Going Unnoticed

In the midst of the late winter rains, the emergence of Spring Break and March Madness, switch in time through daylight savings, and the end of winter, situated amongst these events is a well known musical festival called South by Southwest (SXSW).

Hipsters, geeks, urban dwellers, yuppies, college students, marketers, and every kind of individual you might imagine flocks to Austin to hear an assortment of musical artists literally from around the world.

When I arrived in Austin nearly ten years ago, I cannot say that I every heard of SXSW.  As a native son of the Lone Star state, I had become accustomed to the State Fair of Texas, Houston Rodeo, football games, and University Interscholastic League tournaments in academics and sports along with every event common to most cities and towns across the state.  However, after returning to Texas and coming to be a resident of the Violet Crown, I soon learned about what I had been missing.

Over the years, I have attended concerts enjoying mostly hip hop, R&B, reggae, and a few other groups or musicians who likely would not easily fit into any of these categories.  Although there has been pretty much every genre of music represented, I have always leaned to the music that I hold dear and near to my heart.

As I mentioned before, all sorts of people migrate to Austin for SXSW.  So, if you were to come, I guarantee that you will find something here to enjoy.  If not, there is the legendary Austin Rodeo also happening at the same time with their own list of musical acts scheduled throughout the week.

I arose this morning to be reminded that SXSW is about the pleasure music brings to people from across the world and the money needed to finance a global extravaganza with every sort of business represented from the tech world, music producers, entertainers, and promoters to airlines, taxis, pedicabs, and alcohol distillers among others necessary to make this happen.

On a far smaller scale, there are people who remain a bit less visible.  I am not talking about the paid workers behind the scenes, the unsung heroes who make SXSW happen.  I am talking about the man I witnessed walking across my neighborhood picking up cans left by attendees on street corners, alleyways, and on empty lots after party goers had congregated among their friends and strangers alike to hear the latest musical craze.

When the night consumes the cacophony and the walking boots and clamoring shoes subside to the uncanny humid and crisp cool of a Texas March, there are men and women working off the clock, collecting those things we might discard as trash, sometimes muttering to themselves incomprehensibly or silently introspective in the early hours before the next cycle begins.

For me, it is important to pay as much attention to the noise, lights, and commotion that comes with SXSW as it is to notice the other elements working sometimes beyond our awareness.  It may require an interrupted sleep early in the morning before being able to notice.  Even if in the light of day, I would encourage people to look around and see what goes unnoticed and invisible for the many reasons people do from day to day.  It may help to appreciate the little things that make behemoth events like SXSW magical in small ways.

When I arose this morning, I found myself in a contemplative mood partly because it is the day that I check in with my Lifestyle/Health Coach about my progress.  Since cutting sweets and watching my food portions, I have noticed that I have lost about seven pounds so far.  I have exercised irregularly unfortunately even though I am attempting to keep it a priority along with staying hydrated.  It has been forty-four days since giving up sweets.  So far, I see the success every day.  Although the temptation to return to my old ways has crawled back into my thinking on occasion, I have been pleased with the choice to cut sweets.  I am not certain that I will return and have no plans to at this point.  For now, I will be focusing on keeping hydrated and keeping a more regular exercise regiment.

I have not blogged everyday as I had before; however, I have found that making these entries works better when I feel compelled to share my experiences.  It seemed that starting with a daily regiments served its purpose well at the beginning.  If I need to return to something regular, I have blogging among other activities to keep me moving forward.  Blogging will continue to a tool as my disposal when I want to take an opportunity to have an account of the day.
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Day 20 - Raise the Roof! (Ok, Raise the Bed)

As I burn the nearly midnight oil listening to Jodeci and Lauryn Hill's first albums from my youth, I am reminded how excited I was about their music.  They sang about romantic love, passion, and sexiness without us feeling filthy and tainted.  You did not walk away feeling love was faint or a foregone idea left to chumps and the desperate.

When the music stops, I realized that I had to start Pandora back up, who asked me if I was still listening.  It was a nice reminder of reality, the here and now.

Another day with the kids was a nice refresher before returning to a short work week and the grind.  In particular, I got to spend individual 'man to man' time with my youngest.  We chatted, finished a few chores, had a few moments of quiet, and I stopped to listen to what he had to say.  It was always amazing to me what an eleven year old has to say with his inquiries and musings about life, rights and wrongs, questions about bystanders walking as we drove about town, and his observations of the world.

I asked him if he enjoyed our Austin Black History tour the day before.  I was pleased to hear that he enjoyed it very much.

I attempted to start the day as before with two servings of water, but I did not get to it until nearly the noon hour when I was half starved and desperately thirsty.  I got caught up with my errands around town though.

Later in the day, I met up with my daughter, who returned from a half day with her violin at the University Interscholastic League (UIL) competition.  She was in a particularly good mood.  After she filled me in about her day, I decided to tell her how much I enjoyed my day with her during the tour the day before.  I figured my strategy would be different and I instead told her how I felt about it.

Similar to her brother, she committed that she had a good time as well, smiled my way, and went on talking about another UIL story.  As the kids spoke back and forth with one another on the trip to Home Depot, I could not help but feel pleasantly surprised as well as appreciative of them.  It was nice to have my experience match up with what I thought was their experience.

Kids and parents do not always have a synergy of experience because as expected we have different agendas, goals, wants, and needs.  On our way to Home Depot, I certainly had my own agenda.  I wanted to build a raised garden bed.

I wanted to start small with two 4' x 4' wooden beds to go in my yard.  I went to a class to learn how to build these myself.  However, the class had been at least a year ago.  I went to Home Depot and online to price out the materials while attempting to decipher the notes I made when I attended the class.

Thankfully, I made sense of what I could, bought the materials with the kids in tow.  With God's grace, all things are possible.  Yes, I just got finished gushing about my kids.  But, in about ten or fifteen minutes, I was about to bust some heads open.

Anyway, I purchased what I needed and waited until after dinner, putting the kids to bed before working on the first raised garden bed frame.  It wasn't pretty; sweat poured down and sideways across my face, glasses had to be cleaned at least a dozen times, and I wished I hadn't waited so long before applying what I learned.

Earlier at Home Depot, I had two 2" x 12' x 10' untreated wooden boards cut to 4' 3" 1/4 or 51" for each side of the raised garden bed, picked up 70 3" screws, a 2" x 2" x 8' length of wood, and a hand saw to cut the wood into 12" lengths of wood.

No worries.  I got one done.

Back hurting a bit, knees slightly throbbed, and blood rushed to my head when I finally stood from my pet project.  It was done.  I'll do the second one tomorrow. I'll need to return to Home Depot for more wood.  I miscalculated thinking I had enough for two beds.  Oh, well.  Shit happens!

Before I finished editing this blog, I finished the last two servings of water for the day.  All this and much more before the hand strikes midnight.  Is this how Cinderfella felt after the ball?

I did achieve my goal of eating more fruits and vegetables today.  The sweets fixation returned.  Temptation was strong as I did take a swig from my son's fruit punch.  I put it down, drank a glass of water, and consumed an orange.  The craving passed for the moment and returned once later in the day before eating dinner.

The cravings have become a bit unpredictable.  However, I'm responding relatively well.

I will be returning to a regular schedule at work tomorrow, which is something else to look forward to. Until then, I'll be relaxing like my follow brother in arms in the photo above.  It reflected my idea of a raised gardening bed.

Day 18 - Winter Rains on 12th & Chicon (East Austin)

Old White Swan sign

As I sit around up late at night reflecting on the day's events, I find that I was quite bored and tired.  I slept part of the day.  Not sure if it was me getting old or genuine fatigue from the work week.

I started thinking about my maternal grandfather.  My mother told me a few stories about him going out to hang with friends and listen to music off of 12th Street.

Before my mother passed, I took her around Austin in hopes that she may teach me a thing or two about her days during desegregation, the Civil Rights movement, and her short time while residing in Austin.

Mom always talked about how country parts of east, north and south Austin were in her time.  Going to 45th Street was a special place if you were crazy, since the Texas State Hospital was built there.

Today, for me, the state hospital seems a short ride down I-35 highway with a quick detour to Central Market coupled with a brisk stroll in the area park, ending with warm kolaches from the Kolache Factory.

So, I took a brief ride over to 12th and Chicon Streets to take a look at my grandfather's old stomping grounds.  I had a feeling as I peered into the eyes of the multiple vagrants meandering about that things had changed from times in the 1950s.

When I moved to Austin, I stumbled upon 'crack and ho' alley smack through 12th and Chicon.  It was a bit less intimidating than anything I came across in the Murder 5th, a horrible name describing the rough 5th Ward District in Houston, Texas, where I grew up as a small child, or the boogie down South Bronx that I favored when I worked and lived up in New York/New Jersey. Nonetheless, for Austin, 12th and Chicon had become synonymous with prostitution, crime, vagrancy, open drug use, and any under belly activity the city's conscience could imagine.

Despite its reputation, 12th and Chicon has a memorable history all its own as another hot spot for music, food, drink, and fun times for African Americans.  Both 11th and 12th Streets were lit at night by historic moonlight towers, a cost effective lighting structure, designed to light the midnight sky in Austin starting in the 1880s as an alternative to smaller and more expensive street lights. Austin is one of the few remaining cities in America that continues to use  a system of moonlight towers.

I tried to imagine my younger, cool grandfather walking by the moonlight tower's illumination to find a friend at the Legendary White Swan located near 12th and Chicon.  Down the way, there was Sam's Barbeque serving the best meats and cold drinks money could buy.  First stop, Sam's BBQ for a small bit of some brisket and some sides topped off with lemon aid to cool himself during the hot humid night.  Half a block down, there was The White Swan, a juke joint and place to see and be seen by everyone with good music and loud laughter as people walked about at night.

Now, most people would probably be scared to drive by let alone walk around the intersection. Recently, the Legendary White Swan came under new management and considerably much whiter as hipsters and the like came to see the local dive as a new hang out spot.  Liken to my grandfather, the White Swan continues to be a place to hear soul music with the addition of a variety of less well-known artists from all around.  It use to be part of the famous Chitlin' Circuit and has transformed itself into a dive part of the hipster circuit. A small cultural miracle it seems.

The funny thing about 12th Street is that it has served as the boundary between historic African American neighborhoods of Rosewood and Chestnut in East Austin.  Chicon separated these neighborhoods from the few blocks to Swede Hill. However, with segregation in full swing by the 1950s, many of the Italian, Irish, Swedish, and German residents left East Austin as part of the white flight out of East Austin and the forced relocation of most African Americans east of I-35.

I never had the pleasure of talking with my grandfather about his time in Austin or much of anything.  The sad thing about the death of older people is that their memories go with them.  I'm left to wonder and imagine what times were like for him and his young family.

The little that I've learned has to be shared with my children.  On Sunday, I'm going to have a historic tour with the kids to show them the locations and talk about the history they continue.

After some reflection, the day was not a total waste as it may have seemed.

I still passively struggle with getting my water in on the weekend as I continued to this day.  However, I made it a point to keep eating my vegetables if only as a new habit that I am learning to maintain despite my best efforts to forget.

The rain should clear up.  Looking forward to tomorrow's excursion into the past.

Sam's BBQ in East Austin

Day 15 - Musings on the East Side (Austin)

As I hoped, waking in the morning came to me much easier this morning.  I popped up before the alarm went off, threw on my clothes, and out the door.

It took a while for me to settle in for my walk.  I did not feel quite as listless at the start.  However, about a mile into it, I continued to feel more energetic and aware of my surroundings.  I noticed as I paced down Comal Street through to Lady Bird Lake that I was passing through over a hundred years of East Austin history.

As many may know, East of I-35 historically has been the home of many African and Latino/Hispanic American families and communities.

There is iconic Victory Grill on 11th Street, which opened in 1945 as a spot for returning African American servicemen after World War II.  Ike and Tina Turner, James Brown, Etta James, Janis Joplin, Billie Holiday, Chuck Berry and many other notable musicians played at the Victory Grill. As a result of segregation, there were several African American schools and colleges, a "Colored branch" library (George Washington Carver Library),  and community churches.  As African Americans left to live in the suburbs over the next twenty or thirty years, the area experienced a  major decline.

There also is a strong presence of Mexican Americans in East Austin. Recently, it was estimated that well over a third of the Austin population is Hispanic/Latino.  Traditionally, Mexican Americans in East Austin worked and lived from around 7th Street down to Cesar Chavez (aka 1st Street or Water Street) through to Lady Bird Lake on the Colorado River. A number of immigrant farmers came to Austin to become skilled workers, entrepreneurs, and educators among others.  Several churches and well known families became well established including Austin's first Hispanic mayor, Gus Garcia, who came from East Austin.

Of special note is the site of the French Legation, which was completed in 1842.  The site was developed after the Republic of Texas, since winning its independence, invited ministers from foreign countries to establish legations and develop diplomatic relationships.  It was believed that the French Legation was part of a larger plot to annex large portions of the Republic of Texas to become a colony of France.  The French Legation sits on twenty-one acres looking over downtown Austin just east of I-35.

So, within a five to seven mile walk, I was able to experience a wide swath of Austin's rich cultural history.  At present, East Austin is experiencing a wave of gentrification as individuals and families come in to purchase properties throughout the community.  There is an artist and musician community that resides, works, and plays on the East Side as well. This all makes for an interesting experience.

I'm proud to say that my mother's family also resided and went to college in East Austin years ago.  My children go to the neighborhood school and I really feel at home as I walk through my community.  Austin continues to be a huge adjustment for me from my time in Atlanta, New York, Massachusetts, and California.  It has grown on me and I'll see where I am in the next several years.  For now, Austin is the place for me.

I ended my walk with several sprints up a hill.  I'll feel the muscle pain tomorrow or at least on the following day.  I stayed on top of my water, enjoyed some relatively good food.  Still, no sweets. It sounds corny, but I'm feeling good in my neighborhood.