PART I
TEXAS BLONDIES
I had it tough, in England, looking for love. Being an engineer is minus 50 points just for starters. Besides, I spent most of my time in foreign lands. While my friends were getting married and mortgaged, I was installing giant radio transmitters in difficult countries and imagining myself as Lawrence of Arabia, Dr Livingstone, or Brian Fitzgerald. (Props if you don’t need to look up that last one.) You’re unlikely to encounter ‘the one’ while showering under a perforated bucket hung from a palm tree. And then, the English girls problem. I could never make a relationship last beyond several weeks.
My job did, though, come with a good salary, and so my first foray was to Texas. (Yes, I know. I had been watching ‘Dallas’ on the telly and wow, those Texas blondies sure looked great.)
I landed at DFW and hired a car, then drove into Fort Worth where I found Ryan’s Ranch And Saddle Supplies (still there, though under a slightly different name.) I bought Levi jeans, panel-embroidered shirts with pearl snap-buttons, a bolo tie, a belt of silver conchos, antelope cowboy boots, and a Texas Stetson hat. Dressed in my new clobber I sauntered out of the store. An attractive young lady passed by, looked me up and down, and said, “Yep!” I should have made a move, but I was headed for Dallas.
You’d think that having already lived in several different countries, I’d be well used to culture shock. Texas, though, had some interesting jaw-droppers.
The first morning, I woke up, looked out the window of the Marriot and in the distance, a sign announced in huge letters: DRUGS. Wow, they’re so liberal in Texas! I must get some!
Half an hour later I discovered that it was a branch of Walgreens.
At breakfast, a cute Texas blondie served me breakfast, complete with a scatch-and-sniff card to choose the flavour of the tea. What fresh hell was this? Tea is tea!
That night I ventured out and, not knowing that American city centres are dystopias, strolled down Industrial Boulevard(!) and into Angie’s Lounge. A door at the end announced “Rest Room.” Wow, America is so advanced they have rooms in bars where you can rest! But no, it was the WC.
An argument broke out and a guy left to ‘get his piece’ and so Angie asked the rest of us to leave too.
I found a motel in a more desirable area and spent the next evening in TGI Fridays where I chatted up two attractive young women who turned out to be air crew. I had already dated a British hostie and it’s a nightmare, they are always jetting off somewhere.
Like an idiot I remarked what an original name the owner of the joint had chosen, not realizing it was a franchise with hundreds if not thousands of outlets. But I did make a new male friend, who decided that the way I was dressed was perfect for Western Swing.
That weekend we arrived at the dance in our best duds. Jerry Jeff Walker was on (I still have the album I bought.) A couple of ladies taught me the basics of Western Swing and after a while I found myself partnering a really cute Texas Blondie. She thought my accent very cute and we were getting close when my friend interrupted.
“Say, are you from XXX?” he asked her. (Some small town near Dallas.)
“Oh sure, how did you know?”
He looked her up and down. “All the girls from that town are fifteen pounds over.”
That, of course, was that. She fled. I was super angry. “What the hell did you say that for?”
Then he gave me the talk about the age of consent in Texas. He was certain she was only 17 though she looked to me more like 21. Good job I had a good friend. So I decided to drive to Colorado and try my luck there.
On my way, I destroyed the rental car by driving it into a class 4 tornado. But that’s another story.