Every Saturday morning, starting back around 1970 for a few years, there would be movies and fun at the Saturday Morning Fun Club (SMFC). It was held in a small movie theatre in the bottom/back of the old Student Union Building, the one just to the left after you crossed the Drag.

People showed a half hour or so before the start time, and I have never seen so many paper darts flying through the air! Nor have I ever seen not just funny little cigarettes, but full fledged water pipes and other assorted paraphenalia moving up and down the rows...

The audience was far from quiet and accepting - loud and opinionated expressions of disbelief and disgust were common. I remember the shorts of Flash Gordon. At the end of one week, Flash Gordon was pinned to the side of the top of a building, with a car engine flying through the air at him, only inches away from him to cause sudden death! The next week, it was resolved as it amazingly seemed to just miss him. Ahhhh....

Good movies, good fun. Not sure I'd want to take *my* kids there, though...

"Fat Ron the Beadman" was a feature of the Drag back in the late 60s and early 70s. Back in those days, the street vendors used to be set up in front of the Co-op - just at the point of the main crossing of the Drag. Only some years later was there any regulation, and the move to the side street nearby.

Fat Ron probably wasn't the greatest of craftsman - his reason for being was stringing beads for goodness sakes, which he did well, and was *always* there.

Nothing special to his work - just little coloured seed beads on a string, with that being a widely accepted means of expression.

But Fat Ron was a character, one of those people that now (nearly 40 years later) I remember as being typical of Austin of those times...

The food was forgettable, but not the red wine served in greasy plastic tumblers, nor certainly Rita herself, in her Carmen Miranda fruit-topped hat and muu muu. The chain-link fence looking out onto 6th only added to the mystique.

My memories of this legendary bar are hazy...not surprising...but for this ingenue, Club Foot was the white girl's unforgettable introduction to reggae--Austin style.

Doug was a San Antonio boy but made it to Austin as quick as he could. I can't recall the name of the album recorded live at Armadillo in the mid-70's but Doug told a story from the stage about being in California and "Everyone told me that Austin was happening. So here we are." Doug and Augie did a lot to foster the Cosmic Cowboy genre and their Armadillo and Soap Creek shows were legendary.

The last time that I saw Doug was not at a music show... it was at Dan's Hamburgers on S. Congress around '81 or so. I pulled into the parking lot and parked next to a huge silver Cadillac that appeared to be full of stuff. Clothes, guitars, equipment, paperwork, basically the life support gear for a working musician. At the driver seat was Doug. We said "Hi", he went in and picked up a to-go order and drove away.

The Country Dinner Playhouse was out past Balcones Research Centre (I live in NZ, and looking on Google Maps makes me think it has a newer name???) on Hwy 1325. Down a hill and cross the railroad tracks, then up the hill - and the theatre was on your right.

In 1972 or so I lived on a 40 acre property just past there, same side of the road. There had been a geodesic dome making construction company there, and they left the skeletons of several domes that made it stand out a bit...

And I worked at the Country Dinner Theatre as a cleaner/dishwasher. At one time there were 4 or 5 of us, then they cut it back to two. We'd get there about 10pm, as the show finished, and bus, wash, setup and drink wine until near dawn. For me, it was just a walk across the field to get home then.

KOKE was just starting to have some great programming back then, and we'd get to listen to Ramblin' Jack Elliot's song about New Orleans just about every night ("Did you ever stand and shiver, just because you were lookin' at a river?")

If you get here through a search, then you remember something listed on this page. Do us a favor and log-in and record that Austin memory!

Treaty Oak - still there in spite of the attempted VooDoo killing
North vs. South Tug of war - The North won, I believe
The Buccaneer - a seedy bar in the south
The old dinner theaters - on the edge of town... speaking of that!
The Edge of Town - a night club in a converted dinner theater
Dessau Hall - country girl, I think you're pretty
Jalapeno Charlie's - in that strange building on S. Lamar
The Hanging Tree - more S. Lamar weirdness
The Chaparral Lounge - what's this "new Chaparral" bullshit?
The Split Rail - I remember this as a biker bar
Duke's Royal Coach Inn - punk club on Congress... Joe King's homeroom
Maggie Mae's - remember when it was so narrow and one of the pioneers of 6th street?
The Salt Lick - before it was famous. The best Friday lunch was to fill a cooler and head out Camp Ben McCulloch road for the afternoon.
Holiday House - wild animals and burgers!
2J's - good burgers, loyal following
The Draught House - the one before the Draught Horse!
Lone Star Beer sign - stood above the Drag for a generation
Dry Creek Cafe - still kicking and lot's of ink spilt already... add your special experience
Scarbrough building and store - Austin elegance
The Silver Dollar - WAY before Dallas, the night club
The Raw Deal - the original... east 6th back in the day
Update: nice photo show of the old RD
The Poodle Dog - still there I think, as is...
The Horseshoe Lounge - got kicked out of there once
emmajoe's - small e, small place, small cover, huge talent every night

Before 1st Street was Caesar Chavez, there was plain old east first. There were several eastside spots that were already "famous"... that is, known to exist by folks on the west side of town. Places like El Azteca, Hernandez, Cisco's. My favorite was Joe's Bar on east 1st. Joe's was a beer bar with a trailer out back serving food. Cheap, cold beer and fresh tacos are a great combination. My favorite tacos were picadillo: a large tortilla filled with extremely spicy beef and topped with a handfull of french fries right out of the fryer.

Joe's tacos were legendary for their "hotness" due to chiles and spice. So much so, it was sport for the regulars to watch for and ridicule the white boys' melt-down after an order of three. I held my own but a few Lone Star's were needed... I felt that the regular crowd approved of that technique.

Back when "The Lord of the Rings" had anything nothing more than minimal popularity, let me see now: 1971 or so it would have been, there was a really nice restaurant down near Rio Grande and about 5th St.

I can remember bicycling down there from the University area in the late, late nights for coffee and desserts.

I don't think the place was around all that long - the food business is like that, I guess - but I remember the building as a converted grand old house, lit up brightly in an otherwise dark and quiet neighbourhood.

Well, smoothies haven't always existed, have they?

Back in the late 60s (I'm remembering either 1969 or 1970?), they were really something new and different, and there was a place somewhere about 16th or 17th, maybe in the San Antonio to Rio Grande area called Mother Nature's Smoothy Shop. I'm sure they sold things other than smoothies, but that was their specialty. I remember it as not much more than a small kitchen and I remember more of the yard than any inside eating place. Anybody remember the place?