In the spring of 1980, I was back home in Todd County, Kentucky, spending my days in the corn and soybean fields, working for David Stokes. Life was simple—hot days on the tractor, the smell of fresh-turned dirt, and the steady rhythm of farming. Then one afternoon my cousin called from Texas. He was working for a telephone contractor in Houston and asked me straight out if I wanted to come down and take a job. He said the pay was great and the girls were pretty. I didn’t even pause. “Sure,” I told him. Within two weeks, I had my clothes packed in a duffel, my cowboy boots in the backseat, and I was bound for Texas.
Houston in 1980 was like another planet to a farm kid from Todd County. Cornfields and quiet roads were traded for a city that seemed to spread out forever, with gas refineries rising like steel giants all across the horizon. The traffic never quit, the nights buzzed with neon, and everything felt alive twenty-four hours a day. The work paid well, and the adventures were even better.
Sometime in 1980, John Travolta’s Urban Cowboy came out, and it didn’t just make him a star—it put Pasadena, Texas, and Gilley’s on the map. Everybody was talking about it, and before long we made the trip. Gilley’s was only about 30 miles from where we lived, and it wasn’t just another bar—it was the largest nightclub in the world at the time.
The first time I walked through those doors, the sound of live country music hit me like a hammer—fiddles and steel guitars ringing out over a steady drumbeat. Neon signs glowed above the dance floor, casting red and blue light across the crowd. The air carried the smell of beer and cigarette smoke, and everywhere you looked, people were moving—men in cowboy hats and boots two-stepping shoulder-to-shoulder with their partners. Pretty girls were everywhere, laughing, dancing, and adding to the electricity in the air. The place seemed endless, stretching on with pool tables, long bars, and the steady hum of conversation layered under the music. At the heart of it all was the famous mechanical bull. Folks were lined up waiting their turn, the crowd gathering close, cheering and hollering as riders got tossed one after another into the padded pit. Most didn’t last more than a few seconds, their boots flying as the bull bucked them off, while the lucky few managed to hang on just a little longer. I stood back with a beer in my hand, watching the show, and I’ll admit—it was tempting. But I never climbed on that bull myself. I was content just to take it all in—the music, the lights, the people, and the feeling that I was right in the middle of something special.
For a young man from Kentucky, Gilley’s was like another universe. The music, the lights, the girls in their boots and hats—it was wild, it was fun, and for a time I lived right in the middle of it. Nights blurred into mornings, weekends came and went too fast, and before I knew it, a year and a half had slipped by.
But like all things, it came to an end. The contracting job wrapped up, and with it, my time in Houston was over. I packed my bags, left the city behind, and headed back to Todd County. Looking back, I wouldn’t trade those years in Texas for anything. I saw a world bigger than the farm, lived through the height of the Urban Cowboy craze, and stood inside the largest nightclub in the world. Still, I do wish I’d ridden that bull at least once. And when the dust settled, the bright lights of Texas faded behind me, and it was the quiet roads of Todd County that had my heart.