Just found out that an old friend passed away yesterday.

[hobbit709]

Anyone in Austin may know Danny Young-The unofficial mayor of South Austin. I've know Danny since he opened the first Texicalli Grille on S Lamar.
Danny Young 1941- 2008

By Michael Corcoran | Thursday, August 21, 2008, 12:20 AM

Someone called Danny Young “the Mayor of South Austin” and it stuck like an arrow because Young’s warm, gregarious personality and passion for Texas music lit up the whole 78704 Zip Code. The big-hearted neighborhood activist was the friendliest guy you could ever meet… and he met everyone who ever walked into his Texicalli Grille.
A native of Kingsville, where his parents ran a root beer stand turned pizza parlor, Young and his wife Lu moved to Austin in 1975 and opened the first location of Texicalli Grille (the signature Texicalli sandwich was named after Gene Autry’s “Mexicalli Rose”) on South Lamar Boulevard. He became the unofficial mayor of South Austin in the mid-1980s, when the city planned to widen South Lamar and put in a continuous median, to make it more of a thoroughfare. Fearing an expansion would change the soul of the neighborhood, Young organized other affected business owners, who gathered petitions, took their concerns to City Hall, and eventually got the expansion project dropped.

“It used to be, ‘All them Bubbas live over there with toilets in their front yards.’ And there’s still some of that,” Young said of South Austin in a 2002 American-Statesman profile. “But it’s the most beautiful, supportive community. It doesn’t matter if you have long or short hair, Skoal in your back pocket or a joint in your shirt pocket; here people really care about people.”

More here
http://www.austin360.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/music/entries/2008/08/21/danny_young_1943_2008.html

We had our wedding reception there in 1997. We called it the Jerry Garcia Memorial Wedding-everyone had to wear tie-dye.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. My dear hobbit709...

My deepest condolences on the loss of your old friend...

And what great memories you have of him!

I love your picture...

Safe passage to him...

Hugs for you, and for all who knew and loved him...:hug: :hug:

That which is remembered, lives...