W.F. Strong

The One Musician To Get A Ticker Tape Parade Was A Texan

New York City has held over 200 ticker-tape parades since the first one in 1886, which honored the Statue of Liberty. Lindbergh got a ticker-tape parade for his solo transatlantic flight. Jesse Owens was celebrated for his 4 gold medals with a parade in 1936. Churchill had a blizzard of ticker tape float down on him in 1946. The Apollo 11 moon landing team received a hero’s welcome in ticker-tape in 1969. Of all the people and professions honored in this way over 130 years, only one has been a musician.

You might be thinking: Elvis Presley – “Suspicious Minds” but no, Elvis never got a parade. Or maybe you are thinking Michael Jackson – “Billie Jean”, but no, Michael Jackson never received that honor either. You need to think in a more classical way.

The only musician ever to return to America as a kind of conquering hero was Harvey Lavan “Van” Cliburn, Jr., a tall, lanky Texan from Kilgore. In 1958, he managed to pull back the iron curtain and thaw the cold war for a few magical weeks. And he didn’t do with a Springfield Rifle or a Sherman tank: he did with a Steinway.

Nigel Cliff, Van Cliburn’s biographer, says that his genius revealed itself early. His mom, Rildia Bee, quite an accomplished pianist herself, taught piano at home. She had just finished with her last pupil of the day and left young Van sitting with him while he practiced his Chopin before going home. She went to fix supper. After fifteen minutes she heard the young student still playing and went back to hurry him home. She was surprised to find 3-year-old Van there playing Chopin by ear. So his mom immediately made him one of her students.

At ten, Van told his mom and dad that his dream was to become a classical pianist. His father said, “Well if you are going to be a pianist, you’re going to be the best.” He built a music room onto their ranch-style home’s garage and furnished it with a Steinway. There, Van Cliburn practiced three to four hours a day and by the time he was 16, he had amassed the ten thousand hours they say is required to turn aptitude into artistry.

Van did have distractions along the way. As he grew well over six feet before high school, the basketball coach came to recruit him. His mom told the coach that Van’s hands were insured for a million dollars. No way he was going to risk them playing basketball.

Van Cliburn was accepted to Juilliard when he was 17. Would have loved to have seen him arrive there and lean his lanky Texas frame against his professor’s door and say, “Howdy, I’m here to study music with y’all.”

He excelled there, too, and was accepted a few years later to compete at the Moscow International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition. This event was Russia’s way of showing the world that they not only led technologically, having put Sputnik, mankind’s first satellite, in space six months before, but that they were also culturally superior to the decadent West.

Here is where the Texan entered. He strolled confidently across the stage and shocked the Russians with his mastery of Tchaikovsky. Olga Kern, one of the finest Russian classical pianists alive today, said, “Van Cliburn won because he played in a grand way. Soaring. It was beautiful; the piano was singing. It sounded so new and fresh. It was incredible.” And when she visited his boyhood home in Kilgore years later, she said that she understood where he got that style because East Texas had enormous trees, vast fields, and a natural sublimity that perhaps shaped him.

Van Cliburn had a reception in Moscow that would have been the envy of any rock star. Women swooned. They cried over his powerful and fresh interpretation of Tchaikovsky. They brought flowers to the stage and laid them before the piano. And when the judges believed he had won, they were afraid to award him the victory. So they went to Khrushchev himself and asked if they could declare Van Cliburn the winner. Khrushchev asked, “Did he win? Well, give it to him.”

And so Van Cliburn returned to New York a victorious cultural warrior. He was given a ticker-tape parade like none other – the only one, ever, for a musician. He made the cover of Time Magazine. The headline read: “The Texan Who Conquered Russia.”

This Is The Scariest Bridge In Texas

There’s more than one Texas bridge that can be especially troubling for those with gephyrophobia – fear of bridges.

The Pecos railroad bridge can certainly give you the willies from the right perspective. The Corpus Christi Harbor Bridge can give you pause if you’re hit with the outer bands of a tropical storm when you’re up on top. Some of those five-stack interchanges in Dallas and Houston can cause a palpitation or two. But in my opinion, the scariest bridge in Texas is the Rainbow Bridge between Port Arthur and Orange, on Texas Highway 73.

The bridge offers the triple threat. You can see it coming from a long way off. It has a steep ascent and descent. And it rises frighteningly high over the water. Those are the things gephyrophobics most dread.

The Rainbow Bridge is scary enough today, with two lanes for one-way traffic, but it used to be much worse. When it was completed in 1938, it was the second-tallest bridge in America, second only to the Golden Gate. It was essentially 20 stories tall. For many decades, drivers had to put up with two thin lanes carrying cars and 18-wheelers in both directions.

As you arrived near the top of the bridge, all you could see was sky in the daytime and the stars at night. You just had to have faith that the pavement would be there waiting for you when you passed over the hump. It was enough to make some folks take a 30-mile detour to avoid the stress. Seems odd that a bridge with such a nice name could cause such fear.

Local driver’s education teachers often made students drive over that bridge on their first day of class. They believed that the best way to conquer a fear was to face it – head on – right away.

Originally, it was called the Port Arthur-Orange Bridge. I personally believed that the Rainbow Bridge name came from Norse mythology wherein the Rainbow Bridge connects heaven and earth. But no. In 1957 the North Port Arthur Lion’s Club had a naming contest and 6-year-old Christy McClintock submitted the winning entry – Rainbow Bridge.

She said it looked like a mechanical rainbow. And it does indeed. If you are ever there towards sunset and see it illuminated in those pink hues of the evening, it does look like a steel rainbow. Christy got a $50 savings bond as her prize. Doesn’t sound like much today, but in 1957, you could have bought 200 Whataburgers with it.

Why was the bridge built so tall, 177 feet of vertical clearance, in that delta region? There was an important ship channel there and they wanted the tallest ship in the navy at the time, the USS Patoka, the be able to pass easily beneath it.

The Rainbow Bridge was more than an engineering marvel. It was also a magnet for teenagers in the night. The high school kids in the area used to climb up into the catwalks. One of those students was destined for worldwide fame. It is said that she used to sit up there high above the moonlit waters of the Neches River and sing in her passionately raw style. I’m sure you’ve heard of her. Janis Joplin? Her biographer, Myra Friedman, said that she would sing up there under the great Texas sky and “scorch the stars.” But that’s a whole ‘nother story. I’m just giving you the abridged version. The pun is free.

The tallest ship in the Navy never did cruise beneath the Rainbow Bridge. Seems a shame – somewhat like a bride having planned a perfect wedding, and the groom never showed.

Might Oughta Talk About Texas Grammar

In Texas we are mighty big on the word “mighty.” Mighty is used as a ubiquitous adjective. Mighty pretty, mighty ugly, mighty expensive, etc. The word “might” (mighty’s cousin) is popular, too. It is used in place of maybe. Instead of saying, “maybe I can help you Sunday,” we say, “I might be able to help you on Sunday.” “Might” works with verbs to give us an impressive menu of options for conditional expressions like might could, might would better, might oughta, might’ve used to, and even the steroidal conditional tense: might woulda had oughta.

Taken out of context they can sound odd and even wrong, but when heard in conversation, they come to life and seem, well, mighty normal to many of us. I want to point out that Texas is a diverse state of varied dialects. Many Texans would never use this folksy grammar, but there are many who prefer it’s adorned utility. And there are many who would never talk this way at work, but slip into these comfortable rhythms when they get home. Some of us are bi-dialectal.

Let’s begin with “might could.” It is often used to answer a question:

“Would you go with me to the movies Friday night?” “Might could.”
“You figure you can fix the starter on my truck?” “Might could.”

“Might would better” has a good deal of appeal. It is used often as a command. You hear it in Western movies:

“Sherriff, you might would better think long and hard ‘fore you pick up that gun.”

Or you can use it as a self-directed, thinking out loud, suggestion:

“Well, I might would better get on to bed. Long day tomorrow.”

“Might would better” is also a future tense conditional verb, something that might be done differently in the near future.

“On second thought, I think they might would better drive on down here Friday night.”

“Tell you what, she might would better just divorce that man.”

“Might oughta” is often used in kind of shaking one’s head over poor choices:

She might oughta thought about those bills before she quit a job without havin’ another.
He might oughta known not to tease a rattlesnake, especially with a short stick.

For an uncertain memory, we have, “might have used to.”

“I might have used to stay there when I was in Dallas, but I can’t say for certain. “

Or:

“I’m sure I might have used to know how many feet was in a mile, but now that you ask, I can’t recall.”

And here’s the mighty king of the conditional tense: might woulda had oughta. Linguists call this modal stacking, like verbal legos – just keep piling on verbs to see how high you can stack them. “Might woulda had oughta” is way outside the bounds of standard English.
When my wife, an English prof and proud member of the Grammar Police, hears such verbal anarchy, she wants to call in the swat team. But I find “might woulda had oughta” admirably creative. It’s like watching Lebron James fly to the basket and do a mid-air spin to reverse dunk between two defenders. Magic.

In redneck culture, it’s comfort grammar. Here’s an example:

“They might woulda had oughta sold that house about ten years ago before it fell apart on ‘em.”

“They might woulda had oughta listened to me when I told ‘em not to buy a used pickup that was owned by a teenager.”

The famous southern linguist Jeff Foxworthy has pointed out how useful “used to could” is in Southern speech. He says people ask, “Do you dance?” Some respond: “Used to could.” Even “used to could” is used in modal stacking. “Might have” often precedes it. “You know how to program the TV remote?” “Might have used to could, but not anymore.” See? Saves you from unwanted work. Here’s another instructive example: “Can you tune up my 98 GMC Z-71?” Well, I might have used to could, but mighty doubtful about it now.”

I’m W. F. Strong. These are Stories from Texas. Some of them are mighty true.

Texas Weather is Never Normal

When Admiral Perry arrived at the North Pole, according to legend, he said, “Must be a cold day in Amarillo!” He was referring of course to the old Texas saying that there is nothing between Amarillo and the North Pole but a barbed wire fence.

Amarillo and the Panhandle are not just famous for arctic fronts and blue northers. They are well known for wind in general. Chicago is not really the king of windy cities; Amarillo is. The Weather Channel says that Amarillo is the windiest city in America. In fact four of the top ten windiest cities in America are in Texas – Amarillo, Lubbock, Abilene and Corpus Christi. It’s tempting to add Austin for other reasons. Windy weather is why Texas is by far number one in wind energy, producing more than twice as much as number two, Iowa.

Another common saying in Texas is this: “If you don’t like the weather, just wait a minute.” We are a region that can have the heater on in the morning and the air conditioner on at noon, only to turn the heater back on at night. In weather, we are bi-polar. I like the post floating around the net these days that goes like this: “Mother Nature says: You can’t squeeze all the weather in the world into one week. Texas says: Hold my beer and watch this.”

And then, it’s not uncommon to see signs in Texas during the summer that say: “Satan called. He wants his weather back.”

Here’s another Texas expression I love: “It’s hotter than a fur coat in Marfa.” See if you can’t work that one into conversation someday soon.

Despite the persistence of the claim that you can fry an egg on the sidewalk, it is never actually hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk. It does get hot enough to bake cookies on the dash. I’d much rather have dashboard cookies than sidewalk eggs, anyway.

My brother Redneck Dave used to be annoyed that Freer often reported the highest summertime temperature in the state. He said “I know for a fact that they keep their town thermometer in an oil field pipe yard. That ain’t right.” He seemed to think they were unfairly winning a weather Emmy of some sort – best performance in heat.

Much of Texas is known for being dry. Dry as a bone, they often say. A West Texas rancher once told me, “God ain’t much of a rainer out here, but he was mighty generous with the stars.”

And they have sandstorms in West Texas so intense that they leave sand drifts behind. In some years they have to shovel snow in the winter and sand in the summer. I bet sometimes they get to do this on the same day.

Farmers I knew as a kid would say that south Texas was so hot and dry that the “trees were whistling for the dogs.” Gotta love farmers. Humor as dry as the land.

Eventually droughts are broken and the rain comes. Then we have “gully washers and toad stranglers.” Or old timers say, “It’s raining so hard the animals are startin’ to pair up.” The great meteorologist Isaac Cline got it right when he said: “Texas is a land of eternal drought interrupted occasionally by Biblical floods.”

Houston is not known so much for rain or drought, but for humidity. It is a giant sauna much of the year. I doubt Houston would be the economic powerhouse it is if it weren’t for air-conditioning. In 1900, there were less than 50,000 Houstonians. Won’t be too long before there will be 7 million people in the greater Houston area. What happened in the last century? The invention and perfection of air-conditioning. Coincidence? I think not.

Somewhere in Houston they should have a big statue of Willis Carrier, 100 feet tall, right off the Gulf Freeway. Willis would reside comfortably inside a huge glass display case, which would be air-conditioned, of course.

In Texas we define ideal weather as Chamber of Commerce weather. It may not be unique to Texas, but it is a common expression here. But honestly that weather is rare. Most of the time I visit a Texas town for the first time people tell me, “the weather isn’t usually like this.” But from my experience it is. Texas weather is never actually normal.

Anglo Settlers Were Texas’ Original Undocumented Immigrants

This was the situation: the new immigrants to Texas were becoming quite a problem. They were coming across the river in droves. Some were legal and some were undocumented. Some were living on land they had legally acquired and some were squatters, living on land that belonged to others. The legal immigrants were being followed by family members who were arriving without proper papers. The government was frustrated and trying desperately to come up with a solution.

Many were good people, hard workers. But as a group, they would mostly keep to themselves. They wouldn’t assimilate. They wouldn’t acculturate. They refused to learn the language. Most were of a different religion from that which was most common in their new country.

There was talk of posting the military all along the river. The borders and immigration laws needed to be enforced. The government passed a law prohibiting all new immigration to Texas from the neighboring republic.

The military was in fact sent to ports of entry to turn back those without proper documents, and though the trend slowed, illegal immigration continued at a worrisome pace.

Sound familiar? These issues were being discussed in Texas almost 200 years ago.

The years I’m talking about here were the 1820’s and early 1830’s, before the battle of the Alamo, before the battle of San Jacinto.

The immigrants were not Mexican, but rather, Anglo Texans coming in from Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee and other southern states. The river the immigrants were crossing was not the Rio Grande, but the Sabine, the border between Texas and Louisiana. The concerned government was not in Austin but in Mexico City. Texas, of course, belonged to Mexico at the time. The military they wanted to put on the eastern border was the Mexican Army. They didn’t do it, but they did place small military contingents at ports of entry along the coast.

The language the immigrants would not learn was Spanish. That was part of the deal. If they got cheap land, they agreed to become Mexican citizens and learn Spanish. Most did not.

The religion they would not embrace was Catholicism, even though that was part of the deal, too. As Mexican citizens, they were supposed to become Catholic. Most did not. Priests lived among them, but there was little effort to enforce that requirement. Culture and religion, after all, are far better anchored than laws.

It is surprising to see how trends, in some ways, have reversed themselves over a couple of centuries. I’m not interested in getting into the high weeds of politics here. I’ll leave the cautionary tales to others. But I do find this a good illustration of a historical adage coined by Twain and affirmed by Churchill:

“History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”

The How, Where and Why of Valentine, Texas

In Texas, we have a lot of towns with cool names. There is actually a town named Cool. And Cut and Shoot. And Valentine. Yes, Valentine. How cool is that? Especially if it’s February.

The story goes that a railroad crew, in 1882, had finished laying the tracks to the point where a water and fuel depot would be needed. It was Valentine’s Day. So they named the depot Valentine. It also was the name of one of their superiors, so the name has dual origins. Valentine, to give you coordinates, is halfway between L.A. and New Orleans, almost exactly 1000 miles from each. Or, if you want something local, halfway between Marfa and Van Horn. Deep in the Heart of West Texas.

Valentine never got very big. It says 217 on the city limits sign, but the mayor there, Jesus Calderon (who goes by Chuy), says that it is likely about 180 these days. Chuy has been mayor there for 40 years, likely a record of some kind for mayoral longevity in Texas. In addition to being mayor, he taught in the Valentine Independent School District for over decades and even worked part-time for many years as the local Fed Ex delivery man. Nobody knows Valentine like Chuy. He says there is no gas station, no ATM, and no crime.

The school, K-12, has about 40 students. Some years they only graduate five or six from high school. One year, not too long ago, they graduated two. Think about that. If you’re the poorer student of the two, you are simultaneously in the bottom 50 percent of your class and the salutatorian. Lisa Morton, who grew up there and is managing editor of the Van Horn Advocate, says that her sister graduated alone. I said that must have been a lonely event and she said, “Oh, no, the whole town came out to celebrate her big day.” Gotta love small towns.

Well, the town isn’t so small that it doesn’t have a post office. And in February they are busier than Santa’s elves on Christmas Eve. This time of year they receive thousands of cards to be re-mailed bearing the Valentine postage stamp. The cards come from all over the U.S. and as many as 30 foreign countries. One year they sent one to the White House, to Chelsea Clinton. Each year there is a design contest at the school and the winner has their “love logo” chosen as that year’s stamp. Imagine that. You can send your Valentine a Valentine from Valentine. Can’t get much more romantic than that!

Unless you take your Valentine to Valentine on the 14th. Chuy says they have a big party each year, underwritten by Big Bend Brewing Company from nearby Alpine. Last year, Jerry Jeff Walker played. Two years ago, Joe Ely was there playing his famous song, Saint Valentine. This year, Little Joe y La Familia will headline the event. Since Valentine’s Day falls on a Tuesday, there was pressure to move it to the weekend, but Mahala Guevara, vice president of Big Bend Brewing, explains in the official brochure: “West Texas was never known for convenience; to enjoy the best the region has to offer, you have to be willing to work for it. And your hard work will be rewarded with great Texas music… “

Gotta love it. A work ethic embedded in leisure. A very Texas concept.

Big Bend Brewing is even brewing a special ale for the event called Total Commitment. On the back of this limited edition brew it says, in part, “The owner of this…came all the way to Valentine, Texas, on a Tuesday night…what Total Commitment do you have to make.” At 14.2 percent proof, it is appropriately named. Makes my eyes a little misty thinking about it.

The most romantic Texas couple I know is Coach Taylor and his wife Tami, from Friday Night Lights. They are fictional, but they’re also authentically romantic. I could see them taking an impromptu road trip to Valentine for Valentine’s – just 200 miles from Dillon.

Coach Taylor always told his team: “clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.” It’s good advice for football. Probably good advice for love, too.

W.F. Strong is a Fulbright Scholar and professor of Culture and Communication at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. At Public Radio 88 FM in Harlingen, Texas, he’s the resident expert on Texas literature, Texas legends, Blue Bell ice cream, Whataburger (with cheese) and mesquite smoked brisket.

The Weird Connection Between Tony Romo and Tony Roma’s

When Tony Romo joined the Dallas Cowboys back in 2003, some people confused his name with that of Tony Roma’s, the restaurant chain. They thought maybe Tony Romo was related to the Tony Roma family, perhaps heir to the baby back ribs fortune, even though there was an important one letter of difference at the end of the names. Everybody knows by now that there is no relationship between Tony Romo and Tony Roma’s, but there is quite a deep connection between the Dallas Cowboys and Tony Roma’s that few people know about.

Back in 1976, the Dallas Cowboys played the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl X in Miami, a game the Cowboys lost by four points. After the game, Clint Murchison, Jr., owner and founder of the Dallas Cowboys, went to dine at the only Tony Roma’s restaurant in existence at the time. It was in North Miami. He was so impressed with the ribs and the cole slaw, that in legendary Texas style, he said to himself, “I like this restaurant. I think I’ll buy it and move it to Texas.”

These quick draw decisions were not unusual for Murchison. He was once forced to spend a good deal of time with bankers in New York City and soon found himself frustrated that he couldn’t get a decent bowl of chili or good smoked brisket. So, he did the only rational thing a rich Texan could do. He opened his own restaurant there in Manhattan. He called it The Dallas Cowboy. It served classic Texas chili and smoked brisket. Problem solved.

Back to Tony Roma’s. Clint Murchison couldn’t buy the original Tony Roma’s because Tony wouldn’t sell it. But Clint did buy the franchise rights. Within just a few years, there were Tony Roma’s in Manhattan (giving Murchison a second place to get food he liked when he was stranded in New York), Hollywood, Dallas – and the headquarters soon moved to Dallas (well, Plano to be exact) where it remained until just last year.

It could be said that Clint Murchison, Jr. started two great franchises in his life – the Dallas Cowboys and Tony Roma’s. The Dallas Cowboys are today the most valuable team in the NFL. In fact, at $4 billion, Forbes says the Cowboys are the most valuable sports franchise in the world. Worth more than New England or Green Bay. Worth more than the New York Yankees. Worth more even than Manchester United or Real Madrid.

Jerry Jones must be given his due for creating a good deal of that value, but Murchison did build the Cowboys into a marquee name in the NFL before he sold the team. As for Tony Roma’s, it is privately owned so I don’t know its value, but I do know the restaurants have gross sales of over $300 million a year. That’s a lot of ribs, y’all. And now they’ve added lamb ribs to their newest menu.

Just as the Cowboys are known worldwide, Tony Roma’s is, too; 150 restaurants in 30 countries on six continents. You can eat at Tony Roma’s in Madrid, in Tokyo, in Bangkok, Lima, Dubai, Kuala Lumpur, where there are eight to choose from, or at locations right here in Texas. Yes, Clint Murchison, Jr. gave us the sacred tradition of watching the gladiators of the gridiron on Sunday afternoons and he gave us the food to watch ‘em with, too. Now, that’s a mighty fine accomplishment. A mighty fine man.

Tony Romo may have no official relationship with Tony Roma’s. But I think he should buy a franchise so we can say I’m going to Tony Romo’s Tony Roma’s. That would be hard to say three times real fast, which I’m sure you’re gonna try as soon as you’re done reading, which is now.

What It Means to Be a Texas Gentleman

One of my favorite, but now largely unknown speakers in American history was Robert Green Ingersoll. Redwater, Texas was originally named Ingersoll – after him. He was a philosopher and a popular intellectual, the most sought after orator of his time. He left us many fine proverbs. One of my favorites is this:

“The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.”

Being graceful in victory is easy, but in defeat, to be dignified and composed and still hopeful for a better day, requires deep character.

As the country prepares to make the transition from one president to another, I’m reminded of an example of this kind of rare decency in defeat. It comes from George H. W. Bush. In 1992, he had just lost a bruising presidential campaign to a much younger, far less experienced Bill Clinton. It must have been excruciatingly painful for Mr. Bush. After all, it was said that he had the longest resume in the Western World. How could he lose to someone who was, at least on paper, less qualified for the job? But he accepted his defeat with grace.

As these fine Texans, George and Barbara, were moving out of the White House and the Clintons were soon to move in, George left a letter for Bill on the Oval Office desk. It has received a good deal of attention online over the past months, but it is a remarkable testimony to good character and it certainly deserves a re-reading. The letter is dated January 20, 1993. It says:

Dear Bill,

When I walked into this office just now I felt the same sense of wonder and respect that I felt four years ago. I know you will feel that, too.

I wish you great happiness here. I never felt the loneliness some Presidents have described.

There will be very tough times, made even more difficult by criticism you may not think is fair. I’m not a very good one to give advice; but just don’t let the critics discourage you or push you off course.

You will be our President when you read this note. I wish you well. I wish your family well.

Your success now is our country’s success. I am rooting hard for you.

Good Luck – George

Texans have long valued a true southern gentleman. If anyone ever needs a clear definition of what that means, have them read this letter from George H. W. Bush to Bill Clinton.

Here’s Your Texas-Themed Reading List for 2017

I’m not an expert on many things, but when it comes to judging the quality of Texas literature, or Texana as it is called, I am as confident as a bronc rider still upright at seven seconds. That last second of the eight is reserved for humility. Chance needs scant time to have one spittin’ up dirt.

So I decided I would take my chances and prepare a list of good Texas books you might want to tackle in the coming year. Each book is tied to the month that will perhaps enhance your reading of it.

January – “The Tacos of Texas”
This has been a best-seller in Texas (and beyond) this past year. By January 3 your New Year’s resolutions will be somewhat less resolute. When that time comes, you will want tacos. And the tacos will give you strength for a fine year of reading ahead.

February – “The Son”
To my mind, this is the best Texas novel since Lonesome Dove. It was first runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize in 2014 and the miniseries will air on AMC in 2017 – starring Pierce Brosnan. So binge read it first so you can binge watch it later. And you will have the advantage of saying, somewhat snobbishly, “I read the book and the book is way better.”

March – “Miles and Miles of Texas”
Just in time for your Spring Break trip is this magnificent book on the history of Texas roads and how they got built. The original mission of the Texas Highway Department was to “get the farmer out of the mud.” Obviously, they went far beyond that goal to succeed in building a state of superhighways. Let’s not talk about I-35.

April – “Lonesome Dove”
Cattle drives in Texas typically began in the spring. So this is a good time to read or re-read Lonesome Dove. This is the Iliad of Texas. If you haven’t read this Pulitzer Prize winning literary treasure, it’s time. Gus and Call are waiting for you. Let’s “head ‘em up and move ‘em out.”

May – “Texas Ranger: The Epic Life of Frank Hamer, the Man Who Killed Bonnie and Clyde”
He killed them in May actually. Hollywood made Hamer out to be the bad guy, but as is often the case, they were seduced by myth and got it wrong. I like what the Dallas Morning News says about this book: “Frank Hamer’s is perhaps the last great story of the American West to be told… Well, Hollywood? Now you have the book, so go make the movie.”

June -“Issac’s Storm”
For the start of Hurricane season, read Isaac’s Storm, the best-selling history of the killer hurricane that devastated Galveston in 1906. The Washington Post says that Erik Larson’s book is, “Gripping … the Jaws of hurricane yarns.”

July – “Empire of the Summer Moon”
This book tells the story of the last years of the Comanche Nation and how Quanah Parker and his warriors were never militarily defeated. The New York Times says it “will leave blood and dust on your jeans.”

August – “The Time it Never Rained”
The story of the West Texas rancher, Charlie Flagg, who survived the greatest drought in modern Texas history.

September – “Friday Night Lights”
For the beginning of football season, read the book that launched the popular series. And if you have read it already, go for “The Last Picture Show” instead, which is also anchored in Texas football culture.

October – “All the Pretty Horses”
Once you’re in, go ahead and read the whole border trilogy.

November – “Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans”
As the days shorten and the nights lengthen, sit by the fire and read T.R. Fehrenbach’s take on Texas history.

December – “The Big Rich”
As you begin worrying about presents and money, it is an ideal time to read the rags to riches stories of Texas oil men like H.L. Hunt and Roy Cullen. These were men who were, for their time, among the absolute richest in the world. They knew how to spend money and to play on a scale few have ever known. It will inspire your Christmas shopping, make you want to play poker for oil leases, buy sprawling ranches, and purchase your own Texas island.

There’s not a lot of romance in these books. There is a lot of tough love, though. And that’s good. If you don’t get tough love early in life it’s hard to find lasting love later.

So there you go. Print this out and put it on the fridge. Happy reading.

The Story Behind Texas’ Favorite Butter

Texas has a great number of Texas brands:

Southwest Airlines.
Texas Instruments.
Lone Star Beer.
Dell Computer.
Imperial Sugar.
The King Ranch.

Now, The King Ranch is a brand that came, quite literally, from a brand. King Ranch even has its own brand of Ford Pickup.

The King Ranch also helped launch another old Texas brand, Falfurrias Butter.

It is a little circuitous, but this is how it all came about. Richard King’s partner, Mifflin Kenedy, sold 7,000 cows to Ed Lasater, who then created the dairy that launched Falfurrias butter. Thirty-five years later, the King Ranch bought Lasater’s land, along with many head of cattle, to create the Encino division of the King Ranch.

But that’s not the story I’m here to tell. I’m here to talk about a great old brand of Texas butter.

Falfurrias butter was first made in Falfurrias, of course, in 1909. People have wondered whether the butter is named for the town or the town for the butter, but they were actually both named after Lasater’s ranch, which was named for a grove of trees called La Mota de Falfurrias. Lasater said that that unique word, Falfurrias, came from the Lipan Apache language and, loosely translated, means “Land of Heart’s Delight.”

The butter was certainly the town’s best known export in those early days, and likely remains so today. Even the school mascot, the Jerseys, was named after the butter’s real creators – the Jersey cows. At one point Falfurrias was home to the largest Jersey cattle herd in the world.

And so that gave special meaning to the once popular bumper sticker there: “Watch Your Step – You’re in Jersey Country.” I’m not sure the author of that intended the double meaning, but it certainly provided a good deal of local levity until it was recalled.

Falfurrias butter remains a popular niche brand of butter. In Texas, it’s sold at all the major grocery stores, and some smaller ones, too. It has been quite popular in northern Mexico for generations.

A friend tells me that as a child in Saltillo he remembers his mother bringing back the mantequilla dulce de Falfurrias as a special treat for the kids anytime she traveled to Texas.

A Texas Marine in WWII recalled that as he was wading ashore in the battle for Okinawa, a Falfurrias Butter crate bumped up against his leg in the surf. He found it comforting, an assurance from home that all would be well. And so it was.

Falfurrias Butter outgrew Falfurrias. It became so popular that it was eventually bought by the Dairy Farmers of America, but rest assured it is still made in Texas.

It is made by Keller’s Creamery in Winnsboro, Texas, and has grown at a Texas-sized pace of 40 percent over the last few years. That’s a lot of biscuits and baked potatoes, y’all.

When you drive through Falfurrias today, on state Highway 285, you can still see the vintage Falfurrias Butter sign on the side of the old Creamery Building. The town newspaper, Falfurrias Facts, occupies the building today.

In the interest of full disclosure ethical transparency, I have to reveal that I am also an export of Falfurrias, and even though I know on which side my bread is buttered, so to speak, I assure you that it does not affect the veracity of this commentary.

This story originally aired on June 15, 2016.

Jack Sorenson’s Paintings Capture the Simple Joy of Christmas

This is the story of a boy who loved Christmas so much that he grew up to make it more magical for the rest of us. That is, if you have ever had the good fortune to see his paintings – and if you haven’t, I’m here to make sure your luck changes. The artist’s name is Jack Sorenson. He grew up on the edge of Palo Duro canyon, a place so rare in its quality of light that Jack’s unique talents must have been uniquely nurtured.

Jack started drawing and sketching before he remembers doing it. His mother told him that when he was three, he would put the dog on the couch to draw him and then get terribly frustrated when his canine model would not hold a pose. By the time he reached first grade, he was so proficient at drawing anything he saw that his teacher called his mother to tell her she thought he was a prodigy. His mom had never heard the word and at first thought he must have been misbehaving. Once she understood, though, she said, “Oh, yes, he can draw anything.”

I talked to Jack for about 30 minutes a couple of weeks ago. He and I are a lot alike. We are both life-long Texans. We both live on the Texas border – he in Amarillo and me in Brownsville. We are both slow talkers because of our Texas drawls. Took us 30 minutes to have a 15-minute conversation. But when it comes to art we are on different planets. When he was being called a prodigy, my first-grade teacher was looking at a free-hand eagle I had drawn and said that it was not a bad likeness of a chihuahua. So that finished my art career right then. That eagle would never fly.

Jack, now age 62, says, “I’ve always been able to draw, sketch and paint anything I put my mind to. I didn’t just discover it one day. I’ve always had it. God blessed me with a gift and I try to honor that gift as best I can, in every painting.”

He started out sketching cowboys around his father’s western town, Six Gun City, on the rim of Palo Duro Canyon. But he soon found that cowboys didn’t much care for portraits of themselves, or even of their girlfriends. However, he learned that if he could capture the personality or beauty and power of their horses, they would always buy that portrait. So he drew pictures of horses and sold perhaps hundreds of them at $40 a piece.

This also taught him how to draw a horse with great accuracy and authenticity, which became one of his most praised attributes. Many say no one can paint a horse like Sorenson. No one alive, anyway. Jack’s father said first there was Frederic Remington, then there was Charles Russell, then Jack Sorenson.

Have you ever noticed that if a photograph is exceptional people say it looks like a painting and if a painting is exceptional they say it looks like a photograph? Some of Jack’s paintings look very much like photographs. I asked him if he ever painted from a photograph and he says, “No. A photograph will lie to you.”

He says that if you try to paint a horse from a photograph, your dimensions will be wrong. The head will be too big for the body, for instance. “A camera [as a means of painting], can’t get the truth of a horse, but a painting [live or from experienced memory] can,” he says.

“Each painting is a story in still form,” Jack says. Each canvas tells a story, a simple story. It is true. I enjoy reading the stories in his paintings. One shows a cowboy bathing in a river and he looks alarmed as he sees his horse, recently spooked, running off with the cowboy’s clothes flapping beneath the saddle. Tough to be stranded naked on the frontier like that. At least he had his hat and his boots.

One of Jack’s Christmas paintings tells of a cowboy arriving home late, Christmas Eve perhaps. His daughter, about 6 years old, is running through the snow to greet her daddy. Behind her is a modest frame home warmed by a good fire. Behind her daddy’s back is a brown-haired doll that looks a good deal like his daughter. She’s gonna be so happy in just a minute.

Trying to Talk Texan? Let Your Words Lean Into Each Other

A nice lady wrote to me not long ago and said that she was happy to have a son with a good, solid, two-syllable Texas name. “His name is ‘Ben,’”she wrote.

I loved that. We do that, don’t we? Well, many of us do, anyway. There are 30 million Texans so there are many dialects out there. But in the traditional or classic Texas dialect, we tend to convert one-syllable words to two-syllable words. Ben becomes “Bey-uhn.” Jet becomes “Jay-ut.” Mess is “May-us.” This is what I call the Texas Diphthong.

In the traditional or classic Texas dialect, we have a tendency to stretch our vowels and put a lilt into them:

Dress becomes “Dray-us”
Grass becomes “Grah-us”
Dance is “Day-unce”

We do it with the first syllable of many two-syllable words, too. Tasty becomes “Tay-uh-stee.” Or we can do it on the last syllable of a two-syllable word. Denise becomes “De-nay-us.”

And believe it or not, some of us are so talented we can create triphthongs out of a one-syllable word. We can squeeze three into one. Ham becomes “Ha-uh-um.” This talent has been particularly mastered by televangelists who really like to elongate those vowels with words like hell – which becomes “hay-uhl-ah.” Sounds more frightening that way. When they say it like that it doesn’t differ from the hail that falls from the sky – so I’m not sure whether they are talking about fire or ice.

And that is something typical of us Texans. We make no distinction between some sounds that people up north make a big distinction between. We make no distinction between the pen that we write with and the flag pin we wear on our lapels. Up north they say Bic pen and flag pin. Pen and pin. We say Bic pen and flag pin the same way. Perfect rhyme. Up North they say beer and bear differently. Some Texans make no distinction between the bear they run from and the beverage they drink to celebrate getting away.

I got many of these examples from my friend, Dr. Lars Hinrichs, who is a professor of linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin; he’s a word doctor. For years he has been studying Texas English and he told me that Texans also reverse this diphthong process. We will sometimes convert what would be a diphthong into a monophthong. For instance, how do you say these words: nice, white and rice? If you say them like this – nice, white, rice, then you have a strong Texas accent, and also a southern one. Not much difference between the two, Hinrichs says, except for some differences in speech rhythm and some local expressions. For instance, he says, only in Texas can you feel “as sore as boiled owl,” or refer to a skunk as a “polecat.”

Hinrichs has been studying the Texas dialect for a long time. And he tells me that in the I-35 corridor we are seeing a leveling of the accent. This means that all the newcomers mingling their accents with ours is causing phonetic hybrids to emerge. So the classic Texas dialect, in the corridor, is not quite as strong as it was 20 years ago. It is evolving. East Texas and West Texas is leveling at a glacial pace compared to the corridor. Also, y’all will be happy to know that “y’all,” Hinrichs says, is not receding. It is perhaps proliferating because it is so grammatically efficient. All y’all newcomers are pickin’ it up. Some linguists say that even the Californians and the New Yorkers have started to use it.

Hollywood has had its struggles with the Texas accent, often hiring dialog coaches for authenticity. When Michael Caine came to Texas to film “Secondhand Lions”, he was struggling with the Texas accent and he said his dialog coach taught him that Texans let their words lean up against each other. He said that he realized that the British English is clipped, crisp and precise. Texas English is relaxed and each word leans into the other and just keeps things goin’ along smoothly. He learned to spread out his vowels and let his consonants lean up against each other. That’s it. That’s the secret. I won’t say he mastered it, but I will say “Secondhand Lions” was fine Texas film.

So the Texas accent is in no danger of dyin’ out. But I do think we should make an effort to keep it from becoming endangered. Wouldn’t want to have to start a Foundation for the Endangered Texas Accent, or FETA. So we can prevent that by all y’all makin’ sure you use “y’all” a dozen times a day and always be fixin’ to do somethin’. Get relaxed with your language. Let your words lean up against each other. And make sure you use your Texas diphthong every chance you “gee-ut.”

The Queen of King Ranch

When Richard King, the founder of the King Ranch, was on his deathbed, he told his wife, Henrietta Chamberlain King “Don’t let any of that land get away from you.” At the time of his death in 1885, King’s famous ranch consisted of about half a million acres. He had amassed this land on the advice of Robert E. Lee, who told him that he should buy all the land in the wild horse desert that he could get hold of, and never sell it. Richard King followed this principle faithfully his entire life.

His wife Henrietta did not let him down. She ruled this ranch kingdom for about 10 years longer – in total – than her husband did, more than doubling the size of the ranch in her time.

But it wasn’t easy. She had to break her husband’s golden rule soon after he died. Henrietta King not only inherited half a million acres, but also half a million dollars of debt. She had to sell some of the land to bring the King Ranch back to life. Under Henrietta King’s firm but fair hand – and with the expert help of her son-in-law, Robert Kleberg – the ranch was soon growing again; and then flourishing. By the turn of the century, the King Ranch was trying new techniques in irrigation, range grasses and cattle breeding. By the 1920s they’d created their signature breed: Santa Gertrudis cattle.

Henrietta met Richard King when she was just 18 years old, in Brownsville. She was the quiet daughter of a Presbyterian minister and King was a hard-drinking, rough-around-the-edges, riverboat captain. Sounds like a country-western song. When they married, Henrietta said about her honeymoon: “I doubt it falls to the lot of any a bride to have had so happy a honeymoon … we roamed the broad prairies of the ranch. When I grew tired, my husband would spread a Mexican blanket for me and I would take my siesta under the shade of a mesquite tree.”

This rough-hewn honeymoon she so praised showed that she was made of the right stuff to help build a ranch out of inhospitable land and a brutal climate. Indeed, she was so tough, it’s said that when bandits wanted to attack the ranch house, they waited for Mr. King to be around because he could be bargained with.

Henrietta faithfully reigned over the ranch for 70 years. But her influence extended well beyond the King Ranch boundaries.

It has been said that the work of a philanthropist is like that of an old person who plants trees. They plant even though they know they will never live to stand in their shade. And so it goes that the institutions Henrietta King started are far more important today than they were in her time.

She donated land that would become Texas A&M University in Kingsville. She constructed the city’s public high school. She donated land and money to build Spohn Hospital, which is today Corpus Christi’s largest, most advanced hospital.

Mark Twain once said that you can tell the importance of a person by the size and nature of their funeral. When Henrietta King died at the age of 92, 200 vaqueros on horseback escorted her funeral carriage to the cemetery. Some of them had ridden two days across the ranch to get there in time. These men were known as Kinenos, the King’s men.

At her grave, the 200 vaqueros, one by one, circled her casket as it was lowered, and they tipped their hats in reverence for the great lady, “La Reina” – the queen of the King Ranch. Then they galloped on back to their duties on the ranch, which now consisted of 1.2 million acres.

Dr Pepper: The Story of Texas’ Favorite Soft Drink

My favorite snack as a teenager was a Dr Pepper with salty peanuts. You remember: you pour the peanuts into the Dr Pepper and let them float around and season the drink. Didn’t get much better than that.

Dr Pepper is the oldest soft drink in America. Older than Coca-Cola, in fact, by a full year. It was created in 1885 by a pharmacist, Charles Alderton, in Waco, Texas. And its original name was Waco – it was served there at the soda fountain in the drugstore. The drink was an instant hit; customers would sit down on one of those old spinning stools and say, “Shoot me a Waco.”

As its popularity exploded, the makers couldn’t keep up supplying the syrup to all the other drug stores that wanted it, so a company was formed, and a new name created.

The name Dr Pepper was suggested by Wade Morrison, the owner of the drugstore. The story goes that Morrison supposedly named it after his would-be father-in-law back in Virginia, a man he wanted to impress because he was in love with his daughter.

Morrison never did get the girl, but I bet the old man Pepper regretted that rejection when Dr Pepper became a national sensation and made the not-good-enough Morrison quite rich. Maybe the saddest person in this whole affair was Charles Alderton – the pharmacist who created Dr Pepper. He simply gave away the recipe because he was more interested in medicine than marketing.

Dr Pepper’s formula is held in two separate bank vaults in Dallas. Each vault has half of the formula and no one person knows the entire secret. Coca-Cola has similar safeguards.

Contrary to soda pop mythology, Dr Pepper is not made of prune juice, nor does it have any part prune juice in it. It is made of a blend of fruit extracts. But the blend of flavors results in a uniqueness that makes many people swear that Diet Dr Pepper is the most undiety tasting soft drink in existence. And let’s not forget Dublin Dr Pepper, now sadly out of production, but once regarded as the finest Pepper of all, thanks to Imperial pure cane sugar.

Dr Pepper Poker – a version of poker where tens, twos, and fours are wild – takes its concept from the numbers 10, 2, and 4 that used to be on every Dr Pepper bottle. The label encouraged you to have three Dr Peppers a day at 10, 2, and 4 to keep you, well… peppy.

A poker purist will not play Dr Pepper. But I like it. It is the only time I have had four a kind, legitimately.

Sure, Texas Is Big – But It Used to Be Even Bigger

Texans have a kind of proverb that goes like this:

“Driving across Texas isn’t a trip; it’s a damn career.”

Texas is big, no doubt about that. But it used to be a lot bigger – about a fourth bigger. When Texas joined the United States in 1845, Texas’ borders (and shape) were quite different.

The northern boundary of Texas in those days stretched all the way up into what is today southern Wyoming. It´s true. In those days, the northernmost town in Texas was not Dalhart, it was Rawlins. You think it’s a long way from Brownsville to Dalhart now – at 860 miles – try 1,400 miles to Rawlins. In 1845 a trip like that would have been measured in seasons, not days. We’ll leave in early spring and get there before winter sets in.

Texas used to have a panhandle for the panhandle. It stretched north of the present day border and passed through prime Colorado Rockies real estate (including Vail) into Wyoming. They called that the stovepipe because that is what it looked like – a long skinny stovepipe, snaking northward. You can still find vestiges of Texas up there in that part of Wyoming. For instance, there is a creek up there named Texas Creek.

Texas used to include what is today the panhandle of Oklahoma. That territory is comprised of three counties. One of them is still named Texas County. So some Oklahomans still live in Texas. Well, Texas County, anyway.

The southwestern tip of Kansas was claimed by Texas. Dodge City was in Texas. Glad to know that. “Gunsmoke” always seemed like a Texas series. We know that Marshal Matt Dillon was born in San Antonio. His father was a Texas Ranger. It’s all coming together.

New Mexico used to be about half its current size because Santa Fe and Taos and all the eastern part of the state was Texas. Texas was so big in 1845 that if you had put a hinge on the northernmost part and flipped it northward, Brownsville would have been in Northern Canada next to Hudson Bay. Don’t think those Brownsvillians would have liked trading the tropics for the tundra, but that would be the result.

If you had flipped Texas southward, the people of Rawlins would have been in Peru. The East-West boundaries would have been about the same as they are today. Still, flip Texas eastward and you will have the El Pasoans trading their margaritas for mint juleps in Georgia. Flip it westward and the Beaumantians will be hanging ten with California surfer dudes.

So what happened to all our land? The U.S. government bought it in 1850. For $10 million they bought our claims to our Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas, and Oklahoma – it came to 6.7 cents an acre. Seems like we sold out cheap, but we desperately needed the money then. And remember that $10 million in 1850 is $300 million in today’s dollars, which is almost enough to buy a nice vacation home in Vail.

But, as I said, we really needed the money. We had a state to build and the only true assets we had in those days were land – and a tough, hardened people made of unbreakable spirits. So we sold the land and paid off debts and got a much more appealing shape to the state, a shape that fits nicely on t-shirts.

So even though we sold off our lands, we are nonetheless no slouch of a state, especially when we drive it. We still measure distance in time. We still feel like we are crossing an enormous frontier when driving I-10 through West Texas or I-69 to the southern border. And this old Texas saying is still valid:

“The sun has riz; the sun has set; and here I is in Texas yet.”

The Real Texan Who Inspired Captain Woodrow F. Call

In the mini-series Lonesome Dove, Charles Goodnight was immortalized loosely as Captain Woodrow F. Call, played by Tommy Lee Jones. In truth, Charles Goodnight in real life was even more fascinating than the fictional Woodrow Call.

Goodnight, who is the most famous rancher in Texas history, and the most ubiquitous Texan of his time, became a Texas Ranger at the age of 21. They recruited him because he was already locally famous in North Texas as a skilled Indian scout and tracker. The year was 1857 and the Texas Rangers and the U.S. Army were the front line of defense against Native American raids into Central Texas.

Goodnight tells of how the Texas Rangers one day got an inexperienced commander from back East. This commander had never fought Native Americans. He had never been out on the great plains. Yet he was all puffed up with self-importance and wanted to charge out and take on some Comanches. So he ordered the Rangers westward and after a couple of days, he spotted his first Indians on a distant hill.

Excited, he called Goodnight over and asked him, “What kind of Indians are those?” Goodnight paused and said, “Antelope.” The rookie Commander thought Goodnight was lying to him and ordered the Rangers to charge the group. Goodnight said, “We charged, laughing all the way, and successfully routed those antelope without losing a man.”

Goodnight was always fascinated by the shields the Native Americans carried to stop arrows and bullets. He had always heard that the shields had reams of paper stuffed inside to make them bullet resistant.

One day he shot at an Indian retreating into the brush. His target escaped but dropped his shield. Goodnight took it back to the camp and pried open the buffalo skin cover and wood frame and was shocked to discover an entire book inside. The book was The History of the Roman Empire. It solved the mystery as to why raiding Comanche so often took Bibles. They wanted the paper to bulletproof their shields, or, more accurately, to make them bullet-resistant. (They should have looked for Moby Dick. I always found that novel impenetrable. Don’t know what it would do against bullets, but it makes a hell of a door stopper.)

Charles Goodnight was indeed a genuine Texas Ranger, but he was also a genuine business entrepreneur. Had he lived a century later he might well have been someone like Michael Dell or Mark Cuban.

His biographer, J. Evetts Haley, said that Goodnight and his partner Oliver Loving were the first to drive cattle from Texas to Colorado. But before he started on this venture, everyone told Goodnight it couldn’t be done. They told him he couldn’t get cattle across the desert-like conditions of West Texas. They told him he would be brutally killed by Apache or Comanches, staked out naked on an ant bed to wait for vultures to pick his bones.

They told him that even if he did make it, the cattle would be mere skeletons by then and he’d have nothing to sell. Like all trailblazers, he simply ignored the naysayers. He ignored those who were always around to predict failure.

He proved them wrong and got rich doing so. He was only 30 years old at the time. Many Texans followed his lead and the trail became famous as the Goodnight-Loving Trail. Loving, by the way, was loosely depicted as Gus McCrae in Lonesome Dove.

Though Goodnight eventually owned the biggest ranch in Texas, well over a million acres, when he was in his 90s, J. Evetts Haley, Goodnight’s foremost biographer, reported that he had this to say about his tumultuous life:

“All in all, my years on the cattle trail were the happiest I have lived. There were many hardships and dangers, of course, that called on all a man had of endurance and bravery; but when all went well there was no other life so pleasant. Most of the time we were solitary adventurers in a great land as fresh and new as a spring morning, and we were free and full of the zest of those who dared.”

Homesick for Texas: Songs & Tributes to the Lone Star State

To my mind, the signature song about longing for Texas is this one:

I wanna go home with the Armadillo;
Good country music from Amarillo and Abilene;
The friendliest people and the prettiest women you’ve ever seen.

That’s “London Homesick Blues” sung by Jerry Jeff Walker and written by Gary P. Nunn.

But there are dozens of songs that make Texpatriates (Texans forced to live outside of Texas a
while) a little misty eyed. Like “Amarillo By Morning” by George Strait:

Amarillo by morning, up from San Antone.
Everything that I’ve got is just what I’ve got on.
When that sun is high in that Texas sky
I’ll be bucking it to county fair.
Amarillo by morning, Amarillo I’ll be there.

And what Texan isn’t moved by these immortal words?

Let’s go to Luckenbach Texas
With Waylon and Willie and the boys

The theme of Texas homesickness is a common theme in our music, our folklore, and our literature.

Did you ever hear the story about the Montana cowboy who died and went to heaven? St. Peter was giving him a tour when the Montanan looked up to see a bunch of cowboys in jail, struggling to get out. The Montanan said to St. Peter: “I’m a little surprised to see a jail in heaven!”

St. Peter said, “Oh that’s not a jail. That’s the Texas Detention Center.”

Montanan said, “Oh I understand. I did some drovin’ with those ole boys. When they get to a new town they can do some damage.”

“That’s not the problem,” said St. Peter. “The problem is they get so homesick they keep tryin’ to sneak out the Pearly Gates to go back to Texas. So we have to keep ‘em locked up a while till they learn to like it here.”

We find the theme in Larry McMurtry’s work, too. In his little masterpiece of a novel, “All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers,” the central character, Danny Deck, is leaving Texas for the first time in his life. He is driving just west of El Paso and about to cross the border when he says:

“It was strange, leaving Texas… It was all behind me, north to south, not lying there exactly, but more like looming there over the car… some genie, some god, towering over the road. I really felt it… I had left without asking permission or earning my freedom. Texas let me go, ominously quiet. It hadn’t gone away. It was there behind me.”

When he returned to Texas after several months, Danny realized what many a traveler has realized – that there is no place like home. He says:

“It was the sky that was Texas, the sky that welcomed me back… The sky was what I had been missing, and seeing it again in its morning brightness made me realize suddenly why I hadn’t been myself for many months. It had such depth and such spaciousness and such incredible compass, it took so much in and circled one with such a tremendous generous space that it was impossible not to feel more intensely with it above you.”

Reminds me of what my brother Redneck Dave once told me. He said, “I reckon everybody everywhere misses their home, but if there was a way to measure the mightiness of missin’, I’d betcha big that Texans would come out pretty much on top.”

I can’t argue with that.

The Texan Origins of the Word Maverick

This is a biography of a word. It is about a word that was essentially born in Texas, grew up to achieve success here, and eventually became famous the world over. It has now gone well beyond its modest roots as a simple noun and transformed itself into impressive, symbolic fame as a metaphor.

The word is maverick. Maverick got its start in San Antonio, Texas, more than 150 years ago. In the world of words, it is a star: James Garner played Maverick in the TV western of the same name in the ’50s and ’60s, Tom Cruise was Maverick in Top Gun, Senator John McCain’s nickname is Maverick, and in Texas have the world champion Dallas Mavericks basketball team. The word means one who shuns custom, the lone wolf, one who blazes their own trail and is willing to go against the crowd, an independent thinker.

Those are the more symbolic meanings of maverick, but most people know that the word’s original meaning referred to unbranded cattle. Any cow that was unbranded was a maverick. But what fewer people know is that the original herd of unbranded cattle that launched the expression was owned by a man named Samuel Maverick. Those unbranded cows were Maverick’s cows. That is how the term came about. Ironic that his failure to brand his cattle branded his name in perpetuity.

Some say that this was his clever means of claiming all unbranded cattle as his own.

“There’s another unbranded calf. That’s mine.” Not true.

The fact of the matter is that Sam was not all that interested in ranching. He was a land baron, a real estate investor. He was more interested in acquiring land than actively farming or ranching it. He at one time owned so much land in Texas that he ranked up there with Richard King and Charles Goodnight. There is even a county named for him – Maverick County. Eagle Pass is the county seat.

I think it is a shame that Samuel Maverick became famous for his unbranded cattle because there are dozens of far more impressive ways that he demonstrated his maverick nature. He was a rare and unsung hero of the Texas revolution. In so being, he often lived up, quite impressively, to what his name would come to mean.

As a rich lawyer in South Carolina (with a degree from Yale), everybody in the Maverick clan expected young Samuel would take over one of his father’s many businesses. But he didn’t. He shocked them all when he chose a different path. He said that he was going to Texas to seek his fortune.

He arrived in San Antonio in 1835 as the winds of war were blowing. No one was buying land then because no one was sure they could hold it. Sam bucked that trend. He jumped in quickly and bought huge tracts of land around San Antonio and further east on along the Brazos. He seemed to believe in the old folk wisdom that you should buy land when no one wants it and sell it when everyone does.

He quickly became a trusted and admired man in San Antonio and joined the Alamo militia.

In fact, he would have died at the Alamo had he not been selected by his fellow volunteers to sign the Texas Declaration of Independence as their representative. So he was a maverick on March 2, 1836, when he risked his life, along with 59 others Texans, by the act of signing what Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna considered a treasonous document.

After independence was won, Samuel Maverick served as mayor of San Antonio, again putting a target on his back as a leading citizen of a rebellious city. Santa Anna had not given up on getting Texas back and so kept a list of those who were his enemies.

Six years after Independence, Santa Anna struck again. He sent General Adrian Woll to rattle his sabre in San Antonio and kill all those who took up arms against him. Maverick organized a resistance on the roof of the Maverick building. It was comprised of 53 men. Though they killed 14 and wounded 27 in the initial skirmish, they were soon surrounded by 900 Mexican troops and were forced to surrender.

Fortunately for Maverick and his friends, Woll did not carry out orders to execute them, probably because they were more valuable alive. Woll instead took many of these prominent Texans as prisoners and marched them back 1,000 brutal miles to Perote prison. One of them died along the way. Even today, at the Witte Museum, you can the water gourd that sustained Sam during that tumultuous march across Texas and Mexico.

Sam and friends were put into dark cells, chained together, and subjected to forced labor. Sam, as the representative of his men, asked for better conditions and was put into solitary confinement just for asking.

After a couple of months, Sam was told that Santa Anna would offer him his freedom in exchange for signing a document saying that Texas had been illegally seized and should be returned to Mexico. Lesser men might have taken the deal. But Maverick refused. He wrote, “I cannot bring myself to think that it would be in the best interest of Texas to reunite with Mexico. This being my settled opinion, I cannot sacrifice the interest of my country even to obtain my liberty, still less can I say so when such is not my opinion, for I regard a lie as a crime and one which I cannot commit. I must, therefore, make up my mind to wear my chains, galling as they are.”

While Sam was in the dungeon, unbeknownst to him, San Antonians elected him as their Congressional Representative in the Republic of Texas.

His release was finally negotiated by General Waddy Thompson, a family friend who was also trusted by Santa Anna. He did not have to sign anything. But Sam refused to leave without his San Antonio friends. He waited for them to be freed, too, which happened within a few days. Then they all traveled back to San Antonio together.

When Sam left the prison, he took with him the chains that had bound him all those long months as a lifelong reminder of the incalculable value of freedom.

Special thanks to Mary Fisher of San Antonio.

Texas Demonyms: Dallasites, Victorians, and Everything In-Between

A demonym describes the inhabitants of a place. With so many cities and counties in Texas, it’s hard to keep track of who is what from where. Word scholar W.F. Strong has a helpful list to keep you on track.

For places ending in “s”, add “-ites”

Dallas – Dallasites
Dumas – Dumasites

For places ending in “on,” add “-ian”

Houston – Houstonians
Denton – Dentonians
Sinton – Sintonians

For places ending in “o,” add “-an”

El Paso – El Pasoans
San Angelo – San Angeloans
Amarillo – Amarilloans

For places ending in “i,” add “-an”

Corpus Christi – Corpus Christians
Bucareli – Bucarelians
Miami – Miamians

For places ending in “y,” drop the “y” and add “-ian” or “-an”

Bay City – Bay Citians
Wimberley – Wimberleans
Albany – Albanians

For places ending in consonant or silent “e,” add “-er” or “-ite”

Edinburg – Edinburgers
Rosenberg – Rosenbergers
Fredericksburg – Fredericksburgers
Alpine – Alpine or Alpinites
Commerce – Commerceites or Commercians
Comfort – Comforters

For places ending in “polis,” change “polis” to “-politans”

Montopolis – Montopolitans

For places ending in “a,” add “ns”

Odessa – Odessans
Riviera – Rivierans
Victoria – Victorians

A few unusual demonyms to keep in mind:

Alice – Alicians
Naples – Neoplitans
Liverpool – Liverpudlians
Oxford – Oxonians
Leander – Leanderthals
Martin – Martinites or Martians
Palestine – Palestinians
Marfa – Marfans or Marfalites
Moscow – Muscovites
London – Londoners
Refugio – Refurians
Falfurrias – Falfurrians or Falfurrianos
Mission – Missionaries or Missionites
Paris – Parisians
San Antonio – San Antonians

The Life of Tom Landry, the Man in the Hat

Tom Landry and Charles Schulz died on the same day: Feb. 12, 2000. Mike Thompson, the Detroit Free Press cartoonist honored them both with a cartoon showing them entering the pearly gates together. Schulz was depicted as Charlie Brown and Landry had his arm around him. Landry said, “Now a few pointers on kicking a football…”

For Coach Landry, at least, I can’t imagine a finer eulogy.

I mourned Landry’s passing, of course, along with millions of other Landry fans. A day that was almost as tough, though, was the day Landry was fired, in 1989. That day, too, hit me like a death in the family. Landry had been our coach since many of us were children. And when he was fired, we were 40. He had been our father on the field. He raised us within the game, teaching us to be gracious in victory and dignified in defeat. And with one stroke of Jerry Jones’ pen, he was gone. Devastating.

Landry was known as the man in the hat. He was the stoic leader on the Dallas Cowboys sidelines, always impeccably dressed and sporting his fedora. Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said, “If there were a Mount Rushmore for the NFL, the profile of Tom Landry would have to be there, wearing his trademark hat.”

While coaching, Landry was so focused he rarely smiled. He was often called “unemotional.” But I can think of words that would be more fitting: a man of character, honor, integrity, and faith. He was pure class, on and off the field. He was ethos personified.

In his 29 years as Dallas’ head coach, Landry led the Cowboys to more playoff seasons, by far, than they have had since. And here is another statistic hard to fathom: the Cowboys still have not played as many games without Landry as they played with him.

Under Landry, the Cowboys won 13 Divisional titles and played in five Super Bowls, winning two. They enjoyed 20 consecutive winning seasons, a record no NFL coach has ever come close to matching.

As glorious as those years were, none equalled Landry’s finest season in football. He played for the New York Giants professionally, and was all-pro one year, but that was not his finest season, either. He played football on scholarship for the University of Texas, but after only one semester, his career there was put on hold by World War II. He volunteered to join the Army Air Corps and flew 30 missions over Germany, crash landing once in Belgium. Though the wings were shaved off, he and all his men walked away without serious injury. Not bad for a 20-year-old.

One could consider his WWII service, in a Churchillian sense, his finest season, but as we are talking football, we have to go back further.

To get to his best season ever, we have to go all the way back to his high school years in Mission, Texas, way down in the Rio Grande Valley.

It was Landry’s senior year, 1941. He played both sides of the ball. He played quarterback and defensive back. Landry led the Mission Eagles to a perfect 12-0 season. They went all the way to the regional championship, which was as far as they could go that year (there was no state championship in those days).

The Mission Eagles won every game they played, holding every team scoreless, except for one. In 12 games they gave up only one score. Donna High School managed to squeeze out one touchdown against them.

Many years later, in his autobiography, Landry wrote, “That autumn of glory, shared with my boyhood friends… remains perhaps my most meaningful season in my fifty years of football. The game was never more fun, the victories never sweeter, the achievement never more satisfying.”

Landry’s near flawless season, and his impressive professional life thereafter, was honored in 1975 when the Mission School District named their football stadium the Tom Landry Stadium. And when he died in 2000, I-30 between Dallas and Fort Worth was named the Tom Landry Highway.

To me, one of the trivial truths about Landry that speaks to his greatness, is that his Cowboys never gave him a Gatorade bath, never dumped the ice bucket down his back.

After his coaching days were over, he developed a sterling reputation as an inspirational speaker. He always advised young players to keep their lives ordered in this simple way: faith, family, and football. He was also fond of saying, ¨As of today, you have 100 percent of your life left.¨

He took his own words to heart. After he was fired, while the rest of us were using our energy being mad about the disrespectful way our icon was sacked, Landry was already moving on with his life.

He didn’t waste time being angry or bitter. With characteristic optimism, he saw the silver lining. He said, “As a boy growing up in Mission, Texas, I always dreamed of being a cowboy. For 29 wonderful years, I was one.”