Growing Up Catholic in a Small Texas Town

Austin, Texas When It Was Austin, Texas

So, it’s 1977, and I’m finally living in Austin. It might not be a small town, but it’s still Texas (sort of), and I’m still Catholic — sigh.

Back then, 6th Street was dangerous and gritty before it became cool and avant-garde and then reverted back to dangerous and gritty. MoPac’s massive road construction had only reached Northwest Boulevard. Whole Foods Market was merely a gleam in the eyes of a group of health-minded business people. Armadillo Headquarters still rocked, and there were hippies everywhere. Pardon the cliché, but I thought I’d died and gone to Heaven.

It was my first year at the University of Texas, and I was soaking up everything the campus and the city had to offer. Across from the “new” library I found Tom’s Tabouli, a café/coffee shop where I went every day with fellow students from my Spanish class. I’d buy coffee but brought in my own lunch, and nobody gave me any trouble. The Garden Café, located a block off the Drag (Guadalupe St.), boasted the healthiest food in town. The place was stocked with so many plants, it looked like a jungle and smelled of spoiled milk, which somewhere in the recesses of my brain told me the smell was a sign of something healthy brewing in the kitchen. The Garden served tofu, yogurt/granola parfait…