Blue Highways: Fredericksburg, Texas

Unfolding the Map

Click on Thumbnail for MapSprechen Sie Deutsch?  Möchten Sie in Fredericksburg zu stoppen und ein Bier trinken, erfahren Sie Chester Nimitz, und machen einen Abstecher zum Enchanted Rock?  Klicken Sie auf die Miniaturansicht der Karte zu sehen, wo diese den meisten deutschen Städten von Texas befindet, und Prosit!

Book Quote

"People who think the past lives on in Sturbridge Village or Mystic Seaport haven't seen Fredericksburg.  Things live on here in the only way the past ever lives -- by not dying.  It wasn't a town brought back from the edge of history; rather, it was just slow getting there.  And most of the old ways were still comparatively unselfconscious."

Blue Highways: Part 4, Chapter 6

Downtown Fredericksburg, Texas. Photo by Frank Thompson at virtualtourist.com. Click on photo to go to site. 

Fredericksburg, Texas

Fredericksburg is a strange place.  I don't mean that in a negative way.  It is strange as in the good strange.  I never knew much about the town, other than its German roots, before I visited there.  Nestled in the Texas Hill Country, it is seems to defy what you'd think a Texas town would be.

First of all, as LHM chronicles in the chapter from which I took the quote, this town in about as landlocked a place that you could ever think was the home town one of the bigger than life leaders that won World War II, Chester Nimitz.  That might not seem too off kilter, because we expect Texas to give us bigger than life military heroes.  But an admiral?  And not just an admiral, but the admiral in charge of the entire Pacific theater during World War II.  And not only that, but a man of German descent who helped defeat the Axis Powers - we should remember that when we question immigrants' fidelity to their new country.

LHM writes that Nimitz' grandfather built a hotel in Fredericksburg, and the shape of the hotel suggested a steamboat.  He speculates that the young Chester Nimitz might have gotten his attraction to his maritime career by seeing that hotel "sail" across the Texas landscape.  Nimitz, like a lot of bigger than life heroes, was a straight-ahead military commander.  He was the exact counterpoint to General Douglas MacArthur, the other larger than life commander in the Pacific Theater, whose military style was based on deception and counterthrust.  Nimitz's straight ahead style got him in trouble in his early career when he ran his first command, a destroyer, aground on a reef.  The resulting court martial did not derail him, however, and his efforts and the efforts of the men of all services that he put into battle turned the tide against the Japanese and won the war.  Today, his deeds are celebrated in history, on film, and in the National Museum of the Pacific War in his home town of Fredericksburg.

That's just one little example.  A second example is Fredericksburg's overwhelming German feel.  When I lived in San Antonio, a neighbor and colleague in my Master's program was German - I mean speaks fluent German German.  I was surprised to learn that his father, an officer in the German Air Force, was stationed in El Paso and retired to Fredericksburg.  Why would the German Air Force have an officer in El Paso, I wondered?  A liaison?  It turned out that the German Air Force had planes and men stationed in El Paso because they used the air base there for training.  When my friend's father retired from his military service, they settled in Fredericksburg.  And after visiting there, I understood why.  The town is SO German that English is almost, but not quite, a second language.  Townspeople gather at public places and play skat, a German card game.  The town has a distinct German feel and taste.  The only thing was at the time it didn't have a brewery, which surprised me, though you can get good beer in Fredericksburg.

Of course, the Fredericksburg that LHM describes, the unselfconscious town, has been somewhat replaced by tourist-grabbing stores.  Fredericksburg now knows it's a tourist destination as that German city in the middle of Texas.  But in some ways, because many of the residents are first or second generation Germans and its comparative isolation, it still retains that sense of authenticity that you don't find in other similar places nearer large population centers.

Some of our best moments near Fredericksburg came at Enchanted Rock State Park.  Enchanted Rock is sort of like Texas' mini-Ayres Rock.  It is a large buried boulder sticking out of the ground a few minutes north of Fredericksburg.  A short climb brings you to the top, where you can view out over the surrounding Texas landscape. 

I walk down a side of Enchanted Rock while my dog Hannibal watches. Photo by Megan Kamerick.The natives in the region considered it sacred, and one can almost feel the eons of history that the rock, unmoving, has experienced.  Sit on top of the unchanging rock, with the breeze whistling through your hair and past your ears, and you can be at any point in time you choose. 

Boulder sentinels stand guard atop Enchanted Rock. Photo by Michael L. HessOn the rock, the cosmos whirl about you, until with cleansed heart you travel back to Fredericksburg for a bratwurst and kraut, a good beer, and the sound of German in the middle of America.

Musical interlude

For a Texas musical interlude, we have Austin singer-songwriter Sara Hickman, another of my favorites.  Sara was named the 2010-2011 State Musician of Texas.  She is a fun songwriter, and very committed to children and moms.  I've never seen her live, unfortunately.  This is a little throwaway ditty called "Are We Ever Gonna Have Sex Again" that she did on a local television show, but you can see her humor in her lyrics and her style.  When I first heard her I got a crush on her...and this song does not help that at all.

If you want to know more about Fredericksburg

Fredericksburg Chamber of Commerce
Fredericksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau
Fredericksburg History
Fredericksburg Online
Fredericksburg Standard (newspaper)
Oktoberfest Fredericksburg
Wikipedia: Enchanted Rock
Wikipedia: Fredericksburg

Next up: Mason, Texas

Littourati News: Traveling in Charley's Footsteps

John Biewen, a producer, is visiting some key spots featured in John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley.  In the book, Steinbeck gets a small camper that he christens Rocinante, and travels with his Standard Poodle Charley around the country in the 1960s to reconnect with his country.

Biewen's website, Travels with Mike, is a chronicle of his visits.  It includes some video, as well as a map with interactive points that B.  Give Biewen's site a look!

Also, check out Peabody Award winning radio program Studio 360's feature on Biewen's project.

Blue Highways: Stonewall, Texas

Unfolding the Map

Click on Thumbnail for MapThis post explores perceptions of good and evil, focused around Stonewall, Texas as the birthplace and home of President Lyndon B. Johnson.  Seems like a lot more than what William Least Heat-Moon intended, right?  That's the beauty of our Littourati journey - we can take side trips!  Click on the map to see where Stonewall is located, and explore your own nature and motivations as you read!

Book Quote

"The road went directly into a sunset that could have been a J.M.W. Turner painting. Colors, texture, the horizontal composition were his. I'd never thought Turner a realist. The land, now cattle and peach country, wasn't so rocky and dry as the great ridges I'd just crossed. West of Stonewall, I saw the last of dusk, and under a big desert night, I drove in the small coziness of my headlamps until Sonny's beer made me stop. While I stood, an uncommon amount of noise came invisibly through the brush. Whatever it was, I felt vulnerable and tried to hurry. The moonlight wasn't much, but what I could make out looked like a tiptoeing army helmet. I was moving backwards when I realized it was an armadillo. I stopped, it waddled on, sniffed me out at the last moment, and shifted direction without hurry."

Blue Highways: Part 4, Chapter 5

President Lyndon Johnson's birth-site, LBJ Ranch. Photo by Timothy Tray at www.city-data.com. Click on photo to go to site.

Stonewall, Texas

LHM references J.M.W. Turner in the quote above, remarking that he "never thought Turner a realist."  In an article on Wikipedia that I read recently, it turns out that Turner may have been a realist after all.  A lot of volcanic action around the world during the early 1800s created especially bright and vivid sunsets that he captured in his paintings, as well as a "year without a summer" in which temperatures were so cold in Europe during the summer months that crops were ruined, leading to a food shortage crisis.

But that was just a little interesting fact that I learned.  What I really want to write about is good and evil.  LHM either misses, or just simply doesn't remark about, that just west of Stonewall lies the Lyndon B. Johnson Ranch - now a National Historical Park.  Why should that bring up good and evil?  Bear with me a moment while I coalesce a few points around this theme.

Very recently I went to a production of the musical Wicked.  The Broadway touring company came through Albuquerque and we paid outrageous prices to go see it.  We were interested in the musical because a few months earlier we had read the book to each other.

Both the book and the musical had as their subjects the nature of good and evil.  The book is much darker and more subsumed in philosophical, religious and political themes than the musical can be - the musical focuses on easy to reach themes and is in essence a love story.  The book, which author Gregory Maguire wrote partly because of questions unanswered in the original Wizard of Oz books by L. Frank Baum, examines what made the Wicked Witch of the West so evil.  We learn that sometimes people are evil not necessarily because of what they do, but how others perceive their actions and the consequences of those actions.  It is also an exploration of how some can come to believe themselves evil, which filters into their persona so that, in essence, they become what they believe.

The Wicked Witch of the West is portrayed, in MacGuire's Wicked, as a young woman named Elphaba who is idealistic, a believer in and protector of the rights of Animals (in Oz, animals that have capability of higher thought and speech), but who also has some strikes against her - namely that she is green, and therefore a freak.  She is a zealot, willing to fight for what she believes, but her actions are considered dangerous and she is hated and wanted by the government for her evils.  On the other hand, Glinda, the Good Witch, is really a bubble-headed, vacuous and shallow person who is "good" simply by the virtue of her beauty and her connections.  Eventually, the Wicked Witch of the West, through her own actions, events not in her control, politics and her own self-loathing, becomes that which she originally despises.  She becomes wicked almost because there is no other choice for her.

How does this relate to anything about Stonewall?  I see President Lyndon Johnson in similar terms.  He was a remarkably complex man, driven by an intense desire to do something to bring the country together and who pushed through some of the most comprehensive legislation to deal with poverty that the United States has ever seen.  He was a Texan, a vice-president under Kennedy who was put on Kennedy's ticket to deliver southern Democratic votes but who was not thought highly of by the Kennedy administration.  Back then, vice presidents were basically around to perform ceremonial duties and to break the occasional tie vote in the Senate.  However, when Kennedy was assassinated, this "hick" from Texas was thrust front and center.  His War on Poverty was rooted in his own poor depression-era background and his experiences teaching in small Texas schools.  He was ruthless as a politician, and was feared and admired for the pressure that he could put on an individual to get what he wanted.  To this day, the programs enacted in the War on Poverty and in his vision of a Great Society are hated by conservatives as the epitomy of big government and government intrusion in people's lives.  For these programs, some people regard him as "evil" while others praise his attempts to deal with some of America's most pressing issues.

Johnson also did a number of less-than-honorable things.  He authorized FBI wire-taps of Martin Luther King, Jr. (continuing a policy started by the Kennedy administration) and he supported the overthrow of a number of democratically elected left-wing governments in Latin America.

The Vietnam War, however, will always be associated with Johnson.  While he did not get the United States involved in Vietnam - U.S. involvement was begun by Kennedy and the situation was bequeathed to Johnson - Johnson escalated U.S. involvement.  He believed that if South Vietnam fell, a domino effect would lead to communist takeovers in other countries and threaten democracies and capitalism everywhere.  He believed in the military power and might of the U.S.  To him, South Vietnam's defense was necessary to maintain U.S. power and influence, and his own reputation.  While his motivations were complex, consisting of good but also self-serving elements, his actions committed thousands to death and untold numbers more to consequences felt throughout their lifetimes in the form of injuries, addictions, mental disorders, and broken lives.  Does his single-minded pursuit of victory in what became an unwinnable contest make him evil?  Some think so.  Eventually, Johnson was dissuaded from running for a second full term as president because of popular opinion and demonstrations against the Vietnam War which was largely blamed on him.

Regardless of where you stand on Lyndon Johnson, the Vietnam War, the War on Poverty and the Great Society, a visit to his ranch gives an inside look at a very complex individual who had a great impact on our country.  Regardless of how you view his actions, some of the popular perception of him does not fit.  His actions had consequences, but like most people, his actions also were rooted in personal beliefs that he was doing good, but rendered more complex by human psychological frailties and wants.  Good or evil?  We all confront our actions and sometimes those actions and events combine to create consequences that are labeled one way or the other.  It is easy to make the world black and white, but really Johnson's life, like the themes of Wicked and countless other works of literature, show that those black and white labels conceal a lot of gray, like hair color on a 60-something person.  In the end we really don't have much control over how others ultimately categorize our lives, our actions and ourselves.

Musical Interlude

In my new effort to highlight some musicians from Texas that I really like, I present you with Junior Brown. Though born in Indiana, he's became a sensation in Austin, Texas playing a double necked guitar of his own invention that was a combination electric guitar and steel guitar.  The song attached below is Venom Wearin' Denim and is in keeping with the subject of witches, good and evil.  We've all met and sometimes been hurt by such people - though I keep in mind that though their actions seem meaning to be damaging, sometimes they may be the result of complex psychology.  Enjoy!

If you want to know more about Stonewall

Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Site
Lyndon B. Johnson State Park
Stonewall Chamber of Commerce
Texas Escapes: Stonewall
Texas State Historical Association: Stonewall
Wikipedia: Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park
Wikipedia: Stonewall

Next up: Fredericksburg, Texas

Blue Highways: Johnson City, Texas

Unfolding the Map

Click on Thumbnail for MapWilliam Least Heat-Moon (LHM) leads us to speculate on wanderlust today as we drive with him through Johnson City, Texas.  Satisfy your wanderlust by reading through the post and click on the map thumbnail if you want to see where the wanderlust has led us so far.

Book Quote

"Johnson City was truly a plain town. The 'Lyndon B. Johnson Boyhood Home,' pleasantly plain, is here; and commercial buildings on the square were plain and homely. The best piece, the refurbished Johnson City Bank of rough-cut fieldstone, was perhaps the only bank in the country to be restored rather than bulldozed for a French provincial Tudor hacienda time-and-temperature building."

Blue Highways: Part 4, Chapter 5

Downtown Johnson City, Texas. Photo by William Beauchamp on TexasEscapes.com. Click on photo to go to host site.

Johnson City, Texas

I have been reading a set of daily meditations for men, and a recent mediation was "wanderlust."  The questions I was supposed to consider were whether I ever had wanderlust and what I did about it.

I think I developed my wanderlust early but was a little timid to do anything about it.  I grew up in Northern California, and went to college there.  After a year-long relationship in my junior year that ended and left me somewhat heartbroken, and then a short and intense relationship in my senior year that abruptly ended, I decided I needed to get out of California and see something of the rest of the country.  I joined a volunteer program and went east of California for the first time in my life, to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  I lived there for 10 years, and it was there that my wanderlust truly kicked in.

I was lucky enough to eventually have a job that allowed me travel to other states.  In particular, I loved my trips to the East Coast.  I would take the car provided with my job and drive through Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, down through New Jersey to Phillie, back through West Virginia and so on.  I took small roads when I could, much like William Least Heat-Moon (this was before I ever read him).  I turned off on side roads to see places with interesting names.  It was during my time in Milwaukee, in my early thirties, when I made my first backpacking trip to Europe and visited nine countries over the course of 2½ months.

I am lucky enough to marry a woman who also loves to travel, and together we've lived in exciting places (Milwaukee, San Antonio, New Orleans, Albuquerque) and traveled together to Europe twice (once as international observers to Northern Ireland, once to Germany for a wedding which involved side trips to Poland and the Czech Republic).  I've been very fortunate to have some jobs that allowed me to travel as part of my work.  In San Antonio, I made thrice yearly trips to New York City, and made a fact-finding trip to Bangladesh as well as the international observer trip to Northern Ireland.

Even in Albuquerque, I have been able to travel.  Once on a day's notice, I helped a 70 year old woman deliver a van from Albuquerque down to a rural community in the state of Guanajuato in Mexico.  I traveled to El Salvador for immersion Spanish lessons.

I write all this not to chalk up my traveling experiences.  Others have traveled more widely and extensively than me.  We have a friend whose goal is to visit thirty countries by the time she's thirty, and she probably will.  But in the spirit of my meditation assignment, what stands out to me is my willingness, not necessarily my ability, to go places and to explore my world.  Take my life in San Antonio, for example.  While there, my wife and tried to explore Texas as well as we could.  In particular, we wanted to see the Texas hill country, which we heard was beautiful, especially when the wildflowers bloomed in the spring.  That exploration took us a few times to the environs of Johnson City.

Originally, when I thought of wanderlust, Johnson City would not have been the first name that would have come to my mind as a destination.  Wanderlust initially meant to me exotic climes and adventures in faraway lands.  For example, under this paradigm, my trips to Bangladesh, El Salvador, Mexico, and even Europe, would have been considered by me true examples of the product of wanderlust.

But wanderlust means so much more than trying to take a trip to some faraway place.  There's nothing to say that wanderlust can't involve a plain sounding place like Johnson City.  It was our wanderlust that brought us into the Texas hill country - we'd heard of wonders like Pedernales Falls and Enchanted Rock (more on that when we get to Fredericksburg) and the historic LBJ Ranch.  We knew that a place like Luckenbach existed in that area, where Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and other musicians were known to frequent.  It was those draws, plus a willingness to see new things and experience something different that brought us there.  And, we even stopped in Johnson City to eat at a place called Uncle Kunkel Barbecue, simply because it reminded us of a person that lived in Milwaukee with the same last name.

So to me, wanderlust is a desire to go anyplace, see anything, and to constantly have that yearning to travel.  Wanderlust is not confined to the high marquee places.  A person who has true wanderlust is one who will turn off a main highway because a name looks interesting, or because they're just curious about what's up that road.  True wanderlust leads us to places like Johnson City as much or more often than places like St. Croix, and allows us to learn if there is anything there.  Most of the time, we'll find something interesting.

I have wanderlust.  I try to travel.  When I can't, I read and scratch my wanderlust itch through others' experiences and words.  And now I write in this blog about both experiences.  As Terri Hendrix, Texas singer-songwriter from the Texas hill country, sings: "Take me places I've never been before."  I hope I never lose this affliction and gift.

I leave you in this post with a video of Terri Hendrix, a marvelous musician and one of my favorites, singing Jim Thorpe's Blues from her album The Spiritual Kind.  The guy playing mandolin is her longtime collaborator Lloyd Maines, who is the father of Natalie Maines, lead singer for the Dixie Chicks.

If you want to know more about Johnson City

Johnson City Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Center
Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park
Pedernales Falls State Park
Texas Escapes: Johnson City
Texas State Historical Association: Johnson City
Wikipedia: Johnson City

Next up: Stonewall, Texas

Blue Highways: Austin, Texas

Unfolding the Map

Click on Thumbnail for MapNon-Texans may not agree, but there is a little bit of heaven perched on the edge of the desert in Texas - Austin (and San Antonio, where I lived).  William Least Heat-Moon notes Austin on his way past, since he doesn't want to spend time in the urban areas.  But we'll take a little stop so I can reminisce about Austin and traveling up there a few times a year to do and see interesting things.  Click on the map thumbnail at right and see just how far we are across Texas, and how far we have to go.

Book Quote

"At Austin, on a hill west of the Colorado River - not the Colorado River, but the one flowing from near the New Mexico line to the Gulf - the desert began. Desert as in dry, rocky, vast. There was nothing gradual about the change - it was sudden and clear. Within a mile or so, the bluebonnets vanished as if evaporated, the soil turned tan and granular, and squatty trees got squattier with each mile as if reluctant to reach too far from their deep, wet taproots."

Blue Highways: Part 4, Chapter 5

Austin, Texas. Photo by Rhea Thomas at uptake.com. Click on photo to go to host site.

Austin, Texas

Every so often, my wife and I would leave San Antonio in the early evening and head up to Austin.  It was about an hour and a half drive up I-35 to downtown Austin, but usually we would hit some traffic on the outskirts of Austin just before we crossed Town Lake into the downtown.  After leaving the downtown skyline of San Antonio, muted in the fading light, the lights of the buildings of Austin reflecting off of the waters made for an interesting contrast with San Antonio.

Perhaps our goal was to have an evening at one of Austin's many good restaurants.  Perhaps there was an event, like a concert, that we wanted to see.  Sometimes it was the opera that beckoned us.  We had season tickets to the Austin Opera and only missed one - when it was too icy to drive and we had to turn back because, even though we were used to plows and salt and sand trucks in the Midwest, they had few of these in the South and even worse, people did not know how to drive in icy conditions.

Once we went to Austin to see the bats fly out from the Congress Avenue Bridge.  Austin, if I remember correctly, has the largest urban Mexican red-tailed bat population in the United States  They roost under the Congress Avenue Bridge for a certain amount of months each year, and quite a crowd gathers when they fly out in the evenings to look for a meal.  We stood under the bridge, listening to the barely audible squeaks of the bats, and soon, a few flew out, followed by an ever increasing torrent.  They made a cloud over town lake as they flew and swooped chasing down mosquitoes and other insects.

But to us, the jewel of Austin was located in Zilker Park - Barton Springs.  Barton Springs is a spring-fed pool straight from the aquifer below the city.  The water remains at a constant temperature, around 68 degrees.  In the summer, there was no better place to swim.  Well, at least I thought so.  One could always go up to Lake Travis and the beaches there, including a clothing-optional beach called Hippie Hollow.  I never went to any of those places, though.  Barton Springs was just my speed.

One of my best memories, though, was leaving Austin late, usually after the opera.  We'd drive back to San Antonio usually around midnight.  A wonderful public radio show, Blues Before Sunrise, usually came on and went into the wee hours of the morning.  At those moments, after having enjoyed a good time in the capital of Texas, driving through the night down I-35, it was easy to forget that we literally sat perched on the edge of the semi-arid desert just to the west.  West of Austin and San Antonio one could drive for hours before coming to a city of any consequence - it was 10 hours to El Paso, probably 12 or so to Albuquerque.  In between lay a lot of flat scrubland, gradually giving way to Chihuahuan desert to the southwest.  But we raced down the interstate, knowing that at the end lay our home in the Mahncke Park area of San Antonio, and our wonderful white dog waiting for us.  As the blues played, and my wife slept, sometimes it seemed like a slice of heaven.

For your listening and viewing pleasure, a band from Austin that unfortunately will not be touring any more - the Asylum Street Spankers.  Another Austin treasure to be remembered.

If you want to know more about Austin

Austinist (blog)
austinwebpage.com
Austin American-Statesman (newspaper)
Austin Bloggers Metablog
Austin Chronicle (alternative newspaper)
Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau
Austin Daily Photo (blog)
Austin Food Carts
Austin Food Reviews
Austin History Center
Daughters of the Republic of Texas
Slow Food Austin
University of Texas at Austin
Wikipedia: Austin
Wikipedia: History of Austin
Wikitravel: Austin

Next up: Johnson City, Texas