Lovin' Lubbock

"Lubbock is so flat that standing on the ground you can see 30 miles.
But if you stand on a tuna can you can see 100."

Terry Allen

—as quoted by Jimmie Dale Gilmore on
Prairie Home Companion

"I guessed happiness was Lubbock Texas in my rearview mirror.

But now happiness is Lubbock Texas growing nearer and dearer

And the vision was getting clearer in my dream.

And I think I finally know just what it means,

And when I die, you can bury me in Lubbock Texas
in my jeans.”

Mac Davis
—Texas in My Rearview Mirror

"I would describe Lubbock to an outsider as it's a great place to live,
but you wouldn't want to visit there."

Tommy X Hancock
—Lubbock Lights

"Back when radio could turn your life around, I loved what it did to me
in that two-bit Texas town. . . . made us want to dance
in that two-bit Texas town."

Angela Strehli
—That Two-Bit Texas Town

"Lubbock reminds me of a huge monster that fell out of the sky.
Every once in a while it moves, but they don't know who
to call in to kill the damn thing!"

C.B. Stubblefield

"They’re out there in the desert; They’re getting their ass kicked by tornadoes and weather all the time. It’s like they feel like,
'We gotta’ be ‘GOOD.’ And we can’t put up with any tomfoolery at all . . .
or else we’re just gonna’ get wiped off the face of the earth!"

Jo Harvey Koontz Allen
—virtualubbock (comparing Lubbockites to people
in the Bible who lived in 400 B.C.)

"Good Lord, Lubbock, Texas! Well, about 88.3 percent of the world there is sky—and if you are used to that—it feels like freedom and everywhere else feels like jail."

Molly Ivins
—virtualubbock, Lubbock: Her Teeth are Stained
but Her Heart Is Pure

"I frequently describe Lubbock as like an old girlfriend who—after you've broken up—you still love ‘em,and you don’t want anybody else
talkin' bad about ‘em, but you just can’t live in the same place with ‘em.
"You wanta’ check in on ‘em every now-and-then, give ‘em a call,
see how they’re doin.' You don’t want anybody else treatin’ ‘em bad . . .
but you don’t want to live in the same house with them.
That's kinda’ the way I look at Lubbock."

Chris Ogelby
—virtualubbock

"If I had a flat tire and my spare was bad, Lubbock is the place
I would most want to be."

Mac Davis

"Filmmaker Amy Maner wants you to know Lubbock. She wants you to see it as someplace sacred and severe, plain and preposterous and windy, the most magically drab space in all the world. If you get it—if you feel the charm of such High Plains contradictions—Maner believes you'll understand a larger story about Texas music, and Texas genius."

Brad Bucholtz
—"Where Music Roams: from Buddy Holly to Natalie Maines,
documentary tunes in to the High Plains of Lubbock."

"It is extremely difficult to develop either pretensions or affectations in Lubbock without getting laughed out of town, which probably does account for a lot about the music. Lubbock is sometimes called "the Hub City of the Plains" – actually the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce is the only thing that ever calls it that – and I think it was Jimmie Gilmore who once observed, "Plain is the opposite of fancy."

Molly Ivins
—Lubbock: Her Teeth Are Stained
but Her Heart is Pure

"Lubbock ain't no Paris-on-the-Panhandle. 'Lubbock Lights' introduces us to a city whose nature is to be obsessive about grid and order, as it appears in the rows of cotton, or the lines of a football gridiron, or in the straight-line pattern of its streets. Jon Dee Graham alludes to the 'violent emptiness' of his hometown. 'It's not just flat. And it's not just empty,' he says. 'It's the flattest. And the emptiest.'"

Brad Bucholtz
—"Where Music Roams: from Buddy Holly to Natalie Maines,
documentary tunes in to the High Plains of Lubbock."

Thanks to excavation at the Lubbock Lake Site we know that there have been people in or near the present site of Lubbock
for at least 12 thousand years. Don't ask us why.
We have absolutely no idea!

Web sites that help us remember why so many of
us love Lubbock anyway

© The Lubbock Centennial 1909-2009
     Lubbock is not celebrating the 12,000 years that came before (See quote
    above.), but only the last 100 since the place has been named "Lubbock."
    Be sure to spend plenty of time with this site, because there is a lot of
    interesting material in it. Our favorite is the series titled "The A-J
    Remembers," which has already featured stories about Ralna English, the
    Hi-D-Ho and Lubbock theaters. New stories in this series are added every
    Sunday, so check back often.
© virtualubbock
      If you've watched "Austin City Limits," you may know that many
     of the "Austin musicians" are really from Lubbock. And most of the
     musicians from Lubbock, went to Monterey. And the most famous
     of these Monterey musicians are the ones that were in Monterey at
     the same time we were or in the years just after. So spend a lot of
     time on this site, too. It'll do your heart good. Our personal favorite
     songs that we should have known about but didn't are both by
     Terry Allen: The Great Joe Bob (Hint: Joe Bob isn't real, but the
     MHS alma mater is.) and The Pink and Black Song. (He should have
     dedicated it to us.) Both are on the Lubbock on Everything CD and
     are available individually on iTunes. The interviews on
     virtualubbock are particularly interesting. If you are going to
     explore only one hyperlink on this site, let it be this one.
© Avalanche Journal - Lubbock Online
© Official City Website for Lubbock, Texas
© Historic Lubbock and Lubbock Texas Hotels
© Visit Lubbock - The Texas You’ve Always Dreamed of...
© National Ranching Heritage Center
© Cactus Theater
© Silent Wings Museum
     Warning ! This site is still under construction and may cause your
    computer to seize up and have to be re-booted. If you don't want to
    deal with that, there's a nice virtual tour on YouTube, and if you
    want to go this museum, it's out by the airport and there are signs.
© American Wind Power Center and Museum
© Prairie Dog Town
© Joyland Amusement Park

© Lubbock - Her Teeth are Stained but Her Heart is Pure
    We think there should be a footnote to this piece. Since it was
    written Kent Hance, who is quoted extensively in it regarding his
    behavior and that of others at the famous/infamous Cotton Club,
    has been made Chancellor of the Texas Tech University System. You
    gotta love that!

Lubbock looks like this. Efficient.
No reason to curve the road
if there is nothing to curve around, is there?

And Lubbock looks like this.
It may be on the flatlands,
but no mountain range
ever reached toward a
more beautiful blue
heaven than Lubbock does
on "an uncloudly day."

And Lubbock looks like this.
The compensation
for dust in the air is
sunsets like this one.

And Lubbock looks like this.
There hasn't been a direct
hit since May 11, 1970. But every spring they show up
in the neighborhood
and dance around with varying degrees of menace. It's like they're just keeping Lubbock inhabitants alert to the possibilities.

And Lubbock looks like this. There's so much room
for so much more.
After you've lived other
places and you fly
into Lubbock, you feel a
gut tug and know you're
home again, even if you
could not wait to get
away before and have
no intention of
staying now.
This tug is especially
poignant if, when you
look out the window
as you taxi in,
you see a jack rabbit
racing the plane up
to the gate and a prairie
dog or two, heads up
out of their burrows—
checking things out
as they do—and barking,
"Welcome home!"