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Steinbeck’s comments about Texas and Texans go well beyond his “Texas is a state of mind” quote. Texas Standard commentator W.F. Strong explores.
The full transcript of this episode of Stories from Texas is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
W.F. Strong [00:00:00] I’m rather certain that most Texans have heard the often quoted words of John Steinbeck. Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique, closely approximating a religion. He wrote that in his nonfiction work Travels with Charley in Search of America. Charley was a standard poodle who was Steinbeck’s traveling companion in 1960 when together they cruised America’s highways and back roads in a GMC pickup truck with a makeshift camper that Steinbeck called the Rising Sun. He named the truck after don’t yield his horse. What may be news to many is that Steinbeck’s comments about Texas and Texans goes well beyond his state of mind in its ten pages beyond. He has much more to say about us that is generally complimentary and sometimes critical. But as people on the border say, he says, it conquered Inyo with affection. Steinbeck wrote, When I started this narrative, I knew that sooner or later I would have to have a go at Texas, and I dreaded it. I could have bypassed Texas about as easily as a space traveler can avoid the Milky Way. Once you were in Texas, it seems to take forever to get out. And some people never do. Even if I wanted to avoid Texas, I could not. For I am lived in Texas and mother in law and uncle and a cousin and entered within an inch of my life. Staying away from Texas geographically is no help whatsoever for Texas. Moves through our house in New York and our fishing cottage in SAG Harbor. It permeates the world to a ridiculous degree. Once in Florence, on seeing a lovely young Italian princess, I said to her father, But she doesn’t look Italian. To which her father replied. Her grandfather married a Cherokee in Texas. Here, Steinbeck laments the struggles all writers have in trying to define Texas and Texans. He says that they all end up floundering and lose themselves in generalizations that have little meaning. He says that he is no exception to this rule, but he tries anyway. Texas, he says, is a state of mind. Texas is an obsession. Above all, Texas is a nation in every sense of the word. Steinbeck notes that a Texan outside of Texas is a foreigner. He says that his wife claims that she is a Texan who got away, but he doesn’t buy it. He says she has virtually no accent until she talks to another Texan when she instantly reverts. Soon she is saying yes, air hare and yes with two syllables. Yes, air, hare and gas. Steinbeck touches on many Texas themes in his wanderings and wanderings. On secession, he writes, Texans claim the right to secede at will. They want to be able to secede, but they don’t want anyone to want them to. On Texas. History says Texas has its own private history based on, but not limited to facts. Steinbeck says that Texans are tight. If you attack one Texan, you attack them all. They circle the wagons. There may be no geographical unity in Texas. Its unity lies in the mind. And this is not only in Texas. The word Texas becomes a symbol to everyone in the world. Texans and football. Sectional football games have the glory and despair of war. And when a Texas team takes the field against a foreign state, it is an army with banners on cattle. The tradition of the frontier cattlemen is tenderly nurtured in Texas. When a man makes his fortune, his first act is to buy a ranch the largest he can afford and to run some cattle. Steinbeck concludes that Texas has a cohesiveness, perhaps stronger than any other section of America. Texas is the obsession and the passionate possession of all Texans. I’m W.F. Strong. These are stories from Texas. Some of them are true.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
