It didn't take long for me to realize that Ben White is a very important man to the city of Austin. It did take me about two months to wonder why. But once I started wondering, I started realizing that he is much more important that I'd noticed.
One of the major roads in Austin is named after him...Ben White Blvd. There's a Ben White Florist and a Ben White Automotive. There are gas stations and storage units and animal hospitals.
And on a day when I had a lack of anything better to think about apparently, I not only wondered, but accidentally said out loud, "Who is Ben White?" As brilliant as the other four Austin residents in the car with me are, they didn't know the answer and I got the distinct impression that they didn't care. I think the exact response that I got was, "Why don't you find out and blog about it."
So I did find out. Kind of. And I am blogging about it. What I was able to learn about the legendary Ben White via Google was that he served on Austin City Council for 16 years from 1951-1967. Now, lots of people have served on Austin City Council and I'm guessing many of them for extended periods of time so I can't help but think that Ben White had some extra sparkle to cause people to name half the village after him. So I looked and looked and looked and looked, trying to figure out what his extraordinary contributions were to the capital city of the greatest state in the world. And alas, I came up with nothing more than his 16-year stint on city council. For awhile, I was very motivated to find more information and bound and determine to enlighten everyone I know with it.
I went to About.com to read a short posting that stated Ben White Blvd. was named for the man who served on city council for 16 years. I scoured the page looking for anything else of value. I read down through related articles:
"King Bed in Garden Cottage"...?
"Quilting Resources and Supplies in Austin"
...
"Naturism and Nudism in Austin."
And right there on that About.com page, my motivation died.
No comments:
Post a Comment