Ok, Michael J, I’m going to blame this on you, maybe it’s not your fault, but I’m gonna blame you anyway. Well, ok, I started it all with that PP&M post last Saturday, which dug up a lot of old emotion. However, if it wasn’t for our Facebook discussion the other day about your great music collection and all the music that I remembered enjoying, I would not have thought about that group from Sweden, ABBA. It has stuck in my brain like a grass burr in my bare toe ever since. So, to exorcise those Dancing Queens from my head, and after several consultations with Dr. James Beam, this story was concocted as my prescribed therapy and is now presented to you in hopes that Fernando might also pay you a visit in the middle of the night and beat the drums all night long.
My apologies to that Asshole and his lovely wife, Triple Tail in Port O’Connor, Texas, for dragging you and the town into my dilemma, but I had to place this story somewhere. Ya’ll won!
The Night POC Discovered ABBA Philosophy
Finishing up my business in Victoria, I headed south along Texas 185 toward the coast. Not sure where the road was going, I didn’t really care, and hadn’t planned to make any stops until I got back home. I hoped to drive another fifty miles before dark, but the engine began making a noise that suggested either a loose fan belt or a family of raccoons conducting a labor dispute under the hood.
Just ahead, a big, bright orange sign read “Caution: Guard Rail Damage Ahead.” Later, I would think I should have heeded the warning and turned around. The next sign simply read, “Port O’Connor”.
I was lucky enough to see a mechanic closing up his shop, and he told me he could look at it in the morning. He pointed me in the direction of the café and a motel right next to the shop. The sign over the motel said it was The Voulez Vous Motel.
The waitress at the café wore a name tag that identified her as Chiquitita. She shrugged and said, “Well, stranger, you might as well take a chance on me and stay the night. Motel’s clean enough.”
That should have been my second warning.
After supper, I wandered into the only bar in town. It had a long wooden counter, a jukebox glowing in the corner, and the sort of crowd that studies newcomers with the same curiosity usually reserved for meteor sightings.
A man asked where I was headed.
I told him the truth—that these days I mostly just follow the road and hope for the best.
“Travel teaches you a lot about people,” I said. “After a while, it’s just knowing me, knowing you, and figuring out which towns have decent coffee.”
They nodded thoughtfully, and someone wrote that down on a napkin.
About that time, the jukebox started playing, and a tanned, silver-haired woman rose from her chair with surprising authority. She moved toward the dance floor like a general entering battle. The crowd stepped aside respectfully. I was told her name was Weslene.
If the world has ever produced a genuine dancing queen, she was standing right there in orthopedic shoes.
Within minutes half the room was clapping along.
A tall man handed me a beer and said, “Every traveler eventually meets his Waterloo.”
“Tonight might be yours,” he added cheerfully.
I laughed, which turned out to be a mistake. A microphone appeared in my hand shortly afterward, and before I could object, the bartender had started the music. I have traveled the world and survived questionable food, suspicious boats, and dangerous people, but nothing terrifies me like a microphone in a karaoke bar.
Somewhere behind me a nervous husband was whispering SOS because his wife had decided he should dance too.
By midnight, the whole bar was singing. A woman leaned over and shouted “Mamma Mia!” every time the chorus came around, though I’m not sure she knew why.
The bartender clapped me on the back and declared that around here, the winner takes it all.
I never discovered exactly what prize he thought I had won.
Eventually, someone asked about the best night I ever spent on the road. I told them about a long evening years ago, talking with an old friend beside a river somewhere in South America.
We had stayed up until dawn solving the world’s problems, the way young men do.
“I forget the name of the town,” I said, “but the fellow I was talking with was named Fernando.”
For a moment, the whole bar grew quiet, as if I had just revealed an important spiritual truth.
That was when I realized the crowd had begun writing down everything I said.
The mayor arrived sometime after one in the morning. He said his name was Ted, though most people just called him A.H. I can only guess why. He asked if I would mind explaining my philosophy again, slowly this time.
I considered denying everything, but the jukebox started another song, and the entire bar burst into singing.
At that point, I decided it was safer to finish my drink and retreat.
I left town before sunrise while everyone else was still asleep. As I drove away along the empty highway, the lights of the bar faded behind me, and the music drifted faintly across the water.
Whatever else might be said about that town, they certainly believed in celebrating life.
That’s when I saw the flashing red light in my rear-view mirror, and I pulled over. The officer walked up to my window and asked, “Where are you coming from? and “How much have you had to drink?” I told him about the cafe, but I couldn’t remember the name of the game we were playing, and that I had not had nearly enough to drink. He checked my license, shone his light on me, and told me to drive carefully, and he was on his way. He really was a super trouper.
And for that, I suppose, a traveler can only say thank you for the music.
© J. Michael Boland March 10, 2026
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