Jane's Window: My Spirited Life in West Texas and Austin

20. The Long Center

279 F RanK eRWin was the legendary chairman of the University of Texas board of regents and a confidant of governors and of presidents. One day, Mr. erwin called and invited me to lunch at the Headliner’s Club. Of course, i said yes. although i had no idea what he had up his sleeve, my curiosity was aroused. Besides, i did not want to miss an opportunity to meet with him. Frank was an attorney and lobbyist who lived in our neighborhood on Woodlawn, across the street from Joe Long. He was a Democrat and close to the Lyndon Johnson family. Today, he is remembered as well as the bane of 60s liberals, but especially of hippies—“dirty nothings” and “tree huggers,” he called them. Frank’s legendary intransigence usually meant that no one could ever negotiate with Frank. For him, it was his way or no way at all. you also had to watch every word you said to him, because he had a sharp mind and could and would trip you up and make you look like a fool. Whenever i was around him, i was extremely cautious, weighing carefully every word i uttered. This will come as a shock to those who remember him for his colorful newspaper quotes, but for years, Frank had pushed for a first class performance space for the university. He liked opera, but the administration of the university had never prioritized cultural activities. Theater, dance, music, and art had always struggled for money and space at UT. But Frank had been steadily promoting his project for a 20 a The Long Center 280 C H A p T e R 2 0 concert hall. at one meeting, he even showed me a mock-up of what he envisioned as the “University of Texas Performing arts Center.” Without Frank erwin’s intercession, the university would never have had such a facility on the campus. That view of mine is not widely known. Somehow, Frank erwin found a way around the university’s ban on renting space to outside organizations, and began to move ahead on a performing arts center at UT. When we met for lunch at the Headliner’s Club, he and i met in a small private room overlooking the city. Frank had also invited a vicepresident of the university and the new director of the Performing arts Center. The director was business manager of the San antonio Symphony , until UT hired him to oversee the final planning and construction of the university’s new Performing arts Center. Of the five people who accompanied Frank to that meeting, not one knew a thing in the world about music, except for the man from San antonio and me. Because of the seclusion of our luncheon, i suspected our main topic was a serious one. Frank erwin was legendary for what he could accomplish in small rooms, and whenever he had business to discuss, he wasted no time on pleasantries. These were Frank erwin’s first words at that meeting: “i want the austin Symphony Orchestra to perform in the new Performing arts Center at UT.” When i heard Frank erwin’s bold statement, i nearly fell off my chair. We were having a terrible time at the old Palmer auditorium. The symphony had been playing there for years and we had to use uncomfortable temporary seats that the city put on an elevated platform so our patrons could see the orchestra. Those seats rattled and squeaked throughout every concert. We had to spend expensive union hours putting them up and taking them down for each performance. i think someone finally threw them in the lake, since they disappeared and we never found out what happened to them. Truly, i actually believe those awful seats were deliberately destroyed. even though i did not do it, i certainly wanted to. Palmer was an absolutely miserable place for the symphony to play. The floor was concrete and the acoustics were God-awful. Cactus Pryor, a popular Texas humorist, actor, and radio personality 281 T H e l O N g C e N T e R said, “The acoustics were designed by an underwater acoustician. if you filled Palmer with water you could hear perfectly.” He was not exaggerating. That is the way it had been for years and we had learned to live with it. We had no idea things would...