Contents
Preface
I. “Back in the Day”: Reflections on Times Passed
“Use It Up. Wear It Out. Make It Do. Do Without.”
“Growing Up in the Goat Pen”
“The Wheels of Our Lives”
“Back Then”
“I’m Here to Tell You!: Family Vignettes from the Depression Era”
“A Czech Way of Business”
“Some Recollections of Defining Events”
II. Texas Music
“‘Hell in Texas’: Crossing Between Sin and Salvation in Texas Folk Songs”
“Buddy Holly, Beethoven, and Lubbock in the 1950s”
“Waltz Across Texas: An Exploration of the Music in the German and Czech Dance Halls of South Central Texas and the Bands that Played the Music”
“The Music of Ruby Allmond”
“Songs of the Depression”
“‘July 4, 1976’: A Folktale from the Helotes Settlement”
III. Legends in Their Time—and Ours Still
“Frances Lane and Mattie Felker: Two Legendary Ladies of Texas”
“The Evolution of a Family Epic”
“Lon Goldstein and the Gainesville Owls”
“Russell Lee’s Texas Photographs”
“Américo Paredes, Border Anthropologist”
“Sages, Pundits, and Spinners”
“James and John: Wild and Crazy Apostles of the TFS West”
IV. Everything But the Kitchen Sink: Ghosts, Legends, Language, and Other Lore
“Ghost Stories and Legends of Old San Patricio”
“The Widow’s Revenge: The Genesis and Development of a Tale in Bell County”
“Tip to Tip—Legendary Texas Longhorns”
“The Aurora Airship Crash of 1897”
“The Hidfolk of Texas”
“CURSES! (“!?*#ZX?@”)”
“Monsters in Texas”
“The Folklore of Plants: Growing Up in the Hill Country”
“High Art versus the Oral Tradition”
“The Hispanic Shaman”
Contributors’ Vitas
Index