Atascosa Voice 2: Jeremy Lahey

Becoming Pleasanton

I didn’t grow up here. I didn’t plan on staying. But between long highway stretches, country music memories, and meeting my wife, Pleasanton started to feel less like a stop and more like a place I belonged.

Pleasanton, Texas, with its heat, mesquite, and highway 97 running through it. It’s the kind of place where the air feels wide open and the town seems to gather itself around the courthouse square. Texas, for me, used to be something like that: vivid, familiar from songs and road trips, but still just out of reach.

When I was a kid in Indiana, my grandparents loved country music. We traveled to Tennessee often, and I spent time at bluegrass festivals and country music shows. Back home, 95.5 WFMS was always humming from the radio in their bedroom, mixing with the smell of coffee and whatever supper was simmering on the stove. I heard every major country song from the 1990s, and I spent plenty of time wearing a cowboy hat and boots, pretending I was Garth Brooks.

At that point, Texas felt more like an idea than a place.

I had only been here once as a child, while passing through on a family trip to Anaheim. Later, as a truck driver, I drove through San Antonio on my way to Laredo, watching the city lights fade behind me and the highway stretch south into the dark. Even then, Texas felt distant. I was fascinated by it, but it seemed too far away to ever become part of my life.

That changed in 2018, when I met my wife.

One of the first things that caught my attention was that she was from Texas. We visited Pleasanton several times before eventually moving here in 2021. What started as occasional visits slowly became something more familiar. The same roads. The same stretch of Highway 97. The same feed stores and gas stations. The same faces at the counter. And, little by little, it became home.

One thing that stood out immediately was the hospitality. Pleasanton has a strong sense of community. Whether I’m stopping into a local shop off the square, showing up for a festival, or just chatting with someone under the shade of a live oak, I’ve found folks to be welcoming and genuine.

There were also plenty of Texas staples I had never experienced before. Before meeting my wife, I had never heard of H-E-B, Whataburger, or Taco Cabana. Looking back, I realize I was missing out on a few important pieces of Texas culture.

Of course, my wife’s family warned me about the weather.

They would say, “Sure, it’s 75 degrees on Christmas. Tell me how you feel when August gets here.”

They weren’t kidding.

I work outside, so I’ve gotten plenty of experience with South Texas summers. By midmorning, the air already feels thick. By afternoon, the heat rises off the pavement in waves. The steering wheel burns your hands. The truck seat sticks to the back of your legs. Even the shade feels hot. The wildlife took some getting used to as well. Tarantulas, rattlesnakes, armadillos, and enough thorn-covered brush to make you watch every step you take. I quickly learned that cactus needles don’t come out nearly as easily as they go in.

And then there are sticker burrs.

I’ve become so invested in my Crocs that I only take them off when my feet aren’t touching the floor. I’ve picked sticker burrs out of my socks, stepped on them in the yard, and dragged them through the house more times than I can count. In Pleasanton, they seem to cling to everything—boots, pant legs, dog fur, even the cuffs of your jeans after a walk through dry grass.

Despite the heat, Pleasanton surprised me in another way.

For a small rural town, it’s remarkably walkable. I’ve ridden my bike across most of town, past the courthouse area, along quiet streets lined with mesquite and tidy front porches, and I can get almost anywhere without much trouble. As I’ve explored the streets, I’ve also watched the town continue to grow.

New businesses seem to appear every year. The skatepark recently added a new skate bowl, and on warm evenings you can hear wheels clattering against concrete while kids wait their turn in the fading light. Everywhere I look, I see people working to make the community better.

What has impressed me most, though, is the work ethic.

I’ve worked alongside ranchers building fences in the August heat from sunrise to sunset, with sweat running down our backs and dust sticking to our arms. I’ve met business owners investing in their dreams and community leaders dedicating their time to improving the place they call home.

The people here work hard.

When I first arrived, I wasn’t sure what to expect from South Texas. What I found was a community full of people building lives, raising families, and working together to create something lasting.

I came here because I met a girl from Texas.

I stayed because I found a home.

Pleasanton will always be a place that carries a piece of me, just as I now carry a piece of it.