Current Log

Years ago, while driving through the Hill Country with a friend who was visiting Texas for the first time, I asked what surprised him most about the scenery.  “There are a lot of trees”, he said.  Yes, we do have a lot of trees.  Austin in particular, nestled as we are on the edge of the Edwards Plateau where the Colorado River winds down through the rolling hills and onto the Blackland Prairie, has a great variety of wonderful, beautiful trees!

As the summer doldrums in Austin wear on, I am grateful my hometown has so many fun ways to cool off. Jumping into the refreshing waters of Lake Austin or the neighborhood pool in Reed Park were easy retreats from the heat as a kid growing up in Tarrytown.  The chilly oasis of Deep Eddy Pool and of course, Barton Springs beckon to this day.  But I fondly remember too, many dark, air-conditioned escapes into some of Austin’s great movie theaters.

We Austinites call it “Mount Bonnell” like it was a mountain.  People from West Texas (and the part of West Texas that includes Colorado), would probably call it a bump.  It’s not that high.  Hell, it’s not even as high as the hill right next to it, “Mt. Barker”, which is a whopping 65 feet higher. 

I suppose I should be grateful to have grown up in Tarrytown in the 60’s and 70’s.  The life of a kid was pretty simple back then: get up, go to school, ride the bus or walk home, play in the street until dark, do a little homework, see what was on CBS, NBC, or ABC, go to bed – that last one was always the hardest.  It was even reasonably easy to get a part-time job and make a little money by the time I qualified as a child laborer. 

The history of my hometown of Austin, Texas has always fascinated me. This month I share a review of two of my favorite books on Austin's "origin story".