John Kelso - Texas Curiosities: Quirky Characters, Roadside Oddities & Other Offbeat Stuff

Sharry Buckner has written six serious travel guidebooks and numerous magazine articles about Texas. A member of the Society of American Travel Writers, she divides her time between her home in the Texas Hill Country and her RV travels with hubby, Al. She now looks for weird things wherever she goes.

PHOTO BY JIM WILLET

John Kelso has been a humor columnist with the Austin American-Statesman in Austin, Texas, since 1977. He received an award for humor writing in 2005 from the National Press Club. He lives in South Austin with his wife, Kay; daughter, Rachel; dogs Harry, Ziggy, and Belle; cats Bitsy, Nutmeg, Oreo, and Scooter; and a bunch of other neighbor cats who hang out in the garage.

Keep Austin Weirdis the motto of the largest city in Central Texas. I wonder if that was any of John Kelsos doing. Anyway, youll see it on T-shirts and bumper stickers all over Austin. Folks seem genuinely proud of their weirdness; theres even a Museum of the Weird. In the rest of the state, the bumper stickers say Keep the Weirdos in Austin. Seems fair enough. From a notorious cross-dresser to a serious University of Texas sports fan who drives a 1975 burnt-orange Cadillac with steer horns mounted on the front, Austin does, indeed, have its colorful characters.

Texass state capital and home to the University of Texas, Austin is a vibrant cultural center full of college students, musicians, artists, and technology geeks. As the Live Music Capital of the World, it boasts more than two hundred music venues, so you can find live music every night of the week.

The state-of-the-art Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum is second to none and a great way to learn about the Lone Star State. Austin offers prime outdoor recreation venues, including three lakes, dozens of parks, a nature center, swimming pools, botanical gardens, and more than fifty miles of surfaced hike and bike pathways along greenbelts and lakes.

However, not all the oddities of Central Texas are in Austin. The rolling hills of central Texas, a transitional area between the plains of West Texas and the piney woods of East Texas, contain countless small Texas towns with their own stories and quirky characters. I-35 runs basically northsouth through Central Texas, so most folks hurry by and miss some of the delightful small towns along the way.

Wander through the largest outlet shopping mall in Texas (more than 250 shops) in San Marcos. Splash in one of the states largest water parks at Schlitterbahn in New Braunfels. Waco, another bustling city in this region, is home to Baylor University and the Texas Ranger Museum (lawmen, not baseball players), as well as the drugstore where Dr Pepper was invented.

No, this town of about three hundred a couple miles off I-35 (FM 1242) is not located next to Costello.

Dont come here looking for Willie Nelson stuff, even though the music giant has a house here and visits occasionally when he isnt on the road (again). The town has no Willie Nelson T-shirt shops, no sign that mentions him, nada. There used to be a billboard out near I-35 that had his face on it, but its long gone.

Thats exactly the way he wants it, said school superintendent Terry Timmons.

If you go by the high school, you can track down the 1950 high school yearbook and find Willie in it, although in the book Nelson is referred to as Willie Hugh Nelson. Willie graduated from Abbott High in 1950. By thumbing through the book, youll find young Mister Nelson was a pretty busy and versatile kid.

He was number 15 on the football team. The yearbook shows a photo of Willie with his arm cocked, ready to toss a pass. He played baseball and volleyball; was a guard on the basketball team; ran track; worked a couple years on The Spotlight, the school newspaper; and, not surprisingly, was the Future Farmers of America song leader.

When Willie comes to town, its no big deal to the localsor to him, either. Hes just one of the neighbors.

Unless you see him or his pickup, you dont know hes here, Timmons said.

An outlandish spoof of the traditional Texas chili cook-off, this annual rite held early each spring has featured every dish you could conceivably cram Spam into. Among the entries, said founder David Arnsberger, have been Spamwurst, Spamchiladas, Spambo (Spam gumbo), Spamalama Ding Dongs, moo goo gai Spam, chicken-fried Spam, Spamachini Alfredo, piggy pt, and Spamish fly, a Waldorf salad in which the raisins served as the flies. Then theres the whole array of cocktails, like the Tequila Spamrise, Arnsberger noted.

Wayne Roberts presents his Spamagator gumbo.

COURTESY OF DAVID AMSBERGER

Each dish must have some Spam in it to qualify. Spamarama, which celebrated its thirty-second year in 2010, also features the Spam Olympicsgames played with Spam. In Spam Cram, for example, whoever can eat a twelve-ounce can of Spam fastest wins. The record is sixty-six seconds.

Spamarama has even had songs written about it. Sing along to Mister Spam Man to the tune of Mister Sandman:

Mister Spam Man, make me a dish,

Im tired of pot pie, and tunafish.

Want eggs and Spam, not eggs and bacon.

Whats that new Spam dish that I smell you makin?

The most disgusting entry so far? Arnsberger nominates Spampers: a three-month-old girl wearing Pampers smeared with a mix of Spam and mustard and whatever else pureed in a blender so it looked just like baby... poop. The judges lost it on that one, Arnsberger recalled.

For information, try www.spamarama.org.

Leslie Cochrans digs certainly improved in the year 2002.

Previously, Austins most notorious homeless cross-dresserknown for hanging out in a thong, literally and figurativelyset up shop downtown on the sidewalk in front of One American Center, at Sixth and Congress, in the very heart of the city, where he drove some downtown business leaders crazy.

But when the opportunity arose, Leslie, three times an Austin mayoral candidate, moved into a five-bedroom, four-bath house in posh West Lake Hills, just west of Austin. The house even has a swimming pool in its lovely tree-shaded yard.

Leslie Cochran, Austins favorite cross-dresser and three-time mayoral candidate

RALPH BARRERA, COURTESY OF AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN

I spend most of my time by the pool, Leslie said. I love the pool house. The pool house rocks. Its got something someone of my caliber needs: Its got a bar.

How did Leslie, who has a great set of legs and favors miniskirts, spiked heels, and a matching tiara, move into such a swank place? Well, it isnt really that swank. The house, owned by homeless advocate Cindy Brettschneider, has mold. Cindy, who was trying to sell the house for $335,000, is allergic to mold. Leslie is not. So Cindy moved out and Leslie moved in.