Travis Country Democratic Picnic

We live in a nice suburb, right by a huge nature preserve around Barton Creek, but it is still a Texas suburb, called Travis Country, no less. In our first fall, 1998, we invited grad students over for a party and gave detailed directions. One of them said, on arriving, "You could have just said the only house on the street without a Bush (for governor) sign."

Things have changed. This afternoon, the Travis Country Democrats, the 354th precinct of Austin, had a picnic for several hundred people. Many of dressed in the snappy precinct T-shirt you see modeled here.

We served chicken, veggie and beef fajitas. As a volunteer, I helped serve up the chicken and beef after taking over from the lady you see here setting it up.

There were a lot of kids, very excited about, what else, Donkey rides and a Donkey petting zoo. It is convenient that the Democratic animal mascot is the donkey. It would be much more complicated to have elephants (the Republican animal.)



We had some speeches, including a kickoff by the lady who is the precinct Democratic chairwoman, who you can see in this photo, Barb Colvin (mother of Shawn Colvin the singer). Later, there was a band, which you can see in the background, which did covers of songs like "Dead Flowers."



Maybe Texas will be a little less completely red this time around.