Nov 26, 2025–One of our favorite family excursions while raising our combined DNA was attending the Texas Folklife Festival. Held every summer on the grounds of the Institute of Texan Cultures in downtown San Antonio, the event gave us three days of wallowing in the foods, dances, and music of all the ethnic groups that settled Texas.
In between playing on the various stages (where we represented the music of cowboy, blues, or gospel, depending on the song list and outfits), we would follow our kids around to the food booths. Many featured games from their countries, such as the bowling game at the Belgium booth, which also served Belch Waffles.
Here, one challenge rose above all others, figuratively and literally. Every year, on the north side of the grounds, stood a 12-foot cedar post, stripped of limbs and bark, and slathered in grease, and topped with a cowbell. The challenge was simple: climb the pole, ring the bell, and win a token.
Every year we tried, and every year we failed. In my mind, I had decided it was unclimbable, and passed it by.
Until one year when my brothers showed up to join the Phillips Sisters performing on the Gospel stage.
While touring the grounds, one brother noticed the greased pole. I remember this day clearly. He stood at the bottom of the pole, carefully studying it from top to bottom. He slowly walked around it. As other climbers tried and failed, my brother gravely approached the pole, gave a mighty leap, and clamped onto the post like a starving koala on a eucalyptus tree. Slowly he inched his way upward, squeezing the greasy post, digging into small toeholds and gripping barely-there knotholes.
Lo and behold, to the amazement of all watchers, he made it to the top. He perfunctorily rang the bell, slid down, collected his “I Climbed The Pole” token, and walked away for a Belch Waffle.
We stood there stunned. We had just witnessed greatness. We spectators all knew it couldn’t be done, yet this Yankee piano pounder had done it.
This would not stand. Uttering the classic line, “hold my beer,” I stepped up to the pole, mimicked my brother’s technique, and topped out and rang the bell.
The moral of this tale, of course, is that we all firmly believe something can’t be done, until we see someone do it. Or, as songwriter Regie Hamm put it: “Everything that exists, didn’t; until someone did it.”
There’s an old truism that if you want to become a billionaire, you need to hang out with billionaires. When I look back on my life, I realize that most of my endeavors grew from me seeing someone do something and then thinking, if they can do that, I can do that too.
That’s how I became a teacher, a musician, and a writer. By seeing people that I knew do those things, and believing if they can do it, so can I. Too bad I didn’t know anyone who was a billionaire, bull rider, or astronaut, or my life might have turned out differently.
I guess the moral is to let kids hang around as many professionals as possible, giving them more chances at finding what will make them a success in life.
Show them they can climb the pole, too.