When John Adamo first left his hometown of San Antonio to become a freshman at UT Austin, he thought he would enjoy studying government. He was right. “I think I was the only person I knew who never changed his major,” says Adamo, who recently retired, after a long career in law and state service, as associate general counsel for the Texas Department of Family & Protective Services. Adamo loved his government courses. He also ended up dedicating a great deal of his time at UT to more direct involvement with politics by way of the University Young Democrats. He became an officer in the group, served on the state organization of young Democrats, interned in Washington, D.C. for a local Democratic congressman, and spent a lot of time drinking beer with his fellow young Democrats in the beer garden at Scholz’s.
On being into politics:
I wanted to become a lawyer from the time I was 10 years old and was just very interested in government and politics. I think I was the only person I knew who never changed his major. One class that I loved — I forget what it was called — was like a simulation of the Texas Legislature. We were all assigned roles to play, and toward the end of the semester we got to walk over to the Capitol and play it out on the Senate floor over the course of several days, introducing bills and such. I was a committee chair. It was fantastic.
I was very active in what was then called University Young Democrats, now University Democrats. I was vice president as well as representative to the state organization. In 1978, a couple years before I started at UT, Bill Clements shocked the world by getting elected governor. He was the first Republican since Reconstruction to be elected. In 1982, he was defeated for re-election by Mark White. I considered myself a Mark White Democrat. He won the nomination against someone to his left and to his right. The people I hung out with were more on the progressive side of the party. I was a little more conservative than they were, more of a classic liberal — into free speech, government regulation of big business, equal opportunity, those sorts of ideas.
The group that I was with was quite diverse, students of all races and religions and sexual preferences. I spent my lunch hour on the West Mall. We’d set up the table and talk to whoever came by. There was a real diversity of views on campus, and a lot of encouragement for people to speak their mind in class and outside of class.
On Father Time:
There was this older guy on campus, probably in his 60s, who had a long gray or white beard, and everyone called him Father Time. He was a student on campus, and the rumor was that he was the beneficiary of the will of a rich relative and one of the conditions of this will was that he would only be able to accept money from the trust fund when he was a student. So he never left, just kept taking courses. He was my ideal. I loved learning so much and I still to this day enjoy the variety of learning experiences.
On technology now and then:
It’s hard to imagine what it was like before cell phones, before word processing. I had an electric typewriter which I typed my papers on. If you wanted to do a big edit you had to start all over again. My roommate finally got this word processor thing our senior year, and it was so much of an improvement.
We did not have a TV in our room, though some people did. For the two years I was in the dorms, there was a TV downstairs in the rec room, and people would sometimes gather for popular shows or historical events. I remember watching Reagan taking the oath of office. I remember when Pope John Paul II was shot and when Reagan was shot.
We definitely had a stereo system. There were occasional stereo wars, when everyone would put their speakers up to the window to see who could play records the loudest.
On social life on campus:
The drinking age was 18. They finally raised it to 19 when I was a senior. You could actually get pitchers of beer at the student union. We’d hang out at the union and drink beer. We saw a lot of live music. The Cactus Café was a great place to go. I saw Robert Earl Keen, Lyle Lovett, and Lucinda Williams there. I remember emmajoe’s, a bar down on the Drag that allowed musicians to play. Antone’s was on the Drag. I saw the Talking Heads on their Stop Making Sense tour. It cost $10.
I spent a lot of time drinking beer at Scholz’s. A lot of politicos would hang out there. We would go to Barton Springs a lot. Go to Lake Travis.
Basically it was hanging out with friends, seeing music, and trying to be outdoors as much as possible. I had a wonderful time. I look back on those days as among the more enjoyable days of my life.
On meeting his wife Colleen:
We were at a small party my senior year that was hosted by a girl I’d dated in high school in San Antonio. Colleen was a friend of hers. Everyone was drinking too much. We were drinking, but not as much. We got in this long conversation and were the last people standing. I wanted to keep the conversation going, so I picked up the Daily Texan to see what the midnight movie was at the student union, and it was Dr. Strangelove. I said, “Hey, you wanna go see a movie?” She said, “Sure.” That was it. It’s been a strange love ever since.