Last Saturday I joined over 40,000 demonstrators at the Women’s March on ATX. People of all ages and ethnicities rallied at the Texas State Capitol and marched through the streets of downtown Austin. The crowd was predominately female, but quite a few men participated, too.
To celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I attended Austin’s MLK Community March on the Monday holiday. The route began at the University of Texas campus, stopped at the Texas State Capitol, and then continued to Huston-Tillotson University.
Last week, Austin’s oldest and grandest hotel, The Driskill, invited the public to their 130th anniversary celebration. The hotel was built by Colonel Jesse Driskill at the corner of Sixth and Brazos Streets. The Driskill’s grand opening was on December 20, 1886. The property changed hands throughout the years and is currently owned by Hyatt Hotels.
Early voting in Texas started yesterday and continues through Friday, November 4. A list of polling places in Travis Country can be found here. Besides the Presidential race, there are lots of state and local contests. Austin residents must also consider Proposition 1, the City of Austin 2016 Mobility Bond, to fund transportation and mobility improvements.
The 29th annual AIDS Walk Austin wound through our downtown streets on Sunday afternoon. For the past few years, the event was held in Republic Square Park. Currently that park is being renovated, so this year’s walk started and ended at Palm Park near the I-35 service road. This fundraiser benefited AIDS Services of Austin and other local AIDS service organizations.
Last week I checked out the Downtown Street Market on Congress Avenue near 9th Street. This lunchtime event is sponsored by the Downtown Austin Alliance and is scheduled for every Friday through mid-November.
This week Bill and I attended a B Movies and Bad History discussion at the Bob Bullock Texas History Museum. This ongoing series strives to set the record straight about Texas history as depicted in the movies. During this week’s hour-long installment, we viewed clips from old Westerns interspersed with Cattle Drive insights from two UT professors: Don Graham (American and English Literature) and Tom Schatz (Radio/Television/Film).
Although this isn’t the correct season yet, we’ve already had an Austin Fall Home & Garden Show here. Bill and I decided to visit the show on Friday to avoid the weekend crowds. This was not the best plan. The Austin Convention Center was nearly empty, so we were accosted by numerous salespeople with offers to remodel our non-existent house. Most of the exhibitors seemed to ignore the word fall in their displays, which brought back fond summer vacation memories for me…
Although the United Nation’s World Refugee Day is officially today, World Refugee Day was observed in our city with a Saturday afternoon celebration at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum. The event was sponsored by the Austin Refugee Roundtable, a coalition of non-profits who provide services for local refugee resettlements.
I was thrilled to attend two afternoon sessions of the recent Vietnam War Summit. This three-day event was hosted by the LBJ Presidential Library. Panel discussions were held each afternoon in their auditorium, with evening keynotes featuring former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and filmmaker Ken Burns interviewing current Secretary of State John Kerry.