Guich Koock’s life has been a unique journey from the very start. A sixth-generation Texan, his mother was Mary Faulk, sister of the famously blacklisted radio entertainer John Henry Faulk, and Guich (known in his early years as “Bill”) was born at a sprawling Victorian home, surrounded by his extended family (and many notable friends) on 23 acres of beautiful farmland just south of Austin.

After her father died and her mother moved into a small house in town, Mary and her husband, Chester Koock, turned the downstairs into the Green Pastures Restaurant in 1946 (open to all races 18 years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964). The Koock family (they eventually had seven children) lived upstairs, but they still enjoyed all the benefits of rural life, with cows, horses, dogs, cats, etc. on their 23 acres. Guich still remembers plowing with mules, and he rode a horse to St. Edwards High School when he first attended high school.

When Guich was in high school, he had the privilege of serving as a driver for the famous author J. Frank Dobie, and the Faulk family connection led to his acquaintance with many influential Texans during his growing-up years. During his senior year in high school, he worked as a counselor at Tex Robertson’s Camp Longhorn; he was a friend of two famous Camp Longhorn alumni: Cactus Pryor and Hondo Crouch. He studied history and English in college, and for his Master’s thesis at Texas A&M University, he interviewed children of former slaves in east Texas to compile a history.

Sometime in the late ‘60s, Koock was hired to help with a multi-cultural children’s TV show in Houston; he did some of the writing and some time on camera. During that time, he lived off-and-on at the Wimberley cabin of historians Bill and M.F. Johnson.

In 1970, Koock entered a partnership with two of his friends (Hondo Crouch and Kathy Morgan) to buy the little town of Luckenbach for $29,000. It wasn’t all fun and games; ...

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