Guess What! It’s snowing here in Houston!!! I heard we made the national news! I’ve been drinking hot coffee all morning with my dog, Lilly, and learning Bob Dylan’s “Girl from the North Country” for the first time—what a perfect song for a day such as this one. I decided to check email and was delighted by the following reply to the music newsletter that I sent out the other day. I want to share with you this reader’s personal account of the Big Thicket, the place that has most shaped my music and life. I can’t imagine a more eloquent description of what it was: “I fondly remember many sweaty summers at my grandma's place in the Big Thicket. My parents would send me and my brother to her spread in the woods near the Trinity River (Tarkington Prairie?). Being plucked out of 1970s Montrose [an “artsy” neighborhood in inner-city Houston] with little adult supervision and sent to the Piney Woods felt like a prison sentence at first. I actually had chores to do, and had to read the bible for an hour a day. She was a Seventh Day Adventist so there was church on Saturday wearing homemade clothes. The tag even read "Fashions By Grandma.” But we went to town afterwards so I could load up on H&H fishing lures and .22 bullets. There always seemed to be a varmint eating her vegetable garden that needed killing. At night, between listening to spirituals on the record player by Jim Nabors (Gomer Pyle) and Tennessee Ernie Ford, grandpa had snuck a couple of Johnny Cash records in there. Then he'd get misty eyed and smoke on the porch facing the creek telling stories of WWII jungle combat against the Japanese. After his passing, I learned that he never shared that with anyone else. Then there were the stories of the old families out there. Some were descended from Civil War deserters. Troop trains would pass through the Big Thicket and many young men jumped off and disappeared into those woods. And most still had well water and outhouses. I know because grandma would check in on them and take them homemade cakes. There was always a feud going on with ‘those people,’ as grandma called them. Back then, the roads were all a rust-colored gravel and this was before the logging trucks from the paper mills moved in. So it was pretty much the way it had always looked. In retrospect, I'm thankful I had that escape route. I would've just played Atari at home or watched endless Gilligan's Island reruns. It's like I caught the tail end of a bygone era. My life was fishing, killing snakes, pulling weeds, feeding the chickens, and the bible. Wow, . . . I'm gonna have to get that Big Thicket book you mentioned [The Big Thicket People]. Thanks for sharing. Glad to hear you're doing well and keeping it rustic.” And thank YOU, Bo, for passing along these vivid images of east Texas, not so very long ago. It is hard to believe how much things have changed, and how quickly. Thanks also for this link to a song that brought to mind my “Cosmos Café.” Now, THIS is COUNTRY. Y’all come!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS4g9_F24NY Happy Snow Day, Everybody!