[The ATX]

Originally Posted by the Genral

And there were no shortages of people giving Austin history lessons, especially the ones who resented transplants from NY like me. Unlike today, there were quite a few locals who did not appreciate yankees infiltrating their territory. Three weeks after I got here in January '81, I got my ass kicked at a redneck biker bar on 183 just north of Burnet Rd just because 3 guys at the bar didn't like my New Yawk accent...and then they kicked over my Suzuki motorcycle just for good measure. I remembering wiping the dirt off me, licking my wounds, picking up my bike and saying to myself..."welcome to Austin!". I quickly learned to drop the NY accent and started saying...fixin, howdy, and ya'll, ripped the yellow NY tags off my car, and never had a problem again. Rednecks back then were so gullable I want to say the bar was called the Good Times. Ironic... Does anyone remember Cardi's off Burnet Rd north of IBM?
But my holyshit, this is a cool f'en city moment came with my first Aquafest and the crazy, and I mean crazy raft race. You will never see anything like it on Town Lake ever again. You could be a spectator and still have a blast. Maybe someone has a picture they could post of it here. I'd love to see it...

The resentment toward "Yankees" back then was way worse than the anti-Californian sentiment of today. I remember Cardi's. It was outside of Austin's city limits at the time in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. But it was actually between where MOPAC and the Hospital are today near Parmer Lane. It was torn down for the MOPAC right of away. MOPAC replaced Burnet/FM1325 at that location, and Parmer Lane was an undeveloped two lane country road that ended right there at Burnet.