Posted on 09/24/2015 6:18:50 PM PDT by uscga77
We are now here in the great state of Texas. We have left behind that state that had me shaking my head incessantly. Of course, if we want to remember what it was like in good ol' Cali, we can take a ride into Austin. Maybe not.
Welcome to Texas, make sure the luggage you lost was the Kalifornian Luggage!
:P
Welcome, FRiend. We too have departed the craziness of urban Missouri for the south of Texas where we feel welcome and liberated from the leftist rip tides that are sweeping our former beloved home. Long live Texas !!
I knew a man who grew up in New York, I forget which burrough, and he talked about how everyone knew everyone in the neighborhood.
Moms and dads would look out for each others kids and apply a certain amount of discipline to any kids who needed it.
New people on the block were outsiders who never really fit in.
His dad gave him a hard time for wanting to date a girl from an outsider family.
The girls family had lived on the same block with his family for about 20 years!
He ended up marrying the girl, but his mother still said he married outside the neighborhood.
Some things are the same wherever you go. Just in a different way.
Texas is my second favorite state, Virginia being first of course.
The first time I saw Texas, I pulled a load out of Georgia to El Paso.
I loved watching the countryside change as I went west.
It was beautiful.
First truck stop I stopped at had a gorgeous young lady who looked like she had just gotten there from Mexico. She had that real Texas accent that really jolted me. Made her kind of exotic to a fella who had only recently been out of the Mid Atlantic area.
I’ve told the wife if we ever leave Virginia, we’re going to Texas.
Maybe Arizona, but most likely Texas.
Even with the heat.
Welcome to Texas ! I’d suggest the San Antonio Folk Life Festival, which opened my prejudiced eyes to the wonders of the state 32 years ago.
Davy Crockett lived here 5 months, and he is one of the all-time great Texans.
To Texans, no.
* * *
True enough. But born-and-bred Texans LOVE newbie Texans who are willing to fully embrace Texas values and the Texas lifestyle. My parents moved there from Kansas, and while the native Texans in my hometown always referred to them as “Yankees,” they also made it clear my parents were always welcome.
(BTW, the fastest way to fit in in Texas is NEVER to complain about the heat. Just never. Even if you have actually already melted into a pool of protoplasm.)
It's their second time living there.
Was up in the Andes of Colombia awhile back and saw a bus with a Texas tag on the back!! Dang Texans are everywhere LOL. Had a photo of it on file but ccant find it now.
Welcome home!
Please note:
You have 1 month to update your vehicle registration after moving to TX.
So when you get pulled over, tell them you’ve been here 3 weeks.
Y'all don't seem to understand that real Texans speak English.
Welcome to the greatest country in the world. We’re proud to have you.
I tip my hat to your 'not giving a hoot' attitude.
However, your comment borders on insult.
Not sure what you’re getting at, but I am a veteran, my wife is a veteran and my son is probably right now flying over Iraq. We have lived many places and haven’t had the luxury of staying in one. But we are glad to be in Texas even if a few Aggies won’t accept us.
Thank you, your dear wife and your dear son for your service!
This Aggie wife welcomes y’all to Texas :)
Dear Friends,
Last year, I wrote a small piece about what it means to me to be a Texan. My friends know it means about damned near everything. Anyway, this fella asked me to reprint what I’d wrote and I didn’t have it. So I set out to think about rewriting something. I considered writing about all the great things I love about Texas. There are way too many things to list. I can’t even begin to do it justice.
Lemme let you in on my short list.
It starts with The Window at Big Bend, which in and of itself is proof of God. It goes to Lake Sam Rayburn where my Grandad taught me more about life than fishin, and enough about fishin to last a lifetime. I can talk about Tyler, and Longview, and Odessa and Cisco, and Abilene and Poteet and every place in between.
Every little part of Texas feels special. Every person who ever flew the Lone Star thinks of Bandera or Victoria or Manor or wherever they call “home” as the best little part of the best state.
So I got to thinkin about it, and here’s what I really want to say.
Last year, I talked about all the great places and great heroes who make Texas what it is. I talked about Willie and Waylon and Michael Dell and Michael DeBakey and my Dad and LBJ and Denton Cooley. I talked about everybody that came to mind. It took me sitting here tonight reading this stack of emails and thinkin about where I’ve been and what I’ve done since the last time I wrote on this occasion to remind me what it is about Texas that is really great.
You see, this last month or so I finally went to Europe for the first time. I hadn’t ever been, and didn’t too much want to. But you know all my damned friends are always talking about “the time they went to Europe.” So, I finally went. It was a hell of a trip to be sure. All they did when they saw me was say the same thing, before they’d ever met me. “Hey cowboy, we love Texas.” I guess the hat tipped em off.
But let me tell you what, they all came up with a smile on their faces. You know why? They knew for damned sure that I was gonna be nice to em. They knew it cause they knew I was from Texas. They knew something that hadn’t even hit me. They knew Texans, even though they’d never met one.
That’s when it occurred to me. Do you know what is great about Texas? Do you know why when my friend Beverly and I were trekking across country to see 15 baseball games we got sick and had to come home after 8? Do you know whyevery time I cross the border I say, “Lord, please don’t let me die in_____”? Do you know why children in Japan can look at a picture of the great State and know exactly what it is about the same time they can tell a rhombus from a trapezoid?
I can tell you that right quick. You.
The samespirit that made 186 men cross that line in the sand in San Antonio damned near 165 years ago is still in you today. Why else would my friend send me William Barrett Travis’ plea for help in an email just a week ago, or why would Charles Stanfield ask me to reprint a Texas Independence column from a year ago? What would make my friend Elizabeth say, “I don’t know if I can marry a man who doesn’t love Texas like I do?” Why in the hell are 1,000 people coming to my house this weekend to celebrate a holiday for what usedto be a nation that is now a state?
Because the spirit that made that nation is the spirit that burned in every person who founded this great place we call Texas, and they passed it on through blood or sweat to everyone of us.
You see, that spirit that made Texas what it is is alive in all of us, even if we can’t stand next to a cannon to prove it, and it’s our responsibility to keep that fire burning. Every person who ever put a”Native Texan” or an “I wasn’t born in Texas but I got here as fast as I could” sticker on his car understands.
Anyone who ever hung a map of Texas on their wall or flew a Lone Star flag on their porch knows what I mean. My Dad’s buddy Bill has an old saying. He says that some people were forged of a hotter fire. Well, that’s what it is to be Texan. To be forged of a hotter fire. To know that part of Colorado was Texas. That part of New Mexico was Texas. That part of Oklahoma was Texas. Yep. Talk all you want. Part of what you got was what we gave you. To look at a picture of Idaho or Istanbul and say, “what the Hell is that?” when you know that anyone in Idaho or Istanbul who sees a picture of Texas knows damned good and well what it is. It isn’t the shape, it isn’t the state, it’s the state of mind.
You’re what makes Texas. The fact that you would take 15 minutes out of your day to read this, because that’s what Texas means to you, that’s what makes Texas what it is. The fact that when you see the guy in front of you litter you honk and think, “Sonofabitch. Littering on MY highway.”
When was the last time you went to a person’s house in New York and you saw a big map of New York on their wall? That was never. When did you ever drive through Oklahoma and see their flag waving on four businesses in a row? Can you even tell me what the flag in Louisiana looks like? I damned sure can’t. But I bet my ass you can’t drive 20 minutes from your house and not see a business that has a big Texas flag as part of its logo. If you haven’t done business with someone called AllTex something or Lone Star somebody or other, or Texas such and such, you hadn’t lived here for too long.
When you ask a man from New York what he is, he’ll say a stockbroker, or an accountant, or an ad exec. When you ask a woman from California what she is, she’ll tell you her last name or her major. Hell either of em might say “I’m a republican,” or they might be a democrat. When you ask a Texan what they are, before they say, “I’m a Methodist,” or “I’m a lawyer,” or “I’m a Smith,” they tell you they’re a Texan.
I got nothin against all those other places, and Lord knows they’ve probably got some fine folks, but in your gut you know it just like I do, Texas is just a little different.
So tomorrow when you drive down the road and you see a person broken down on the side of the road, stop and help. When you are in a bar in California, buy a Californian a drink and tell him it’s for Texas Independence Day. Remind the person in the cube next to you that he wouldn’t be here enjoying this if it weren’t for Sam Houston, and if he or she doesn’t know the story, tell them.
When William Barrettt Travis wrote in 1836 that he would never surrender and he would have Victory or Death, what he was really saying was that he and his men were forged of a hotter fire. They weren’t your average everyday men. Well, that is what it means to be a Texan. It meant it then, and that’s why it means it today. It means just what all those people North of the Red River accuse us of thinking it means. It means there’s no mountain that we can’t climb. It means that we can swim the Gulf in the winter. It means that Earl Campbell ran harder and Houston is bigger and Dallas is richer and Alpine is hotter and Stevie Ray was smoother and God vacations in Texas. It means that come Hell or high water, when the chips are down and the Good Lord is watching, we’re Texans by damned, and just like in 1836, that counts for something.
So for today at least, when your chance comes around, go out and prove it. It’s true because we believe it’s true. If you are sitting wondering what the Hell I’m talking about, this ain’t for you. But if the first thing you are going to do when the Good Lord calls your number is find the men who sat in that tiny mission in San Antonio and shake their hands, then you’re the reason I wrote this night, and this is for you.
Bum Phillips
Please feel free to visit Georgia once you have replaced your license plates.
"Ceterum censeo 0bama esse delendam."
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
I’ve been to a lot of places. Everybody thinks their own particular corner of hell is different or special. But honestly, none are.
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