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March 23, 2016

In the Land of Pickups, Texas is King

Stories from Texas

By: W.F. Strong

To paraphrase Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now, “I love the sound of a diesel engine in the morning.” Could be a pickup, or a tractor, or an 18 wheeler. But I love the sound, because it sounds like adventure. It is the sound that says we’re off on a road trip, or going fishing, hunting, or simply taking livestock to auction, to make more money for more adventure.

In Texas we buy more pickup trucks than any other state. Not all diesel of course, but taken all together we buy more pickups than any other state. In fact, there is not even a respectable second place. You have to add California and Florida and Oklahoma together to get a respectable second place in truck sales. And if Dallas and Houston were a state, they would be number two in truck sales, behind the rest of Texas. That’s a lot of trucks, y’all.

One fourth of all new vehicles sold in Texas are pickup trucks. Pickups are the luxury cars of Texas. In Texas, the number one status symbol is not a Mercedes or a BMW, it is a big, powerful, fully decked out pickup like a Ford F-250 or Chevy or Dodge Ram 2500, with a Power Stroke, Duramax or Cummins diesel. Texas is so dominant in Truck sales that auto companies sometimes divide their national marketing into North, East, West, and Texas. Hence the slogans, “Built Texas Tough,” and “Built by Texans for Texans,” you hear in so many ads.

You know the old saying in show business? If you can make it in New York you can make it anywhere? Well, for trucks it is this: “If you can make it in Texas, you can make it anywhere.”

The flagship truck for Texas appeal is Ford’s King Ranch edition pickup. Everybody knows that The King Ranch is the most famous ranch in Texas and known throughout the U.S. as an icon of manliness. It was a stroke of marketing genius, 15 years ago, when Ford wrapped their truck in the manly ethos of the King Ranch brand. Every leather seat within the truck is emblazoned with the King Ranch Running W cattle brand. Macho sublimity.

The King Ranch uses only Ford trucks. It has about 350 of them throughout its various divisions. The King Ranch edition pickup is the best selling of all Ford’s specialty brands. 1 out of every 5 Ford trucks is sold in Texas. 40 percent of the King Ranch models are sold in Texas, leaving a respectable 60 percent for those across North America who want to feel a little bit Texan every time they drive. Ford is not alone in the specialty market. Chevy and GMC have Texas editions – so does Ram, with its Lone Star edition – and so does Toyota, whose full size pickups are all built in San Antonio.

As long as Truck companies are into specialty models, I have a couple of suggestions: the South Padre edition, featuring large beach tires, a tailgate grill and a surf pole rack on the front – all standard. We could use a Big Bend edition – standard features would be off road tires, a 12-inch factory lift kit, and a front bumper winch. I don’t expect royalties. Just a free truck.

Country music has a whole genre of devoted to praise of pickups and their drivers. We have “The Pickup Truck Song,” by Jerry Jeff Walker, “Mud on the Tires” by Brad Paisley, “Rough and Ready” by Trace Adkins, and “Pickup Man” by Joe Diffie, to name a few in a crowded field.

Even women say that men who drive trucks are better lookin’ than men in cars. Insure.com conducted a poll last year and found that women say that men who drive trucks are the most attractive. And they were quite specific about it. A black pickup is best. They went even further – a black Ford pickup makes men the most attractive they can be. So I guess the Black Ford King Ranch edition, would be the kind of perfect driving prescription for Texas men wanting to spiff up their image. I told my wife about it and she said, “Yeah? Well you can’t have one. If you want another truck you can have that white ’66 Chevy Truck on blocks in your brother Redneck Dave’s back yard. Fix that up.”

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.

March 9, 2016

I’m Mad, Too, Eddie!

Stories from Texas

By: W.F. Strong

There are three classic Texas ad campaigns that would be shortlisted in the Texas Advertising Hall of Fame, if we had such a thing.

They are:

Blue Bell Ice Cream’s “We eat all we can and we sell the rest,”

“Don’t mess with Texas” – arguably the most brilliant public service campaign ever created,

and then there is my favorite, “If you don’t have an oil well, get one. You’ll love doing business with Western.”

The latter came from Eddie Chiles, who owned the Western Company of North America. Eddie Chiles was the iconic, hard-charging Texas oil man.

He started the Western Company with three employees and two trucks in 1939, and through sheer force of personality, he built it into a billion dollar company. He owned the Texas Rangers baseball team for about a decade before selling it to a group of investors that included future President George W. Bush. That was in 1989. But before he sold it, he did us the favor of signing Nolan Ryan to a $2 million contract.

Chiles was a cantankerous, colorful, hard-nosed business man. He was politically to the right of Attila the Hun and ironically inspired by the liberal Hollywood movie, “Network,” and the crazed anchorman prophet, Howard Beale. Every night Beale would scream at the cameras, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

Chiles liked Beale’s message. Beales validated Chiles’ frustration with big government. So he took to the radio waves with a similar message. He said simply, “I’m Eddie Chiles and I’m mad.” And then he would go off on a rant complaining about his three favorite topics: big government, big government, and big government.

He would say, “I’m sad for the Americans who are trying to raise a family and buy a home while the liberals in Congress are spending more and more and destroying the American Dream. You need to get mad, too.” He would always end with this: “The government should deliver the mail and stay the hell out of my business.”

Chiles became a folk hero of sorts. “I’m mad, too, Eddie!” bumper stickers started sprouting up all over Texas, all over the Southwest, actually. You would see smaller versions on hard hats, right up front. “I’m mad, too, Eddie.”

He once said, “Let me tell you why I am mad. Forty years ago, I started the Western Company, and under the free-enterprise system I was able to build that company into an international organization with some 4,000 employees. Today, I’m afraid the opportunity I had no longer exists. During the last 50 years the liberal philosophy practiced by Congress has literally turned the American dream into a nightmare. And this makes me mad. Fighting mad. I love America, and I’m determined to fight to get our freedoms back.”

Though Eddie said this nearly 40 years ago, it has a modern, familiar ring to it.

Eddie’s editorials were eventually carried by 650 radio stations across the country. This was at a time when Limbaugh was carried by one. Eddie paved the way for Limbaugh and Hannity. Some say he was instrumental in turning Texas red for Reagan in 1980. No matter what your politics were then, when Eddie was on the radio, he had your attention.

Chiles was the quintessential conservative Texan of his era. He was born in the small town of Itasca, Texas. His was a rags to riches story fit for Horatio Alger. The only black mark on his Texas record, in my opinion, is that he earned his degree from the University of Oklahoma (what I call a study abroad program). But I guess we can forgive him that because he did get a Texas-centric degree in Petroleum Engineering. He also had the good sense to start his company in Texas.

I for one will always be grateful for his marvelous ad that ran so often during NFL football games. A beautiful young lady would be standing next to a derrick, wearing a hardhat, and she would say, “If you don’t have an oil well get one, you’ll love doing business with Western.”

I think it would play well today. Well, as soon as oil gets back to $70 a barrel.

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.

February 24, 2016

Think There’s No Poetry In Texas? Think Again

Stories from Texas

By: W.F. Strong

A New Yorker told me that he never uses the words Texas and poetry in the same sentence.

He thinks Texas poetry is an oxymoron because he doesn’t see how such a refined art form could be produced in a macho culture. But he is wrong. Cowboys and vaqueros were reciting poetry in the warm glow of firelight on the Texas plains hundreds of years ago.

A modern inheritor of this tradition is Walt McDonald. He gives us this poem that celebrates country music in Texas. It’s called “The Waltz We Were Born For.”

“I never knew them all, just hummed
and thrummed my fingers with the radio,
driving five hundred miles to Austin.
Her arms held all the songs I needed.
Our boots kept time with fiddles
and the charming sobs of blondes,

the whine of steel guitars
sliding us down in deer-hide chairs
when jukebox music was over.
Sad music’s on my mind tonight
in a jet high over Dallas, earphones
on channel five. A lonely singer,

dead, comes back to beg me,
swearing in my ears she’s mine,
rhymes set to music that make
her lies seem true. She’s gone
and others like her, leaving their songs
to haunt us. Letting down through clouds

I know who I’ll find waiting at the gate,
the same woman faithful to my arms
as she was those nights in Austin
when the world seemed like a jukebox,
our boots able to dance forever,
our pockets full of coins.”

Here is another one I enjoy from well-known Texas poet, Chip Dameron. It is printed in the shape of Texas. You begin in the Panhandle and work your way down to the Rio Grande. The words celebrate the part of Texas in which they reside. It is called “A State of Mind.”

Last, here is Violette Newton, Poet Laureate of Texas in 1973. She wrote this humorous poem which speaks directly to the problem of getting respect for Texas poetry:

Up East, they do not think much
of Texas poetry. They think Texans
have no soul for aesthetics, that all
they do is pound their own chests,
talk loud and make money.
But every time I’m nearing Austin,
I look up at a painted sign
high on the side of the highway
that says, “Bert’s Dirts”
and to pyramids of many-colored soils
sold by Bert, and I swell with pride
at that rhyming sign, I puff up
and point to that terse little title
and wish we could stop
so I could go in
and purchase
a spondee of sand
to make a gesture of my support
for poetry in Texas.

Take that, New York.

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.

February 10, 2016

Before We Had Social Media, We Had Dairy Queen

Stories from Texas

By: W.F. Strong

Texas has 600 Dairy Queens. About 20 percent of all Dairy Queens in the U.S. are in Texas. That’s a lot of Belt-Busters, y’all.

The oldest Dairy Queen in Texas is in Henderson. It opened in 1950.

Texas Monthly reported in 1979 that McDonald’s couldn’t get a foothold in small town Texas because DQ’s were the social, cultural and culinary centers of many towns. ¨People in small towns were particular about their food and particular about who served it to them, which was often a person who had been pouring the coffee there for twenty years and knew what people were gonna order before they ordered it. And they liked it that way.¨

Texas Dairy Queens have long had their own Texas menu. They were serving burgers when the rest of the country’s DQ’s were just selling soft serve ice cream.

DQ’s are among the most important institutions in small towns, right up there with school and church. It is often one of the few good places to eat and the primary meeting place in town. Bankers go there for coffee before the bank opens; Ranchers meet for lunch at DQ to discuss beef prices; school kids go there after school to see each other seeing other.

Before the internet, the Dairy Queen served as Facebook. If someone were “in a new relationship” it was announced nonverbally when Becky-Sue walked on Jim Bob’s arm, wearing his Football Letterman Jacket.

Or when Becky Sue broke up with Jim Bob, two months later, that too was announced when she arrived at DQ without Jim-Bob and without his jacket. Change in Relationship-formally announced.

Status Updates were shared in person, over coffee or by splitting a banana-split Sundae.

No one took pictures of their food. They simply looked over to the nearby booth and said, “I like what Carlos is havin´.”

Movie reviews were not posted anywhere, but they were developed in small groups sitting in a large, curved booth, eating burgers and fries right after they saw the film. Well, movie. No one used the word film, then.

Selfie’s were unheard of, and would have been regarded as immodest, anyway. But you could have someone else take a polaroid snapshot of you getting your 4H Best of Breed Trophy and the DQ people would post that on the quite real timeline bulletin board for all to see. They also posted pics of newborns and even weddings, the things Facebook and Instagram do now.

DQ’s don’t have as dominant a social role as they once did, but they still serve as the pit-stop parking lot for kids cruising the new version of “the drag” on weekends. But the social dimensions are handled by Instagram and Snapchat, the digital “drag” and the asphalt “drag,” working in harmony.

And DQ has gone international. You can go DQ in London or Paris. You can even go to DQ in Thailand, where you can get a vanilla cone – but you can’t get Texas Tacos.

January 27, 2016

The Time It Never Rained

Stories from Texas

By: W.F. Strong

The great Texas meteorologist Isaac Klein reportedly said back in the ’30s that Texas is a land of eternal drought, interrupted occasionally by biblical floods.

Here is the way one writer describe one of these twenty-year droughts: “It crept up out of Mexico touching first along the brackish Pecos River, and spreading then in all directions. A cancerous blight burning a scar on the land.”

Just another dry spell, men said at first. Ranchers watched waterholes recede into brown puddles of mud that their livestock wouldn’t touch. They watched the rank weeds shrivel as the west winds relentlessly sought them out and smothered them with its hot breath. They watch the grass slowly lose its green, then curl up and fire up like dying corn stocks. Men grumbled.

But you learn to live with dry spells if you live in west Texas. There are more dry spells than wet ones. No one expected another drought like that of ’33 and the really big dries, like 1928, came once in a lifetime. Why worry they said. It would rain this fall. It always has.

But it didn’t and many a boy would become a man before the land became green again. This is how Elmer Kelton’s superb Texas novel, “The Time It Never Rained,” begins. The 1950s drought is a major character asserting itself, maliciously and unceasingly, throughout the book.

The central character is Charlie Flag, a tough old rancher from a bygone era who refuses to take government aid to survive the drought. He says, “There was a time when we looked up to Uncle Sam. He was something to be proud of and respect, but now he has turned into some kind of muddled-brained Sugar Daddy giving out goodies right and left in hopes that everybody is going to love him.”

Flag takes you to a time when charity was thought to be an unkind word. He warns against ranchers getting too comfortable with government aid by saying, “It divides us into selfish little groups, snarlin’ and snappin’ at each other like hungry dogs, grabbing for what we can get and to hell with everybody else. We beg and fight and prostitute ourselves. We take charity and we give it a sweeter name.”

He concludes that when a rancher takes government help, as well intentioned as the government is and as deserving as the rancher might be, he’s given up something he can never get back. He has given up a little bit of self-respect and little of his pride he used to have in taking care of himself, by himself.

If you asked me to list the top ten Texas novels of all time, I could do it easily. Putting them in order, though, would be a challenge beyond me. But I can say for certain that somewhere in the Top 5 would be “The Time It Never Rained.”

Spend a few evenings with Charlie Flag and you will see the incomparable Texas spirit in its purest form. You will feel like you went out with your grandfather and checked all the fences, making sure they were horse high, pig tight and bull strong.

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.

January 13, 2016

The Texas Rancher and the New York Banker

Stories from Texas

By: W.F. Strong

This story comes under the heading of “folklore,” a story that rises up out of the people and migrates and mutates. There is a New York version, a Jewish version, an Italian version, a Southern version and a Texas version, where I believe it originated, but that is likely because I am a Texan. It goes like this:

A Texas rancher walks into a bank in New York City and asks for a $5000 loan for the period of a month.

The banker hesitates. He is uncertain about it because he thinks the Texan looks a bit like a redneck, and truth be told, rather poor. So he decides to blow him off quickly. He says, “Do you have any collateral to put up for the loan?”

The rancher replies, “Yep, got that 2015 Ford F-250 sittin’ across the street there. Worth $70,000 all decked out that way.”

The banker rolls his eyes and says, “How much do you owe on that truck?”

The rancher says, “Not a dime. All paid for.”

The banker leans forward and changes his tune. “Well sir, I don’t see why we couldn’t loan you $5000. We could go up to $40,000 if you’d like, over a longer period, of course.”

“Nope,” said the rancher, “$5000 will do. A month is all I need.”

“You mind if I ask why you need the loan?” asked the banker.

The rancher said, “I drove up from my little ranch in Abilene to do some business here and suddenly have an emergency opportunity. A bucket list item, to fly over to España to maybe purchase an Andalusian horse, if I can afford it. Little cash poor just now – need some walkin’ around money.”

The banker says, “Well this will be no problem. We can certainly help you out.”

“Just one thing,” said the rancher. “Can we skip puttin’ a lien on the title? Clearing a New York lien from Texas, I imagine, is like herdin’ cats.”

“I tell you what,” said the banker, “Just leave the truck with us as hard collateral and pick it up when you come back. You’re not going to need it anyway.”

The rancher thought a moment and said, “Well, it’s a bit unusal, but I guess it will be alright.” He slid the keys across the desk to the banker.

In a few minutes, all the formalitites were settled and the banker gave the rancher $5000 in cash and off he went to Spain.

One month later the rancher returned and paid the banker $5000 – plus $28.22 for one month’s interest.

The banker walked the rancher out to the front of the bank. As they waited for the truck to be brought down from the garage. The banker said, “Sir, while you were gone I ran a full credit check on you, just for the hell of it. And turns out you are quite wealthy. You have a 1200 acre ranch, 500 head of cattle, and oil and gas interests; you didn’t really need this loan did you?”

Rancher said, “No sir, I didn’t, not really.”

Banker said, “Mind if I ask why you got the loan?”

Just at that moment, truck arrived from the bank’s garage. The rancher hopped in and powered the window down. He leaned out toward the banker and said, “Where else was I gonna park a big ol’ F-250 in New York City for a whole month for just $28?”

With that he tipped his hat and said, “Much obliged to you.”

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.

December 30, 2015

The Story of James Dean and the Shamrock Hotel

Stories from Texas

By: W.F. Strong

James Dean – in the movie “Giant” – tells Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor that he has struck oil. And not only that, it’s payback time.

James Dean was playing Jett Rink, a hard drinkin’, brawlin’, tough-talkin’ uncultured Texas wildcatter who struck it rich. But everybody in Texas knew that he was really playing Glen McCarthy, a Houston wildcatter, who struck it rich – cover of TIME rich. The fictional Jett Rink spent millions of dollars building the Emperador, the biggest hotel in Texas. The real life McCarthy did the same. But he called it, The Shamrock Hotel.

The Shamrock, nicknamed the Houston Riviera, was the grandest hotel in Texas when it was built, the largest outside of New York or L.A. It was 20 stories tall counting the two-story emerald SHAMROCK HOTEL sign on top. It cost $22 million in ’47. Today it would be $250 million. It had the biggest swimming pool on the planet, so large that people water-skied in it. It had 1,100 rooms, all air-conditioned, each with a TV and radio.

In 1949, McCarthy wanted to have a grand opening for his monolithic hotel. He wanted Hollywood stars. He was told that the only way Hollywood would come was if there was a movie opening to attend. But no big studio would launch a film in Texas. So he decided to fund his own Hollywood movie. In this way, he had the movie debut and hotel grand opening at the same time. And Hollywood came. Howard Hughes even gave him a good deal on one of his planes so he could fly stars to Houston. McCarthy chartered a Santa Fe party train that brought in hundreds of stars for the St. Patrick’s Day opening.

The evening was regarded as the most prestigious event in Houston social history. And it likely remains so. Everyone who was anyone was there. Ginger Rogers was there. So was Errol Flynn. It was broadcast live on national radio by NBC and hosted by the WWII pin-up Dorothy Lamour.

Frank Lloyd Wright wasn’t impressed with the Shamrock’s 63 shades of Irish green. He was called it “architectural venereal disease.” But many loved the Shamrock for its sheer size and art deco style, the Emerald Nightclub where Sinatra sang, The Cork Club up top overlooking Houston, and the hotel’s grand devotion to the Irish theme.

It was sold to Conrad Hilton in 1955 and was known as the Shamrock Hilton until it was demolished in 1987. Today Texas A&M Health Sciences Center sits on the site. I think McCarthy would like that. He was, after all, an Aggie.

December 16, 2015

Here’s An Apple Pie Recipe For Any Texan Holiday

Stories from Texas

By: W.F. Strong

Every Christmas my mom would bake eight pies: four apple and four pecan. Now, we wouldn’t eat all of those ourselves. Two would be given away to pie-less people and two would be placed in the deep freeze for some emergency of the future. Pies and money were similar in my mom’s mind. Save a fourth of everything in deep savings for some future need.

When baking these pies, she had a quite a memorable ritual she followed.

First she would prepare the dessert table in the dining room. She’d cover the corner table with her mother’s crocheted table cloth and light some red cinnamon-laced candles. She’d tell us every year, “See this table cloth? Took your grandmother a year to crochet it. She made the whole thing while watching Gunsmoke.”

Next she’d put on some Christmas music on the old phonograph. Usually Bing Crosby or Perry Como or Doris Day. Then she’d close off the kitchen and announce to any of us kids in there: “I’m going to bake now. You’re either a help or a hindrance. If you’re gonna, help, help. If not, get on outside.”

I’d generally stay because there were rewards to be had in testing and tasting. I served as quality control. At the age of 9, just sitting in the warm kitchen amidst the aromas of baking pies had no olfactory equal in childhood.

My mom always cooked kind of dressed up. She wore a collared, mid-shin length dress with a blue and white, checked apron over it. Made her look, to me, like a Butter Krust bread wrapper. She looked like Betty Crocker without the pearls and the low heels. She’d wear a comfortable pair of beige Keds, instead.

As I was partial to her apple pie, I’m gonna tell you, right quick, how to make it like she did. You should feel honored because this is a treasured family recipe, lovingly snipped from the pages of Good Housekeeping in 1912 by my grandmother.

First, you need to put some wassail on the stove to give the room the proper Christmas aroma for pie baking. Next you’re gonna need a formica table with a blue, broken-ice pattern and chrome trim. Cover half the table with wax paper, get out your flour and rolling pen and make some pie crusts. Go about it vigorously so there’s flour floating in the air. Line your pie dishes with the crust, snip off the excess, push in the crimps around the edges, and pop ‘em all in the oven for 10 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. (If you’re only baking one pie, you can stick the crust in at 400 degrees for five minutes.)

Now, if you’re like my mom, never one to waste time, while those are baking, you can grab a nine-year-old boy and rush out to the clothes line and bring in the laundry, fold it and put it away before the pie crust is ready.

Back to the pies: Cut, peel and core five Granny Smith apples, cut into slices. Yell for your husband to turn the record over so you can hear Dreaming of White Christmas, which is certainly a crazy thing to be dreaming about anywhere south of Austin. You’re more likely to get a Christmas tan.

In a big stainless steel bowl, mix the apple cubes, white and brown sugars, cinnamon and nutmeg all together. Nutmeg is the secret ingredient – it smells magical all mingled with the wassail warmed up on the stove. Now pour this mix into the pie shells and add a crumb topping that has lots of butter and sugar and cinnamon. You’re almost done with your Dutch apple pies.

Put them in the oven for 40 minutes at 400 degrees. When they’re done, set ’em up by there by the screened window to cool.

Now you can get started on the pecan pies, but that’s not my specialty so you’ll have to look up that recipe.

I’m just waiting for the apple pies. As soon as they cool, I’m gonna try a slice, with some Blue Bell vanilla ice cream of course. Life doesn’t get much better I’d say.

May your holidays be equally blessed.

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.

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