From Honky-Tonks to Dance Halls with Vanishing Postcards

It turned out he was about to turn 100 years old.

He could remember when they were building the hall when he was maybe like three years old.

And he told me that he goes there every Sunday and that one night he recently danced with 32 different women.

SPEAKER_02: Through the eyes of the blind, see the world from a different view.

Look at life from a different angle, and get to know people in a different way.

This is The Low Down with Kevin Lowe.

SPEAKER_00: Hey, welcome back to the podcast.

I'm your host, Kevin Lowe, and you're listening to episode number 37.

Today we're doing a little road tripping throughout the state of Texas.

Thanks to today's guest, Evan Stern, with Vanishing Postcards.

Vanishing Postcards is a travel blog of sorts where Evan takes you back to his home state of Texas and gets you off of the interstate and into the local neighborhoods, into the local dive bars, the little mom and pop shops, all the places that make a place what it truly is.

So many times we all say, man, we want to go check out that place, but we never do.

Instead, we get caught up at the hostel and bustle driving on those domain interstates and going to all those, you know, big fancy chain restaurants or whatnot.

But in fact, it's the little places that have been there forever that fall under the radar that are in fact what can make a destination what it is.

And I feel like Evan's podcast, Vanishing Postcards, does this extraordinarily well.

So if you're ready, let's go ahead and take a little trip to Texas.

Might want to put on them cowboy boots.

SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.

Well, um, I'm Evan.

I'm talking to you today from New York City.

So if you hear some sirens in the background, street noises, I apologize.

You know, that's just kind of the way of things up here.

I always tell everyone I've lived in New York long enough that I've owned the right to call myself a New Yorker for whenever I'm in the mood to do so.

But at the same time, I am one of a proud few who can claim to have been born and raised in the city of Austin, Texas.

I go back in Texas several generations.

I'll probably die in Texas.

So I like to say that I am bicultural.

But the reason for my move here to New York was pretty simple.

I'm a performer.

I came up here for school, and uh being interested in the stage, I figured that this seemed like the place to be for all of that.

And uh over the years, I've been privileged enough to perform on some great stages here in the city, including Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center.

But um lately I've been um I've been exploring new ways of storytelling.

And uh my latest endeavor is I'm I just recently released a podcast entitled Vanishing Postcards.

And uh to describe it in a nutshell, basically the show is the product of a 1,500-mile Texas road trip.

And uh I like to say that through the series, listeners are invited to join me on a journey exploring the hidden dives, traditions, and frequently threatened histories that you'll discover when you exit the interstates.

SPEAKER_00: I love it.

Absolutely love it.

Now, okay, so I'm sitting here listening to you, and so I've got to ask.

So obviously, what took you away from from Texas to New York was performing.

Now, I would love to know what do you do in the world of performing?

Are you an actor, a singer?

SPEAKER_01: So, yes, I'm an actor who sings.

The bulk of my uh training and experience has been in the stage.

I've done a lot of uh theatrical work regionally.

Most of the work, however, that I have gotten in the city has been as a singer.

I've been privileged enough to do a lot of work in the concert and cabaret realm.

Basically, I got to town, I realized very quickly that no doors were about to open for me, and I needed to do something on my own.

Initially, I was gonna write a one-man show, but I realized that in order to write something that I myself would actually be interested in sitting through, let alone other people, it was gonna take more time and energy than I had the patience for.

And I figured, well, with Capoe, the history is there, the songs are there, the stories are there, I can sing.

So let me put something together.

So I put together a show that focused on the songs of the World War II era.

I was fortunate enough to get some good press, um, some award recognition out of it, and it really opened up the doors to, you know, just some incredible performance opportunities that I've had over the years as a singer.

Um, I actually, in recent years, I've discovered that I actually prefer using the term concert artist when describing my performance work as a singer because I think that that really kind of encompasses a bit more of what I do.

Now, of course, you say concert artist, no one really understands what that means either, but basically for me, the what is said in between the songs in a set is every bit as important as the songs themselves.

The storytelling informs the songs.

And so I really think that what I do uh in singing performance, it's it's it's really kind of all it very much encompasses both storytelling and singing.

SPEAKER_00: Did you grow up always having this amazing uh talent?

SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, I really didn't pursue singing so much until after college, really.

I mean, of course, I was always singing, I've always had a very musical spirit about me, but I trained, I I studied acting first before I ever really seriously studied voice and and singing.

Wow.

Singing is really just kind of something that evolved.

But I think, you know, if you can talk, you can sing.

And so not true.

SPEAKER_00: That is so not true.

SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, but actors are trained uh in in voice and trained how to speak.

And so actors typically actors tend to be pretty good singers.

Well, I mean, Russell Crowe, maybe not so much, but actors, actors tend to do an okay job when it comes to singing.

SPEAKER_00: That's so funny.

Well, well, I come from a family who we've basically determined that we we no longer do birthday dinners as far we don't know, excuse me.

We have birthday dinners, but we no longer sing happy birthday because everyone knows everyone else sings absolutely horrible.

So yeah, so we we just we've we've ruled out uh singing happy birthday, and everybody can just blow out their candles, do their wish, without all the horrible music.

So awesome.

So I mean, I can't though avoid making the the kind of connection with you know moving from Texas to New York and when you you kind of gave your little intro there at the beginning.

I I couldn't help but think of that old El Paso uh salsa commercial back from the back from well, I guess probably the 90s and stuff, and it was you know, New York City.

SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.

I I still say that, and I still get that every now and then.

I really do, you know.

What's funny is I um I walked into a bar in uh in Texas last year, and um, you know, someone said, Yin from Austin.

I said, No, I'm here from New York City.

SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.

Oh, that's so awesome.

So now, how long have you been in New York?

SPEAKER_01: I moved to New York on September 30th, 2004.

And the the way that I remember that date, it was the evening of the very first Bush carry debate.

So that I I have no idea where the time has gone.

It has absolutely snuck up on me, it but it's been an incredible journey and a wild, wild ride.

SPEAKER_00: Well, that's so awesome.

So awesome.

Well, well, so now I want to we'll jump ahead from when you first moved to New York and all of that.

And so moving into you being a fellow uh podcaster and with vanishing postcards.

So tell me, where in the world did this whole idea even come from?

I mean, you I sit there and I think of the ironic situation of somebody who is performing on stage, to somebody who decides, you know what, let's let's create a media source that is just audio.

And so, so I'm so anxious to find out where this whole thing came from.

SPEAKER_01: Well, it's been a very slow evolution.

I wouldn't say that there was a eureka moment where I said, this is what I have to do.

But like so many other people over the last 10 years, I have just absolutely fallen in love with the audio medium.

I mean, obviously, I've always had great love for storytelling and the art of raccourship, which is so much of what I have done in cabaret.

But there is something about podcasting and the audio medium where you're really forced to listen.

And that is just something that I love.

I believe that the gateway drug for me and podcasting started with the moth.

And you start with that, you start listening to other programs.

You must remember this.

There's a great uh podcast that I enjoy quite a bit called Cocaine and Rhinestones, which is all about the history of country music.

And I remember I was listening to these podcasts, and interestingly enough, around the same time, YouTube, for whatever reason, kept suggesting that I watch these travel videos of like these travel vloggers.

And I would watch these videos, and I didn't really see myself represented in the way that in what these people were presenting.

So often it was much less about the place, and it was much more about look at me and how cute I am in this place.

And I've often joked for many years that I've always wanted to use the words summer and winter as verbs.

And um, being in New York, I try to get away during the cold months for a little bit, like January, February.

I'll take some weeks off and get out of here.

Being immersed in the gig economy, I've been able to arrange my life that way.

And traditionally, for a while, what I was doing in January, February is I was going down to Mexico.

And I enjoy traveling with purpose sometimes.

And I came up with the idea, I thought, well, wouldn't it be interesting if I were to put together a podcast that would be a musical travelog of Mexico?

And basically, my idea was I was gonna go around to the different regions of Mexico, just using music as a portal to understanding the cultural regional history of Mexico.

You know, I was gonna go to Veracruz and talk about harps.

I was gonna talk about the Cayjonayata traditions in Guanajuato, you know, I was gonna go to Monterey and talk about, you know, the corridos that you'll find in the northern region.

I traveled to uh Merida in the Yucatan in uh January of 2019, and I went so far as to uh to take a stab at putting together a pilot episode.

I interviewed some people while I was down there.

And it's one thing to be writing in a vacuum, and you're putting this thing together, you're thinking, oh man, this is just gonna be awesome.

This is gonna be the best thing ever.

You get in touch with an editor, you start figuring things out, you're like, oh man, this is gonna be sweet.

And then you sit down and you realize, oh my goodness, I have missed the mark so terribly.

It was a classic uh lesson in show don't tell.

What I did, for instance, is I talked a lot about the city of Merida, but you didn't feel the city of Merida when you were listening to it.

You missed like the vibrant, you know, assault on the senses that you get when you're down there.

And in addition to that, I realized that the human voice has such great shade, color, and nuance to it that, you know, you're interviewing someone in Spanish, then you get an actor to come in and dub over it in English, you're just gonna lose so much of that.

And I realized very quickly that before tackling a project of that ambitious nature, I really needed to learn more about audio production.

And I thought to myself, well, you know, it's it's maybe not as exotic as Mexico, but if there's one thing I know, it's that Texans love to talk and they tell good stories.

And heck, it it it's it's warmer in Texas in January than New York.

So let me go back to Texas.

And so in January of 2020, I went back home with a microphone and I started to try my hand at recording some oral histories.

And honestly, I just I really didn't know how it was gonna go.

But the project very quickly evolved into vanishing postcards.

When I went down there, I really initially only had two story ideas.

I wanted to do a story on this ancient dive bar in Austin called The Dry Creek.

And I also wanted to do a piece that was kind of looking at some of the changes that were going on in East Austin, which is a historic African American community.

And beyond that, I really didn't have many ideas, but um after the first two, I kind of took a step back and I said, okay, well, what is it that these episodes have in common?

And I said, well, each one is kind of a snapshot of a place.

What is that?

That's a postcard.

And if there was a thread that both had in common, it's that you know, they were both representative of, you know, histories that were kind of, you know, you didn't know how much longer either of these places were going to be around.

They're representative of of traditions that might be on their way out.

And so Vanishing Postcards became the title.

And um, from there I just started searching for other places like that.

And um, very quickly it evolved into an entire season.

SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's so awesome.

And what I was thinking is I was like, wow, you totally answered one of my other questions was where did this name come from?

This vanishing postcards, because it's I I had different ideas of maybe what it was referring to, but I love how how you just piece that all together.

That's just so awesome.

Thank you.

Wow.

Now, yeah, now I mean, I have to tell anybody who's listening to my podcast, Vanishing Postcards is totally different.

Vanishing Postcards is one of those podcasts that I listen to, which uh I was actually listening to one of the uh episodes right before getting on this interview today.

And it kind of made me a little bit delayed and getting uh prepared because I was so intrigued.

I was just pulled in because the way that you create these episodes is that they they play very much like you're watching a movie, they're very immersive.

I mean, I was listening to an episode about being at a honky tonk, and you felt like you were there in the honky tonk.

And I don't know, I just think that it is just amazing the way that you've been able to turn something that is only auditory into something that you can truly picture in your mind, like you're you're sitting there in the honky tonk.

SPEAKER_01: Well, as I said, I mean, that's just that's very important to me.

I mean, I really do want for people to feel as if they're with me in these places.

And I feel that I I owe it to the places that I visit to just make it as make the experience as sensory and immersive as possible.

SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.

So awesome.

Now, so I'm curious when when you set out and you thought, okay, we're gonna do this.

Did you have or do you still have kind of a bucket list in sense of uh, you know, different places, destinations, people that you knew and and know right off the bat that you want to be included on the podcast?

Or have you kind of let that imagination flow a little bit, like let it kind of go where it leads?

SPEAKER_01: I'd say, you know, it's a little bit of both, but more, really more than anything, I have just kind of tackled each episode on a case-by-case basis.

And then I step back and I take a look at what I have.

And the third episode that I put together was one on a, so it was like the the first place I went to was a dive bar.

A little while after that, I went to a dance hall.

And I thought, okay, so we have a dive bar and a dance hall.

What else do you find in Texas?

Honky tonks.

Well, well, let's check out and see what that's about.

And it was kind of like, okay, well, do I need a, at this point in the season, do I need something funny?

Do I need, you know, something a little quirky?

Let's let's go check out some strange museums that you're probably not going to read about in the big glossy travel guides.

And it was really kind of one idea led to another in that sense.

Um, at the same time in Texas, I did have the advantage of knowing the landscape.

And it's an endless well of material.

There were lots of stories that I definitely had an interest in covering.

I knew that I really wanted to do a piece on border culture and conjunto music.

And so I used this as an opportunity to visit the border and spend some time in the Rio Grande Valley as a result of that.

The goal is eventually I would love to expand the map beyond Texas.

I would love nothing more than to hit the road and take Route 66 from Oklahoma to California and collect oral histories along the way.

SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.

That's awesome.

Awesome.

Because, you know, and that's the other thing that I just I love about your podcast is because your your entire mindset aligns exactly with mine is getting off of the interstates and getting into the little towns.

And that's where the true stories are, you know, of getting to know the people and stuff.

I know literally I've I've lived in the same little beachside town here in Florida.

I'm a native.

And in just the other day, I was with my sister.

We were out driving.

I think we had had a couple errands to run.

Well, for whatever reason, we tried to avoid some traffic.

We turned off of the one main road into this neighborhood area.

And I remember us sitting there and we're driving, and my sister, she's pointing out to me, she's like, oh my gosh, she's like, there's the nicest little park we just passed.

And and so it just kind of goes exactly in line with the premise of your podcast is getting off of those main thoroughfares and stuff.

And you really don't understand like what you're gonna find until you just do it.

SPEAKER_01: Well, yes, and I think something it's it's not really discussed in the series, but I think something that the series does kind of reveal is that art and culture isn't just everywhere, but some of the best of it comes from places that are totally under the radar.

And I I think that really is something that I wanted to take a look at as I developed everything.

SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.

Now, I'm curious, was there any episode that you did that stands out in your mind above all the others as a favorite?

Maybe it's because of somebody you talked to or the or the you know bar or something that just makes it stand out above the rest?

SPEAKER_01: Well, I I love, I shamelessly love so many of these episodes.

It's it's really, really hard for me to pick a favorite, but there are a few standouts, and and one that really has an incredibly soft place in my heart is the second episode, which is uh which which centers on a dance hall called Sefshak Hall in this teeny community called Seton.

It's probably about an hour and 10 minutes, maybe like it's maybe about a hundred miles.

Well, no, it it isn't even that far, excuse me.

It's it's it's it's maybe like 60 miles outside of Austin.

It's eight miles outside of a town called Temple, but this is a small community, Seaton, Texas.

It's about 40 people live there.

You know, I typed it into my car's GPS and it, you know, it didn't come up.

But the place really comes alive on Sundays when families and couples gather to dance at this old dance hall called Sefshik Hall, which is by many estimates now the oldest continuously operating family-run dance hall in the state.

It was opened by the uh the Sefshik family in just about a hundred years ago.

And um, the woman who um ran the place until recently is named um Alice Shulok.

She recently turned 91 years old.

And I had given her a phone call and I asked if it would be I had never heard of this place until about two days before I went up there.

I gave her a phone call.

I asked if it would be okay if I went up there to interview her.

And I uh walk into the place and I ask if Alice is here, and they say, Well, Alice was just rushed to the emergency room.

She had taken a fall that day.

And so I didn't, I I wasn't able to talk to Alice, but I talked to her daughter-in-law, I talked to her son, I talked to all of the people gathered at the place, and it it turned into an incredibly moving experience because of the community that the people who go there find.

And they've been in its generations have been going to this place.

I mean, you you you talk to the people there, there was this old man.

I I walked in the dance hall, never forget, there was this old man, he was wearing a Stetson bolo tie suit.

He was intrigued by my microphone, started talking to him.

It turned out he was about to turn 100 years old.

He could remember when they were building the hall when he was maybe like three years old.

And he told me that he goes there every Sunday and that one night he recently danced with 32 different women.

Wow.

It turned into a rather emotional episode in a lot of ways.

I was sitting there in post-production and I thought to myself, you know, there's just something that's kind of there's something that's kind of missing here.

And I realized I was I was talking a lot about the the history that these dance halls represented.

And I thought, well, you know, I should really find an expert that I can talk to who really knows about this more than me.

And I found this wonderful woman by the name of Deb Fleming, who at the time was the head of an organization called Texas Dance Hall Preservation that was entirely dedicated to preserving dance halls.

And I asked her why dance halls were meaningful to her, and at which point, you know, she found herself in tears.

And she said, you know, these places have a lot of heart, and I fear that we're getting away from it.

And she says, you know, it's not just about the fun and the dancing and the music.

The people who run these places have to work real hard.

It's about cleaning the toilets, it's about making certain that the roofs are fixed.

And she sees how hard these people are working to keep these places going, and it's very true.

And I think that is kind of a mission of vanishing postcards is to shine a light on these places and the hard work that goes into keeping them going.

And I know so often it doesn't matter if you're in New York, Florida, Texas, wherever, whenever an old dive or institutional business of some sort closes, you'll have all of these people coming out of the woodwork crying, going, Oh my goodness, this is so terrible.

But my question to you is, when was the last time you actually went there?

I mean, there are there are people who depend on these places to make their livelihoods.

And if you're not supporting them, then why should they stay in business?

SPEAKER_00: That is so true.

That is so true.

It's kind of like it's kind of how we we laugh and say that about even even people is every time when somebody somebody passes away, you have all these people who, oh, they they wish they had talked to them more, stopped by their house, knew they were getting old, knew they were sick or whatever.

And it's well, why didn't you?

And maybe now use that as a lesson to change that perspective, you know.

And and I think it's certainly true in the sense of like what you're referring to with small businesses, is it's easy to say, oh yeah, we're all about supporting small businesses, but then we all drive across town to go to the Walmart rather than than, you know, to the little local, you know, mom and pop store.

SPEAKER_01: So absolutely.

And I think too, we as a culture and society need to ask, I mean, beyond just supporting them ourselves, I mean, what more can our communities do to see that they are protected?

And uh there are a lot of um, you know, it goes above my pay grade, but there are there are a lot of steps that cities and governments and community organizations can take to protect these places.

And I think that it is time for us to to have that conversation and and think about that.

I know my hometown of Austin is changing quite a bit.

You have to ask, why are people moving to Austin?

What is it that they like about Austin?

And you know, I think it's important to protect, you know, what what makes these places special so that it isn't lost.

Change isn't something to be feared, but we have to to grow and change responsibly.

SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Now, now I'm gonna I'm gonna put myself out there and at the risk of just totally embarrassing myself, but you know what, whatever.

Won't be the first time.

Is so coming from me, this Floridian, I've only ever heard the term dance hall, like when listening to Pat Green's songs.

What is what exactly is a dance hall compared to a bar?

SPEAKER_01: Well, a a dance hall, I I think so, a dance hall is where you take your family.

I think a honky tonk is where you take your date.

That's kind of different.

I mean, a dance hall is um most dance halls you'll be able to get beer or you'll at least be able to bring your own.

But it's it's much more of a community gathering place than I think a typical bar is.

And and dance halls also tend to have longer histories because you don't really hear about them building new dance halls at this moment in which we're currently living in.

So it's it's a combination of factors.

But Texas is blessed to have a number.

Um, I mean, there used to be thousands of them.

I think now there are something like 400 left.

Of those 400, you know, many of them are in danger and there aren't a lot that run quite regularly.

Some very famous dance halls include um Green Hall and Lukenbach.

But I find when the press goes to Texas that those are the dance halls that they always focus on.

And there are there are so many others out there that are worth knowing about and visiting.

And so that's kind of why I felt moved to seek uh Sex Shakal out.

SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.

That's awesome.

Awesome.

Now, now I'm curious to know too.

Have you, I've not listened to all of the episodes of your podcast, have any of them featured anything of like the food of Texas?

Absolutely.

Yeah, because I was gonna say, I mean, I'm a huge barbecue lover here in the South, but I know our barbecue is vastly different than Texas.

SPEAKER_01: Well, it's all good.

I mean, it, you know, I'm not one to get into any of those games of one-upmanship, but I will say I am pretty prejudiced.

I love my Central Texas barbecue, and I'm just gonna go ahead and leave it at that.

That's awesome.

But the um actually the the episode, there's an episode I'm gonna be releasing this week.

It isn't entirely centered on barbecue, but barbecue is a big important through line that runs throughout the the episode.

It's the piece, I kind of referenced it a bit earlier, but I said that I wanted to do a piece on East Austin.

And so if you go to East Austin, possibly maybe the most famous barbecue restaurant in the nation right now is Franklin's Barbecue, which is which is in Austin.

People line up for hours on end to get into this place.

But those of us who have lived in Austin for a long time, something that I've kind of had a hard time wrestling with is that for years there was another barbecue restaurant that was in that exact same location that was called Ben's Long Branch Barbecue.

It was an old African-American-run barbecue joint that had been there for about 36 years, and you never saw a line like that for Ben.

But so I go there and I kind of delve into the history of the East Side a bit.

But there's another barbecue joint that I go into that I go to visit in the episode that is still very much in business, and that's Sam's Barbecue.

Uh, the story is Sam's was opened in the 1950s, and the current owner is named Brian Mays, and his father won the joint back in the 1970s through a he his father won the place in a gambling wager, is what happened.

And just about two or three years ago, this place that was won in a gambling bet, some Oregon-based developers swooped in and they offered the family five million dollars for this land, and they said no.

They said, We are the last black business standing, and we've got to stick this out.

So it was an incredible place to visit and just amazing to talk to him.

And the barbecue was pretty damn good too.

And you didn't have to wait in line for it there.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's so awesome.

So awesome.

SPEAKER_01: Uh, but in addition to that, too, um, I have another episode that's called A Tale of Two Tacos uh that'll be releasing over the summer, where I went down to the uh southern tip of South Texas in Brownsville and I profiled an incredible gentleman by the name of Mondo Vera, who is the uh last man who is allowed to legally sell barbacoa as it was meant to be cooked, uh meaning that he cooks it under the ground.

The reason that he is allowed to do that is because his father opened up the place in 1956, and they have been cooking barbacoa the old school way since then, and you can still go there and get traditional barbacoa.

And so I coupled that with a visit to San Antonio where I talk about Tex-Mex, which is actually kind of traditional Tex-Mex is actually getting harder to find.

And so I kind of delve into that a little bit there.

So believe me, if you're are food obsessed like I am, there's going to be stuff to listen to.

SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.

Well, I tell you, it's I I consider it a little bit sad, I guess, in a sense, but here where I live, I feel like we we are so lacking for like really good, authentic, awesome barbecue places that we have been absolutely blown away, excited that the big massive gas station chain Bucky's has come to town so we can get us some brisket sandwiches and stuff.

SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, this is this is a horrible thing to admit to being a Texan who spends a lot of time on the road.

I, you know, this is a terrible thing to admit.

I have never been inside of a Bucky's.

I have absolutely nothing against it.

It's just yet to happen.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

Well, I can tell you, we we literally, ours here where I live, they just opened it.

Gosh, probably about a month ago.

And and it's almost from a sensory standpoint of the sounds and everything, it's almost overwhelming.

Um it it's a little it's a little bit insane, but for somebody who is all about variety, they variety is like their middle name.

SPEAKER_01: And so well, people love it.

And and I hear they have terrific snacks.

So I hear they have like good honey roasted like peanuts or something.

There's all sorts of stuff you can get there.

SPEAKER_00: They do, they do.

I was I started to say, you know, you get your get your uh you know, pulled a barbecue like brisket sandwich and then get you a thing of uh whatever they call me, but yeah, the little bucky balls or bucky nuggets or something.

I mean, I don't even know.

But uh, so that's awesome.

So now I'm kind of curious throughout all of this with Texas, uh, is there anything that you feel like you've learned about Texas as a whole taken away from doing your podcast that you feel like maybe you didn't realize or know before?

SPEAKER_01: Well, I I mean, I have always held that Texas is much more culturally diverse than people give it credit for.

I do believe living in New York, people still view Texas in kind of monolithic terms.

And so I wanted to use this as an opportunity just to kind of get to know some of the more nuances that you can find down there.

But I I mean it is something that I do think is important.

I mean, it it's not something that is discussed explicitly in the series, but I do believe that culture provides an we live in a very polarized age right now.

I think that culture is one of those rare areas of agreement.

And something I found is that people were so eager.

When I reached out to them, I mean, there were very few no's that I got.

Everyone was so excited and interested in the fact that someone took an interest in showcasing the work that they were doing or their traditions and their history.

And I think that that's a really good thing.

And I I think it's important for us to just kind of sit down and engage with one another more in this moment.

And this series really provided an opportunity for me to do just that.

SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.

Now, I'm just curious.

I don't know as far as like filming, you know, recording all of your different episodes and stuff, but has any of the the more recent happenings in Texas, like with the whole border crisis and all of that, has that been incorporated to any of your episodes?

SPEAKER_01: Well, the the series itself is apolitical, and that's very intentional.

But I I mean, when I was I did a piece that touched on folklore, and the episode encompasses a few things.

I mean, first of all, I took a ghost tour in the city of Galveston where, you know, I visited a haunted house and all of that.

But in working on that, I thought, well, you know, I really need to have a discussion about what folklore is in this episode.

And I found a wonderful folklorist uh by the name of Javier Garza, who's based in San Antonio, and he grew up in a border town on the Texas side of the border.

And he grew up surrounded by cukuis, um, which are these kind of legends that you get on the US-Mexico border.

And in that episode, he told me the story of La Llorona, which is this very tragic figure.

I mean, many different cultures have their own versions of La Llorona, but basically, this is a woman who drowned her children in the river and, you know, is spent, you know, spends her nights like wailing after her children.

And, you know, and in in certain versions of the legend, she actually goes out and tries to kidnap children.

And he very much discussed the parallels that can be seen in that story and much of what has happened near the border over the last uh few years in terms of separation, both where you have, you know, the mothers crying for their children and you know, figures of, you know, those who are responsible for the separations in that sense, they kind of become La Gorona as well.

So that's a moment where that where it crept in.

But for the most part, it was pretty intentionally apolitical.

SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.

I I love that.

I mean, I think that's very interesting.

And what a uh I don't know.

I'm I'm just sitting here thinking as you you're telling this whole thing, and what a very uh interesting way to go about it with the whole folklore, you know, aspect to it.

That's pretty neat.

Pretty neat.

So well, well now I would love to ask you for somebody who's who's listening and they're interested, what can they expect to come away with from your podcast besides just learning more about some you know neat places to visit in Texas?

Is there any like overall theme that you really hope people come away with and kind of uh maybe impacts them, you know, moving forward?

SPEAKER_01: Well, I think it is more.

I mean, people have described it to me as a travel podcast, which is perfectly fine, but I really think it's much more of a people podcast that's the result of my travels more than anything else.

I think the emphasis is really much more on storytelling and oral history.

And so it it's just it's my hope that if you were to listen to these episodes, I mean, obviously you you'd learn a little bit about these places, you'd get some knowledge, but you you'll also have some laughs, you'll meet some some wild characters, maybe share some tears.

Like you said, I mean, I I think it is kind of the experience of getting to hang out at a bar with me and and getting to know the characters there.

And so that's that's that's really kind of what the feeling of the the show is.

SPEAKER_00: Well, that's awesome.

Well, Vanishing Postcards sounds so amazing.

I can't wait to uh get to uh listen to more episodes and more to be released and kind of have a feeling that those listening are feeling the same way.

So so I just want to thank you so much for coming on my podcast, and I just really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01: Oh, Kevin, believe me, uh the honor has been mine.

I appreciate your interest.

Thank you so much for having me.

It's been a great joy.

SPEAKER_00: Awesome.

Thank you so much.

And for all of you listening, don't forget to check out the show notes for all of the links like normal.

Have an awesome day.

SPEAKER_02: And that's the lowdown with Kevin Lowe.

Don't forget to check out the show notes for all of today's mentioned links.