I've done my share of traveling and know that America has lots of nice towns, and finding them that way sometimes came as a surprise to me.  We all get images formed in your heads about what a town's like long before we actually see it, just from what we've heard from other people or perhaps seen on television or read in magazines or newspapers.  I don't travel much outside of the southwest, but a guy could spend his life just going around in Texas and never get all the towns visited.  Like most states I've visited, Texas has it's share of real dumps . . . you know, what my daddy used to call a shithole.  What we're talking about here is a town that almost anyone would agree is bad.  Maybe it's bad because the place is unattractive or downright ugly, and any oil town runs a risk of looking that way.  Some towns are bad because the people who live there are pretty much a bunch of jerks . . . but that's rare, in my opinion.  Most towns have a little of both, the easy to look at parts and the hard to look at parts, and how people feel about them depends upon who you ask.  Ask me what I think of Houston, for instance, and you won't get a glowing report.  Lots of people love it, though, so I have to accept the fact that my dislike for Houston is not shared by all.

So . . . what is it about a town that makes you feel one way or another about it?  This could be a list of almost endless things, but what it comes down to in almost all cases is a matter of personal preferences.  Some places leave me with no sympathies one way or another, which is what I get from San Antonio.  I don't like Dallas much, or Oklahoma CIty, or for that matter, any big city.  I do, on the other hand, like Austin despite the fact it's big.  It has all the things I don't like - traffic jams, people in a hurry, big crowds everywhere you go, long lines at restaurants, and even more of it than you'll find in many cities.  But I love Austin . . . and I still don't know exactly why.  That's OK because I love a lot of things without knowing why.  I'm a country boy who gets along well in cities because I've been there so much.  If you can pick up on the pulse of things, you can get along.

Uncle Percy B. Hand decided to go down to Austin and visit his daughter, and when he told me he was going, I figured he'd come back within a few days all hot and bothered with city life.  I figured on getting an ear full of complaints, but that's not what happened . . . exactly.  His revelations about his trip to Austin kept me giggling for several days, so I thought I'd pass some of it along to you.  First off, I need to explain something about central Texas attitudes about Austin.  I know people who live within a hundred miles of the city who won't go there at all because they think it's an international gathering ground for hippies, liberals, left-wingers, weirdos, and revolutionaries . . . and most of all, un-Godly folks.  Yeah, down here there's still that mentality that if you're left of center poltically speaking, you're bound to be in cahoots with the devil.  All Democrats are atheists and therefore are un-Godly folks . . . and Austin is where they are hatched.

These attitudes are proof that ignorance abounds around here, and Uncle Percy is subject to all the pressures any of us small town hill people are.  He had some preconceived notions about Austin that kept him from going there for many years, even though he lived close enough to go every weeked,  Finally, his daughter persuaded him to come for a visit . . . and he agreed to go.  Uncle Percy is about as redneck as a human being can get, I suppose, but this one daughter had risen above all that.  She had worked her way through college, married a doctor, and had a nice home in Tarrytown, a ritzy district of the city.  She was involved in all sorts of things, especially things of humanitarian concerns . . . and she was out to the left in her thinking about most things.

Now, Uncle Percy might be redneck, but he's not stupid by a long shot.  He's just retarded in a social and intellectual sense, just as all people shut off from worthwhile information seems to be . . . but he's still an open minded guy about some things.  That's good because Austin will damn sure test you when it comes to open mindedness.  Strange people do indeed hang out there, and if being around them causes you problems, some places in Austin are not you.  Uncle Percy's problems started his first day there when he got picked up for vagrancy.  Actually, he got arrested for going off on a cop who asked him to move along.  The policeman saw him near a street corner just off 6th street, not far from Whole Foods, and asked him to move.  That pissed off uncle Percy, who objected, and ended up in jail for about an hour.  Anybody seeing uncle Percy on a corner would assume exactly what the cop did - he does look a bit rumpled and ragged at the edges.

Uncle Percy had never in his life seen anything like Whole Foods, and the thing that got his attention most of all was the fruit section.  Not only had he never seen a mango, he'd for sure never tasted one.  He didn't know about lots of exotic fruits, so he bought a sack of them and started eating.  Maybe it was the rush he got on from all that fructose, but he sure went off of the cop when he made him move . . . and all he was doing was sitting on a bench near a crossing eating his fruit.  His daughter came down to the precinct and picked him up, then counseled him a little about his dress style.  She even took him to a store and bought him some new duds - you know, just some hanging out in Austin attire.  He bitched some about it, but once he saw himself in the new clothes, he approved the new look - which was sneakers instead of boots, loose fitting Dockers instead of jeans, and a shirt with big flowers on it . . . and oh, yeah, a baseball cap inscribed, "Keep Austin Weird."  That helped him some with the cops, although it didn't keep him completely out of trouble.

Percy's next big discovery in Austin was foreign beer.  He learned that from a homeless guy in a park who was sipping on a bottle of Becks, and that lead him the Central Market on Lamar . . . and another adventure.  He sat on the deck at Central Market listening to some blues group, had about four Becks, and then decided to go find a barber shop.  He got in his old truck and headed down Lamar toward the interstate and found a place that cut hair - a topless barber shop.  Boy, was uncle Percy surprised when he walked in and found young lady barbers wearing nothing but a g-string and big smile.  If he'd known the cut was going to cost him thirty bucks, he would've left right then . . . but he got sort of tongue-tied, he said, and couldn't say no.  Anyway, he got trimmed.  Drinking the four beers made it easier for him to pay.

Back at his daughter's house later that night, he told about his adventure at the topless barber shop.  His biggest complaint was that it's unfair for a guy to get his hair cut by a gal with big tits, and he isn't allowed to turn his head.  That's cruel and unusual punishment, in Percy's mind.  His daughter's eyes got round when he admitted going there, even wider when she learned he actually stayed and got trimmed, and sure enough wide when he said the place was big Dubya supporters.  "Do what?" his son-in-law asked.  "What makes you think a place like that is behind Bush?"  Uncle Percy swore up and down he saw a big portrait of Dubya himself hanging on the wall in this waiting room, with a sign that read: Score Big, your chance to pitch for George.  The son-in-law pressed for more specifics, but Percy swore up and down that he'd got trimmed by a bare-boobed gals who supported the President.  The next day after leaving work, the doctor went by the barber shop on Lamar to satisfy his curiosity.  Sure enough, he found a big picture of Dubya . . . a huge dart board in the waiting room where several guys were tossing darts at it.  Uncle Percy must've missed that part.

Percy had a few other encounters while in town.  He got in trouble again for scolding a couple of guys for kissing in public.  Well, he didn't actually get in trouble with the law . . . just them because when he scolded them for kissing, they tried to kiss him, and that went over like a fart in a space suit.  A big squabble took place then.  It turned out the gay guys were a couple of body builders, and so they just picked uncle Percy up and set him inside a big trash barrel.  He was in no way injured, but some people had to come help him out of the barrel.  The next day, he got picked up for panhandling at a traffic light.  The homeless guy in the park had told Percy he picked up about a hundred buck a day sometimes just holding a sign . . . and so Percy decided to try it.  All his sign said was, "Need a Becks!"  He made fifty bucks before the cops hauled him off, saying he didn't have a permit to solicit.  What got him in trouble, I think, was that he did it right beside city hall.

There's more, but I think you get the picture about what a misfit uncle Percy turned out to be in Austin.  Still, he says he really liked it there and plans on going back . . . now that he's got the clothes for it.  And he's made friends there now, especially among some homeless people and the cops.  They think he's a hoot.  And if I know Percy like I think I do, he'll sure go back again.

C. Duhon, 9/25/07