And here is the final installment of David Beebe and John Lomax's 20-plus mile hike from Intercontinental Airport to Spanish Flowers restaurant. Part one is here and part two is here.David Beebe's accounts of the same hike are here and here.Airline's furthest reaches are lined by sprawling and run-down '70s apartment complexes. And yet there's a weirdly rural feel in patches. The 281 area code hangs on for a longer time than you would expect, and there are plenty of fireworks stands, as a swath
Foreground: Faron Young (leaning on piano), Tammy Wynette (at piano). Back row (l-r): Unidentified man, Hank Thompson, George Jones, Vern Gosdin, Marty Robbins "Don't you think you should've called
To tell me you were coming down
Oh, you look so out of place
On this troubled side of town"
- Vern Gosdin, "Do You Believe Me Now"
Lonesome Onry and Mean has been lax in his duties, not reporting that one of the greatest country singers of all time passed away April 28. The fact that Vern Gosdin was
LOM's dad loves to tell a story about being at the Petroleum Club in London in 1978 when Darrell McCall's "Lily Dale" came on the sound system. Some wiry little guy stood up on a chair and hollered, "Shut up, you Limey sons of bitches, they're playing the Texas National Anthem."
"I thought surely someone is just going to throw him through the window, but nothing happened. And the place got quiet and people listened."
Boorish? Sure. A caricature of the overbearing ugly Texan? Obviously. True? I
