I was walking Gruene Hall to head out to San Marcos. On my way to the car, an attractive young black woman - about my age or perhaps a bit younger than myself - stopped me and asked if I was coming out of Gruene Hall. I told her that I was.

She said that she was new to the New Braunfels area and had heard a lot about the place. I said that it was somewhat legendary throughout Texas (which it is if you follow Texas country music). She asked what kind of place it was and I said it was a "nicer than usual honky tonk."

"What do you mean by that?"

I explained that it was a honky tonk sort of atmosphere, though not as dingy as some honky tonks are stereotyped to be. When she asked me what a "honky tonk" was, I knew that she really wasn't from around here.

She asked if it was an "exclusive" place.

I asked what she meant by that.

She asked if she was dressed okay.

I thought that she was, if anything, a little overdressed. But a lot of people overdress to that sort of thing, so I didn't say that. I told her that it wasn't a particularly exclusive place.

She got a little sheepish and giggled out of nervousness or embarassment. She said she had a question for me, but was afraid to ask it. As nicely as possible, I told her to go ahead and ask it. I started to get an idea that the question might pertain to her race and their degree of acceptance of that.

She said that she'd met some "ugly people" in New Braunfels. She didn't say precisely what she meant by "ugly" people and I should have asked, but I didn't. She asked if there were ugly people in there. The way she asked it, though, had me wondering if I was totally off-base. Like she meant very heavy people. I was a little reluctant to bring race into a conversation that it hadn't been established as concerning it.

She gigglingly said something like, "I mean, I know that there are ugly people everywhere. But are there a lot of ugly people in there?"

By the time I eventually did get to my car, it was never established whether she meant ugly temperamentally or physically. Honestly, if it had been a racial query, I don't know what I could have told her. The truth is that I've never been black in the south and no matter how much I might try, I'm not going to notice everything that a black person would. I would have felt it presumptuous to say that racism wouldn't be an issue, but it's not something I'd particularly noticed (I've never really heard offhand comments derogatory towards blacks at Texas country music shows) so I couldn't have said that either.

If she was worried about fat people, I honestly would have cared less about informing her because I don't do well with snobs.

Either way, though, as I headed to the Exxon station and she into the bar, I doubt that she had a particularly good time and she's probably regretting having trusted the nice things I said about the place and the music there. But I do hope that I am wrong.