When Bob and I were checking into the campground after breakfast yesterday, we took a stroll through the adjoining camp store. The first thing I noticed was the T-shirts. Now nearly every campground sells T-shirts, most with the name of the campground or the name of the state we’re in or maybe that state’s motto. For example, in Virginia you could get a T-shirt that says “Virginia is for Lovers” If you went to Detroit, Michigan you might get a T-shirt that says MOTOWN or Motor City, find yourself in Huntington Beach, California and you would surely find “Surf City” emblazoned across the front of a T. Imagine our puzzled looks when we saw the T-shirts with '”KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD” printed across them. Keep Austin Weird??? I needed an explanation.
Actually, we saw that phrase often in the short time we had been there. I saw something on the side of bus as we were coming in but I didn’t pay it much mind. We saw it on a sign attached to a building but again it didn’t really register other than thinking it was odd. Little did I know how widespread this saying is and how seriously the residents of Austin take it.
Yep, they are very much into keeping Austin weird. Here’s the explanation I got for it. Texas, as a whole, is a very conservative state while the city of Austin, which, by the way, is the capital of Texas leans way over in the other direction and is very liberal. Austin is an extremely, genuinely, friendly city. That is to say its people are very friendly. Genuinely, friendly. They are very much a tight-knit community and the people would much rather patronize “mom and pop” operations than a big box store. It was explained to me that the people would much rather go to the local family owned bookstore than say a Barnes & Noble. Now one “big box” store that is definitely patronized is the Whole Foods store but I really think to the residents here that it IS just the corner market. Remember, Whole Foods started here.
Did you know that Austin is also known as the “Live Music Capital of the World”? With its temperate climate, outdoor decks at restaurants and bars just lend themselves to great places for bands to play seven nights a week. You can hear several bands playing within the space of one city block as you stroll the city streets at night.
We like this city. It really isn’t all that big either. We were surprised at how small the downtown corporate center was considering this IS the captial. This is pretty much it….there may be one or two buildings that didn’t make this picture and there are one or two hotels that aren’t pictured either.
Bob and I are hoping they KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD. It’s wonderful just the way it is!
1 comment:
Today was the first time I've visited your blog for a while, but I just wanted to say that I like the new layout with the newer posts first! Much better.
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