GOD BLESS TEXAS!!
When you're from Texas, people that you meet ask you questions like, Do you have any cows?" "Do you have horses?" "Bet you got a bunch of guns, eh?" They all want to know if you've been to Southfork. They watched Dallas.
Have you ever looked at a map of the world? Look at Texas with me just for a second. That picture, with the Panhandle and the Gulf Coast, and the Red River and the Rio Grande is as much a part of you as anything ever will be. As soon as anyone anywhere in the world looks at it they know what it is. It's Texas. Pick any kid off the street in Japan and draw him a picture of Texas in the dirt and he'll know what it is. What happens if I show you a picture of any other state? You might get it maybe after a second or two, but who else would? And even if you do, does it ever stir any feelings in you?
In every man, woman and child on this planet, there is a person who wishes just once he could be a real live Texan and get up on a horse or ride off in a pickup. There is some little bit of Texas in everyone.
Did you ever hear anyone in a bar go, "Wow...so you're from Iowa? Cool, tell me about it?" Do you know why? Because there's no place like Texas.
Texas is the Alamo. Texas is 183 men standing in a church, facing thousands of Mexican nationals, fighting for freedom, who had the chance to walk out and save themselves, but stayed instead to fight and die for the cause of freedom. We send our kids to schools named William B. Travis and James Bowie and Crockett and do you know why? Because those men saw a line in the sand and they decided to cross it and be heroes. John Wayne paid to do the movie himself. That is the Spirit of Texas.
Texas is Sam Houston capturing Santa Ana at San Jacinto.
Texas is "Juneteenth" and Texas Independence Day.
Texas is huge forests of Piney Woods like the Davy Crockett National Forest.
Texas is breathtaking mountains in the Big Bend.
Texas is the unparalleled beauty of bluebonnet fields in the Texas Hill Country.
Texas is the beautiful, warm beaches of the Gulf Coast of South Texas.
Texas is the shiny skyscrapers in Houston and Dallas.
Texas is world record bass from places like Lake Fork.Texas is Mexican food like nowhere else, not even Mexico.
Texas is the original Six Flags (Over Texas!).
Texas is the Fort Worth Stockyards, Bass Hall, the Ballpark in Arlington and the Astrodome.
Texas is larger-than-life legends like Michael DeBakey, Denton Cooley, Willie Nelson, Buddy Holly, Waylon Jennings, Janis Joplin, Kris Kristofferson, Tom Landry, Darrell Royal, ZZ Top, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Eric Dickerson, Earl Campbell, Nolan Ryan, Sam Rayburn, George H. W.Bush, Lyndon B. Johnson, and George W. Bush. And let's not forget Meatloaf, Pantera, Bowling for Soup(come on, you know it makes you smile when you hear "come back to Texas" on the radio and think that kids in freaking Arkansas or somewhere are listening to that lyric too!), Lance Armstrong, George Strait, and Pat Green.
Texas is great companies like Dell Computer, Texas Instruments and Compaq. And Lockheed Martin Aerospace! Home of the F-16 Jet Fighter and the JSF Fighter.
Texas is NASA.
Texas is huge herds of cattle and miles of crops.
Texas is home to the most amazing sunsets of gold over an empty field.
Texans have pride like none other.
Texas is hundreds of deer running around neighborhoods and fields.
Texas is skies blackened with doves, and fields full of deer.
Texas is a place where towns and cities shut down to watch the local High School Football game on Friday nights and for the Cowboys on Monday Night Football, and for the Night In Old San Antonio River Parade in San Antonio. And what about the 2006 National Champions, the UT Longhorns?
Texas is ocean beaches, deserts, lakes and rivers, mountains and prairies, and modern cities.
If it isn't in Texas, you probably don't need it.
Everything's bigger in Texas!
Texas it has two local breweries Shiner in Shiner Texas and The Pearl brewery in San Antonio.
Texas is Texas A&M University, the Corps of Cadets, the 12th Man, the FIGHTIN TEXAS AGGIE BAND!!
Texas is University of Texas, Bevo, 6th Street, and them gorgeous LONGHORNS!!
Texas is Texas Tech University, Raider Red, and Jones Stadium in Lubbock.
No one does anything bigger or better than it's done in Texas.
By federal law, Texas is the only state in the U.S. that can fly its flag at the same height as the U.S. flag. Think about that for a second. You fly the Stars and Stripes at 20 feet in Maryland, California, or Maine and your state flag, whatever it is, goes at 17 feet. You fly the Stars and Stripes in front of Pine Tree High in Longview or anyplace else at 20 feet, the Lone Star flies at the same height - 20 feet. Do you know why? Because it is the only state that was a republic before it became a state.
Also, being a Texan is as high as being an American down here.
Our capitol is the only one in the country that is taller than the capitol building in Washington, D.C. and we can divide our state into five states at any time if we wanted to! We included these things as part of the deal when we came on. That's the best part, right there.
Texas even has its own power grid!!
And don't even lie to yourself... Texas has the most beautiful girls. If you don't believe me, just listen to Hank Jr's "Texas Women," and you'll see.
posted by Neal @ 6:17 PM
4 Comments:
I did not write this but felt an overwhelming need to post it. It is just a glimpse into all that make Texas great.
Interesting post, I like it. I will admit that I consider myself Southern and Texan ABOVE American as well. Some may find this blasphemous and I love this country but that's just the way it flippin' is. However, I will disagree with the idea that Texas' culture is totally "unique" and/or something totally different than any other place in the country. True, there was the Alamo and certain early things that were unique in Texas' history, but for the most part the colonization of Texas was nearly completely similar to other states: kick Indians out, bring slaves, tend to land, plant cotton and other things, strive to be of the high planter class. Story and legend wise, the cowboys and Texas' republic years played a massive part in our cultural history, but in reality most of Texas was never the wild old west and many in academia believe that the prime motivation for the Texas revolution was the continued advancement of slavery without Mexican control over it - and I happen to espouse this ideal because it just makes too much sense. So, in a way, Texas is the only state to have two wars "over slavery" although that is a very oversimplified reasoning all around. But I enjoy little things like this, whether realistic or not, as clever Texas lore and of the idea that somehow Texas is a monolithic cultural state and that some kind of "cowboy culture" could affect someone raised in north, east, central or coastal Texas, an area that was more sharecropper, farm and planation than ever cowboyish etc. But such is the nature of the state - we cannot stop talking about it and in a strange way I have unknowingly proven some type of point by waxing annoying about feelings and thoughts about Texas. I will say that there is nothing more embarassing to me as a native Texan, than when I'm out of state and some douchebag from my home state starts whipping every one's ass around him or her about "the way we do it in Texas" or "well, in Texas that's the way it is," or any number of boisterously retarded statements about things in Texas that they have most likely read in a book of quips and certainly not from driving around their plano neighborhood. Mostly, I have found, that the loud, annoying Texan will say things that I have never been known to happen in Texas and cite ways of doing things that are obviously the same way things are done here in Mississippi. I usually just leave this fellow Texan hanging and will purposely say nothing to back anything he/she says up because they are a rabid, rude, frothing idiot. But truth be told, these folks are few and far between and by and large we Texans take politeness and manners very seriously and usually take Southern hospitality as a contest to see if we can beat the rest of the states in this area!
So, basically, my Texas that I know and love more than I will ever love my first wife - the Texas of running through the woods and building forts in the pines, of fishing for crappie and catfish, of Babe's Fried Chicken House, of obsessive love for football, of strangely strict codes of conduct and manners, of "fixin'" and "y'all," of beaches and booze, of heat and humidity, of girls that actually take pride in looking great when they are seen in public and have their own obvious southern traditions of hair and makeup that are taught by their mommas, of BBQ, of cruisin' the strip, of college hand signals, of half of my entire family living on the same country road in East Texas, of confederate flags and memorials on every courthouse lawn, because of the fact that our own country singers are unknown in Nashville but more popular than anyone else in Texas, because I thought my town (Katy) was where they filmed Dukes of Hazzard when I was young, because of floating down the guadelupe and all the other little and big things that make up my Texas. No, I may not have any cowboy(definitely some good ole boy and redneck though)in me and I may not espouse the idea that western symobolism has anything to do with my Texas experience, but that's the cool thing - if you want to espouse that you can, because we're in Texas.
What a rant and what a load of crap haha! I'm comin back baby!
Oh, and despite my sometimes derogatory sounding comments about my home state - it couldn't be further from the truth, I just have a hobby of breaking down the different sides of Texas and people's different experiences of the state and I do enjoy a little arguing about Texas every now and again, hell its a tradition. Read Randolph Campbell's "Gone to Texas," one of the premiere accounts of Texas history and you will get a very convincing and scholarly account of Texas in the primary light of antebellum and reconstruction times as the major cultural molds of what Texas is and Texas was. Then, read J. Frank Dobie's account of the same state and you get his account of "real" Texas being everything west of what is I-35 now, and you can see the tradition of arguing about what Texas is and each area has its own feelings about that in certain ways. For instance, as a person born in Houston, raised partially north of Houston in the piney woods, then moving to the areas and small towns around the Dallas area, I have NOTHING in common with someone from El Paso whatsoever - they might as well be from a different planet. I have a friend from Tech raised in a border town and we could not possibly be more different, and our notions of Texas couldn't be more different. Now, these are extreme examples (border town versus Argyle haha, or El Paso versus Conroe etc.) but I lost my train of worthless thought.
I love Texas! - that always works.
I would agree with Jackson's sentiments on several points. I am not so deluded as to think that Texas' formation was different other Southern states in several respects. However, it's unique in that it brings together different heritages in one state. The Spanish influence is probably most reknowned outside of the state, but it is not the only influence to have greatly impacted the state. As Jackson so correctly put it kick out Indians, bring slaves, plant crops... Yes it's true that this was done just like it was in other Southern states. However, I think Mr. Whitlock downplays Texas' cowboy reputation too much. That reputation is not something recent. Even in the 1880's Texas was a vital part of the "old west" Texas was a major stop for cattlemen coming in to sell their heard. Millions of head of cattle were driven into towns like Abilene and Fort Worth and bought and sold to put on trains and taken back east for slaughter. The Texas Rangers also have a long history. They were originally formed to prevent Indian attacks and that was their primary job for a long time even into the Twentieth century. But they also played vital roles in peacekeeping. Capturing outlaws and bringing them to justice. Admitedly that usually meant just killing them on the spot or having them hanged. I could go on and on, but I am not. I just wanted it noted that while I am not one of these "That's how we do it in Texas" people that Jackson spoke so lovingly about. I do think that Texas is the only place I want to live and I think it's the greatest state in the union.
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