Going deep in the heart of Texas

Dear Ken,

Birds do it. Butterflies do it. And the urge to go South -- if only for a few precious days, for the winter, pulls at humans too. Spring break is in our blood.

The first and last time I saw Austin, Texas, was fleeting during a layover for a burger and beer in a non-stop, 24-hour plunge to Padre Island during college. But it made an impression. People are making music all over town every night, someone said. Cities emit different types of energies. Austin's to a 21-year-old was exciting.

During DC's break from her teaching job, I convinced her we should drive to Austin to see if the excitement was still there. Of course, I'd forgotten the drive takes almost two days, much of it spent looking at the flat pastureland that made Texas famous for beef.

It occurred to me as we drove through Dallas and Waco toward Austin that Texas has had a role in some of the great tragedies of American history: the assassination of JFK, the firestorm brought on by David Koresh and the deadly sniper in the University of Texas tower. As we drove, a jury was trying to decide in Houston whether a woman who drowns her children must be crazy.

Austin is much, much bigger than I remembered. It's practically a metropolis. We got lost a lot at first, but then found a huge bookstore that has a marquee listing upcoming readings. Next door is a whole food store where the produce is bountiful and arranged like works of art. The employees engage you in conversations about food, and the deli has Thai black rice salad, calamati olive bread and the like. This was the Austin I was looking for.

It also is on Sixth Street near the Capitol, where every other storefront seems to be a bar offering live, often original music. Unfortunately for us, most of this music is made by and for people in their 20s.

But in the semi-famous bar Antone's we found Maceo Parker, James Brown's old sax player. His band has that James Brown groove, the one that reassures white people that we can too dance. People of all ages were being reassured.

The Austin bubbling with creativity is on the street called Congress, too. It is lined with galleries, restaurants, antique stores and clothing shops owned by people whose minds were lit up by the spark you can see burning in Austin. Electric Candyland could outfit a costume party for 10,000. Shampooch grooms pets. Uncommon Objects, an antique store, had a molded belly and breasts an actress would wear to play pregnant.

As we left Austin, the South by Southwest Film and Music Festival was just getting under way. One bar is presenting only bands from Sweden one night. Actors who really want to direct are here to show films that will never sell a kernel of popcorn anywhere else.

I overheard someone say she ran into Marilyn Manson. I may be too old to run into Marilyn Manson.

At breakfast in our motel lobby one morning, a TV was spewing news of the Andrea Yates trial. An inquisitive little boy who had been trying unsuccessfully to engage his parents in conversation listened to the TV for a few moments and then asked his parents if they would turn the TV off.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.