The last time I was in Austin, in 1995, the University of Texas’s art museum was tinier and in ad hoc homes. It wasn’t yet called the Blanton Museum of Art. Both Austin, which is Texas’s capital city, and the museum have certainly changed since then. The university, Texas’s overall boom, and, with it, the thriving lobbyist, legal, and high-tech sectors make Austin what has to be the yuppie capital of the Southwest. When I went to Central Market, the upscale gourmet supermarket, during food rush hour, I was nearly trampled in the Camembert aisle.
The university is an intellectual powerhouse and especially dynamic on a home-game football weekend. Alumni take their Longhorns seriously. I was on campus visiting the Blanton and the LBJ Library on Saturday and Sunday and can write that Longhorn love is catching. I stimulated the local economy via my new burnt-orange Longhorn swag. Texans are very endearing. They’re friendly, and they take pride in their communities, have entrepreneurial zeal, and aren’t snooty.
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