The following is a bit long. Outsiders may not want to read the whole thing but a true Texan will read the whole thing with great pride!!
So you want to know everything about us Texicans?
When you're from Texas, people that you meet ask you questions like:
"Do you have any cows?"
"Do you have horses?"
"Betcha got a bunch of guns, eh?"
They all want to know if you've been to Southfork. They watched Dallas.
Have you ever looked at a map of the world? Look at Texas with me just for a second. That picture, with the Panhandle and the Gulf Coast, and the Red River and the Rio Grande is as much a part of you as anything ever will be.
As soon as anyone anywhere in the world looks at it they know what it is.
It's Texas. Pick any kid off the street in Japan and draw him a picture of Texas in the dirt and he'll know what it is. What happens if I show you a picture of any other state? You might get it maybe after a second or two, but who else would? And even if you do, does it ever stir any feelings in you?
Inside every man, woman and child on this planet, there is a person who wishes just once he could be a real live Texan and get up on a horse or ride off in a pickup. There is some bit of Texas in everyone.
Did you ever hear anyone in a bar go, "Wow...so you're from Iowa? Cool, tell me about it?" Do you know why? Because there's no place like Texas.
Texas is the Alamo. Texas is 183 men standing in a church, facing thousands of Mexican nationals, fighting for freedom, who had the chance to walk out and save themselves, but stayed instead to fight and die for the cause of freedom. We send our kids to schools named William B. Travis and James Bowie and David Crockett and do you know why? Because those men saw a line in the sand and they decided to cross it and be heroes. John Wayne paid to do the movie himself.
That is the Spirit of Texas.
Texas is Sam Houston capturing Santa Ana at San Jacinto. We have schools named for him, also.Texas is Juneteenth (June 19th) and Texas Independence Day (March 2). Texas is huge forests of Piney Woods like the Davy Crockett National Forest in East Texas. Texas is the breathtaking Davis Mountains in the Big Bend. Texas is the McDonald Observatory in West Texas.
Texas is the unparalleled beauty of bluebonnet fields in the Texas Hill Country.
Texas is the beautiful, warm beaches of the Gulf Coast.
Texas is the shiny skyscrapers in Houston and Dallas.
Texas is the River Walk in San Antonio
Texas is world-record bass from places like Lake Fork.
Texas is Mexican food like nowhere else, not even Mexico.
Texas is the Fort Worth Stockyards, Bass Hall in Ft. Worth, the Ballpark in Arlington, and the Astrodome in Houston. Texas is Dallas or "Big D". Texas is the Pala Dura Canyon near Amarillo.
Texas is the oil industry.
Texas is larger-than-life legends like Willie Nelson, Buddy Holly, Waylon Jennings, Janis Joplin, Kris Kristofferson, Coach Tom Landry, Coach Darrell Royal, "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias, ZZ Top, "Big Bopper", Jim Reeves, George Jones, George Straight, Tommy Lee Jones, Mary Martin, Eric Dickerson, Earl Campbell, Nolan Ryan, Dr. Denton Cooley, Dr. Michael DeBakey, House Speaker Sam Rayburn, Rep. Barbara Jordan, Pres. George Bush, Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson, and Pres. George W. Bush.
Texas is great companies like Dell Computer, Texas Instruments, Blue Bell Ice-cream, and Lockheed Martin Aerospace, home of the F-16 Jet Fighter and the JSF Fighter.
Texas is NASA.
Texas is huge herds of cattle and miles of crops.
Texas is skies blackened with doves, and fields full of deer.
Texas is the Longhorns and the Aggies.
Texas is a place where cities shut down to watch the local High School Football game on Friday nights and for the Cowboys on Monday Night Football.
Texas is ocean beaches, deserts, lakes and rivers, mountains and prairies, and modern cities.
Texas even has its own power grid!!
If it isn't in Texas, you don't need it.
No one does anything bigger or better than it's done in Texas.
By federal law, Texas is the only state in the U.S. that can fly its flag at the same height as the U.S. flag. Think about that for a second. You fly the Stars and Stripes at 20 feet in Maryland, California, or Maine and your state flag, whatever it is, goes at 17 feet. You fly the Stars and Stripes in front of Pine Tree High in Longview at 20 feet, the Lone Star flies at the same height - 20 feet.
Do you know why? Because it is the only state that was a republic before it became a state.
Also, being a Texan is as high as being an American down here.
Our capitol is the only one in the country that is taller than the capitol building in Washington, D.C. and we can divide our state into five states at any time if we wanted to! (Which of course, we don't!) We included these things as part of the deal when we came on. That's the best part, right there.
If you are a REAL TEXAN you won't even need to be told to pass this on!Thank You Linda P. for this great piece.
No comments:
Post a Comment