Wofford Travels – 2019-10-22 – Austin-2
Greetings,
Our second day in Austin, we “grabbed-and-got” our breakfast…actually; we ate it in the canteen – coffee and oatmeal. Now, I’m a decaf drinker, and there is no decaf other than “Sanka.” So I’ve been hitting the hard stuff. It gets me a littlewired, but hasn’t kept me from falling asleep…wonder why? Anyway, that got us out the door by 11:15. (This would be a walking day, which is good, as we have been sitting a lot, crossing all these miles.)
Our first goal was to get to the Visitor Center, arriving at 12:15, where we picked up an Austin city map…and a bus schedule. We will check out the schedule and see how much it might help us…or not.
Our eating schedule has been altered again because of the Extended Stay Americabreakfast set up. So, now we are eating a heavier lunch and lighter dinner. When you are in North Carolina, you have to check out the barbecue…Eastern and Western. When you are in Texas, you have to do the same. Tom, going through the material we got at the Visitor Center, decided on Stubbs…apparently, somewhat iconic in the city.
We were not disappointed…at all. The restaurant is rustic, with a long bar and tables on the opposite side, at the entrance. We were shown to a small room, which had five tables, almost like our own private dining area, as it was empty. We ordered the beef brisket. I got sides of fried okra and collard greens while Tom got sides of cheese spinach (basically, creamed spinach…which I would have gotten, but it was hot, and I don’t do hot) and collard greens.
Well, we can tell you that this was probably the “best” brisket we have eaten. We have had it in Raleigh at “Red, Hot, and Blue” and in Greensboro at “Dickey’s.” It was absolutely like butter. And, we got probably 7 or 8 ounces, which we could barely finish. We learned that the meat is cooked for 12 hours. You don’t get results like that without some effort.
Looking at the walls, you saw mostly photographs. Two very large photos were pictures of the original owner, Mr. Stubblefield, a very tall black gentleman who you could see “working” the outdoor, above ground, metal barbecue cooker. Another frame had six pictures: Mr. Stubblefield towering over Johnny Cash and June Carter, and autographed photos of Kris Kristopherson, Billie Joel, George Thoroughgood, Merle Haggard, and George Jones. A separate one was of Loretta Lynn with guitar and wearing a southern belle-looking dress.
Stubbs had me intrigued because it was not only a restaurant, but also a music venue. Going out the back door, you were on a second level deck, which had four large, rectangular tables seating 8 each. You then went downstairs, and there was the location of the barbecue cooker (it was hard to tell because there was foliage around it) and an open area (with just a dirt floor) where people could stand for a concert. There was also a building for performances, with a stage but no seating. It looked like it could hold a couple hundred. I took photos from the backside and then the stage side. (I even took a picture of their soundboard, since I took one from my church to create a music brochure.) From the stage, I could see that there were two levels, the top had tables and chairs for dining, and the bottom had a bar on the backside with open flooring. There were three bars outside, each having a roof, and each different in appearance and very rustic looking. As we left, we saw a fairly large band shell made of cloth and metal, which could cover a good-sized group of people.
After a little over an hour at Stubbs, we walked several blocks to visit the Saint Mary’s Cathedral. I got pictures of the outside and then wanted to enter the church, but the door was locked. We figured we would miss out seeing the interior, when we passed a small alley by the church and saw a woman getting ready to enter a door in the next building (associated with the cathedral). We asked her if we could go inside, and she said, “Yes, of course!” We got in a side entrance and proceeded to walk through the inside…luck or what?! No one else was there. Apparently, the front door was supposed to be opened, because as we were getting ready to leave, a woman was struggling to open it. I opened it upon leaving and she came in. Testing the door again, I could see that it was locked…maybe they didn’t know.
Our last day’s visit was the Austin Music Museum. We got there at 4:15 and learned that it closed at 5:00. Whoa! 45 minutes to tour a museum. The good news was that the volunteer (everyone who works at the museum is a volunteer) basically gave us a personal tour. Joyce Christiansen is a retired music professor, and has worked at the museum since a year after it’s founding in 1984.
Interestingly, Joyce had a story (too long to tell here) about how, as a Caucasian, she ended up at Huston-Tillotson, an historically black college (now a university)…as the only white student. But, that must have helped influence her desire to see more information on the black musicians in Austin. She told a story of Grey Ghost,someone she heard about through people who recommended that she include him in the collection. It wasn’t always clear if this was a real person or a composite of people, or if it was a real person, was he dead or alive? Through research on the media by a college professor, Grey Ghost (real name, Roosevelt T. Williams) was located, living simply from day to day, not even having air conditioning. Inviting him to have some conversations/interviews with the professor, more and more became known about this individual. He was then invited to “check out a piano” the professor had at the museum…a ruse to hear him play. Before long, Grey Ghost was playing. Soon people started to come by to hear him. A club owner was asked to hear Grey Ghost, as well, and soon afterwards asked him to play at his club. He had regular work from that point on, and was even given a Doctor of Music degree in 1991 from Huston-Tillotson College. That museum has given a wonderful gift to the black Austin music scene.
We left the museum at 1:15 and walked back into town. We had planned to go to a music venue at Stubbs, the barbecue restaurant, but decided that we were now too tired and should go back to the hotel and recoup some. This we did. We went back out at 6:15 to check out the Saxon Pub and their featured group (and the 3rdband to play that evening) Lucas Jack. We got there about 45 minutes early so we had an opportunity to watch them set up…having done a lot of this in the past. Of course, this was a “professional” band. There were seven large monitors, which I later learned belonged to the sound technician. In fact, most of the sound equipment was his, except for a few small speakers high on one wall.
The band did a great job. The front man who sang and played piano, performed most of his own songs…and sounded a little like Billy Joel. In the between-song banter, he mentioned that he had been a lawyer in Chicago for 6 years and decided to follow a different path. The drummer, who did a super job enhancing the sound, is a drum teacher. The bass player, who played an 8-string “big” bass, and sang, added wonderful harmonies. It was actually an impressive group, who I could have easily seen on Austin City Limits, considering some I’d already seen on the TV show. We stayed until the end of the show and headed back to our quarters.
Tomorrow, more of Austin: the Capitol, a Texas museum, and more.
Tita