Deep thoughts while listening to the Dixie Chicks. Really.

This post first appeared in January of '09. It's still true.
 
I'm doing my daily grind on the treadmill, working through the play lists on the iPod, and I get to some Dixie Chicks - specifically "Evening with the Dixie Chicks" recorded at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles. Nice venue, great crowd, really exceptional recording - especially for a live show. The Chicks (is that politically correct?) do a show of new material based on the "Home" album, and then for the encore come back and do the standards - and invite the audience to sing along.

And they do. The audience knows every word to every song they sing!

What must it feel like to hear your music echo back to you? To know that something you created and recorded has been taken to heart by so many that they can sing it as well as you can? The Kodak Theater seats just over 3,000 people, and in the video it looks like all 3,000 are singing along (and that's just a tiny fraction of the potential - even I can sing along!).

Yes, I agree that "Cowboy Take me Away" will not become an enduring classic for all ages; but I wonder if Beethoven or Brahms or any other classical composer ever had 3,000 people stand up and sing or hum their composition back to them? I'm not sure I can even name three of Beethoven's greatest hits!

It makes one think about what one's own legacy will be? What song will I sing in my lifetime that someone would even remember, let alone sing it along with me? What song will you or I plant in the hearts of people we come in contact with, and will they be able to recall it later?

I think I have some composing to do.

The 1940 Census

Tuesday morning, April 16, 1940, Blanche Mitchell knocked on my parent's door. Blanche was the Census Taker for Enumeration District 186-1A, Pecos County, Fort Stockton, Texas. It was mid-morning, Blanche's 4th stop of the day. She had already talked to the neighbors, the Bobos, the Connalys, and the Reimunds. My father was at work, my brother and sister were in school and my mother came to the door and subsequently answered Blanche's questions.

The questions were, for the most part, pretty straight-forward: my parents rented the little house they were in (which had no street number), paying $23 a month rent. My father and mother were 32 years of age; my sister was 10 and my brother 8. My father had completed 4 years of high school, my mother 1. My sister had completed the 5th grade and my brother the 1st. All of them were born in Texas, all of them were white, and all of them had been living there in Fort Stockton, in town (as opposed to a farm) on that same date in 1935.

My father was a "Combination Man" for Southwestern Bell Telephone - classified as a "Public Worker" - earning $1,950 the previous year and received no income other than wages or salary. My mother was a housewife, and my siblings were, of course, students.

My mother was not one of the 5% chosen for the supplemental questions. Two individuals per form page were chosen for those questions; one selected earlier was little Tommy Bobo, only 3 years old. Most of his answers were "No" or blank. Later, Irma Hallford, two doors down, had to answer 21 additional questions about her parents birthplace, military service in the family, Federal Social Security, tax deductions, number of marriages and total number of children, among other queries that most people thought were nobody's business.

Yes, the 1940 Census is now available to the public. And for the first time, the entire enumeration is available at no cost on the Internet (almost all of the earlier census information is also available, but on pay sites). The catch is, this census is not indexed, so you have to search by Enumeration Districts. Fort Stockton had only three and I got lucky and found what I was looking for on the 9th sheet of the first ED. Good luck with your Aunt Maude, who lived in Chicago.

The 1940 census reflects the economic tumult of the Great Depression and President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal recovery program of the 1930s. Besides the usual name, age, relationship, and occupation, the 1940 census asked if anyone in the household, during the week of March 24–30, 1940, was at work on, or assigned to, public emergency work projects conducted by the WPA, the NYA, the CCC, or state or local work relief agencies. If unemployed, for how long, was this person able to work and was this person actively seeking work?

There was little new information in this census about my parents, though I was surprised that my mother had but one year of high school. Somehow I missed that. But it is an interesting document, nevertheless. Several entries before that of my parents, I came across the Burcham family. I don't actually remember the Burchams (we moved from Fort Stockton when I was about 2), but I remember the name as family friends - especially, for some reason, the youngest daughter - Roxie. The Bobo name is also familiar, but that may have been an association from somewhere else.

Interesting reading. I'm looking forward to checking out some of the more distant branches of the family tree.

Monday Meanderings - 4.02..2012

Happy day after April's Fool Day.

In my Springtime in Austin blog, I forgot to mention the Texas Relays - another spring-time event that draws thousands of high school and collegiate athletes to Austin every April. I personally never participated in the Relays - I deem it short-sighted of them to not offer sack races or three-legged events.

Saw a bumper sticker that said "Running Man for President - 2012." I guess if Leslie is gone there is a local weirdness vacuum that needs to be filled. My references to Austin's Running Man - the dude who runs and dances on the HEB grassy median - continue to have the highest number of Google hits on this blog, some 220 page views thus far, more than double the next highest Google search term.

I'm thrilled to be paying nearly $4 a gallon for gas. Why, I can remember when gasoline was only 16 cents a gallon. Of course, the minimum wage then was only $1.00. I got in trouble at the radio station when I read the news item that the minimum wage was going up to $1.25 and commented that all the disc jockeys were getting a raise.

The dominant wild flower in Central Texas and the Coastal Plains this season is a bush with pale greenish-yellow blossoms. Acres and acres of them. Turns out that's a bad thing. The plant is Rapistrum rugosum, commonly known as (blush) Bastard Cabbage.It's a pernicious, invasive species that chokes the life out of a bed of bluebonnets and smaller wildflowers.



More than 23,000 people ran the Capitol 10K this past week; so many that the winners crossed the finish line before the last of the runners crossed the start.

Yesterday we concluded our church service by singing "The Lord Bless You and Keep You" with a rousing A Capella (of course) rendition of the seven-fold Amen. As we were leaving, Barb muttered, "Take that, Presbyterians!"

And I leave you with...

They wouldn't print it in the paper if it wasn't true

Springtime in Austin

I often talk about the two times a year when you know why you live in Austin - and this is one of the times.

It dawned on me that I've been enjoying springtime in Austin for more than 50 years, starting my Freshman year in high school. In Texas, all extracurricular school activity (except football) ultimately ends up in Austin. It's all lumped under the UIL - University (of Texas) Interscholastic League - and there's an almost endless list of competitions, playoffs, contests, meets, etc. in academics, athletics, music and more. Since 1910, school students have been coming to the University of Texas - and Austin - in the Spring. Sometimes multiple times a year, if you were lucky.

My Freshman year, we took a one-act play to the state finals, but failed to win. My first exposure to oral interpretation was at a UIL completion in Austin; I was a last-second replacement for somebody who couldn't make the trip. I read James Weldon Johnson's The Creation and placed 3rd. Every year, the Junior Historical Society held it's award banquet in Austin. I frankly can't remember what you did in JHS that was award-worthy, but hey, it was another trip to Austin.

And then, during my junior and senior years, there was the year-book conference. At that time, Steck Publishing printed most of the school yearbooks in the state, and the company sponsored a big conference and workshop every year. It was downtown in the Driscoll Hotel, already legendary. The State Capitol was just a short stroll up the street, and back then, the building and grounds were open all night. I know that for a fact.

Even after high school, Austin beckoned. My sophomore year at ACU, I got in trouble in Dr Treet's French class. He had it on good authority that I was with a group that had gone to New Orleans to Mardis Gras, missing his class. I had not. My roommate,  future brother-in-law and I went to Austin, instead.

There's just something about springtime in Austin.