Seven Points: Ray Wylie Hubbard and the Bear at Plowboy’s

The flyer itself is a classic Texas artifact. Yellowed paper, bold black ink: CEDAR CREEK PLOWBOY’S CLUB PRESENTS — Bugs Henderson & Ray Wylie Hubbard — TWO NIGHTS ONLY APRIL 5 & 6 — Tickets only $5.00 — Hwy 85 7pts, Texas — NO MEMBERSHIP REQUIRED. Bugs in a sleeveless shirt, Ray in a cowboy hat, JBL monitors up front.

Ray says that flyer was just the setup. The real story happened on a later return to the same room.

The Plowboy’s wasn’t a cute little listening room. As D Magazine chronicled, the original Western Club that became Plowboy’s sat low and squat, a mammoth one-story 15,000-square-foot warehouse with a covered entrance facing the seven-point intersection that gives Seven Points its name. Big dance floor, wagon wheels on the stage, velvet curtains, and a phalanx of neon beer signs. It was also famous enough to be the room they chose over the Western Club for Robert Duvall’s comeback scene in Tender Mercies.

On this particular night, Ray pulls up and sees a yellow sign on wheels out front: “wrestling bear.”

Bet on the bear

Inside, they’d set up a boxing ring right on the dance floor. The deal was straight carny: “patrons could pay $20 to stay three minutes inside; none lasted beyond thirty seconds,” Hubbard recalled in his Facebook post. One after another, good ol’ boys from Cedar Creek Reservoir tried to grapple and got tossed like sacks of feed.

Comments on the post fill in the rest — the bear was named Ginger. Her trailer was parked out back, diet of “steak and ice cream,” and the crew did a “safe-load departure” after.

After watching the fifth or sixth cowboy get gently but firmly deposited on the canvas, Bugs Henderson leaned over to Ray and delivered the line Ray still quotes: the bear deserved top billing.

That’s why Ray Wylie Hubbard saved the flyer all these years. It’s not just Bugs & Ray for $5 — it’s a perfect snapshot of Texas in the ’80s: $5 tickets, $20 to wrestle Ginger, and a story you tell for 40 years because nobody would believe you otherwise.