Out Here on the Edge of the Desert--

     When I was a puppy in dear old Tejas, my people and I would vacation every summer out west of San Antonio in Uvalde county. Lotta rocks, lotta cactus. One hundred miles from Mexico. We'd pull the trailer up at a place along the Frio river called Richie's River Bend Camp. I took my wife and dog there a few years back to see if I would recognize anything. Some things never change. It's still called River Bend Camp.

     In any event, it's up from the Garner State Park that B.J. Thomas (Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head) sang about in the 60's.

     When I was maybe 12, I used to take the snorkel out of my mouth from swimming only long enough to put on something vaguely permissible and show up at the big cement dance floor under the huge Live Oak tree at the park commissary. A gaggle of other kids and I would watch lanky cowboys from the ranches around Leakey appear out of the dust in old pick up trucks with short brimmed bull riding hats. Spit and polished from boots, wide leather belts, and blue jeans to long sleeved, pearl studded, western cut shirts, they'd two step leggy, plaid skirted girls into the evening under the yellow bug light that hung over the juke box beneath that tree. Their moves together were fluid, inseparable, elegant.

     I'd sit on a short limestone wall as they waltzed by my end of the outdoor dance floor swinging my sandaled feet and sipping through a straw on a Dr. Pepper while looking out over that evening scene at the river and the hills. The day's blazing sun was just an ebbing red glimmer along the horizon in the background as the stars came out. I imagined myself gliding in the embrace of one of those pretty women. The recollections, vivid as a moment ago, are what my song "Last Dance at the Last Chance" on the CD, texas plates, is all about.

Adios,
Vince