The quest for Bob Wills and the honky-tonk bacchanalia

In their March 2001 issue, Texas Monthly published a list of 50 things every Texan should do. Number Five reads: “Do the two-step on Bob Wills Day in Turkey.” “Where better to strut your stuff,” asks the blurb in the upper-left hand corner, “than in the adopted hometown of the King of Western Swing?” Below, there’s a full-page picture of a pretty girl dancing atop a bar. I’d heard through the years from friends who went to school in Lubbock that Bob Wills Day was totally crazy — the kind of spontaneous insanity that can only happen in the middle of nowhere. A rowdy mix of Western swing, drunkenness, dancing, brawling, sex, and portable jails — all set against the yawning sky, red dirt, and constant winds of North Texas.

Getting to Turkey is a relatively straight shot from Austin: 183 north to Seymour, cut to 287 north to Childress, then follow the signs to Turkey. Every twenty to forty-five minutes you pass through a little town. The towns suggest that in the days before the interstate, 183 had been more of a thoroughfare, and that these towns had flourished then: intricate early twentieth century brick buildings, dance halls, and city markets surround town squares, each with its grand courthouse. But the courthouses are just museums or historical markers now.The windows of the beautiful old buildings are empty. Rust eats away at the water towers, the dance halls are dilapidated, the city markets deserted.

Between towns I traversed a vast, transient landscape. At first: cliffs and shear walls, abrupt hills, low scrubby vegetation. Then the trees get taller and fuller, the fields greener, hills more gradual, sloping; and it goes on like that for a time. Then it’s like someone just ironed everything out, perhaps a vacuum was also involved: hardly any trees, the dirt starts to turn red and the land lolls as if you’re driving up the belly of some drunken giant asleep and barley breathing. They call these the rolling planes of Texas.

This is the landscape behind the big-band country music of Bob wills, a musician claiming such disciples as Chuck Berry, Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, Willie Nelson and many others. Though Wills is on record claiming that he doesn’t want to take credit for swinging country music, he was one of the very first people to do so, and is thought of as the father of western swing. His influence on country music is so pervasive that it’s almost taken for granted by the general public. But every last Saturday in April, Turkey remembers Bob Wills.

I drove the final stretch toward Turkey under a bright sun the next morning. Farmers waved from the seats of their gigantic machines moving across the land like beetles. I cruised through the countryside for about forty-five minutes until I finally passed a sign. Turkey, Texas: Population 549.

Soon after I entered Turkey, I came to an open dirt lot filled with tents and RVs. I pulled up and parked my car on the outskirts of the site so I could get a feel for the scene as I walked to find some food. Everything centered around the old high school and the Bob Wills Museum (which severed likewise as the town’s medical facility, city hall, justice of the peace, public library, and senior citizens’ center.) A large stage had been built in the lot before you reached the high school, with bleachers in a half circle at the back, facing the stage. People were already staking out the best spots in front of the stage with lawn chairs.

I had expected middle-of-nowhere-craziness. This looked more like a county fair, except without the rides or con games.

But it was still early. I saw a few people walking around with cans of beer, which was encouraging. I walked to the barbecue table, threw down $7 for a plate, and sat a long picnic table between the museum and the old high school. I was hungrier than I thought. After I ate, I wandered through the museum until the fiddling competition.

By the end of the contest, the place had pretty much cleared out — the Remaining Playboys were setting up on the main stage outside, and everyone had hustled outside to get a good seat. The way the claps echoed in the nearly empty room depressed me.

Outside, the heat had picked up. The Remaining Playboys had assembled on stage along with other musicians, about fifteen people in all. Everyone sat in their lawn chairs or in the bleachers, drinking beer and listening to the music. The band played for a long time. Though they played well, the musicians were all like ninety years old, so the show lacked a certain vigor. After watching for more than an hour, I felt the urge to get up and walk around. So I stopped by the car, grabbed a Lone Star, and started walking.

I wandered out to Main Street and stopped by this little music exchange where they were selling records and CDs and American flags and Confederate flags and banjos and guitars and fiddles. The building looked like it was once an old filling station. I struck up a conversation with four guys sitting in the shade; they each had an instrument. They were all good and drunk, and every now and then they’d sloppily play an old country song.

As we talked, I noticed a droning sound coming from somewhere not too far off. When I asked them about it, they handed me a cold beer and told me to head a mile down Main Street. As I walked, the noise became louder, but I couldn’t see where it came from. I turned right onto a small, shady street no wider than an alley. The buzz became more intense, and then the alley opened onto a huge field where a lawnmower race raged, obscured by a furious dust. The people here were rougher, bigger, and drunker. They were all standing around the track, sweating and drinking beer in the dirty haze.

This was the most excitement I’d had all day. I watched grown, hulking men, many with dirt bike helmets, some with just plain football helmets (sans face-mask) and tinted goggles, muscle supped-up riding lawn mowers around a primitive dirt track. The competition was fierce. There were a few accidents and injuries. When they declared a winner, everyone applauded. That’s all anyone ever wanted from a lawnmower race, I thought as I stood there clapping: someone to applaud and for a few people to get hurt.

I walked back to my car, trying to decide if I should stay or just go back to Childress and get a room for the night. Everyone was going back to their RVs to cook dinner and clean up for the dance. It was still fairly early in the afternoon, and the dance wasn’t until 7pm. I reached in the car for another beer, but they were all hot. I grabbed a couple anyway and went looking for someone who looked like they might want to trade. Not far from the high school — just across the dirt road — was a house with a few kids my age sitting on the porch. It surprised me that I hadn’t noticed them before. I walked up and asked them if they’d trade a couple of warm beers for cold ones.

“Shit, yeah. Go on and sit down.”

I introduced myself to Fred, Lorrie, and Jackson. Lorrie and Jackson were married with a kid; Jackson and Fred worked for a concrete testing and geological drilling company in Wichita Falls. The house belonged to Dean and Rose, who arrived with several large, meat-lover pizzas. Dean and Rose owned two houses in Turkey, this one and one a few blocks away. This one was empty, and they were trying to sell it. Dean was a ranch hand, and Rose stayed at home with their kid. Everyone was extremely hospitable, pleased to meet a stranger. They even offered me some pizza. We all sat around, talking and joking, and eventually we got around to the subject of Bob Wills Day.

“I thought it would be more of a party,” I admitted. “I’d heard all kinds of stories about portable jails and fights and general craziness.”

“Well,” said Fred, “You’re a little late for that. There was a time when it was rowdy as hell out here. Just people really cutting loose. Then about ten years ago they filled in all the muddin’ holes. That used to be a big part of it — everyone muddin’ around in their big trucks and everything. Girls taking their tops off and everything. But even without the mud holes it was still nuts. They’d roll out horse trailers and throw drunks in there when they were unable to socialize properly. They wouldn’t take ’em to jail or anything, just leave ’em in there until they sobered up. Hell, Miss Texas used to come every year. Everyone would make a big to-do. Until this one year one Miss Texas got a little outta hand, got drunk, performed some indecency against a lamppost over by Sixth Street. And there’d be car wrecks sometimes where people’d get hurt. Once things like that start happening, the cops get to where they have to start cracking down and ruining things for everybody like they always do — makin’ sure the young folks don’t get outta hand. Now the younger crowd just don’t really come around no more. And of course the Rattlesnake Roundup goes on the same day a couple of towns over, and that takes some of the rowdier crowd.”

Soon Dean’s sister showed up with the kids. Lorie and Rose took off to the other house to put the kids to bed. Fred and Jackson and Dean and I sat around drinking beer and watching the sun go down. They told stories that they all knew and had heard over and over, but they told them to me like they were new. Eventually Dean offered that I stay the night at their place with everyone else — just sit around and drink with them for the rest of the night. That sounded fine to me. When they left to go to the other house I headed back to the high school gym for the Bob Wills Day dance.

At the gym, the men dressed in their best cowboy hats, boots, starched brush-poppers, and wranglers; the ladies wore floral summer dresses. I took a seat in the bleachers near a group of sullen, adolescent boys. Everyone was cutting the rug, two-stepping and having a good time. The boys and girls talked to one another tentatively, like they were a little afraid of each other, or danced awkwardly. The older folks slid and twirled across the silvered wood floor like it was ice.

When I’d had enough, I walked out into the night and headed toward Denver Street to meet up with everyone. They had long since put the kids to bed. They sat out back in the soft glow of the colored Christmas lights that lined the patio. I cracked a cold beer. We listened to Johnny Cash and talked about all the things that concerned us as young people trying to make our way. (Their concerns were more immediate and dire than my own because they had children.) Everything was mellow and nice. One by one, people went off to bed until only Jackson and I remained. Then he went to bed, too. I felt grateful to them for putting me up for the night; they were some of the friendliest people I’d met in a long time.

I sat out in the twinkling lights, thinking about Texas. About how myths get in the way when you think of Texas. About how some things most unique to Texas belong to tiny, fading towns you just drive straight through. About how much of what you find in the larger cities could be found anywhere. How you can’t locate a myth.

I’d driven a long way to see Bob Wills Day, expecting some honky-tonk bacchanalia. When I got there I saw that things were different. And at first I felt gypped. But sitting there on the back porch, in the breathing colored light, I wondered if I truly wanted to see what I’d come there to see. Or was Bob Wills Day better as I found it: so simple and decent?

I took a sip of Lone Star and decided it was.