How come Texans.....Part Three in a Series



I would venture to say that not a single statue of a Road Runner was ever made in Ohio. 







 

         Texans have distinguished themselves on every field of battle since our own war for independence from Mexico.  Although General Zachery Taylor abhorred the lack of discipline shown by the Texas Rangers during the US/Mexican war of 1846,  he said the Texans were the best fighting men he had ever seen.  During the Civil War, Robert E. Lee advised anyone who was unsure of what to do in battle to “watch those Texans over there and do what they do.”

On March 27, 1836, Col. James Fannin was executed in this courtyard, after he was forced to watch the execution of 342 of his men.

     Although Texas only had 5 percent of the national population during World War II, Texans made up 7 percent of the armed forces.  The supreme allied commander in the Pacific, Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, grew up in Fredericksburg.  General Dwight Eisenhower was born in Dennison and General Douglas MacArthur graduated from Texas Military Institute in San Antonio.  Somewhere I read that Texas A&M has provided more generals for the U.S. Army than West Point.

     The most decorated soldier in the Army was Audie Murphy from Hunt County.  The most decorated Navy officer was Cmdr. Samuel Dealy from Dallas.  Thirty three Texans, including these two, received the Congressional Medal of Honor during World War II.  All in all, Texas provided 750,000 personnel for the war effort and 22,000 Texans died in that war.

     Young Texans trained for the battlefields of life on the gridiron.  Long before “Friday Night Lights” made the nation aware of the football mania that engulfs Texas, high school football was an obsession here.  Pimply-faced kids learned courage, self-sacrifice, discipline, and teamwork on the footfall field.  Oil-rich alums imported outstanding players by providing jobs for their parents.  These same young athletes became local celebrities and were worshipped by their neighbors…. and by their neighbor’s daughters.

     I remember a scene from Texas author Larry McMurtry’s “Last Picture Show.”  From inside a darkened car at a drive-in movie, a breathy female voice says, “We shouldn’t be doing this.  You weren’t even in the backfield.”

     For decades, Texas high schools provided the bulk of athletes to the old Southwest Conference.  That conference is now history and college football is national in scope, so we provide campuses around the country with talented, disciplined, well-conditioned "troops."  Even recent national champion Oklahoma has more Texans on the roster than natives of Oklahoma.

     All these military and athletic accomplishments contribute to the vast pride that Texans feel in their homeland and in themselves.  We also find a lot of other things to be proud of.

     Nowhere is this more evident than in my particular homeland, the high plains of the Texas Panhandle.   Most days, the air is so clear and the sun so bright it hurts your eyes.  The wind blows constantly; it geometrically multiplies the effects of heat or cold.  In summer, 100 degree days are not uncommon and, in winter, a “Blue Norther” can drop the temperature 50 degrees in four hours. Droughts sometimes last several years, yet the average annual rainfall has been known to come in four days.  People who live here learn to cope with the weather.  We learn to adjust to our climate, for it will not adjust to us.  We brag to outsiders about  brutal weather,  fickle rainfall, and cruel winds.

     In the fall of 1879, among the first settlers in the Lubbock vicinity were four families of Quakers, headed by a fellow named Paris Cox.  Paris and his sons dug a half-dugout, but the other three families chose to live in tent-like structures.  After suffering through an extremely cold and punishing winter, in the spring a violent sandstorm came through and blew the tents away.  Three families loaded up and went back to Indiana.   Paris Cox and his wife remained.   In June of 1880, their daughter, Bertha, was the first non-Indian child born in Lubbock County. 

     We who live here are richly rewarded for our tenacity.   Achingly beautiful sunsets promise a new and better tomorrow.  We share a never-changing, ever-changing sky with each other and anyone else aware enough to notice.  We breathe the fresh, clean air and squint in the bright sunshine.  We’re surrounded by friendly, honest, helpful neighbors.  We know we live in the best place on earth.  All we have to do is look around; we’re on the Caprock in West Texas, up on the high plains, not far from Lubbock.

     Texans think this way.  We think there is value in overcoming hardship and we take pride in simple things, like new socks.   We learn to harness a deeply held, burning ambition to improve ourselves and our position in life.  My friend, Frank Williamson, who was born into soul-crushing poverty on a dirt farm outside Morton, Texas, may have said it best, "When you grow up like I did, you would just about rather die than fail to suceed."
      We display the Lone Star Flag at equal height with the American Flag because we’re the only state in the nation that can.  It is written into the treaty we signed when we joined the Union.  (Sadly, this changed.  On June 22, 1942, the United States Flag Code was adopted.  This allowed other states to fly their flags at equal height with the U.S. flag, and, by association, the Texas flag.)  We love Texas and we love America and a lot of our young people have demonstrated a willingness to die for either of those flags.  

       I know some outsiders will think I’m bragging, and I hate that.  Anyone who knows the first thing about Texans knows we’re just as humble as all get out.

My grandsons at the Mule Statue in Muleshoe.  I bet there's not a fiberglas statue of a mule anywhere in New England.   And look at those flowers--growing right there in the panhandle.