Cactus

Legendary Stardust Cowboy

While a student at Lubbock’s Monterey High School in the mid-sixties, Norman Carl Odam, the only son of Utahonna Beauchamp, a clerk at J. C. Penney’s, and Carl Bunyan Odam, an auto mechanic, would stand on the school steps and bang on an old guitar (using only the G7 chord, according to Ely). Often, suited up in his Ledge outfit, he’d tool into fast-food drive-ins in a light blue Chevy Biscayne with “NASA presents the Stardust Cowboy” spray-painted on the side, hop on top of the car, and start his show. The kids would rearrange their cars to face him. Some would cheer him on, others would pelt him with Sweetarts or clumps of dirt, then invariably—before he could demonstrate his skills on the bugle and the washboard—fights would start and he’d have to peel out.  (from Texas Monthly, June 2000)

Cactus