Things Redneck Dave said to me on the drive across Texas

Summary

Technology has a role in helping us remember the past. Whether it’s a Facebook memory or a similar push from your photos app. But milestones have long played the same role — anniversaries, holidays, big changes in life.

Maybe it’s a relationship or your last great vacation.

Texas Standard commentator WF Strong has been recalling a certain road trip that took him 400 miles across the state… Along with him was his older brother, who he calls “Redneck Dave.”

This commentary first aired in April, 2020.

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October 3, 2018

Texans Have A Funny Relationship With The Letter ‘R’

Texas Monthly once described the joke I’m about to tell you as THE TEXAS JOKE because of its staying power over many decades: A married couple from out of state were driving across Texas and saw a sign that said “Mexia 22 miles.” They got into a bit of an argument over how to say […]

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September 19, 2018

Out-Texas Me This!

About a month ago, my son went off to college with my Jeep, and I needed to get another vehicle. I had been truckless for a few years – a rare condition in my life – and I decided I wanted to fix that right away. For a long time, I had wanted a King […]

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September 5, 2018

Defenders Of The Alamo

They other day I was looking over a list of those who died at the Alamo. The one thing that struck me about the list was that the men who gave their lives there were, collectively, incredibly young. I saw John Wayne’s film, “The Alamo,” when I was a kid and for years I had […]

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August 8, 2018

Texas As A Unit Of Measure

By W. F. Strong Tom Hanks in the movie “Cast Away” was stranded all alone on a deserted pacific island. He was the lone survivor of a plane crash. The seriousness of his situation sunk in as he did the math in his head. He explained radial geometry to Wilson (his Volleyball friend) as he […]

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July 12, 2018

The Armadillo’s Texas Roots Reach Back To Ancient Times

On these warm summer nights, I see them often as I drive home on FM 803. They sometimes stop, frozen for a few seconds, their eyes reflecting my headlights in an eerie red – and then they dash off into giant clumps of prickly pear, where predators can’t follow. The Spaniards named them armadillos – […]

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June 27, 2018

Pink Cadillacs And Lucky 13: How Mary Kay Ash Built A Billion-Dollar Business

We have had dozens of rags-to-riches stories in Texas. These Horatio Algers had hardscrabble beginnings but built fortunes worth hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars. But unfortunately – at this point, anyway – most of them have been male. So the women who did it were all the more impressive because they had […]

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June 13, 2018

What Anthony Bourdain Knew About Mexico

Like millions of his fans, I was stunned to learn that Anthony Bourdain had left us so soon last week. I was sad because he had such a genius for expressing his brilliance: and, I believe, had so much more to teach. I’ve spent half my life trying to teach students at the university to […]

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May 30, 2018

Where Have All The Horny Toads Gone?

A couple of weeks ago I read a book called “The Lion the Living Room,” which was about how our domestic cats are just little lions. I thought, ‘that’s nothing. I grew up with dinosaurs in the alley.’ They looked for all the world like little dinosaurs – at least to us kids they did. […]

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