Bearing fruit

The first city I lived in after I left the Air Force was Victoria, TX. Victoria is located in a part of Texas, southeast or so, that is called “The Crossroads”. While I personally think that’s a cool name the practical reason for the name is the city and area is kind of in the middle of nowhere. Victoria is located 2 hours away from Houston, 2 hours away from Austin, 2 hours away from San Antonio, and 1.5 hours away from Corpus Christi. Those are at least 4 Texas cities anyone has heard of all surrounding a city no one has heard of.  Ok, maybe you’ve heard of it if you’ve watched professional wrestling.

That isn’t a typo. Stone Cold Steve Austin, if you’ve ever listened to his introduction beyond the glass shattering, is announced as being from Victoria, TX. Here’s the punchline: Stone Cold is NOT from Victoria, TX. He’s from nearby Edna, TX, a shotgun town that is much, much smaller than the 70,000 or so in Victoria. Edna is so small of a town that Stone Cold decided to claim the nearest biggest town which is Victoria. A town that no one also has ever heard of!

It might not surprise you, then, that a smallish town such as Victoria very much has a down home sort of personality. Here’s what I mean: if you visit the town, just passing through, you’re treated cordially. Cordial being that you’ll be nice to the personin public but that person will never see where you live. A simpler way of saying how Victoria is if you weren’t born there or lived there for at least 5 years you kind of don’t exist or aren’t considered worth knowing. This type of attitude may have something to do with simply being wary of outsiders do to geographic representation.

It also could be a reflection of what has happened in the not so distant past. Victoria shares a history many towns do: when the oil prices were high the oilfield companies came to the nearest town and planted their flag while they did their thing. When oil prices dropped, those same companies abandoned the town overnight. The people who were residents of the town and had well-paying jobs under the oilfield became bartenders and waitresses. I want to necessarily caveat that there isn’t a damn thing wrong with either profession. I’m only meaning to say that many people went from having their money being high enough to the point they could buy almost literally anything they wanted to having to share an apartment with another grown-up whom you're not dating or married to.  

Regardless, being a new person to the town it was a tough nut to crack, socially. There aren’t many places to go out in a relatively small town. A lot of times the people who are going out are nearly the same people who have seen each other for years. They know who they are and consequently they know who they are not: you. The new guy standing at the bar looking all new and not them. 

My big “in” to the town was a night my wife wasn’t in town and I was bored. I went to a bar that I’d gone to once with her, Moonshine. Victoria has a couple of bars I was told to avoid for any number of reasons. Moonshine seemed safe. I ordered my first drink sitting against the wall. That was boring so the second drink I ordered and stayed at the bar. Good decision. I somehow got roped into a conversation about the lack of development in the city (and that could be several blogs in itself, basically the rich people who benefited the most in the oil boom took their money and sit on the outskirts of the town hating every poor person in town) and that conversation led me to talking with the manager of the bar, Beau, which led me to staying at the place a little longer than I meant to with maybe an extra drink or two more than I meant to as well.

This would be a repeated theme. Some time later, I was at Moonshine and I lamented to Beau that I’d been in the area for well over a year and I hadn’t really made any decent friends. I frequented the gym and chatted people up but could even get someone to commit to having a beer. The second bartender there, a young guy named James, spoke up: “Hell, I’ll have a beer with you,” wrote his number down and handed it to me. Within a week, he’d held up his promise and we drank together. Wasn't long after I was a groomsman in his wedding, but I digress. 

This was the intro that was needed because James knew other people in town, most notably bartenders. Even after James eventually left town and became a Marine I had several other people used to seeing my face in Victoria and it made the time I was there very special and my times at Moonshine very…fuzzy. Let’s go with fuzzy. I closed the bar down quite a few nights, I’m happy to say.

Now, I’m in a different state. Literally. North Carolina. It’s coming up on nearly two years since I’ve been here and what I’m missing the most is that place I can go where everyone knows my name. There came a point in time where I would come into Moonshine and as soon as a bartender (Beau, James, Brittany, Dan, Brent, to name several) saw me I was having a drink poured: gin and tonic. Done. That’s an amazing thing. Even when I was searching for a job, every time I went there they took care of me so I took care of them in tips. It ain’t easy tending bar; to add for whatever reason a lot of Victoria seems to think it’s cool to not tip your bartenders who are working hard for you. Yeah, screw that. I took care of my folks and they took care of me. Digression aside, I don’t have that here in North Carolina and I admittedly miss it.

These things come in time. I do have my jiu-jitsu family. I have made good friends. It does take time to plant roots and let them strengthen. I do understand all that.

I’m just hoping to see something bear fruit.