To Utopia and Back
That’s the sun rising on a hill above Laity Lodge, one of my favorite places, one of the most thoroughly peaceful spots on this planet. Every time I’m there I find myself changed from the tense, driven person I normally am to an exemplar of calm. It feels weird. It feels great.
You should check it out and see if there are retreats there that would suit you. Laity is run by Christians and it’s mainly Christians who visit there, but everyone is welcome — and I mean genuinely welcome. They are the least judgmental people on earth. Steven Purcell, who runs the place, often says, “We have an agenda, but we don’t have an agenda for you” — and he really means it.
On my way there I stopped at a Half Price Books to sell some books, and stumbled across this: a four-CD set of music by little-known bands from the Thirties and Forties, mostly from Texas. (The guitarists are the ostensible reason for the collection, but they don’t stand out that much.) Bands like Bill Boyd and His Cowboy Ramblers; the Sons of the West; the Hi-Flyers. They were all part of the “Texas Swing” movement associated with Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, a delightfully odd joining of pop standards + jazzy arrangements + country instruments (fiddles and steel guitars instead of saxophones and trumpets). Their songs were recorded at a time when the Gods of Marketing had not yet separated musical acts into the pigeonholes that we know today.
The hundred tracks on these four CDs were made by bands that rarely got airplay outside of Texas, but were often quite popular here. They were the perfect companion for a sweet drive across the plains and into the hills, and then back again, on long winding two-lane roads, through Leakey and Vanderpool and Medina and Bandera — and, oh yes, Utopia.
