Word Got Out and Austin's Charm is Lost

It's June and I realize I've been in the Austin-metro area for twenty-one years, which puts my arrival at 1986. I began visiting in 1985 when a company called Radian recruited my-then-college sweetheart. I had graduated Wisconsin in December '83 and returned to my native New York City in search of work as a copywriter in an advertising agency but settled for the title of direct mail coordinator at Gimbels, a far cry from what I had envisioned, but a job is a job. When the stores went belly-up, I found myself with enough money to move and set up an apartment pretty much anywhere I'd wanted, so I chose Austin, even though by that time Willy had so gotten over me. It was a doomed-from-the-get-go strategy to win him back. I thought "How could he resist me when I would virtually be in his backyard?" He probably thought, "Oh God! I'm being stalked!!!".

My love affair with Austin began on those visits with Willy back in '85 so it was a no-brainer for me, even if things didn't work out with him. Austin reminded me so much of Madison: The University environment, the lakes, the capitol building and all the political and legislative ramifications of its proximity, the live music scene, Sixth Street being the equivalent of the famed State Street in Madtown. The main difference was the weather. As cold as I recall some Wisconsin winters is how hot I remember some Texas summers. Brutal. But when you're in your mid-twenties, things like the weather seem unimportant.

A woman named Holly, a friend of my Gimbels co-worker Thelma, put me up for the first few days when I got here. Turned out that like me, she too graduated Stuyvesant High in Manhattan. Small world. Holly was a budding jazz vocalist and when she wasn't working for the state of Texas, she was singing her heart out at some club. It was through her that I met a lot of folks in the Austin jazz community and it was cool.