Back to Texas

I'm coming back to Texas yall!

It's official. I'm heading back to Texas. I'm going to the big D and I do mean Dallas. So this posting is all about Texas. Those who read this and aren't from Texas will undoubtedly bypass this, and some may have even stopped reading already. But those from Texas will love and appreciate it. Anyone who has lived outside of Texas, as I am currently doing, will tell you that Texans are proud of their state. You don't have to be a native Texan to know that. And while Texans see their pride in Texas as common ground amongst all other Texans and top on their list of things to talk about, the rest of America sees it as obnoxious. I think Texans are aware of this and don't care. I know that I don't. But I also know that most non-Texans, though they may speak ill of the state pride, are somewhat envious of it. And I rarely speak to someone who has been to Texas and didn't like it. And I also think that most people who find themselves transplanted to Texas tend to develop that same state pride, even though they're not natives. Steinbeck says it like this:

Texas is the only state that came into the Union by treaty. It retains the right to secede at will. Texans love to bring this up. We also retain the right to fly our flag at the same height as the American flag. Everything is bigger in Texas. Texas is like a religion. People seem to either passionately love it or passionately hate it. A Texas joke told by a Texan is funny. A Texas joke told by an outsider is blasphemy. Texas is high school football. Football games have the glory and the despair of war; when a Texas team takes the field against a foreign state, it is an army with banners. Texas is cowboy boots. Whenever I land at DFW airport, I know I'm in Texas, because men in business suits are wearing ostrich skin cowboy boots as dress shoes. They aren't a fashion statement. They just are. In Texas there are as many kinds of country, contour, climate, and conformation as there are in the world saving only the Arctic. The plains in the panhandle are foreign to the wooded hills and sweet streams in the Davis Mountains. The rich citrus orchards of the Rio Grande valley do not relate to the sagebrush grazing of South Texas. The hot and humid air of the Gulf Coast has no likeness in the cool crystal in the northwest of the Panhandle. And Austin on its hills among the bordered lakes might be across the world from Dallas. There is no physical or geographical unity in Texas. Its unity lies in the mind. The identity of a "Texan" supersedes regional labels. While America has Midwesterners, New Englanders, and Southerners, a Texan is a Texan. Texas is bluebonnets, mockingbirds, and pecan trees. Texas is the Alamo. Texas is oil, cattle, and cotton. Texas is tejas. Texas is friendship. Texas is the Dallas Cowboys, the Texas Rangers, and the Houston Texans. Texas is the Aggies and the Longhorns. Texas is tex-mex and steakhouses. Texas is front porch swings and sweet tea. Texas is Aaron Watson, George Strait, Janis Joplin, and Stevie Ray Vaughn. Texas is George W. Bush, Sam Houston, and Davy Crockett. Texas is home. God Bless Texas.