Column: Thoughts from Dr. Joe: Savoring another Lone Star night
Learning about the history, vintage items and the land they are tied to appeals to me. Nostalgic moments are transformers that take me back to the good old days. So, as a New Yorker who temporarily resides in California and walks into a circa 1922 dance hall in Albert, Texas, I understand author Barry Lopez’s wistful regard of a sense of place.
As I walked into the Albert Dance Hall, smack-dab in the middle of the Hill Country, Ellen Phelps, a local rancher, asked, “Where y’all from?”
Her friendly nature prompted my immediate response, “La Cañada!”
She welcomed me. “When you leave, you’re gonna have new friends,” she promised.
I visit Texas about eight times a year, mostly to see daughter Simone at the university in Austin and at one time, to research my first novel. I always arrive on Wednesday mornings, because each Wednesday evening, there’s live Texas Hill Country music either at the dance hall in Albert or the tavern, which the locals refer to as the ice house. The residents of the area have genuine and vibrant energy, and their good nature keeps me coming back.
This trip, I would attend the USC-Texas Football game on Saturday night. John Steinbeck once said, “Sectional football games have the glory and despair of war, and when a Texas team takes the field against a foreign state, it is an army with banners.” USC would soon find that out.
I had encouraged my La Cañada buddies who are avid USC fans to meet me in Albert so that we could tear up the dance hall. They had “strange” written on their faces as I issued those invitations so I knew they wouldn’t get farther than 6th Street.
At the dance hall, Phelps spoke about the old Albert School, first established in 1891. Since German immigrants founded the community, the instruction was given in both languages. Today, Phelps lives on a 200-acre cattle ranch.
In 1877, during the romantic days of the frontier, Albert was founded. Although the town’s population has fluctuated from 25 to four, the Easley family has given Albert a distinct charm and allure.
“All this is Texas,” Becky Polk, the manager of the band said. “It’s the dance hall, the icehouse, the people, the beer and the music. It’s a Lone Star night.”
The band, known as the Lost Sounds of a Texas Honkey-Tonk played, and the ranchers danced, their faces beaming as the pedal-steel guitar proclaimed, “I love you most of all because you’re you.”
Phelps explained that the dancers were doing the two-step and the waltz. Then she and Polk left me nursing a Lone Star to slide across the old oak dance floor themselves. They would have made Gene Kelly take note.
Among the glories of Texas is its music, which is as diverse and vital as the state and its people. Woven into the musical fabric are country, blues, jazz, spirituals, gospel, rock ‘n’ roll, Tex-Mex, Cajun and the music of Czechs, Germans and other European immigrants. The Lost Sounds of a Texas Honky-Tonk are emissaries of music, and their musical talents were a testament to the renegade Texas sounds.
Rebecca Harvey and Alex Beattie, a young couple who traveled to the Hill Country from London, visited Albert because they’d heard of its charm.
“What do you like about this experience?” I asked.
“It’s the people,” Harvey said. “They’re so friendly and real.”
The locals gave them dance lessons, and they too stepped to “Waltz Across Texas.”
While all my new friends where twirling around the dance floor, I nursed a second Lone Star and got to thinkin’. The past is gone, and where you are is where you’re supposed to be. The place inside you is right now; it’s the only place you got.
JOE PUGLIA is a practicing counselor, a retired professor of education and a former officer in the Marines. Reach him at doctorjoe@ymail.com. Visit his website at doctorjoe.us.
JOE PUGLIA is a practicing counselor, a retired professor of education and a former officer in the Marines. Reach him at doctorjoe@ymail.com. Visit his website at doctorjoe.us.
