Tay-jazz and other adventures....

The X-wife & I spent 3 years living in San Antonio, Texas, in the mid-'80s, while I was assigned to the Army and Air Force Hometown News Service -- my 1st Air Force job, where I ruined my eyes coloring forms with yellow & purple markers so other people could turn that highlighted information into news stories 2 B sent 2 servicemembers' hometown newspapers -- stories about promotions & awards & being sent overseas & such. So much 4 being a journalist -- that came a little later.
Meanwhile, San Antonio was a great town -- plenty to do, great food, friendly people, always something happening. Once we found somewhere 2 live, we carefully Xplored the area. You could get lost 4 DAYS in the malls there -- & it was amazing how much unspoiled pastureland & rolling hills were inside the city limits, & all you had 2 do 2 find them was get off the main roads. I had my favorite backroads 2 work, 2 my favorite dry-cleaners (4 my AF uniforms), 2 all the decent 2nd-hand book & record stores.... 1 backroad led up the highest hill in town & you could see SanAn sprawl 4 MILES in every direction from atop it....
We started R adventures by trying out the local food. Of course SanAn is great 4 Tex-Mex & Hispanic foods of all sorts -- but weirdly we were homesick 4 Chinese food, & made an ongoing tour of summa the WORST Chinese restaurants ever opened. I mean, REALLY bad. Like the 1 where a young Oriental mom was CHANGING HER BABY'S DIAPER on the front counter. She looked up, saw us, smiled welcomingly ... & we turned around & walked right back out....
The search 4 cheap books & music went EZer. Wasn't hard 2 find used book & record stores in a city of 1-million+. The best was a HUGE sprawling 2nd-hand store somewhere near downtown -- we took the backroads 2 get there. In this dusty, ramshackle assembly of what seemed like 3 or 4 diffrent houses I tracked down/discovered great albums by Fairport Convention (CHRONICLES), Van Morrison (MOONDANCE), Amazing Blondel (FANTASIA LINDUM), & more. & in the used books section I found stuff like a complete run of Damon Knight's far-out ORBIT series of paperback anthologies, back in the days when you could get them 2nd-hand CHEAP.
Next door 2 my dry-cleaners was an even dustier & darker 2nd-hand store, where I stumbled over a copy of Nick Drake's BRYTER LAYTER. Up til then all I'd heard by Nick was "Northern Sky," so I figured the resta the album hadta B pretty good 2. & it was -- amazing, really. All this music has bn with me ever since.
Meanwhile, the X & I were listening 2 then-more-current stuff like the Go-Go's TALK SHOW (we saw the girls live in concert in SA in something like '85, they were GREAT), the Bangles' DIFFERENT LIGHT, & the Moody Blues' THE PRESENT. These Bcame my daily soundtrack as I drove 2 & from work, & we used most of these as backing music as we drove around SA & the area Hill Country. + we threw in some others -- Tears for Fears' SONGS FROM THE BIG CHAIR, Pat Benatar's PRECIOUS TIME, Pete Townshend's ALL THE BEST COWBOYS HAVE CHINESE EYES, Dan Fogelberg's THE INNOCENT AGE and PHOENIX, the Pretenders' LEARNING TO CRAWL, Cyndi Lauper's SHE'S SO UNUSUAL, etc. All this stuff is still with me, 2....
I also got addicted 2 Aaron Copland while in Texas -- listening 2 Eduardo Mata & the Dallas Symphony's versions of "Rodeo" & "El Salon Mexico" & the "Simple Gifts" section of "Appalachian Spring" -- cranking that HUGE American-folksong-flavored symphonic stuff WAY UP as we buzzed down the highway or thru the Hill Country. Still the best versions of Copland's work that I've heard....
1 winter while we were in SA, 18 inches of snow fell overnite & the city STOPPED 4 about 3 days. People thot the X & I were nuts as we walked 2 the store in T-shirts while everybody else shivered in big, heavy coats. We thot it was a nice break from the usual 99-degrees & 99-percent-humidity ... with occasional thunderstorms & torrential rains thrown in.... Heaviest, hardest rainfall I've ever seen was in Texas, along with lightning storms that would crackle & zap across the sky 4 HOURS without a drop of rain falling. The X & I would sometimes sit out on R apartment's backporch just 2 watch the lightning zap around....
I also got addicted 2 1 of my heroes, writer John McPhee, while I was in Texas. Co-worker & Army Sgt. Ron Pruitt got sick of me asking questions about his home state of Alaska, & tossed me a copy of McPhee's massive COMING INTO THE COUNTRY, which paints as clear a picture of Alaska as you're ever going 2 get from a book. Since then I've read at least a dozen more of McPhee's books, all of them well worth tracking down. I still wish I could write 1/2 that well....
My job did NOT involve working on a Air Force base newspaper as I was told I would B doing, so after 3 years of wrecking my eyes the AF transferred me to Wyoming (see previous posts). It was probly 4 the best -- I already felt like a robot or zombie at work, even tho I later got 2 PROOFREAD the news stories we sent out 2 newspapers around the country. But it wasn't reporting -- it was fill-in-the-blank stuff on a production line, & we hadta keep crankin' out the numbers....
This robotic feeling got worse 1 morning when I played Philip Glass's KOYAANISQATSI Soundtrack in the car on the way 2 work -- suddenly EVERYTHING became mechanical, everybody was a robot, all the cars on the freeway were on their own machine-determined tracks, nobody had Free Will, everybody was an android ... until I got 2 work & switched the music off ... & realized I didn't remember the drive 2 work AT ALL. I don't think I've played the album since (tho the movie is a real spacey time if you ever get a chance 2 see it -- & with Glass's music you don't need any other conciousness-expanding assistance....).
NEway, SanAn was great & I do sometimes miss it -- never been back. But I did have my consciousness raised there: My 1st job out in the Real World, 2,000 miles away from home. The X & I showed we were grown-ups & could handle life on R own.
But we about died from homesickness. Something that never happened in Wyoming....