In 1988 (or was it 1989?!) I did a 2 week motorcycle trip to a friend’s place in Sanderson, Texas (West Texas, not far from Big Bend). I was living in North Georgia at the time (Alpharetta). I would go out there occasionally and do some desert enduro motorcycling (now we call it adventure touring!). I loved getting out there in the West Texas desert and going to Big Bend National Park, Alpine, Marathon, Lajitas, Terlingua, Fort Davies and try to catch the “Marfa lights” (never did see them, BTW). I later moved there and started an Enduro touring motorcycle business (stay tuned, forthcoming stories).
On this particular trip, a few of us rode out to Lajitas, Texas where I met the town mayor, Clay Henry, Sr. The whole town looked like a cowboy western set complete with boardwalks and had an 18 hole golf course along the Rio Grande River. It was established as a western resort for rich folks and even had its’ own small airport. It was in the middle of the desert with nothing around for 50 miles. The scenery is gorgeous with painted rock towers and the mountains in Mexico overlooking the whole area and the Rio Grande River. Parts of Lonesome Dove and other various western movies had been filmed in the area.
So we stopped at the western town and walked the boardwalk complete with a salon with those swinging doors. My friend who lived in the area said, “let’s go meet the mayor, Clay Henry!”
I was amazed the place even had a mayor, let alone a Post Office (which was in the salon and hotel!). We went down the back of the town and there was the adobe Trading Post and an attached corral.
“Where’s the mayor?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” my friend said. He led us into the store, where he said we had to by a beer for the mayor!
Thinking this was odd, but knowing the whole place was unusual, I agreed. “What kind does he like?” I wanted to make an impression with the Mayor, after all he is the Honorable Clay Henry, Sr.!!
The shop keeper then spoke up and said, “He likes any kind of cold cheap lite beer, doesn’t matter.”
So I bought him and I a Bud Lite, my friend did the same.
We went outside and the pen had 2 goats in it, one was older the other was a young one. My friend said that the older goat was Clay Henry, Sr. and the younger one was Clay Henry, Jr. Clay Henry was in fact elected mayor of Lajitas 2 years before! He has even been on Jay Leno! I couldn’t believe it, but there was official looking literature there on the pen wall that said that it was in fact true, and back in the shop was a picture on the wall (I later discovered during my 2nd beer) of the Mayor and Jay Leno together.
My friend showed me the technique. You brought the bottle of beer up to the fence and Clay Henry anxiously came over and took it in his mouth, and in fact drank it down in less than 5 seconds, dropped it in the ground and waited for his second!
Well it was 95 degrees and dry, so we had a few more beers, then ate some delicious Tex-Mex tacos and hung around for the afternoon, and headed back after sobering up! Clay Henry, Sr. had drank by then 6 or 7 beers and was definitely stumbling around some! The shop keeper told us that he had been known to drink up to a 12 pack in 4 hours and would eventually fall down and go to sleep. I thought how much we had in common with the mayor! Other than drinking, Clay Henry never once tried to solicit our votes. I don’t even know what party he was! Then I thought how unusual that was for a politician!
For more information on Clay Henry, Sr. (who has since passed away). Go to: http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2227
