Willie Nelson, Cousin Ang, Moe and me

Anybody who's done a tour of Iraq as a McClatchy rotator gets two weeks off right after that, and you can go anywhere you want.

I'm probably the only rotator ever to go to Texas.

Before I returned to Merced July 20, I hit Dallas, Austin and Corpus Christi to see family and friends. Missed Fort Worth, where I also have family--but if y'all would keep in touch you'd see me when I'm around!

Stayed in Austin with my cousin Angela and her Main Squeeze, Moe Monsarrat, a longtime member of Stop the Truck, a Texas two-step group well known in Austin and thereabouts, and in the reggae group, the Mau Mau Chaplains. It's the same players, just pickin' a little different.

Moe played warmup for Willie Nelson at Willie's annual Fourth of July picnic, and he and Angela (who also owns the reggae club Flamingo Cantina on Austin's famous 6th Street) have known Willie for awhile. Her brother and my cousin Richard (whose son is named Austin) had his buddy Alvin Crow play at his wedding a few years back. Angela's bud Gary P. Nunn wrote "London Homesick Blues," which was the theme of "Austin City Limits" for a long time. Little wonder why Austin is called "The Live Music Capital of the World." Or why some folks attach bumper stickers: "Help Keep Austin Weird."

The Flamingo: www.flamingocantina.com

Here's Moe: www.stopthetruck.com and www.myspace.com/themaumauchaplains

Time to invoke a little seniority here and note the first time I saw Willie Nelson--1964 in Cowtown in Fort Worth. I was with my oldest brother Webb, who lived there, and Willie hadn't yet "gone large," in his memorable phrase. He was a crewcut guitar picker playin' in a big smoky bar--about as far as from how he turned out as Elvis was when he first came outta Memphis compared to the Vegas avatar.

Met Willie a few times over the years: once at the ranch of the then-attorney general of Texas, whom I was writing about because it seemed he'd be a shoo-in for governor (he never ran). Willie came to Tokyo when I lived there for a concert at the Budokan, and a few days before we sat at the head table of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan and visited for more than an hour. We were scheduled to go jogging around the Imperial Palace the day of his concert, but it snowed that morning. So Willie told me to just come backstage before the performance. I did, and we hung out for another hour or so. I think he'd remember me from that conversation.

Anyway, Willie just turned 75 and is supposed to have uttered one of his all-time classic lines about reaching that milestone. It can't be printed on a family blog, but I'll tell ya if you ask me in person.

Willie's one of my few living heroes. Of all the photographs I've had taken of me with some Big Shot (which includes at least four Presidents), the one I have hangin' on my office wall is of Willie, in pigtails, and me, with a black beard and brown leather vest, taken in Tokyo.

My last day in Texas, Angela and Moe took me out to Willie's ghost town, Luck, Texas, in the Hill County west of Austin. The ghost town has been around since the early '80s and has been used as a backdrop in movies and commercials. Most of the buildings are close to falling down, but the main 'saloon' is in impeccable condition and holds thousands of items of Willie memorabilia. The guy leaning on the bar is Jon Lacey, who helps Willie out in Luck, and is a former Seabee who has some mighty strong visions about how to better mankind, based on sound construction projects.

There'll be at least one more entry about Texas soon--hangin' out with Joe Galloway, the Ernie Pyle of his generation, and a guy I've known since I was a teenaged copy boy.

Ang and Moe took some photos, and here they are--how I spent my post-Iraq vacation (at least the PG-rated parts):