Are any of them going to get there? You might be surprised. According to Julia Cuba, the program executive of the Lone Star Council, which oversees Girl Scout troops in eighteen counties in Texas and Oklahoma, 96 percent of the girls in Troop 1500 have stayed in school. Ninety-nine percent have avoided teen pregnancy. Ninety-eight percent have kept out of trouble with the legal system. These are remarkable numbers, especially considering that girls whose mothers are in prison are six times as likely as other high-risk groups to end up in prison.
In the United States there are approximately thirty Girl Scouts Beyond Bars programs, most of them limited to providing only one service: once-a-month visits to the prisons. The Austin chapter, led by Cuba and regularly evaluated by Darlene Grant of the School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Austin, differs from the others in that it concerns itself with a girl’s family, school, and social life and helps guide her mother’s reentry into the free world. The program has been so successful, in fact, that the girls are the focus of an upcoming PBS documentary by award-winning filmmakers Ellen Spiro and Karen Bernstein (the girls are filming part of the documentary themselves).
After I dried off from the car wash, I went out to dinner with the girls. They are a smart, free-spirited, fun-loving bunch of kids. I’d never met them before, and from what I know of life, our paths may never cross again. I’ve always found it interesting how most of us seem to place our energies and efforts behind only those causes that directly affect our own lives or those of our families. In other words, there are better things to do on a beautiful Saturday afternoon than drive a van full of kids out to Gatesville. I was reminded of a lady I once met whose only grandchild had died. She told me, “I used to say, ‘This is my grandson, and those are other people’s kids.’ Now I say, ‘Every child is my grandchild.’”
So why did I allow myself to get soaked to the bone at a Girl Scout car wash in the first place? Just lucky, I guess. And lucky is the right word for it. Most of us were born lucky. Lucky to have a home and a family. Lucky to have someone to provide hills to climb and stars to reach for. Lucky, when we fell, to have a catcher waiting in the rye. The girls at the car wash, of course, have known precious little of those things. Outside of Julia and Darlene, all they really have is each other. Maybe it will be enough. I certainly hope so. As we like to say in rock and roll, the kids are all right.
The Great Outdoors
BY NOW YOU’VE DONE THE NIGHT LIFE, HAD SOME chow, maybe spotted a few famous Austinites. You’re probably ready to take in Austin’s great outdoors. Well, hop onto my pet beer belly and let me show you what’s out there.
First stop is a 351-acre Austin favorite, Zilker Park, located at 2100 Barton Springs Road. Zilker (as it is called by the locals), was named in honor of Andrew Jackson Zilker, who bet on the classic American dream and hit a jackpot. When he was only eighteen, he moved from Indiana to Austin with a mere fifty cents to his name. His first night in town, he got a job washing dishes. Soon after, he got a job constructing the Congress Avenue Bridge and made friends with the owner of an ice plant who later hired him. Ol’ Andrew didn’t let any grass grow under his feet. During this time he was a volunteer fireman, director of the First National Bank, Water and Light commissioner, and head of the Travis County School Board. It wasn’t long before he became the engineer of the ice plant, and in 1901 he began buying land between the Colorado River and Barton Creek. He acquired 350 acres surrounding Barton Springs and used the land to pasture the livestock that pulled his ice wagons.
Zilker deeded thirty-five acres around Barton Springs to the city of Austin in 1918, with the provision that the land be used for education. During the First World War, a military school was established on the grounds. In 1932 he agreed to give the military an additional 330 acres if the city would buy the acreage from the school for $200,000. The purchase was approved in a bond election, and despite the economic depression of the 1930s, the land was developed into Zilker Park. Present-day Zilker Park is the jumping-off point for so many of Austin’s outdoor activities that it is hard to decide where to start. I would suggest starting at Barton Springs Pool.
Located at 2101 Barton Springs Road within Zilker Park, Barton Springs Pool has been used by people living here since Christ was a cowboy; measuring three acres in size and fed from three underground springs, it is also the largest natural swimming pool in the United States within an urban area (a bit of trivia: Robert Redford learned to swim at Barton Springs Pool when he was five years old while visiting his mother’s relative in Austin).
Barton Springs Pool (also simply called “Barton Springs” by the locals) got its name from an early Texas settler named William Barton. “Uncle Billy,” as he was known, built his cabin on a tract of land that included three springs. This area became known as “the Bartons.” He named the three springs after his daughters, Parthenia, Eliza, and Zenobia. The largest spring (Parthenia) is now the main spring that feeds Barton Springs Pool. Eliza Springs issues from a cavelike sinkhole on the north bank near the lower end of the pool; Zenobia Springs flows above the shallow end. Some parts of the pool are colder than others (perhaps where the ghosts of drowned swimmers lurk—I worked as a lifeguard here). The warmest part of the pool is in the shallow end where a legion of little children practice synchronized urination.
No description of Barton Springs Pool would be complete without mentioning the endangered Barton Springs salamander. In 1998 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service named the Barton Springs salamander an endangered species, causing the lungless, red-gilled creature to become the center of a political controversy that divided the city. The controversy is far too complicated to nutshell in a few paragraphs without leaving something out, but the gist of it is that the endangered salamander, found only in Barton Springs, requires certain environmental protections that some say affect the quality of water in the Barton Springs Pool. Because the pool cannot be cleaned as often as it used to be cleaned, thick clouds of blue-green algae known as oscillatoria have overrun the waters like Gentiles on a ham sandwich. My friend Turk Pipkin, the co-editor of a 1993 book (I highly recommend) titled Barton Springs Eternal: The Soul of a City, expressed to the Austin Chronicle his dismay at the condition of the pool. “I don’t think the water in the pool is as clean as it used to be,” said Pipkin. “Also, men follow me with erections and pull on my ponytail. I used to feel it was a soul-cleansing experience. I don’t have that feeling anymore.”
Visitors can judge for themselves, but keep in mind that the Barton Springs Pool is one of Austin’s famous landmarks and easily the most popular swimming hole in the city.
After splashing down at Barton Springs, you can take a long walk around the greenbelt. There is always a soccer game going on across the street at Zilker Park, and if that’s not to your fancy, you can spend hours walking through the Zilker Botanical Gardens, which includes the Taniguchi Oriental Garden and the Austin Area Garden Center. The thirty-one-acre Botanical Gardens are located at 2220 Barton Springs Road, and are free to the public. In season, the butterflies are plentiful and the air hangs thick with many natural fragrances, one of which emanates from my free-range cigars.
On the other side of the Barton Springs Pool fence line is what I like to call “Dog Heaven.” Here, dogs are able to run and swim freely, splash around with their ostensibly human companions, and enjoy the cold water on a hot day. If you go there enough, you’ll recognize the regulars, like a carefree boxer named Waylon and a rather strange three-headed dog named Cerberus.
Near Dog Heaven is a kayak-and-canoe-rental shack. Get one of either and paddle out toward Town Lake; this is the best way to see this part of Austin. Of course I haven’t done it yet.
Town Lake was created by the damming of the Colorado River on the west by Tom Miller Dam and on the east by Longhorn Dam. Its banks are festooned with trails that meander for miles throughout the city of Austin. People can run and bike for free on these trials, which is why I never go there (I have a fear of Lycra and winds
horts). Canoe rentals are available at businesses along some parts of the trail, and the lake is especially popular with crew teams.
The Congress Avenue Bridge is in downtown Austin, just ten blocks south of the State Capitol building. The bridge spans Town Lake at the cross streets of Cesar Chavez to the north and Barton Springs Road on the south. I have exactly one fond memory of the bridge, also called the Congress Avenue Bat Bridge.
Keep in mind that fond memories are not my strong suit; anyone who knows me knows better than to reminisce about any experience, fuzzy or otherwise, we have shared in the past. Unfortunately, people insist upon reminiscing, so to better fit into society and get people the fuck off my back, I pay my friend and former Texas Jewboy road manager Dylan Ferrero to be my font of fond memories.
Dylan is ready to deploy anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice, should someone want to reminisce fondly about anything we may have done or shared in the past. Dylan is good at his job, too. He can recall with clinical detail the time, place, and weather conditions of any fond memory I am supposed to have had, even though he may not have been there himself.
I have a very low fondness tolerance, owing to a rare genetic defect known as Low Fondness Tolerance, or LFT. I lack the gene for sentimentality and endearment toward precocious children. I wear a med-alert bracelet that says so. I believe my LFT originated in a long-dead relative who was fond of absolutely nothing, past memories, children, and still-life art in particular. But as I said, I do have one fond memory of the Congress Avenue bats that has defied my genetic disorder.
Many years ago my friend Jack Slaughter frequented the hike-and-bike trail at Town Lake. I happened to be staying in a hotel with an unobstructed view of the bridge so I called Cowboy Jack, one of the original Jewboys, to come up to the room to watch the bats after his daily jog. Jack had more degrees than a thermometer, and in his gentle, scholarly way he had studied the bats for years and often, at his own secret hiding place, watched them emerge from the bridge. Rather than waste the perfect room with a view on my bat-indifferent ass, I decided to share my window view with Jack (which turned out to be one of the best spots to view the bastards, and the bats, too).
Jack arrived at my room shortly after his jog; as he did during the days on the road with the Jewboys, he carried a chicken box from HEB (Herbert E. Butt, Texas’s biggest supermarket chain) with his clothes and other bare essentials packed into it. Jack was a simple man, and everything he ever needed fit into those chicken boxes. Perfectly.
The bats trickled out from under the bridge exactly on cue. “Mexican free-tail bats” was all Jack said as we watched them emerge, indifferent to the Homo erectus crowd gathered at designated bat-watching spots around the bridge. We watched as bats began to pour out from the Congress Avenue bridge, first a small number, then, minutes later, a tsunami of flying mammals that darkened the sky.
“Did you know,” said Cowboy Jack, “that Confederate soldiers mined the bat guano for saltpeter, which was used in making gunpowder? In fact, a gunpowder factory was established near San Antonio.”
“No shit?” I said.
Thinking back on it, Jack was what Austin is all about. An expert on forest preservation and endangered animals, he was a gentle spirit who always reminded me a bit of Johnny Appleseed. In 2000, while jogging on the walkway of the Lamar Street Bridge, he was killed by an SUV driven by a teenager. He died almost to the moment that the bats began spiraling out from under the nearby Congress Avenue Bridge.
Of all Jack’s accomplishments, and there were many, the obituary in the Austin American-Statesman began with “Road manager for the Texas Jewboys.” That’s not a bad thing, I remember thinking at the time, to have done in your life.
On the right, as you head South on Lamar across the bridge, you can see the flowers that someone still places there. The bats arrive at the bridge in mid-March and return to Mexico in early November. While in residence, they can be observed during their emergence display at dusk. Time of year, weather conditions, and colony size all affect bat emergence times. Late July through mid-August is the best time to see the impressive flights, as newborn pups first begin to forage with their mothers. The bats generally emerge before dark, but may fly late if conditions aren’t favorable. For updates and approximate emergence times, call the Bat Hot Line at 512-416-5700 (category 3636).
HIPPIE HOLLOW: LEGAL SKINNY-DIPPING
Hippie Hollow is a clothing-optional park that has gained fame as being the premier skinny-dipping spot in Texas. In the 1980s, Travis County officially took over management of this area on Lake Travis and gave it the respectful moniker “McGregor/Hippie Hollow County Park.”
The county added Hippie Hollow to the county park system and made improvements such as public restrooms with water fountain, a paved access trail, stairways, trash removal, recycling bins, a paved parking lot with controlled entry, signs indicating that clothing is optional, and periodic patrols by park rangers.
A small fee will get you into the nudist “colony.” Once inside, Hippie Hollow is a safe place to enjoy Lake Travis sans the confines of Gap wind shorts and Hilfiger polo shirts. The ledges are rocky, but there are many flat surfaces to accommodate lawn chairs, beach towels, and/or hands. There are several secluded coves available, but keep in mind that Hippie Hollow is a legitimate nude beach, so no public hosing!
Snack services are provided by a commercial vendor, but because the trailer is close to the main entrance at the top of the stairs, visitors must dress just enough to be legal in order to partake of this service. Just enough to be legal isn’t too hard to interpret. Basically it means cover up certain areas of the body that might offend the genital police.
The park is open year-round. The hours are 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. The park closes in the summer as early as 6:00 p.m. in the cooler months. There is an eight-dollar-a-day parking fee or three-dollar fee for walk-in visitors. No overnight camping is allowed. No glass containers, pets, or open fires are permitted in the park. No pool. No pets. Ain’t got no cigarettes.
To reach Hippie Hollow, from Austin, take FM 2222 approximately five miles west of Capital of Texas Highway (loop 360) to FM 620. Turn left on 620 and drive to the next signal, at Comanche Trail. Take a right onto Comanche Trail and continue for 2.5 miles. Hippie Hollow is on the left. So, what are you waiting for? It’s time to strip and even out those tan lines!
Austin Landmarks
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN (ALSO known by the locals as “UT” or simply “Texas”) has influenced the flavor of Austin so completely that it would be impossible to imagine our city without it. As for giving you a comprehensive view of the university, its past, its present, its future . . . well, that would be more detail than the Kinkster signed on for. The short version of UT is the best I can do without killing myself by jumping through a ceiling fan.
UT, the flagship campus of the University of Texas system, is the largest public university in Texas. Established in 1883, the university is consistently ranked as one of the top public schools in the nation. It has a student population of around fifty thousand and a faculty of 2,700. Among the faculty are winners of the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Medal of Science, and the National Medal of Technology, as well as numerous members of prestigious scholarly organizations. UT offers many notable academic programs, among them Physics, Latin American Studies, Computer Science, Engineering, Business, Law, and Astronomy (which administrates the McDonald Observatory in the Davis Mountains of West Texas). The university’s doctoral programs in Botany, Linguistics, and Spanish ranked in the nation’s top five. My own father was a professor here, and several of my personalities are alumni.
The university has been the driving force behind the growth of the film industry in Austin. The University of Texas Film Institute counts among its alumni Matthew McConaughey, WB president of entertainment Jordan Levin, and co-president of Sony Pictures Classics Michael Barker. The Advisory Board includes direc
tor Richard Linklater (Slacker, Dazed and Confused) and Jack Valenti, president and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America.
Distinguished alumni in other fields are many. Walter Cronkite graduated from here, as did Lady Bird Johnson, Bill Moyers, William F. Buckley Sr., and Liz Carpenter.
The university’s colors are burnt orange and white, and its official song is “The Eyes of Texas.” The mascot is a Texas longhorn named Bevo. The original Bevo made his debut in 1916; the Silver Spurs, a men’s honorary organization, handle the animal. Longhorn steers are loaned to UT with the understanding that they will be retired after a reasonable period of time.
The sports teams are called the Longhorns, or just the ’Horns. Fans of the ’Horns are known for the “hook ’em, horns” hand sign, created by head cheerleader Harley Clark in 1955. It is made by making a fist, then holding up the index and pinky finger of your hand. Holding the hand above your head and screaming “HOOK ’EM, HORNS!” is optional. The Longhorns compete in the Big 12 Conference of the NCAA’s Division I-A, and their stadium is called “Darrell K. Royal Texas Memorial Stadium” (Royal was a highly respected coach at UT).
The Great Psychedelic Armadillo Picnic Page 6
