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1968: ONE FAMILY’S FOLKLORE ODYSSEY by Sarah Greene  In the spring of 1968, I saw a small item on a Dallas Morning News book page saying that the Texas Folklore Society planned its spring meeting for April 12–13 in Alpine and the Big Bend. A bus had been chartered to make the trip from Austin to Alpine. I was only vaguely aware of the Folklore Society then, but as a native Texan, I had long been looking for an excuse to visit the Big Bend. My husband, Ray Greene, agreed to stay home and mind the family newspaper, The Gilmer Mirror, so I could make the trip with our children, Sally and Russ (twelve and nine at the time), and my parents, Russell and Georgia Laschinger. We boarded the bus in Austin that April, and began getting acquainted with a most congenial group. James Ward Lee, the 1968 president, was accompanied by his amusing young sons. John Q. Anderson and his wife Loraine also were among the notables on board. As we left San Antonio, John A. Lomax Jr. stood up in the front of the bus and started singing “Going Down the Road Feeling Bad,” a folk song anything but representative of the passengers ’ sentiments. My parents had opted for a downtown Alpine motel, where we checked in that Thursday night. The next morning we boarded a bus for the drive to Santa Helena Canyon and the Chisos Basin. On first glimpsing the Rio Grande, far below the highway on a bluff, I pointed it out to my Ontario-born father. He responded that it couldn’t be; surely the Rio Bravo was a much grander stream. “Bet you ten dollars,” I said. When we reached our destination and I was proved right, he said, “I should have known. Tight as you are, you’d only bet on a sure thing.” 347 After we arrived at the Chisos Basin, where Mody Boatright was made a Fellow of the Texas Folklore Society, I was called to the phone in the park headquarters. By the time I got there I was panicked , quite sure some disaster had hit at home. Instead, I was told by the motel room clerk that my parents could stay on but my children and I would have to vacate our room. It had been rented out to others. This was actually no problem, as it turned out. Sul Ross State College President Brownie McNeil had offered free dormitory rooms to the TFS members at Lawrence Hall Dormitory, and he sent his college student son to transfer Sally, Russ, and me to a dorm room. 348 Meetings, Memories, and More Mody Boatright in 1968, the year he was made a Fellow of the Texas Folklore Society We enjoyed the Saturday program at the Rock Pile and went on to the McDonald Observatory, and the saengerfest that night was outstanding. Picking and singing by Brownie McNeil was one of many highlights. I am one of many—too many now among the dear departed— who remember that 1968 meeting as uniquely wonderful. It began an association for me that has brought lifelong friendships and countless great experiences. I’ve missed very few of the annual meetings since then, and nothing short of hospitalization or worse will keep me from showing up each Easter weekend as I enter my ninth decade. 1968: One Family’s Folklore Odyssey 349 Wilson Hudson giving a paper Rhett Rushing taking part in a Hootenanny ...

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