My first Texas experience was a bad one: Teenage mother, bad marriage, physical and emotional abuse, language problems, money problems, homesick for Germany. I was housebound in a corner of the Texas that would have been challenging even for someone born and raised in the United States.

In the early Seventies, Port Arthur was an oil town, famous only for processing massive amounts of crude and spawning Janis Joplin. The humidity and the mosquitoes were unbearable, as was the stench coming from the polluted Galveston bay.

My infant son and I endured tropical heat without air condition, cockroaches as big as hamsters, and being stuck out in the country without transportation. After five months, I packed him up and literally escaped back to Germany, vowing to never ever set foot in that godforsaken state called Texas again. I was so serious about it that I personally returned my green card to the American Consulate in Frankfurt. I was done with the United States, and Texas in particular.

But only four years later, I found myself in Maryland, with a new and kinder, gentler husband, ready to give life in America another shot. Texas was a different story. I avoided it like the plague and didn’t set foot on its soil until three decades later, when my first assignment as an interpreter for the State Department took me to Houston, Texas in 1999. Deja vu. 

My return to Texas was not as dramatic as I had anticipated. I no longer had to fear for my safety. The Houston assignment was pleasant enough. I even spent a weekend with a German friend in Austin. Texas and I were warming up to each other again. It wasn’t that I suddenly developed a passion for Texas as much as that I no longer loathed it. And then came Willie. Nelson, that is.

After I started to circle in Willie’s orbit, there were frequent trips to Texas. Shows at the Backyard in Austin, the annual 4^th of July picnic in Fort Worth, and fun-filled weekends at Willie’s old ranch, now taken over by his daughter Lana, who would organize elaborate weekend get-togethers for her BFFs, the Hormones. I was thrilled when I was initiated as a Hormone. But nothing prepared me for being named an Honorary Texan in a personal appearance before the Texas State Senate, no less.

It happened like this: After Willie’s 70^th birthday on April 30, 2003, the state of Texas decided to honor its famous native son by officially naming him a “Treasure of the State of Texas.” Senator Hector Barrientos (D) had drafted a motion to be voted on by the delegates, and then Willie would be invited to stand before the assembly and have the honor bestowed on him.

I was spending a few days with Lana at the ranch when one night, she said

“They’re honoring dad at the senate tomorrow. Wanna go? We can go on the bus.”

“The Bus”? I asked, incredulously.

“Sure,” she said, nonchalantly.

The Bus, of course, was not just any old bus. It was Willie’s bus. The Honeysuckle Rose is his home on wheels, his inner sanctum, and she has taken him across hundreds of thousands of miles of American roads. With its Eagle and Indian murals painted on the side and back, the bus is as recognizable to any Willie fan as the Statue of Liberty was to our immigrant forefathers. 

The bus is where he eats, sleeps, plays, receives visitors and likes to spend most of his time. The bus is so much a part of him that Kris Kristofferson drove it onto the stage of the Kennedy Center when Willie was the first country artist to receive Kennedy Center honors. 

I was going to get to ride on Willies bus! I’m not sure whether I was more excited or nervous. It was probably a tossup. But, at 2 p.m. the next day, we drove to Willie’s ranch, where the bus was parked, and I got on for the ride – in more ways than one.

The Bus is usually a busy place. En route to a show, it is home to Willie, Lana, Willie’s sister Bobbie who plays the piano, his road manager David, security manager L.G., and Gator and Tony, the drivers. But this was an off day, and only Willie, David, L.G. and Ben Dorcey, a colorful octogenarian and erstwhile valet to John Wayne, were on the bus.

As soon as we got on, the doors closed and Gator pulled out of the gate, heading east on Hwy. 71 toward Austin. Lana busied herself in the galley, fixing Willie his standard fare of two eggs sunny side up, bacon, and toast. David and L.G. were in the back doing paperwork and working the phones. Ben Dorcey was making coffee. Willie was teasing Ben Dorcey, which he does a lot. (“Tell me, Ben, is it true that John Wayne was queer?”)  I was sitting on one of the custom-made leather benches in the sitting area, watching satellite T.V., and trying to blend into the surroundings while remaining unobtrusive.

Half an hour later we arrived in downtown Austin, where State Troopers already expected us and guided the bus to the designated parking area. Senator Barrientos’ Chief of Staff was already waiting for us. Her name was Roxanne and she was excited, clutching a folder that presumably contained the agenda.  

“Welcome,” she beamed at the sight of Willie, and immediately launched into the plan.

“At 11 a.m. sharp,” she gushed, “Mr. Nelson and his party of four will be escorted onto the floor of the senate. Then the declaration will be read and voted on and y’all will receive your Lone Star flags and an original proclamation.“

“What party of four”? Lana interrupted her gently.

“We were expecting Mr. Nelson, his sister Bobbie, and two of his daughters,” Roxanne said.

Oops. Houston, we have a problem.

“But they’re not here,” Lana said. “It’s just us.”

Roxanne looked disappointed. 

“That’s too bad,” she said, “because we have prepared everything for four recipients. Four original declarations, four flags, four proclamations.”

Lana pretty much knows how to handle any situation, and this was no different.

“Why don’t you take Ruth instead,” she sweetly prompted Roxanne, pointing toward me. “She’s our friend.” She really pronounced it fre-end, in her distinctive Texas drawl.

Roxanne was pleased. “I’d be happy to,” she replied. “It will take us only a minute to change the paperwork.”

“And L.G. can be the fourth person,” Lana threw in, now obviously on a roll. 

L.G., a fiftyish weathered and pony-tailed member of the California Hells Angels is Willie’s long-time head of security.

And so it came that minutes later, Willie, Lana, L.G. and I were paraded in front of the Texas State Assembly. I was relieved that I had worn a somewhat decent sleeveless black top that fit the occasion. But I needn’t have worried.

There’s a tie rule at the Texas State House. Anyone on the floor of the house must wear a coat and tie. But Willie was wearing his standard garb of black jeans, black T-shirt and New Balance tennis shoes, prompting the Senate to quickly suspend the tie rule for the day in his honor. And to fit the occasion, some of the assembly members put on red bandanas with their blue business suits.

Willie was greeted with a standing ovation, and the proclamation was read, voted on and approved while Willie, Lana, L.G. and I stood receiving line-style facing the assembly. Then a beaming Senator Barrientos shook hands with each of us and handed each of us an original signed declaration and a folded Lone Star flag.

It was then that I started to tear up. Who would have thought? Almost thirty years ago, I spent the most horrific time of my life in Texas and vowed never to set foot into the state again, and now I’m an honorary citizen? I felt simply overwhelmed by the enormity of the situation.

After the ceremony was over, we were taken to the formal dining room on the third floor, where a sumptuous breakfast had been laid out. Meanwhile, Roxanne asked Willie if he would sign a few autographs for State employees, and he was only too happy to oblige. 

“Just for a few minutes,” she said.

Two hours later, most members of Willies band and road crew had arrived and were tearing into the breakfast, while Willie was still signing autographs and the line still snaked around the corner of the long hallway.

“We didn’t even have that long of a line when the Queen of England was here!” Roxanne exclaimed. 

Welcome to Willie world, Roxanne!

By then, the school classes and visitors outside the State House had gotten wind of what was going on inside, and throngs of people were lining the walkway back to the bus. State Troopers escorted us back to the bus and tried to keep the crowds back, with limited success.

One little boy, generationally challenged, pointed at Willie and squealed,

“I know him. He sings with Toby Keith.”

By the time we made it back to the bus, a crowd of school children and their adult chaperones were waiting at the door to the bus. 

Willie, kind as he is, shook hands with all of them and even did an impromptu duet of “Yellow Rose of Texas” with a little boy, before he finally made it back on the bus and we got back on the road again.

I, on the other hand, was the first one back on the bus, clutching my Lone Star flag and my proclamation, and still wondering if all of this had really happened to me just now.

Then the “I’m not worthy” part of my brain asserted itself. This really wasn’t right. I was relatively new in Willie’s circle; I’d only been hanging with them for a few years. There were people who’d been with him through thick and thin for five decades. They should have been up there instead of me.

When I told Willie about my sentiments, he said kindly,

“That’s okay. We’re glad you were here.”

And Lana, knowing my Texas history, drawled,

“This was meant to be.” 

Amen.