A story about Luckenbach, Texas, Hondo Crouch, and Jerry Jeff Walker in The Guardian sent me on a little spin down Memory Lane over coffee this morning.

Maybe it’s the Londonesque weather we’ve been enjoying:

Well, it’s cold over here, and I swear
I wish they’d turn the heat on. — Gary P. Nunn, “London Homesick Blues”

October could get chilly in the college cowtown of Greeley, Colo., too, which is where The Mombo Club-El Rancho Delux crew mostly played the mortal shit out of Jerry Jeff’s “¡Viva Terlingua!” album and once saw “Scamp” Walker Hisself perform live, loud, and knee-walking drunk at the University of Northern Colorado:

Sure does like his Falstaff beer
Likes to chase it down with that Wild Turkey liquor
Drives a ’57 GMC pickup truck
Got a gun rack
“Goat ropers need love too” sticker. — Ray Wylie Hubbard, “Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother”

Maybe it’s the sudden realization that it was 50 years ago when, after more than a few Falstaffs of my own, a 20-watt bulb blinked to sputtering life in my hairy head: “Holy hell, I think I’m gonna have enough credits to graduate come spring. …”

And before you could sing a verse of “Gettin’ By” I was off to the rat races. Cage-liners, bike mags, and blogs, O my!

Don’t matter how you do it 
They say, “Just do it like you know it,” 
And I’ve been down this road once or twice before. … — Jerry Jeff Walker, “Gettin’ By”