I was born in Texas, grew up on ~15 section (small) ranch (Sneed) in Panhandle and lived all my life here — rural, Dumas, Amarillo, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Dallas … now on small ranch Red River north of Dallas.
Generalizations usually don’t capture the many contradictions and idiosyncrasies of a place. One suggestion … Texas is like USA only more so … has a general authentic ring. Americans are largely misfits — having come here because things weren’t working out so well in country of origin. Texas (1820 to current) is home to a lot of Americans for whom things were not working out so well in other parts of the United States. Even the “Lords of the Plains” (Comanches) weren’t originally from the southern Great Plains — but they adopted technology (the horse) just as many other Texans have.
My brothers heard the same parable over and over. We lived in a Phillips (petroleum) booster camp (40 houses, men running the compressor station). When someone new moved in they would ask my dad what people in the neighborhood were like. He’d ask them “what people were like where they were from”? They would tell us all about their old neighborhood and my brothers and I knew my dad’s response. When the new neighbor had finished his tales of his old neighborhood my dad would quietly say, “people around here are about like what your old neighborhood was like”.
Texas rivaled any Deep South state for lynchings following civil war, has had wild oil boom towns, dust bowl, cattle drives, built big cities and developed a growing and powerful economy. The political environment has often been bare knuckles politics with money corruption, extreme Gerrymandering and fear politics often fairly distant from calm reason. I grew up in a Church of Christ that could compete fairly well with the oppressive, legalistic and harsh behavior of the Taliban.
My family and friends stories are filled with the kindnesses and generosity of Texans, often strangers who would truly give out of a willing and supportive heart. I’ve lived in boom and bust cycles and seen historic resilience. Houston is very diverse, Austin will keep itself weird, there will continue to be mavericks.
Culture is powerful. I am a member of 1st Christian Church (“conservative”) and they accepted and loved me even while I worked 100s of hours for my friend Beto O’Rourke in his campaigns against Ted Cruz (who I think is more focused on Ted than Texas) and against Greg Abbott (who I think is a do-nothing just keep his job and be a puppet of big money ideology). My best efforts and people agreeing on their front porch did not change what they did in voting booth.
I don’t want to tell a woman what to do with her body or life regardless of my convictions, our public schools are in dire straights in need of true innovation and Texas has a huge problem with lack of mental health resources and health insurance. We have a fast growing economy and I love my neighbors across all opinions (I am for two parties and separation of church and state) as long as it doesn’t carry harm and/or oppression of people. The federal government and Texas spend billions on militarized border control and drug prohibition to which I say: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”.
Why type all this? Texas is sitting on a time bomb which is a water problem. We have always had it, the US Calvary could not track Comanche because they didn’t know where water was. Houston floods, Austin-San Antonio pressure the Edwards and their lakes and the Ogallala aquifer keeps dropping. We need to be preparing now but we are just like the rest of America — addicted to news cycle as bad as any crack addict without regard to rational calm discussion.
I really do think Texas needs a “spiritual renewal” of soul, I don’t think we (anywhere across the political or religious spectrum) would recognize one if it was as big as “Big Tex” at our state fair.I
