our life in Austin B.C. (Before Children) 1975-1985. The 70s were a long time ago. 26 stories might be a stretch for my brain. I’m way behind!

I won’t even pretend that I can complete the alphabet prompts on time. I’ll share a two-fer and try to hurry things along. I have to admit, I’ve lost enthusiasm for writing about myself week after week and I’m missing the ancestors. The past few weeks I had computer issues, several medical appointments, and my daughter and I, in an attempt to remain calm in the midst of crazy, have watched 6 seasons of The Good Witch and all of the movies that preceded the series. None of that helped move things along here.

But, I gave myself this challenge and I intend to complete it.

R is for Renaissance Market

No stroll down The Drag was complete without turning the corner onto 23rd Street to visit the vendors at the Renaissance Market.

Vendors began selling on the Drag in 1969, but the city moved them to 23rd Street in the early 70s and rules were eventually established that excluded booths for imported items. It was a great place to browse the clothing, sandals, jewelry, and other items made by local artisans. Music was also a part of the scene.

When I asked my husband for a memory, he said that he especially liked the jewelry one of the artists cut from coins. He bought a necklace for himself with a pendant cut from a dime. We can’t find it. He may have given it to one of our daughters years ago.

Below, a glass tree sculpture and some small armadillos and birdbaths.

We bought a hot air balloon crafted by the artist pictured below, but we purchased it at the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar, not at the Renaissance Market (now known as the 23rd Street Artists’ Market). The balloon part was a copper toilet float. He used them for all of his “flying” machines.

My husband took this photo of the iconic Austintatious mural, painted in 1974 and visible in the photo above.

He also got a shot with no people in it.

Over 45 years later, the mural is still there. It has been refurbished and updated four times, most recently in 2014 when it was defaced with large graffiti. The original artists repainted and repaired the mural with donations and their own money. It now has a coating that paint will not adhere to, protecting it from vandals, but also from the artists themselves. They won’t be able to add anything more.

I can’t name everything and everyone in the mural without doing some work, but that’s Stephen F. Austin in the center holding an armadillo. In later years, a crown was added above his head. The UT tower is on the right, Capitol building on the left. Some local characters, street scenes, and notable buildings. Willie was added at some point, and stands by the red truck bottom left. A “neked” Matthew McConaughey with his bongo drums, added some time after 1999. If you don’t know the story, you can find it online. Just a few weeks ago, he brought out bongo drums to rev up the crowd for Austin’s new soccer team. (He was fully clothed.) You can get a peek at Matthew and Willie and some other scenes in this news piece.

And more. Full screen is great for this one.

Hare Krishna. The street preacher. Who and what else can you find?

The mural repaired.

The artist Kelly Awn does most of the talking in both of the videos. He is also a founding member of The Uranium Savages, a satire and parody band which came into being around the same time as the mural. Although I knew about the band, I have never seen them in person. I watched a few videos and some of the scenes in this one looked very familiar. No wonder. They used scenes from the movie Outlaw Blues, which I highlighted in Photographing Film Stars.

I skipped the letter O, so going backward rather than forward in the alphabet …

O is for Off the Drag

At the corner of 24th and Nueces, one block west of the Drag, was Bluebonnet Plaza, a small cluster of businesses and restaurants with all the charm of old, weird Austin. Most of the businesses were in an old two-story building. On a Facebook page dedicated to old Austin, I found this great advertisement drawn by the artist … Kelly Awn! If you are keeping count, that makes three Kelly Awn references today.
I love this drawing! Unfortunately, a little was cut off from the top and bottom.

I think by the time we moved to Austin, Octopus Garden had become Mad Dog and Beans, a hamburger joint. My husband and I both wore Earth Shoes, but he assures me we got them on a trip to Dallas when we were students at Baylor. They did last a long time, so maybe we never bought any in Austin. Whole Earth Provision Co. still exists, but not at this location. There was a hair salon, The Leather Bench, a book store. It didn’t mean anything to me at the time, but the building was also home to The Texas Tribune, where Molly Ivins worked as a journalist. Oh, how I wish I could have met Molly!

The store we visited most often was Inner Sanctum Records, my husband’s favorite record store.

He had one of their posters. We can’t find it. That seems to be a theme.

Les Amis restaurant was on the east side of Bluebonnet Plaza.

Neither of us hung out at Les Amis frequently, but we ate there a few times and when I was in graduate school, I’d occasionally go with friends after class. The movie Slacker was partially written and filmed at Les Amis.

Of course there were other places north and south of the part of Guadalupe known as the Drag that we frequented. My husband attended UT his junior year and hung out with his APO friends at Shakey’s Pizza farther north on Guadalupe, and after we moved to Austin the APO folks would sometimes meet there for the beer, pizza, player piano, and sing-a-longs. One of our friends would often play the piano and lead everyone in A Boy Named Sue.

At the south end of the Drag, near the intersection of Guadalupe and MLK (19th Street at that time) my husband played his first of many games of Pong at the Roy Roger’s. The first Pong game in town!

Uncle Van’s Pancake House was also a favorite among UT students for breakfast or the munchies any time of day or night. My husband made sure to take me to his one-year-as-a-UT-undergrad haunts once we moved to town.

I keep thinking of other places where we spent time near the UT campus in those days, but I’ll stop here. Many of the old haunts are now occupied by chain stores and Starbucks. Toward the end of the video below, some old-time Austinites stand with signs where what was is no longer. And guess what? Kelly Awn is one of them. Four references for the win. (No. I don’t know him. He just kept showing up everywhere.)

C’est la vie.

This is my very, very late contribution to Sepia Saturday when the prompts were O and R.
I’m so far behind, I can’t even find the prompt photo for the letter O, but here is R.

Please visit others who are responding to the current prompt at Sepia Saturday.

I know this is long. Thanks for reading!

My attempt to share stories for each letter of the alphabet featuring our life in Austin B.C. (Before Children) 1975-1985. The 70s were a long time ago. 26 stories might be a stretch for my brain, but I have made it to Q. Computer issues and other things have delayed writing and posting for a couple of weeks and now I am behind the Sepia Saturday prompts. Oh well.

Perhaps you have heard of the Dave Brubeck Quartet.

Take Five?

This video takes seven, but who’s counting?

My husband and I were fortunate to see Dave Brubeck in person at First United Methodist Church in Austin in 1983.

When I chose this topic for the letter Q, I assumed quartet was accurate, but it was a trio. Dave Brubeck and his two sons.

When Dave Brubeck died in 2012, I linked an article on Facebook and noted that I had seen him perform at church. A few of my friends chimed in.

Nancy said: It came about because Lanier Bayliss was our choir director and she wanted to do the La Pasada piece that Brubeck had written. I’m thinking we performed it several times (thus no date on the program) over a weekend with the last performance on a Sunday afternoon. After that performance a group of us went to see “A Tuna Christmas” at the Paramount and I slept through the whole performance!

Mary Faye said: That was a thrilling performance. I was in the choir, too. I remember just one performance, but many, many rehearsals. After we sang the Posada piece Mr. Brubeck played a concert including his hits Take Five and Brandenburg Gate. While we performed and during his performance afterward I was about six feet from him. I was telling a colleague about this the other day and he was incredulous.

Randy: We had both a Saturday and a Sunday concert, along with having Mr. Brubeck accompany us during the Sunday church service. His birthday occurred during the week of our concert, so we had a cake for him, his wife and his sons (the sons accompanied him in concert as well). I remember the whole family being very down to earth and a lot of fun.

I wish I had taken photographs or could have gathered some from friends to add here, but I did not and I have not. So I am left with newspapers to document the event.

A part of the program details the sequence of the performance. Carole Fitzpatrick was the featured soloist in the part of Mary.

I searched for Carole Fitzpatrick to see where she is now and found her teaching voice at Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts School of Music and I also found a few recordings. The featured solos of the Posada were in good hands, or should I say in good voice?

The article above mentions that the church put on summer musicals at the time. The choir loft, alter – everything at the front of the church was covered/removed/transformed into a set for several weeks each summer. The musicals were always fun and entertaining! And I know of at least one couple who met on the set of one of the musicals and have had a long and happy marriage.

While Mr. Brubeck was in town, he made appearances on local TV.
 

Once again, I wish I had a better memory or that I had kept journals all my life. Actually, I’m not feeling so bad about about my memory after reading the comments of my friends who sang during these performances. Randy got it right – two performances and presence during church Sunday morning.

My snippet of memory is of my husband and I sitting in the north balcony of the church. I remember being so moved by the music – feeling the divine, not just in the “religious” music (the Posada), but in the secular jazz as well. I turned to my husband and asked if he didn’t feel it. Although he enjoyed the music very much, he did not find it a spiritual moment. Well, that’s me for you.

I couldn’t decide between the two videos below. They are long, but I thought you might like an introduction to Fiesta de la Posada if it is unfamiliar to you. The first is a 1983 concert at the Wright Center Concert Hall, including “Fiesta de la Posada” and movements from “The Light in the Wilderness,” featuring the Dave Brubeck Quartet and choral and instrumental performers. This occurred about a month before the performance at FUMC.

This second video is a performance in 1975, I think. I haven’t been able to figure out the details of the when and where, but it gives an idea of costuming and set arrangement and children performing. Of course, in our church, there was not a full orchestra, and certainly no pit under the stage.

One of the reasons I believe in jazz is that the oneness of man can come through the rhythm of your heart. It’s the same anyplace in the world, that heartbeat. It’s the first thing you hear when you’re born – or before you’re born – and it’s the last thing you hear. – Dave Brubeck

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday, featuring the letter Q.

I encourage you to visit other Sepia Saturday participants here.

My attempt to share stories for each letter of the alphabet featuring our life in Austin B.C. (Before Children) 1975-1985. The 70s were a long time ago. 26 stories might be a stretch for my brain, but I have made it to P – as has the Sepia Saturday prompt photo for this week. (Okay, okay – I skipped O!)

The first time I participated in Sepia Saturday was June 30, 2012 with a post I titled Making Movies. I featured photographs that my husband and his friend took while watching the filming of The Sugarland Express. In that post, you can view photos of Goldie Hawn, Ben Johnson, and Steven Spielberg. My husband’s friend wanted to direct movies. He didn’t fulfill his youthful dream of directing feature films, but he worked in the industry for many years. My husband enjoyed both photography and watching movies, and the influence of his good friend led him to occasionally combine the two interests when something was being filmed nearby.

Murder at the World Series, released March 20, 1977

My husband took the photo below at the Houston Astrodome. Clearly a photo of the crew rather than the stars. His friend is the blonde haired young man in the middle. Looks like he is talking to someone. On the IMBd website, our friend is listed as Production Assistant (uncredited).

I found two more photos of our friend online related to this movie, but I can’t download them. He is on the far right, scratching his head here. And he is in the picture header of a blog post here (second from left). Not a movie star, but it was fun to see him in photos at work as part of the crew and filling the stands with extras.

The ABC movie wasn’t exactly fine art, but it was a job in the business for our twenty-something friend.

 

The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training, released July 8, 1977

Once again, our friend is listed as Production Assistant (uncredited), but this time he worked on a movie movie. My husband and his friend grew up in Houston, so we must have combined a family visit with a visit to the movie set. Some of the movie was filmed at the Astrodome, but the day my husband took this photo, the location was in a park in Houston.

The movie star in the photo above is William Devane. I can’t tell who the child stars are.

Several Houston Astros – including Bob Watson, Cesar Cedeno, Enos Cabell, J.R. Richard and Ken Forsch – made cameos near the end of the movie, but Watson was the only one given a line to speak. According to an article in the Houston Chronicle, Watson said he learned one thing about making movies. “What I really remember about that is, I didn’t want to be a movie star, because, even if you get the lines right and the scene is right, you have to do it 15 times. There was a lot of standing around.”

I learned that lesson too. Maybe that is why I didn’t tag along for some of my husband’s photo sessions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXhFcKCcozE

 

Outlaw Blues

Our friend didn’t have a connection to this movie. Quite a bit of the movie was filmed in Austin, so my husband went to watch and take some photos on a day when he was free. The movie starred Peter Fonda and Susan Saint James.

When Susan Saint James was doing talk shows to promote the film, she said something to the effect that Austin was a sleepy little college town, which some found disparaging.

I searched the names of the cinematographer, director, and assistant director hoping to identify the men (other than Peter Fonda) in the photos above. I didn’t have any luck making a match to faces half hidden. To make it more difficult, it seems the people behind the scenes don’t show up in many online images.

Peter Fonda made his singing debut in Outlaw Blues. I believe that the singer Steve Fromholz is in the scene just before Peter Fonda begins to sing. The actor singing. The singer acting.

A few more scenes of Austin are in this 30 second trailer.

 

Dallas

Our friend also worked on the television series Dallas. IBMd shows that he worked as Production Assistant for three episodes in 1978 and as 2nd Assistant Director for 23 episodes in 1980-1981. My husband and I drove up to Dallas to see our friend at work. I can place the year, because the heat is seared in my memory.

In Dallas/Fort Worth, high temperatures exceeded 100 °F a total of 69 times, including a record 42 consecutive days from June 23 to August 3, of which 28 days were above 105, and five days above 110. The temperature hit 113 °F on two consecutive days (June 26 and 27). I thought about buying one of these t-shirts, but I didn’t want to go looking for one. It was too hot.

The day we were there, they were shooting in the club of a hotel. We don’t remember which one. It was kind of dark and crowded, so we couldn’t see much of the action. We did however, get the opportunity for my husband to get this photo during a break.

Looks like Larry is resting against a fan, doesn’t it? In his shirt pocket are some bills he had printed up in lieu of autographs. I remember seeing one up close, so I assume he pulled one out to give us, but we don’t remember actually having one.

One thing our friend gave us that he probably shouldn’t have was a copy of a script. We used to know its location, but now we are both wondering where we put it. I remember it has a light blue cover, so I’ll be on the look out.

That’s a wrap! But don’t go before visiting Sepia Saturday, where you can view more cinematic responses to the prompt photo.

Sepia Saturday provides bloggers with an opportunity to share their history through the medium of photographs. Historical photographs of any age or kind become the launchpad for explorations of family history, local history and social history in fact or fiction, poetry or prose, words or further images. If you want to play along, sign up to the link, try to visit as many of the other participants as possible, and have fun.