1 post tagged “texas”

I'm not one to over-analyze coincidences, but last Sunday, when Katie and I were going to pick up Lola at the vet (see earlier post), I looked up at a nightclub marquee and got incredibly excited for a few seconds. I read "Don Walser". In reality, the marquee said "Don Walker". Then, five minutes ago, I heard on the radio that Don Walser died on Wednesday. What a loss. Don Walser represented the very best of Texas: a smiling, jovial good ol' boy who considered everyone a friend and wanted everyone to have a good time; the kind of guy that made me happy to be identified as a Texan.

Don sang cowboy songs and country and western songs; the old kind of country, the good kind. And he yodeled. Oh, man, how he yodeled. His yodel sends chills up my spine. There are three songs at the end of this post.

They did a nice piece on him on Fresh Air today, and it should be online later this afternoon.

I live in Alaska now and a whole lot of people I've met recently know me as "Alaskan Dave". I was born in Chicago and lived there until I was seven, and it left a deep imprint on my brain - I feel very at home in big cities and I still have more of a midwestern accent than a Texas accent. But I grew up in Texas; I lived there from age seven until age thirty-five, and I still think of it as "where I'm from". Yeah, there are some things about it that I never liked, and a lot of things that I did like have changed in ways that I don't like, but any place that could produce a man like Don Walser has to have some good in it.

So long, Don, and make them happy where ever you are now.