October 7, 2025 • 34 mins
Season four opens with a road trip through the strange side of Texas—equal parts folklore, architecture, and outsized personality. We start where rumor meets headline.
If you love Texas history with edge, folklore with purpose, and characters who complicate the line between rumor and record, this one’s for you. Tap play, subscribe for part two of our Texas weird tour, and share your favorite legend or oddity with us—what story does your corner of Texas refuse to let go?
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
This podcast is not sponsored by us and does not
(00:02):
reflect the views of theinstitutions that employ us.
It's only our thoughts and ideasbased upon our professional
training and study of the past.
SPEAKER_01 (00:14):
Welcome to Talking Texas History, the podcast that
explores Texas history beforeand beyond the Alamo.
Not only will we talk Texashistory, we'll visit with folks
who teach it, write it, supportit, and with some who've made
it.
And of course, all of us wholive it and love it.
I'm Scott Susby.
And I'm Gene Price, and this isTalking Texas History.
(00:41):
Well, welcome to another editionof Talking Texas History.
I'm Gene Price.
SPEAKER_00 (00:45):
I'm Scott Selsby.
SPEAKER_01 (00:47):
Scott, did you know that this is our we're starting
year three, our third season?
SPEAKER_00 (00:53):
I didn't.
It didn't dawn on me until, youknow, just now that it is the
third season.
Well, that's longer than sometelevision series last.
I can't believe it.
Of course, you know, we tookabout a month off hiatus here.
So I guess what?
We were waiting to see whetherwe got canceled or something.
Someone we had to take some timeoff.
SPEAKER_01 (01:10):
Well, I mean, it's it's kind of an you know, this
is the the the this is for bothof us, right?
This is volunteer, this ispart-time that we do this for
fun.
You mean we're not getting paidfor this?
Uh don't try to cash any ofthose checks I sent you.
Well, we, you know, so and andwe teach.
(01:31):
Well, you were off doingresearch and writing.
Uh, and then I had I was just,you know, this semester
especially, yeah, uh, some of myclasses got shuffled around, and
so my schedule was off.
And so it's hard uh to kind ofschedule times um and to get a
(01:54):
working schedule.
Uh, you you were off and aboutand you know, doing things last
semester, and then uh I was thisthis year, this the beginning of
this year, my my schedule's justbeen crazy.
Our normal times I've got toteach when we normally record
it, and so it's just been hard.
SPEAKER_00 (02:13):
It sucks when you have to work.
I know.
I mean, if we could just nothave a job, right?
SPEAKER_01 (02:19):
I had a friend, one of my colleagues, uh, who used
to work his office next to mine.
He said that it he said he's healready had it planned out for
his next job.
I said, What's that?
He goes, he goes, I'm gonna be aphilanthropist.
You know, there's a prerequisitewith that.
SPEAKER_00 (02:38):
Good luck with that, dude.
Uh given what you do for aliving like we are.
We could be a philanthropist, wecould dole out 50 cents a week
uh to somebody, perhaps with norestrictions on that money.
You know, Gene, we werethinking, I suppose, you know,
one of these things we've got tocome up with with if we're gonna
do it ourselves, like today,we're not we don't have a guest,
folks, it's just us, and so wehave to come up with a topic.
(03:01):
And so we're thinking, and wecame up with what better topic?
Texas has a lot of weird thingsand a lot of weird people in it.
I mean, and the audience isgoing, yeah, I'm listening to
two weird people right now, butbesides what they do, yeah.
So we thought, why not talkabout weird uh things in Texas?
(03:24):
Uh and maybe we'll have enoughto talk about, you know, uh two
shows worth of weird people inTexas.
There's enough anyway, but let'sset through some restrictions to
some extent.
These are events, of course.
And if we're gonna talk aboutpeople, let's not talk about
weird people that are stillalive.
I don't think that would be agood thing, you know.
(03:44):
It wouldn't be good.
They may be and maybe listeningif we so you know.
So that means like GeorgeCooper, we won't be talking
about him uh uh on this uhthings.
In other words, we can't talkabout Matthew McConaughey.
He's a weird dude, but he'sstill alive, so we won't talk
about him or Woody Harrelson.
Or Woody Harrelson.
Well, Woody is actually not thatweird, his father was pretty
(04:05):
weird.
I guess we can talk about him uhat some way, but Woody might get
angry at uh you know what?
If I just found out Woody waslistening to this podcast, I'd
be happy, right?
That's right.
SPEAKER_01 (04:17):
If he actually heard it, when we get that cease to
desist order, we'd be happybecause he actually listened.
SPEAKER_00 (04:22):
We actually, I mean, I would say we actually piss
somebody off, but we probably dothat already.
It's uh time to where theylisten to this and go, I wasted
30 minutes of my life listeningto these guys.
SPEAKER_01 (04:34):
Uh well, we we make people angry, we don't even have
to have a podcast to do that.
SPEAKER_00 (04:38):
It's true.
I have they probably line up atmy door outside my office right
now wanting to do something.
So let's just start off and talkabout things that are weird.
And I thought something that'syou know, what's really weird,
you know, is a common Americanphenomenon.
Hell, it's probably a worldwidephenomenon when you think about
it, of weird creatures.
(05:00):
Every place seems to have theirlittle weird creature story that
takes off, you know, like theLoch Ness monster, right?
On on Loch Ness in Scotland,which I went to two years ago.
I didn't see Ness, so I'm not sosure.
SPEAKER_01 (05:15):
Did she make an appearance?
SPEAKER_00 (05:16):
She did not come up and make an appearance at all.
Uh the you know, the Bigfoot inthe Pacific Northwest and things
like this, the abominablesaltman, and we could go on.
Texas, although people saythey've also seen Bigfoot in
Texas, but maybe some of you mayhave heard of this, some of you
hadn't.
Uh, I remember when I was young,is when this got started, and I
(05:39):
remember hearing a lot about ituh when I was growing up in
Abilene.
The goat man of Lake Worth,Gene.
That's it's a moniker peoplehave for the Lake Worth monster.
Okay, Lake Worth, of course, BobFort Worth.
Uh it's uh the first knownsighting, I guess, of the goat
(06:00):
man was in 1969, uh, the springof 1969, right before the moon
landing, uh, as a matter offact.
And the and since then, he'sbeen reported many times in the
area and vicinity of Lake Worth.
Uh, the sightings rather thannow, Lake Worth's pretty built
up with houses now, so I thinkthat's why maybe there hadn't
(06:20):
been a lot of sightings of thegoat man lately.
SPEAKER_01 (06:23):
You get scared off.
SPEAKER_00 (06:24):
Yeah, he's decided, you know, there are enough weird
people living around Lake Worth,I'm just gonna leave on this.
But if you went into the firstdescriptions of the goat men of
Lake Worth, it was theydescribed him as a half man,
half goat.
I don't know what anybody wouldlook like if they were half man,
half goat.
And I always wondered is a tophalf man and the like a solder
(06:44):
and uh uh a shader and uh thebottom half goat, or is it the
other way around?
And how did you how did you pickgoat uh of what it looks like?
But they said the person wassounds a lot like Bigfoot, seven
foot tall, that he was verystrong.
Yeah, picking up heavy rocks andtrees and things like that, uh,
(07:04):
and that he threw a car tirewith one arm a great distance.
You know how heavy car tiresare, and and and from 69, 70,
71, you they saw goat men anumber of times on these initial
settings, but then it just kindof started fading away.
Although you can hit here,there's a famous little folk
song on the goat man of LakeWorth.
(07:25):
Uh media came out there andcovered it everywhere.
I don't know whether the goatmen of Lake Worth really exists.
Was it a hoax that somebodystarted?
I don't know.
Somebody have some people havesaid it was students in a
gorilla suit that were runningaround.
Listen, this was 1969.
There were a lot of substancesthat were making people maybe
(07:47):
put on a gorilla suit.
On the other hand, there are alot of substances going around
that might make you think yousaw a half man, half goat
running around by a lake on thattime.
Uh, some people said it's anescape circus ape uh that got
out, uh, or a genuine cryptid,you know, a half man, half uh
Simeon creature, which is, Iguess, been documented and
(08:08):
everything uh about that.
So when it first was reported,uh there was an event,
supposedly, that the creature, Iguess it's the thing, dude,
jumped into a car and left a biggash in the side.
I mean, I'm talking about when Isay jumped in, not inside, they
(08:30):
like leaped out and hit the sideof a car and it dented it in the
side on this.
And uh that started this bigmonster hunting fever.
And people would go out in biggroups to look for the monster,
and it became a thing almostlike a snipe hunt where big
groups of people went out,particularly at night, to look
for the goatman of Late Worth onthis.
(08:51):
By the time we get to the end ofthe mid-1970s, 75, 76, the
sightings of the goatmensubsided.
They didn't have hardly anymoreon this, and then finally, you
don't even hardly sit hearanything about the goatman
anymore.
But I think that's a it evensomebody wrote a book on it uh
on the goatman.
I think that's yeah, yeah.
(09:12):
And it was even a a a Lake Worthmonster bash that at the Fort
Ward Nature Center and refugethat people had where they would
dress up like the goat man of uhof Lake Worth and come out and
have dancing contests, and so itbecame almost a cultural
phenomenon.
Obviously, again, I don't knowwhether the goat man exists, but
(09:33):
it's a it's a good story, it's aweird Texas story.
SPEAKER_01 (09:38):
That you know, I've never heard of that, and that is
a weird Texas story.
I mean, so my question when I'msitting there thinking about a
goat man, half man, half goat.
First of all, that's a mightybig goat, seven foot tall.
SPEAKER_00 (09:51):
It is a mighty big goat.
SPEAKER_01 (09:54):
Second of all, um, second of all, how does a goat
with a cloven hoof or a man witha goat leg pick up a tire?
Wouldn't you need and and flingit?
That's that would be hard to do.
Seems like you need an opposingthumb for that.
SPEAKER_00 (10:12):
I would think so.
And I don't know, does a goathave an opposing thumb?
It's just got two cloven hooves.
But maybe that's the half that'sa man and the bottom half is a
goat.
I I don't know.
SPEAKER_01 (10:23):
That's good thinking.
That's good thinking, stuff.
Yeah, I hadn't, I hadn't, Ihadn't really put two and two
together like that.
There's a book on this, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (10:35):
I don't remember the name of it, but it's a it's a
book uh on uh uh on it.
It's uh, you know, I guess Ishould read it.
unknown (10:43):
I don't know.
SPEAKER_01 (10:45):
Sounds like one of those uh you know, Texas
folklore stories.
SPEAKER_00 (10:52):
That's true, or maybe the Texas Folklore Society
talked to Christina Downs, sayshe needs to put together a uh a
book of Texas weird tales.
You know, there was a book onetime called Texas Weird, which
brings me to another weird thingthat you probably know about,
but we hadn't thought about, butI would say weird, because we
both did time in Lovebook, whichmaybe that's an appropriate
thing to say you did time inLovebook, right?
(11:15):
You remember the steel house outat Ransom Canyon?
I did love like Ransom Canyonout there.
Now that's a weird thing.
That was you know, Robert Brunouh was the was the uh artist
that was building that that thatstructure as his house, uh piece
by piece, uh in the in this theRobert Bruno house.
(11:38):
It'd been out there for, I mean,I remember it.
40 years, right?
Yeah, I remember being out therein the 80s uh when he first
started building it.
It's still out there, it's uhright on the highest point to
some extent of Branson Canyon uhout there.
And it's really, I don't know,strange looking.
I think it I don't know, almostlike it looks like a big pig or
(12:00):
something.
Uh but Bruno was Bruno came toTexas and sometime in the early
70s.
He's from California, uh,because he was teaching
architecture at Texas Tech.
Uh and he didn't, and he startedhe started this thing, as I
understand it, as a sculpture,and it just blossomed into
(12:20):
something else uh at that time.
Um and uh uh he had and he hadcome in uh to and it just it it
it took him over a deck morethan over a decade, 20, 20
something years to build thedang thing.
I wish this was visual so wecould see it.
If you've seen it, it's thismassive, what would you I would
(12:40):
call it angle?
It looked like a spaceship tome.
I was so more are you know whatit always I thought it was, it
looked like I said, oh that'swhat this person is doing.
What are they what do they callthose walking things in Star
Wars that walk on those uh atwalkers?
Yeah, I mean that's what itlooked like to me, like it was
one of those things.
I always thought, oh, is thisdude building one of these types
(13:02):
of things?
Uh but the twist on it is thatto me is that he died.
I think Bruno died in 2008 orsomething like that, and his
daughter put it up for sale for1.75 million dollars.
SPEAKER_01 (13:19):
No, I remember that.
I remember seeing that news.
SPEAKER_00 (13:22):
Uh I don't believe she ever, and I know she didn't
ever sell it for that.
I know she raised the price, butyou know what now you can do?
You can rent that thing as anAirbnb in in Lubbock and stay in
it uh as an Airbnb.
SPEAKER_01 (13:41):
Well, it's you know, here's the thing it's a steel
house in Ransom Canyon.
Now, it floods in Ransom Canyonevery once in a while, right?
I think Paul Carlson lives outin that area and he says that
they've had floods out there uhbecause it is a canyon, of
course.
Uh and you know, they get twoinches of rain in Lubbock, and
(14:02):
you know, people are heading forthe hills, but it's on a hill.
It's on a it's on a I guess abluff or something.
Oh yeah, it's the highest point,it's way up.
And then but but it's on stilts.
I mean, it's it's it's so it'snot gonna, it's never gonna
flood, right?
Unless you get, you know, Noah'sflood.
It's not gonna flood.
And also, it's a steel house.
(14:24):
So I would think it's tornadoproof, and they do get tornadoes
out there.
SPEAKER_00 (14:29):
Well, it seemed like it would be to me, wouldn't it?
SPEAKER_01 (14:31):
Yeah.
I mean, I think, I think it's uhit's an interesting, I mean it,
it's I I don't I don't would Iwould you would you call it
pretty?
It's striking.
SPEAKER_00 (14:43):
It's stark.
I mean it's yeah almostminimalist, right?
SPEAKER_01 (14:47):
Yeah, yeah.
I can see that, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (14:50):
But I just looked it up pretty good.
You can rent it and love them.
In fact, it's available uh in uhlate October.
Tech has a home game.
If we want to go up there andwatch a game and rent the
steelhouse,$633 a night.
$633 a night for that thing.
SPEAKER_01 (15:08):
I might just stay at the Overton.
SPEAKER_00 (15:11):
You'd probably be better off.
You would wouldn't be walking toa tech ganking steelhouse
anyway.
Yeah.
Uh well, that's a weird thingthat somebody would come up
with.
SPEAKER_01 (15:20):
That is that that's a good one, Scott.
I I like that.
SPEAKER_00 (15:24):
Well, another one that I'm thinking of uh is uh
probably this come around, uhand like a a lot of weird things
in Texas, and a lot of things inTexas, of course, it comes
through Mexican legends andMexican stories, and well, Texas
being a borderland and thingslike that.
(15:45):
But uh, and most of the time youhear about this woman is in the
San Antonio area, La Lauronia orthe Weeping Woman.
Uh La Lorona, yeah.
You want to do that?
SPEAKER_01 (15:55):
It's uh La Llorona.
SPEAKER_00 (15:57):
Yeah, La Llorona.
You know, my Spanish is prettybad.
Uh it is a spectral, a ghost.
It's a ghost story that she uhit comes through uh Latino uh
Mexican-American folklore, uh,is what it's evolved through.
(16:17):
And it's near water, if you seeher near water all the time,
because supposedly uh whathappened is her husband cheated
on her.
Her husband was with anotherwoman, and she found out, and
she was madly jealous, uh, anduh she ran out into the water
(16:38):
and drowned herself.
And then, but then what shecomes back uh while while the
weeping woman comes back is nowit's because she's crying for
her children, and she misses herchildren uh to have.
And so she's comes out of thewaters this spectral vision, and
she's wailing and weeping,wanting to see her lost.
(16:59):
She doesn't care about herhusband, uh, right?
You know, she's all he's offwith the other man, but she's
actually weeping for herchildren.
And it comes from Mexicanfolklore, uh northern Mexican
folklore, uh, that came throughthrough, you know, always
spreads through oral traditionto some extent.
Uh, and it's it's a tale thatthese Mexican moms and dads told
(17:23):
their children.
Uh and it was the main point asI understand it from things
Mexican folklore is don't gonear the water.
SPEAKER_01 (17:32):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (17:32):
It's a dangerous place.
And here's why the weeping womanmight get you, you know, uh on
this.
And that's why they told thatstory.
But it's become this folklorethat gets that uh actually gets
spread and everything uh inTexas, South Texas,
particularly, and in the areaaround San Antonio, it's become
a fertile place part.
SPEAKER_01 (17:50):
So so I heard about this, and you know, I you know
grew up not far from San Antonioand Sagine in that area.
Now, there's actually a womanhollering creek in Texas down uh
That's right.
It's between Segine and St.
Outside a little communitycalled St.
Hedwig.
Uh it's just off Interstate 10,not too far.
(18:10):
And in fact, if you're onInterstate 10, you drive by,
you'll you'll see it um betweenSeguin and and uh San Antonio.
And uh so here's the version ofthe story.
I and I guess you know, withwith any kind of folklore you're
gonna grow up, but but I thinkyou're right in your analysis
that it is about telling kidsstay away from the water because
(18:31):
water is dangerous, especiallythe little kid, you go over
there and you know fall in andnobody's around it.
So it was just it was verysimilar to yours, and it was
just that uh her kids had beendrowned, or had her kids had
been playing by the water anddrowned, and so she was crying
and is weeping and is destinedfor all eternity to haunt the
(18:52):
river looking for her children.
So in this version, it was abouther children, not just about her
husband.
But that's I like I like yourversion that that you know
that's for many uh and a lot ofit, I think, evolved too.
SPEAKER_00 (19:05):
But there, you know, she's like the boogeyman.
Right.
Just telling their children, youknow, if you if you misbehave,
if you don't listen to your momand dad, right, uh La Yorona is
gonna come get you, you know,and and she'll drag you into the
water and uh with you.
So it becomes this wholecultural significance of uh uh
of this warning part to the andI guess some people have
(19:26):
suggested, I remember readingthis one time, that it's a
metaphor, uh, she's a metaphorfor the hardships and the loss
during the Spanish conquest ofMexico because it's supposedly
if you go back into its earliestforms, she was an Aztec goddess
that was then wailing because ofthe loss of the Aztec kingdom uh
(19:50):
to the Spanish and things.
So so it takes on a lot ofthings, like so many of those
tales with the boogeyman, ittakes on many different forms
that you have, and of course,Texas puts it, you know, puts it
on in uh in many differentforms.
And uh so it's the it's one ofthose uniquely, I guess it's a
uniquely borderland thing, Iguess is the best way to put it.
SPEAKER_01 (20:11):
Well, well, okay, so we're historians, and we come
across these stories andlegends, and sometimes you know,
we we write about them or talkabout them, but who is it that
would really study the somebodyin English, in in folklore?
Uh is that anthropology,sociology?
I mean, which discipline umwould talk about I don't know,
(20:35):
that's a good question.
SPEAKER_00 (20:36):
I would I would assume first off, there's a lot
of folklore aspects of that.
Yeah, so maybe in the Englishdiscipline, the studying of
folklore, and folklore oftenserves as these cultural
warnings to a society, you know,and so I think that falls into
something like that.
SPEAKER_01 (20:52):
Uh well, you know, you look at Grimm's fairy tales,
right?
And and you know, was it back attech that somebody was doing
some work on Grimm?
And we have a professor here atUH Downtown who has her students
in the Honor Society do work onfolktales.
And they do look for what is thedeeper meaning?
Why do these stories persist andand sometimes morph and change
(21:15):
and adapt?
I mean, certainly anymore.
If it's a story of a whalingAztec princess, that may not
resonate with today's listeners,with children today.
But if you change that, if youadapt it, don't go near the
water, right?
It's a different message, butyou're using the same.
(21:35):
You know, we could do a wholepodcast on this.
SPEAKER_00 (21:38):
Yeah, that's right.
We could, couldn't we?
We don't know just on each oneof them.
Yeah, we don't have a clue.
You know, we used to have that.
I was growing up my son Angela.
We went to this, we called theplace Little Africa.
I don't know why it got passeddown.
It was this, what it was wasthis wild kind of place under
this bridge abutment uh that wasby the Concho River.
(22:01):
And people had gone and we rodeour bicycles because it had
mogels and things you could goon there and little trails that
went through it.
And for us little kids, youknow, when we're nine, 10, 11
years old, we're like, oh man,this is this is wild stuff here.
We're in uh on a safari.
But you know, it really wasn'tthat much.
But became sort of like theweeping woman, this tail, well,
(22:23):
there's a creature down there.
If you don't, if you go at thewrong times, it'll come up out
of the river and grab you uh andpull you down into the river.
Um so you know, that you know,and that's probably you know, it
probably had the same type oforigins.
And I think that's a lot of thisdoes come from the culture, and
because it, you know, in the oldculture, for example, the next
one that we'll not bring up thateverybody's heard of, the
(22:46):
chupacabra.
You know, that legendarycreature that nobody can
actually tell you, and itoriginates in Latin American
folklore, that's where thechupacabra originated, but you
hear it most often out in Texas,in that South Texas region,
right?
SPEAKER_01 (23:00):
The goat sucker.
SPEAKER_00 (23:02):
Yeah, and nobody could ever really, every time
you heard about the chupacabra,it was different.
What was it?
I mean, some people uh said itwas reptilian, right?
Or bat-like, or almost like adog, like a rabid dog that
didn't have skin on it, and evensome oh, this is an alien
(23:22):
creature from outer space thatcomes around.
But the chupacabra goat andsucked the blood out of stock
animals.
SPEAKER_01 (23:31):
It's like a vampire in many respects, right?
SPEAKER_00 (23:34):
Yeah, that did this, and uh you know, it could be one
of those things that it wasactual grew out of an actual
vent.
It could have been a rabidcoyote or something, somebody
saw attack something one time,but it it it it it developed
into this this this almost uheerie being that as a creature
(23:56):
that no one could understandthat you know roam the wilds of
South Texas brush country.
And you don't want to encounterthe chupacabra, you know.
SPEAKER_01 (24:07):
Well, there have been times throughout, I mean,
in recent times, I don't know, Idon't know, I wouldn't say you
know, at least into the 80s whenI was in high school, every once
in a while you hear somebodysay, Well, they they caught a
picture, they they got apicture, or they caught a
chupacabra, or they shot one.
And nine times out of ten, itdoes turn out to be like a dog
(24:29):
with mange or maybe a coyotewith mange.
Yeah.
Um, but I think you're right,but you're right.
There have been other um otherdescriptions of the feared
chupacabra.
Now, is that another one ofthese metaphors for or warnings
for don't go out into the brush,don't go out into the wilderness
(24:50):
because you never know whenyou're gonna see the chupacabra?
SPEAKER_00 (24:55):
I would think so.
Don't you think that's I mean,it's just the thing.
That's that's a warning to kids.
Don't go out by yourself atnight because the chupacabra is
never seen during the day.
Only at night.
Good point, good point.
Only at night do you ever see achupacabra, and you know, it's
always has to have somethingthat's sinister.
I mean, you know, you suck theblood.
What is more diabolical thansomething that'll suck the blood
out of you?
SPEAKER_01 (25:16):
Right, just attack you, and you know, there you are
minding your own business,eating some grass, and something
jumps.
SPEAKER_00 (25:25):
All of a sudden the chupacabra jumps out and sucks
all the blood out of you.
I mean, I know it's terrible.
No, I guess it does.
I'm thinking again when I was akid in San Angelo, we had this
urban legend that and you knowticks are almost these sinister
creatures.
You don't want to get a tick.
But this was about our our ourdogs.
It was a story that spread.
(25:46):
It wasn't true.
Nobody could actually find thehouse and the dog because it's
happened.
But supposedly, somebody hadleft their little dochin outside
and they'd forgotten about itand left it out too long, and
ticks came all over it, and itwas sucked flat.
There was nothing left of thedochin.
Just ticks had eaten and suckedall the blood out of it.
(26:07):
Well, and kids told that storyall up and down the block about
that happened.
And I guess the same thinghappens with the Chupa Cobra,
that you just hear so much, andthat begins to, you know,
resonate.
And people tell these stories ofthe macabre uh and things like
that.
I it it's it's a it's a strangephenomenon.
Again, we probably have to ask auh I was gonna say a
(26:28):
sociologist, but hell, we mighthave to ask a psychologist about
why things like this happen andspread uh to do this.
SPEAKER_01 (26:36):
Well, I I don't think that would be the first
time anybody suggested that wesee a psychologist.
SPEAKER_00 (26:43):
No, it would definitely uh not uh be the
first time that anybody uh uh uhwould suggest either of us
should see a mental healthprofessional.
In fact, I think it's not thefirst time today since somebody
uh has ever done that.
Well, I bring when we brought upcreatures, but let's think about
(27:04):
people, weird people.
SPEAKER_01 (27:07):
Well, now you're gonna start getting into people
we know, and that is gonna be.
SPEAKER_00 (27:10):
Well, that's true.
We're gonna leave.
Well, again, well, we said, youknow, nobody's still alive.
So that means Ty Cash and safefrom this, uh right?
Uh Ty Cash and George Cooper andyeah, they're they're safe from
this.
SPEAKER_01 (27:22):
My one of you.
SPEAKER_00 (27:24):
Well, yeah.
Howard Hughes, Gene.
Howard Hughes.
I remember the only time I didit, one time I came to Houston,
and you went and showed meHoward Hughes' grave.
I'd never seen it before.
Yeah.
Uh we went to the deal, butHoward Hughes, at one time, the
richest man in the world, he wasa weird dude.
So a real weird dude.
SPEAKER_01 (27:42):
Well, and you know, talking about mental health
professionals, I mean, I thinktoday, um, and and I've heard, I
don't know, I don't know, youknow, he died.
When did he die in the 80s?
SPEAKER_00 (27:53):
No, 70s.
76, I'm betting, I think.
Something like that.
Probably in 76, spring of 76.
SPEAKER_01 (28:01):
Yeah.
I I remember when when ithappened, um, yeah, April, April
of 76.
SPEAKER_00 (28:07):
Oh, there we go.
SPEAKER_01 (28:08):
When it happened, you know, it was big news.
My parents were like, you know,it was like it was a celebrity
dying, right?
And I was like, Well, who'sthis?
Yeah.
And you, it was, you know,somebody you'd heard about, but
you know, the Hughes house isstill, it's uh our friend
Benedict Wynne, right?
Uh the uh Dean and uh Dean ofStudents over at uh St.
(28:30):
Thomas.
Uh the Howard Hughes house is onon the on the St.
Thomas campus is used as uhwhere he grew up.
Um and you know, as you said,you know, his his uh his burial
plot is is over here big.
It's big, it's nice.
Uh and and people go there andit's an attraction, and they
(28:52):
have to have security uhmeasures over there, otherwise
people will like jump over andgo into it and whatnot.
But you know, uh and you know,there's a lot of history around
Howard Hughes because he builtairplanes, right?
SPEAKER_00 (29:08):
The spring stuff started a uh started a Hollywood
studio, Hollywood movie, yeah.
You know, and was for a longtime the richest man in the
world.
SPEAKER_01 (29:19):
Yeah.
And for the uh, you know, andand probably uh from what I
understand, uh what got him inthe end was uh his was maybe uh
a venereal disease.
Uh yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (29:34):
I mean, there was no doubt, I mean, I don't know, you
know, I don't know if we diedenough, that he was, I mean, the
thing that made him weird, hehad severe obsessive compulsive
disorder.
I mean, he just, you know, heand it became him, he was this,
he he was afraid of germs, hewas a germophobe.
I mean, the whole, I guess the Idon't know if it's urban myth,
he died when he died, and hedied in Mexico.
(29:55):
He was, you know, living down inMexico uh when he died.
Uh That he had Kleenex boxes forshoes and shovels, old tattered
robe, with hair that was downto, you know, almost to his
waist and fingernails that were,you know, seven inches long
because he's afraid to cut offand things like that.
I I don't know.
(30:15):
I've never heard it said if thatwas actually true, if anybody
actually verified that that wasthe case.
I know they died on the way backto Houston, uh, that he had been
sick and probably of heartfailure, and they were flying
him back to Houston, and he, Iguess, to some extent died in
the air before he could get backto Houston.
(30:35):
But even after he died, itcreated this, there became the
weird story about the guy uh inUtah that had given him a ride
one time.
Uh picked him up in the desertand uh gave him a ride to uh Las
Vegas as a hitchhiker.
And then years later, when hedied, this guy, Melvin, was
(30:58):
mentioned and Howard Houston hadleft him all of his money and
everything.
And he produced a will aboutthat.
It was a movie called Melvin andHoward.
Start uh Paul Paul, I can'tremember the guy's name.
Paul that he was in uh Americangraffiti, he was the guy who
played the guy that drove thecar around.
(31:18):
Uh and Jason Robards played uhHoward Hughes uh in that movie,
Melvin and Howard, uh, aboutthat.
But I mean, Howard Hughes, forall of his eccentricities that
he was, and of course, LeonardoDiCaprio did a great movie about
even the aviator.
But for all of those weirdnessthat he had, think of the things
(31:39):
that Howard Hughes accomplished.
And besides the studio, started,you know, he owned Trans World
Airlines, started an airline,uh, took Hughes tool company to
heights he'd never seen before,uh, basically started corporate
Las Vegas uh when he bought theDesert Inn.
Uh that's always a great storyabout a weird guy.
He'd gone to Las Vegas and he'salready developing this terrible
(32:02):
uh obsessive compulsivedisorder.
And so he rented the entire topfloor of penthouse suites of the
Desert Inn that they reservedfor their high rollers.
Well, he rented the whole thingand had been there for months.
And the owner uh of the DesertInn, Mo Dallets, who was with
the mob, basically went to uhHoward Hughes' people because he
(32:22):
didn't see anybody and said, Yougotta leave.
I need that for my uh uh highrollers.
You can't stay up here forever.
And so Howard Houston says, I'mgonna leave, I'll just buy the
hotel, and supposedly gave uh anumber, and Moe Dalits could not
turn down.
And so he bought the desert in.
And that started his big landaqua district.
(32:43):
His company still owns more landin Las Vegas than any other
company got.
Wow, yeah, you know, a lot ofthe land that a lot of those big
resorts on the strip uh set on,they're just leasing it from I
can't even from how the HowardHughes company, uh that they do
that they've sold all this land.
(33:04):
So I mean you can be weird andbe rich.
So there's there's well hell,that means there's there's a
chance for us, right?
SPEAKER_01 (33:13):
Well, yeah, we just have to be the rich part.
SPEAKER_00 (33:16):
No, no, that's the problem.
We we got the weird part, Dan.
We just gotta find the rich partto do that.
And considering what we do forliving, I don't think we're ever
gonna be rich.
And neither one of us havechildren, so our children are
not gonna be rich.
I guess we've got to count onour nieces and nephews uh to
actually make something so maybewe might get rich.
SPEAKER_01 (33:35):
I'm gonna tell them to start getting to work on that
right now.
SPEAKER_00 (33:38):
That's I think that's a good idea.
Oh, so I think we'veestablished, Gene, we could make
another whole show about weirdTexas things, right?
SPEAKER_01 (33:46):
Well, the more you the more we went on, I started
jotting down some notes.
I and I think there, I think wecan do another show about this.
SPEAKER_00 (33:53):
I think so.
So there you go, folks.
Another two-parter.
You know, two partners happenfor us because we don't shut up
and we don't stay on topic, andwe don't finish everything we
were gonna finish.
So because we haven't talked,for example, we haven't talked
about the Marco lines.
SPEAKER_01 (34:07):
We haven't.
SPEAKER_00 (34:08):
Our time is drawing to an end, and we hadn't talked
about the Marvel lines.
Well, we've got more to cover.
We do.
So there you go, folks.
Prepare for the next time we'regonna have to.
SPEAKER_01 (34:18):
So we start season three.
SPEAKER_00 (34:20):
Yeah, with weird stories.
SPEAKER_01 (34:22):
Weird stories, weirder than normal.
SPEAKER_00 (34:25):
All right, Gene.
Good show, right?
SPEAKER_01 (34:27):
All right, we'll talk to you soon.
Thank you everybody forlistening.
SPEAKER_00 (34:30):
Thank you.
This podcast is not sponsored by us and does not
(00:02):
reflect the views of theinstitutions that employ us.
It's only our thoughts and ideasbased upon our professional
training and study of the past.
SPEAKER_01 (00:14):
Welcome to Talking Texas History, the podcast that
explores Texas history beforeand beyond the Alamo.
Not only will we talk Texashistory, we'll visit with folks
who teach it, write it, supportit, and with some who've made
it.
And of course, all of us wholive it and love it.
I'm Scott Susby.
And I'm Gene Price, and this isTalking Texas History.
(00:41):
Well, welcome to another editionof Talking Texas History.
I'm Gene Price.
SPEAKER_00 (00:45):
I'm Scott Selsby.
SPEAKER_01 (00:47):
Scott, did you know that this is our we're starting
year three, our third season?
SPEAKER_00 (00:53):
I didn't.
It didn't dawn on me until, youknow, just now that it is the
third season.
Well, that's longer than sometelevision series last.
I can't believe it.
Of course, you know, we tookabout a month off hiatus here.
So I guess what?
We were waiting to see whetherwe got canceled or something.
Someone we had to take some timeoff.
SPEAKER_01 (01:10):
Well, I mean, it's it's kind of an you know, this
is the the the this is for bothof us, right?
This is volunteer, this ispart-time that we do this for
fun.
You mean we're not getting paidfor this?
Uh don't try to cash any ofthose checks I sent you.
Well, we, you know, so and andwe teach.
(01:31):
Well, you were off doingresearch and writing.
Uh, and then I had I was just,you know, this semester
especially, yeah, uh, some of myclasses got shuffled around, and
so my schedule was off.
And so it's hard uh to kind ofschedule times um and to get a
(01:54):
working schedule.
Uh, you you were off and aboutand you know, doing things last
semester, and then uh I was thisthis year, this the beginning of
this year, my my schedule's justbeen crazy.
Our normal times I've got toteach when we normally record
it, and so it's just been hard.
SPEAKER_00 (02:13):
It sucks when you have to work.
I know.
I mean, if we could just nothave a job, right?
SPEAKER_01 (02:19):
I had a friend, one of my colleagues, uh, who used
to work his office next to mine.
He said that it he said he's healready had it planned out for
his next job.
I said, What's that?
He goes, he goes, I'm gonna be aphilanthropist.
You know, there's a prerequisitewith that.
SPEAKER_00 (02:38):
Good luck with that, dude.
Uh given what you do for aliving like we are.
We could be a philanthropist, wecould dole out 50 cents a week
uh to somebody, perhaps with norestrictions on that money.
You know, Gene, we werethinking, I suppose, you know,
one of these things we've got tocome up with with if we're gonna
do it ourselves, like today,we're not we don't have a guest,
folks, it's just us, and so wehave to come up with a topic.
(03:01):
And so we're thinking, and wecame up with what better topic?
Texas has a lot of weird thingsand a lot of weird people in it.
I mean, and the audience isgoing, yeah, I'm listening to
two weird people right now, butbesides what they do, yeah.
So we thought, why not talkabout weird uh things in Texas?
(03:24):
Uh and maybe we'll have enoughto talk about, you know, uh two
shows worth of weird people inTexas.
There's enough anyway, but let'sset through some restrictions to
some extent.
These are events, of course.
And if we're gonna talk aboutpeople, let's not talk about
weird people that are stillalive.
I don't think that would be agood thing, you know.
(03:44):
It wouldn't be good.
They may be and maybe listeningif we so you know.
So that means like GeorgeCooper, we won't be talking
about him uh uh on this uhthings.
In other words, we can't talkabout Matthew McConaughey.
He's a weird dude, but he'sstill alive, so we won't talk
about him or Woody Harrelson.
Or Woody Harrelson.
Well, Woody is actually not thatweird, his father was pretty
(04:05):
weird.
I guess we can talk about him uhat some way, but Woody might get
angry at uh you know what?
If I just found out Woody waslistening to this podcast, I'd
be happy, right?
That's right.
SPEAKER_01 (04:17):
If he actually heard it, when we get that cease to
desist order, we'd be happybecause he actually listened.
SPEAKER_00 (04:22):
We actually, I mean, I would say we actually piss
somebody off, but we probably dothat already.
It's uh time to where theylisten to this and go, I wasted
30 minutes of my life listeningto these guys.
SPEAKER_01 (04:34):
Uh well, we we make people angry, we don't even have
to have a podcast to do that.
SPEAKER_00 (04:38):
It's true.
I have they probably line up atmy door outside my office right
now wanting to do something.
So let's just start off and talkabout things that are weird.
And I thought something that'syou know, what's really weird,
you know, is a common Americanphenomenon.
Hell, it's probably a worldwidephenomenon when you think about
it, of weird creatures.
(05:00):
Every place seems to have theirlittle weird creature story that
takes off, you know, like theLoch Ness monster, right?
On on Loch Ness in Scotland,which I went to two years ago.
I didn't see Ness, so I'm not sosure.
SPEAKER_01 (05:15):
Did she make an appearance?
SPEAKER_00 (05:16):
She did not come up and make an appearance at all.
Uh the you know, the Bigfoot inthe Pacific Northwest and things
like this, the abominablesaltman, and we could go on.
Texas, although people saythey've also seen Bigfoot in
Texas, but maybe some of you mayhave heard of this, some of you
hadn't.
Uh, I remember when I was young,is when this got started, and I
(05:39):
remember hearing a lot about ituh when I was growing up in
Abilene.
The goat man of Lake Worth,Gene.
That's it's a moniker peoplehave for the Lake Worth monster.
Okay, Lake Worth, of course, BobFort Worth.
Uh it's uh the first knownsighting, I guess, of the goat
(06:00):
man was in 1969, uh, the springof 1969, right before the moon
landing, uh, as a matter offact.
And the and since then, he'sbeen reported many times in the
area and vicinity of Lake Worth.
Uh, the sightings rather thannow, Lake Worth's pretty built
up with houses now, so I thinkthat's why maybe there hadn't
(06:20):
been a lot of sightings of thegoat man lately.
SPEAKER_01 (06:23):
You get scared off.
SPEAKER_00 (06:24):
Yeah, he's decided, you know, there are enough weird
people living around Lake Worth,I'm just gonna leave on this.
But if you went into the firstdescriptions of the goat men of
Lake Worth, it was theydescribed him as a half man,
half goat.
I don't know what anybody wouldlook like if they were half man,
half goat.
And I always wondered is a tophalf man and the like a solder
(06:44):
and uh uh a shader and uh thebottom half goat, or is it the
other way around?
And how did you how did you pickgoat uh of what it looks like?
But they said the person wassounds a lot like Bigfoot, seven
foot tall, that he was verystrong.
Yeah, picking up heavy rocks andtrees and things like that, uh,
(07:04):
and that he threw a car tirewith one arm a great distance.
You know how heavy car tiresare, and and and from 69, 70,
71, you they saw goat men anumber of times on these initial
settings, but then it just kindof started fading away.
Although you can hit here,there's a famous little folk
song on the goat man of LakeWorth.
(07:25):
Uh media came out there andcovered it everywhere.
I don't know whether the goatmen of Lake Worth really exists.
Was it a hoax that somebodystarted?
I don't know.
Somebody have some people havesaid it was students in a
gorilla suit that were runningaround.
Listen, this was 1969.
There were a lot of substancesthat were making people maybe
(07:47):
put on a gorilla suit.
On the other hand, there are alot of substances going around
that might make you think yousaw a half man, half goat
running around by a lake on thattime.
Uh, some people said it's anescape circus ape uh that got
out, uh, or a genuine cryptid,you know, a half man, half uh
Simeon creature, which is, Iguess, been documented and
(08:08):
everything uh about that.
So when it first was reported,uh there was an event,
supposedly, that the creature, Iguess it's the thing, dude,
jumped into a car and left a biggash in the side.
I mean, I'm talking about when Isay jumped in, not inside, they
(08:30):
like leaped out and hit the sideof a car and it dented it in the
side on this.
And uh that started this bigmonster hunting fever.
And people would go out in biggroups to look for the monster,
and it became a thing almostlike a snipe hunt where big
groups of people went out,particularly at night, to look
for the goatman of Late Worth onthis.
(08:51):
By the time we get to the end ofthe mid-1970s, 75, 76, the
sightings of the goatmensubsided.
They didn't have hardly anymoreon this, and then finally, you
don't even hardly sit hearanything about the goatman
anymore.
But I think that's a it evensomebody wrote a book on it uh
on the goatman.
I think that's yeah, yeah.
(09:12):
And it was even a a a Lake Worthmonster bash that at the Fort
Ward Nature Center and refugethat people had where they would
dress up like the goat man of uhof Lake Worth and come out and
have dancing contests, and so itbecame almost a cultural
phenomenon.
Obviously, again, I don't knowwhether the goat man exists, but
(09:33):
it's a it's a good story, it's aweird Texas story.
SPEAKER_01 (09:38):
That you know, I've never heard of that, and that is
a weird Texas story.
I mean, so my question when I'msitting there thinking about a
goat man, half man, half goat.
First of all, that's a mightybig goat, seven foot tall.
SPEAKER_00 (09:51):
It is a mighty big goat.
SPEAKER_01 (09:54):
Second of all, um, second of all, how does a goat
with a cloven hoof or a man witha goat leg pick up a tire?
Wouldn't you need and and flingit?
That's that would be hard to do.
Seems like you need an opposingthumb for that.
SPEAKER_00 (10:12):
I would think so.
And I don't know, does a goathave an opposing thumb?
It's just got two cloven hooves.
But maybe that's the half that'sa man and the bottom half is a
goat.
I I don't know.
SPEAKER_01 (10:23):
That's good thinking.
That's good thinking, stuff.
Yeah, I hadn't, I hadn't, Ihadn't really put two and two
together like that.
There's a book on this, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (10:35):
I don't remember the name of it, but it's a it's a
book uh on uh uh on it.
It's uh, you know, I guess Ishould read it.
unknown (10:43):
I don't know.
SPEAKER_01 (10:45):
Sounds like one of those uh you know, Texas
folklore stories.
SPEAKER_00 (10:52):
That's true, or maybe the Texas Folklore Society
talked to Christina Downs, sayshe needs to put together a uh a
book of Texas weird tales.
You know, there was a book onetime called Texas Weird, which
brings me to another weird thingthat you probably know about,
but we hadn't thought about, butI would say weird, because we
both did time in Lovebook, whichmaybe that's an appropriate
thing to say you did time inLovebook, right?
(11:15):
You remember the steel house outat Ransom Canyon?
I did love like Ransom Canyonout there.
Now that's a weird thing.
That was you know, Robert Brunouh was the was the uh artist
that was building that that thatstructure as his house, uh piece
by piece, uh in the in this theRobert Bruno house.
(11:38):
It'd been out there for, I mean,I remember it.
40 years, right?
Yeah, I remember being out therein the 80s uh when he first
started building it.
It's still out there, it's uhright on the highest point to
some extent of Branson Canyon uhout there.
And it's really, I don't know,strange looking.
I think it I don't know, almostlike it looks like a big pig or
(12:00):
something.
Uh but Bruno was Bruno came toTexas and sometime in the early
70s.
He's from California, uh,because he was teaching
architecture at Texas Tech.
Uh and he didn't, and he startedhe started this thing, as I
understand it, as a sculpture,and it just blossomed into
(12:20):
something else uh at that time.
Um and uh uh he had and he hadcome in uh to and it just it it
it took him over a deck morethan over a decade, 20, 20
something years to build thedang thing.
I wish this was visual so wecould see it.
If you've seen it, it's thismassive, what would you I would
(12:40):
call it angle?
It looked like a spaceship tome.
I was so more are you know whatit always I thought it was, it
looked like I said, oh that'swhat this person is doing.
What are they what do they callthose walking things in Star
Wars that walk on those uh atwalkers?
Yeah, I mean that's what itlooked like to me, like it was
one of those things.
I always thought, oh, is thisdude building one of these types
(13:02):
of things?
Uh but the twist on it is thatto me is that he died.
I think Bruno died in 2008 orsomething like that, and his
daughter put it up for sale for1.75 million dollars.
SPEAKER_01 (13:19):
No, I remember that.
I remember seeing that news.
SPEAKER_00 (13:22):
Uh I don't believe she ever, and I know she didn't
ever sell it for that.
I know she raised the price, butyou know what now you can do?
You can rent that thing as anAirbnb in in Lubbock and stay in
it uh as an Airbnb.
SPEAKER_01 (13:41):
Well, it's you know, here's the thing it's a steel
house in Ransom Canyon.
Now, it floods in Ransom Canyonevery once in a while, right?
I think Paul Carlson lives outin that area and he says that
they've had floods out there uhbecause it is a canyon, of
course.
Uh and you know, they get twoinches of rain in Lubbock, and
(14:02):
you know, people are heading forthe hills, but it's on a hill.
It's on a it's on a I guess abluff or something.
Oh yeah, it's the highest point,it's way up.
And then but but it's on stilts.
I mean, it's it's it's so it'snot gonna, it's never gonna
flood, right?
Unless you get, you know, Noah'sflood.
It's not gonna flood.
And also, it's a steel house.
(14:24):
So I would think it's tornadoproof, and they do get tornadoes
out there.
SPEAKER_00 (14:29):
Well, it seemed like it would be to me, wouldn't it?
SPEAKER_01 (14:31):
Yeah.
I mean, I think, I think it's uhit's an interesting, I mean it,
it's I I don't I don't would Iwould you would you call it
pretty?
It's striking.
SPEAKER_00 (14:43):
It's stark.
I mean it's yeah almostminimalist, right?
SPEAKER_01 (14:47):
Yeah, yeah.
I can see that, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (14:50):
But I just looked it up pretty good.
You can rent it and love them.
In fact, it's available uh in uhlate October.
Tech has a home game.
If we want to go up there andwatch a game and rent the
steelhouse,$633 a night.
$633 a night for that thing.
SPEAKER_01 (15:08):
I might just stay at the Overton.
SPEAKER_00 (15:11):
You'd probably be better off.
You would wouldn't be walking toa tech ganking steelhouse
anyway.
Yeah.
Uh well, that's a weird thingthat somebody would come up
with.
SPEAKER_01 (15:20):
That is that that's a good one, Scott.
I I like that.
SPEAKER_00 (15:24):
Well, another one that I'm thinking of uh is uh
probably this come around, uhand like a a lot of weird things
in Texas, and a lot of things inTexas, of course, it comes
through Mexican legends andMexican stories, and well, Texas
being a borderland and thingslike that.
(15:45):
But uh, and most of the time youhear about this woman is in the
San Antonio area, La Lauronia orthe Weeping Woman.
Uh La Lorona, yeah.
You want to do that?
SPEAKER_01 (15:55):
It's uh La Llorona.
SPEAKER_00 (15:57):
Yeah, La Llorona.
You know, my Spanish is prettybad.
Uh it is a spectral, a ghost.
It's a ghost story that she uhit comes through uh Latino uh
Mexican-American folklore, uh,is what it's evolved through.
(16:17):
And it's near water, if you seeher near water all the time,
because supposedly uh whathappened is her husband cheated
on her.
Her husband was with anotherwoman, and she found out, and
she was madly jealous, uh, anduh she ran out into the water
(16:38):
and drowned herself.
And then, but then what shecomes back uh while while the
weeping woman comes back is nowit's because she's crying for
her children, and she misses herchildren uh to have.
And so she's comes out of thewaters this spectral vision, and
she's wailing and weeping,wanting to see her lost.
(16:59):
She doesn't care about herhusband, uh, right?
You know, she's all he's offwith the other man, but she's
actually weeping for herchildren.
And it comes from Mexicanfolklore, uh northern Mexican
folklore, uh, that came throughthrough, you know, always
spreads through oral traditionto some extent.
Uh, and it's it's a tale thatthese Mexican moms and dads told
(17:23):
their children.
Uh and it was the main point asI understand it from things
Mexican folklore is don't gonear the water.
SPEAKER_01 (17:32):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (17:32):
It's a dangerous place.
And here's why the weeping womanmight get you, you know, uh on
this.
And that's why they told thatstory.
But it's become this folklorethat gets that uh actually gets
spread and everything uh inTexas, South Texas,
particularly, and in the areaaround San Antonio, it's become
a fertile place part.
SPEAKER_01 (17:50):
So so I heard about this, and you know, I you know
grew up not far from San Antonioand Sagine in that area.
Now, there's actually a womanhollering creek in Texas down uh
That's right.
It's between Segine and St.
Outside a little communitycalled St.
Hedwig.
Uh it's just off Interstate 10,not too far.
(18:10):
And in fact, if you're onInterstate 10, you drive by,
you'll you'll see it um betweenSeguin and and uh San Antonio.
And uh so here's the version ofthe story.
I and I guess you know, withwith any kind of folklore you're
gonna grow up, but but I thinkyou're right in your analysis
that it is about telling kidsstay away from the water because
(18:31):
water is dangerous, especiallythe little kid, you go over
there and you know fall in andnobody's around it.
So it was just it was verysimilar to yours, and it was
just that uh her kids had beendrowned, or had her kids had
been playing by the water anddrowned, and so she was crying
and is weeping and is destinedfor all eternity to haunt the
(18:52):
river looking for her children.
So in this version, it was abouther children, not just about her
husband.
But that's I like I like yourversion that that you know
that's for many uh and a lot ofit, I think, evolved too.
SPEAKER_00 (19:05):
But there, you know, she's like the boogeyman.
Right.
Just telling their children, youknow, if you if you misbehave,
if you don't listen to your momand dad, right, uh La Yorona is
gonna come get you, you know,and and she'll drag you into the
water and uh with you.
So it becomes this wholecultural significance of uh uh
of this warning part to the andI guess some people have
(19:26):
suggested, I remember readingthis one time, that it's a
metaphor, uh, she's a metaphorfor the hardships and the loss
during the Spanish conquest ofMexico because it's supposedly
if you go back into its earliestforms, she was an Aztec goddess
that was then wailing because ofthe loss of the Aztec kingdom uh
(19:50):
to the Spanish and things.
So so it takes on a lot ofthings, like so many of those
tales with the boogeyman, ittakes on many different forms
that you have, and of course,Texas puts it, you know, puts it
on in uh in many differentforms.
And uh so it's the it's one ofthose uniquely, I guess it's a
uniquely borderland thing, Iguess is the best way to put it.
SPEAKER_01 (20:11):
Well, well, okay, so we're historians, and we come
across these stories andlegends, and sometimes you know,
we we write about them or talkabout them, but who is it that
would really study the somebodyin English, in in folklore?
Uh is that anthropology,sociology?
I mean, which discipline umwould talk about I don't know,
(20:35):
that's a good question.
SPEAKER_00 (20:36):
I would I would assume first off, there's a lot
of folklore aspects of that.
Yeah, so maybe in the Englishdiscipline, the studying of
folklore, and folklore oftenserves as these cultural
warnings to a society, you know,and so I think that falls into
something like that.
SPEAKER_01 (20:52):
Uh well, you know, you look at Grimm's fairy tales,
right?
And and you know, was it back attech that somebody was doing
some work on Grimm?
And we have a professor here atUH Downtown who has her students
in the Honor Society do work onfolktales.
And they do look for what is thedeeper meaning?
Why do these stories persist andand sometimes morph and change
(21:15):
and adapt?
I mean, certainly anymore.
If it's a story of a whalingAztec princess, that may not
resonate with today's listeners,with children today.
But if you change that, if youadapt it, don't go near the
water, right?
It's a different message, butyou're using the same.
(21:35):
You know, we could do a wholepodcast on this.
SPEAKER_00 (21:38):
Yeah, that's right.
We could, couldn't we?
We don't know just on each oneof them.
Yeah, we don't have a clue.
You know, we used to have that.
I was growing up my son Angela.
We went to this, we called theplace Little Africa.
I don't know why it got passeddown.
It was this, what it was wasthis wild kind of place under
this bridge abutment uh that wasby the Concho River.
(22:01):
And people had gone and we rodeour bicycles because it had
mogels and things you could goon there and little trails that
went through it.
And for us little kids, youknow, when we're nine, 10, 11
years old, we're like, oh man,this is this is wild stuff here.
We're in uh on a safari.
But you know, it really wasn'tthat much.
But became sort of like theweeping woman, this tail, well,
(22:23):
there's a creature down there.
If you don't, if you go at thewrong times, it'll come up out
of the river and grab you uh andpull you down into the river.
Um so you know, that you know,and that's probably you know, it
probably had the same type oforigins.
And I think that's a lot of thisdoes come from the culture, and
because it, you know, in the oldculture, for example, the next
one that we'll not bring up thateverybody's heard of, the
(22:46):
chupacabra.
You know, that legendarycreature that nobody can
actually tell you, and itoriginates in Latin American
folklore, that's where thechupacabra originated, but you
hear it most often out in Texas,in that South Texas region,
right?
SPEAKER_01 (23:00):
The goat sucker.
SPEAKER_00 (23:02):
Yeah, and nobody could ever really, every time
you heard about the chupacabra,it was different.
What was it?
I mean, some people uh said itwas reptilian, right?
Or bat-like, or almost like adog, like a rabid dog that
didn't have skin on it, and evensome oh, this is an alien
(23:22):
creature from outer space thatcomes around.
But the chupacabra goat andsucked the blood out of stock
animals.
SPEAKER_01 (23:31):
It's like a vampire in many respects, right?
SPEAKER_00 (23:34):
Yeah, that did this, and uh you know, it could be one
of those things that it wasactual grew out of an actual
vent.
It could have been a rabidcoyote or something, somebody
saw attack something one time,but it it it it it developed
into this this this almost uheerie being that as a creature
(23:56):
that no one could understandthat you know roam the wilds of
South Texas brush country.
And you don't want to encounterthe chupacabra, you know.
SPEAKER_01 (24:07):
Well, there have been times throughout, I mean,
in recent times, I don't know, Idon't know, I wouldn't say you
know, at least into the 80s whenI was in high school, every once
in a while you hear somebodysay, Well, they they caught a
picture, they they got apicture, or they caught a
chupacabra, or they shot one.
And nine times out of ten, itdoes turn out to be like a dog
(24:29):
with mange or maybe a coyotewith mange.
Yeah.
Um, but I think you're right,but you're right.
There have been other um otherdescriptions of the feared
chupacabra.
Now, is that another one ofthese metaphors for or warnings
for don't go out into the brush,don't go out into the wilderness
(24:50):
because you never know whenyou're gonna see the chupacabra?
SPEAKER_00 (24:55):
I would think so.
Don't you think that's I mean,it's just the thing.
That's that's a warning to kids.
Don't go out by yourself atnight because the chupacabra is
never seen during the day.
Only at night.
Good point, good point.
Only at night do you ever see achupacabra, and you know, it's
always has to have somethingthat's sinister.
I mean, you know, you suck theblood.
What is more diabolical thansomething that'll suck the blood
out of you?
SPEAKER_01 (25:16):
Right, just attack you, and you know, there you are
minding your own business,eating some grass, and something
jumps.
SPEAKER_00 (25:25):
All of a sudden the chupacabra jumps out and sucks
all the blood out of you.
I mean, I know it's terrible.
No, I guess it does.
I'm thinking again when I was akid in San Angelo, we had this
urban legend that and you knowticks are almost these sinister
creatures.
You don't want to get a tick.
But this was about our our ourdogs.
It was a story that spread.
(25:46):
It wasn't true.
Nobody could actually find thehouse and the dog because it's
happened.
But supposedly, somebody hadleft their little dochin outside
and they'd forgotten about itand left it out too long, and
ticks came all over it, and itwas sucked flat.
There was nothing left of thedochin.
Just ticks had eaten and suckedall the blood out of it.
(26:07):
Well, and kids told that storyall up and down the block about
that happened.
And I guess the same thinghappens with the Chupa Cobra,
that you just hear so much, andthat begins to, you know,
resonate.
And people tell these stories ofthe macabre uh and things like
that.
I it it's it's a it's a strangephenomenon.
Again, we probably have to ask auh I was gonna say a
(26:28):
sociologist, but hell, we mighthave to ask a psychologist about
why things like this happen andspread uh to do this.
SPEAKER_01 (26:36):
Well, I I don't think that would be the first
time anybody suggested that wesee a psychologist.
SPEAKER_00 (26:43):
No, it would definitely uh not uh be the
first time that anybody uh uh uhwould suggest either of us
should see a mental healthprofessional.
In fact, I think it's not thefirst time today since somebody
uh has ever done that.
Well, I bring when we brought upcreatures, but let's think about
(27:04):
people, weird people.
SPEAKER_01 (27:07):
Well, now you're gonna start getting into people
we know, and that is gonna be.
SPEAKER_00 (27:10):
Well, that's true.
We're gonna leave.
Well, again, well, we said, youknow, nobody's still alive.
So that means Ty Cash and safefrom this, uh right?
Uh Ty Cash and George Cooper andyeah, they're they're safe from
this.
SPEAKER_01 (27:22):
My one of you.
SPEAKER_00 (27:24):
Well, yeah.
Howard Hughes, Gene.
Howard Hughes.
I remember the only time I didit, one time I came to Houston,
and you went and showed meHoward Hughes' grave.
I'd never seen it before.
Yeah.
Uh we went to the deal, butHoward Hughes, at one time, the
richest man in the world, he wasa weird dude.
So a real weird dude.
SPEAKER_01 (27:42):
Well, and you know, talking about mental health
professionals, I mean, I thinktoday, um, and and I've heard, I
don't know, I don't know, youknow, he died.
When did he die in the 80s?
SPEAKER_00 (27:53):
No, 70s.
76, I'm betting, I think.
Something like that.
Probably in 76, spring of 76.
SPEAKER_01 (28:01):
Yeah.
I I remember when when ithappened, um, yeah, April, April
of 76.
SPEAKER_00 (28:07):
Oh, there we go.
SPEAKER_01 (28:08):
When it happened, you know, it was big news.
My parents were like, you know,it was like it was a celebrity
dying, right?
And I was like, Well, who'sthis?
Yeah.
And you, it was, you know,somebody you'd heard about, but
you know, the Hughes house isstill, it's uh our friend
Benedict Wynne, right?
Uh the uh Dean and uh Dean ofStudents over at uh St.
(28:30):
Thomas.
Uh the Howard Hughes house is onon the on the St.
Thomas campus is used as uhwhere he grew up.
Um and you know, as you said,you know, his his uh his burial
plot is is over here big.
It's big, it's nice.
Uh and and people go there andit's an attraction, and they
(28:52):
have to have security uhmeasures over there, otherwise
people will like jump over andgo into it and whatnot.
But you know, uh and you know,there's a lot of history around
Howard Hughes because he builtairplanes, right?
SPEAKER_00 (29:08):
The spring stuff started a uh started a Hollywood
studio, Hollywood movie, yeah.
You know, and was for a longtime the richest man in the
world.
SPEAKER_01 (29:19):
Yeah.
And for the uh, you know, andand probably uh from what I
understand, uh what got him inthe end was uh his was maybe uh
a venereal disease.
Uh yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (29:34):
I mean, there was no doubt, I mean, I don't know, you
know, I don't know if we diedenough, that he was, I mean, the
thing that made him weird, hehad severe obsessive compulsive
disorder.
I mean, he just, you know, heand it became him, he was this,
he he was afraid of germs, hewas a germophobe.
I mean, the whole, I guess the Idon't know if it's urban myth,
he died when he died, and hedied in Mexico.
(29:55):
He was, you know, living down inMexico uh when he died.
Uh That he had Kleenex boxes forshoes and shovels, old tattered
robe, with hair that was downto, you know, almost to his
waist and fingernails that were,you know, seven inches long
because he's afraid to cut offand things like that.
I I don't know.
(30:15):
I've never heard it said if thatwas actually true, if anybody
actually verified that that wasthe case.
I know they died on the way backto Houston, uh, that he had been
sick and probably of heartfailure, and they were flying
him back to Houston, and he, Iguess, to some extent died in
the air before he could get backto Houston.
(30:35):
But even after he died, itcreated this, there became the
weird story about the guy uh inUtah that had given him a ride
one time.
Uh picked him up in the desertand uh gave him a ride to uh Las
Vegas as a hitchhiker.
And then years later, when hedied, this guy, Melvin, was
(30:58):
mentioned and Howard Houston hadleft him all of his money and
everything.
And he produced a will aboutthat.
It was a movie called Melvin andHoward.
Start uh Paul Paul, I can'tremember the guy's name.
Paul that he was in uh Americangraffiti, he was the guy who
played the guy that drove thecar around.
(31:18):
Uh and Jason Robards played uhHoward Hughes uh in that movie,
Melvin and Howard, uh, aboutthat.
But I mean, Howard Hughes, forall of his eccentricities that
he was, and of course, LeonardoDiCaprio did a great movie about
even the aviator.
But for all of those weirdnessthat he had, think of the things
(31:39):
that Howard Hughes accomplished.
And besides the studio, started,you know, he owned Trans World
Airlines, started an airline,uh, took Hughes tool company to
heights he'd never seen before,uh, basically started corporate
Las Vegas uh when he bought theDesert Inn.
Uh that's always a great storyabout a weird guy.
He'd gone to Las Vegas and he'salready developing this terrible
(32:02):
uh obsessive compulsivedisorder.
And so he rented the entire topfloor of penthouse suites of the
Desert Inn that they reservedfor their high rollers.
Well, he rented the whole thingand had been there for months.
And the owner uh of the DesertInn, Mo Dallets, who was with
the mob, basically went to uhHoward Hughes' people because he
(32:22):
didn't see anybody and said, Yougotta leave.
I need that for my uh uh highrollers.
You can't stay up here forever.
And so Howard Houston says, I'mgonna leave, I'll just buy the
hotel, and supposedly gave uh anumber, and Moe Dalits could not
turn down.
And so he bought the desert in.
And that started his big landaqua district.
(32:43):
His company still owns more landin Las Vegas than any other
company got.
Wow, yeah, you know, a lot ofthe land that a lot of those big
resorts on the strip uh set on,they're just leasing it from I
can't even from how the HowardHughes company, uh that they do
that they've sold all this land.
(33:04):
So I mean you can be weird andbe rich.
So there's there's well hell,that means there's there's a
chance for us, right?
SPEAKER_01 (33:13):
Well, yeah, we just have to be the rich part.
SPEAKER_00 (33:16):
No, no, that's the problem.
We we got the weird part, Dan.
We just gotta find the rich partto do that.
And considering what we do forliving, I don't think we're ever
gonna be rich.
And neither one of us havechildren, so our children are
not gonna be rich.
I guess we've got to count onour nieces and nephews uh to
actually make something so maybewe might get rich.
SPEAKER_01 (33:35):
I'm gonna tell them to start getting to work on that
right now.
SPEAKER_00 (33:38):
That's I think that's a good idea.
Oh, so I think we'veestablished, Gene, we could make
another whole show about weirdTexas things, right?
SPEAKER_01 (33:46):
Well, the more you the more we went on, I started
jotting down some notes.
I and I think there, I think wecan do another show about this.
SPEAKER_00 (33:53):
I think so.
So there you go, folks.
Another two-parter.
You know, two partners happenfor us because we don't shut up
and we don't stay on topic, andwe don't finish everything we
were gonna finish.
So because we haven't talked,for example, we haven't talked
about the Marco lines.
SPEAKER_01 (34:07):
We haven't.
SPEAKER_00 (34:08):
Our time is drawing to an end, and we hadn't talked
about the Marvel lines.
Well, we've got more to cover.
We do.
So there you go, folks.
Prepare for the next time we'regonna have to.
SPEAKER_01 (34:18):
So we start season three.
SPEAKER_00 (34:20):
Yeah, with weird stories.
SPEAKER_01 (34:22):
Weird stories, weirder than normal.
SPEAKER_00 (34:25):
All right, Gene.
Good show, right?
SPEAKER_01 (34:27):
All right, we'll talk to you soon.
Thank you everybody forlistening.
SPEAKER_00 (34:30):
Thank you.
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