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Texas Tuesday: Boys and Indians

Sep22

What is it about boys and Indians? Three brothers from a family I grew up with—Tommy, Barry, and Eddie—were fascinated with all things Native American. Tommy, who was my age, brought his authentic Indian headdress to school for show and tell. The boys were in Boy Scouts, and it was the Native American aspects of the scouting mythology that caught and held their attention. They took care of our school mascot, a bobcat, in their backyard, and I think it was some kind of symbol for them not only of the school but also of their Native American heritage or aspirations or something.

Fast forward to 2009, and many boys are still interested in Native American history and rituals and culture. We’re studying Texas history this year, and you can’t study Texas heritage and traditions without serving up a good dollop of Native American history, particularly the history of the Plains Indians and that of the tribes of Indians who lived along the Gulf Coast and in the Piney Woods of East Texas. And it’s necessary to discuss all sorts of sticky subjects: cultural genocide, assimilation, adaptation, revenge, war, racist attitudes and all of the baggage that goes with the complicated history of the Europeans meeting, and clashing with, the Native Americans.

Sometimes all of that is much easier to discuss in the context of fiction. Here are a few books that might be both fascinating to the boys (or even girls) in your classroom or homeschool and useful in discussing the history of AngloEuropean and Native American relations. They’re all set in or near Texas.

Comanche Song by Janice Shefelman. Set in 1840. Tsena, the sixteen year old son of a Comanche chief, longs to prove himself as a warrior, but he also supports his father’s efforts to keep peace with the Texans who are crowding into the Comanches’ hunting territories. When Tsena accompanies his father and the other chiefs to San Antonio, he survives the Council House Massacre (a real historical event) only because the white men consider him still a boy. And when Tsena escapes and rejoins his tribe, he is faced with the decision of whether to take revenge on those who have hurt him or to help those who have helped him. How can Tsena become a man and listen to the voice of his Spirit Wolf in a world that is becoming less and less hospitable to him and his tribe’s way of life? The story is informative and interesting without being culturally condescending and without changing history to make either side in this clash seem to be without fault.

Spirit of Iron by Janice Shefelman. Set in 1850. Here’s the token girl book in which fifteen year old Mina Jordan dresses up like a boy aand runs away to Comancheria (Comanche Territory) to help the Texas Rangers find her kidnapped Lipan Apache best friend, Amaya. I still say it’s a boy thing, even though I enjoyed this book and the others. I never actually wanted to BE an Indian or adopt Native American customs or anything.

The Wolf’s Tooth by G. Clifton Wisler. Set in 1858-1859. Elias Walsh isn’t excited about leaving his friends and his home in Waco to move to an isolated Indian reservation just so that his schoolteacher father can “seek out those who want to learn, help them along the path to knowledge.” As far as Elias can see, the few Indians who live on the reservation aren’t too interested in learning or knowledge, just survival. And Thomas Three Feathers, the family’s Tonkawa interpreter and boarder, is strange and stand-offish. Then, the boys go out together to hunt the wolf that has been menacing the community, and Elias is forced to grow up fast.

Buffalo Moon by G. Clifton Wisler. Set in 1859-1860. Fourteen year old Willie Delamer doesn’t want to leave his ranch home in Texas to go to school in New Orleans. He’s sure that he knows all he needs to know, or if he doesn’t, the learning he needs isn’t to be found in a city school. So Willie runs away with his pony across the Brazos River into Indian country. As he lives with the Indians that his father has worked hard to respect and gain respect from, Willie becomes a man while learning to hunt buffalo, wrestle, race horses and make peace with his enemies. The sequel to this book is Thunder on the Tennessee, about Willie Delamer’s adventures during the Civil War as the now fifteen year old fights for Texas and the Confederacy.

Winter of the Wolf by G. Clifton Wisler. Set during the Civil War in 1864. The summer of T.J.’s fifteenth year, his father and his two older brothers ride off to fight the Yankees with Texas General John Bell Hood. T.J. must become the man of the family, and when a huge and seemingly invincible wolf threatens the livestock and the livelihood of the family, T.J. enlists the help of his Comanche friend, Yellow Feather, and the two of them set out to kill the Demon Wolf. The is one is so similar to The Wolf’s Tooth that it makes me think that Mr. Wisler is not above recycling plots. However, if you like one, you’ll probably like it recycled, too, with names changed to protect.

Short Takes on YA

May5

I read a few books over the past couple of months that I don’t have too much to say about. These books are all four O.K., maybe more than O.K., but none of them provoked me to verbosity.

Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen was a toned-down version of Stargirl (Semicolon review here). Boy meets girl (second grade). Girl chases boy (second through seventh grade). Boy runs away, doesn’t appreciate girl. Girl falls out of love as boy begins to appreciate what he’s lost. Recommended by Melanie at Deliciously Clean Reads.

Saving Juliet by Suzanne Selfors. I had a professor once who said that every time he read Romeo and Juliet he hoped against hope that it would all end differently, that the star-crossed lovers would somehow sort it all out and live happily ever after. In Saving Juliet, Mimi Wallingford, a young actress with problems of her own, magically gets a chance to save Juliet and turn Shakespeare’s tragedy into a comedy. But Mimi, and her leading man, pop star Troy Summer, may not be able to survive long enough in dangerous sixteenth century Verona to do anyone any good. The dialog is kind of hokey, and there are some holes in the plot. Nevertheless, not bad re-imagining. Recommended by Melissa at Estella’s Revenge.

Winnie’s War by Jenny Moss. The setting is a fictional town right here where I live near Friendswood, Texas. The war is World War I and Winnie’s own personal war with her grandmother and with the 1918 influenza epidemic and with growing up. This one is pitched a little younger than the two above-mentioned books; Winnie is twelve years old as the story begins. However, I would give it to middle-schoolers. Here’s an author interview with Ms. Moss at Cynsations.

Just One Wish by Janette Rallison. Annika is desperate to get the star of her brother Jeremy’s favorite TV show, Teen Robin Hood, to come visit and convince Jeremy that dreams can come true. Jeremy has a big dream, that he’ll get well after his surgery for cancer. And it’s up to Annika to make it come true. Kind of cute, kind of sad, kind of unbelievable, not a bad way to spend an hour or two.

By the way I haven’t ever expressed an opinion on the whole off-with-her-head controversy as it pertains to book covers because I’m not an art critic and the last time I said something negative about the cover art on a book I got in trouble with the author, even though I liked the book itself very much. Let’s just say I much prefer Winnie’s picture to Mimi’s. What’s with the trend toward guillotining protagonists on the cover of their own books anyway?

Texas Independence Day

Mar2

Texas Independence Day is the celebration of the adoption of the Texas Declaration of Independence on March 2, 1836. The Texas Declaration of Independence was created by the Convention of 1836, which took place at Washington-on-the-Brazos. Texas Independence Day is an official holiday in the State of Texas.

Reading THrough Texas: Children’s Books about Texas

Austin Isn’t in West Texas: Adult fiction for a flavor of West Texas

Texas in the United States: An Uneasy but Proud Alliance

Quintessentially Texan: A List of Texas Icons

San Angelo, Texas: My Hometown

Reading Through Texas

Feb1

I’m working on an assigned booklist, readers if you will, for a class that will be taught to sixth graders next year in our homeschool co-op. The class is supposed to incorporate literature and Texas history. So, I’ve been reading books about Texas: historical fiction, biographies, memoirs, short stories, nonfiction, poetry if I can find any. So far I have the following books that I’ve already read and evaluated to some extent:

We Asked for Nothing: The Remarkable Journey of Cabeza de Vaca (Great Explorers) by Stuart Waldman. Mikaya Press, 2003. I haven’t actually looked at this book yet. I’d like to have something on the list about early explorers and something about the Native Americans who lived in Texas, but I’m having trouble finding good, recommended titles to evaluate on either of those subjects. Any suggestions?

The Boy in the Alamo by Margaret Cousins. Fiction set in the Alamo, 1836. Corona Publishing, 1983. Ms. Cousins very much presents the Texans’ side and the traditional account of the Alamo story through the eyes of her fictional hero, twelve year old Billy Campbell. Billy runs away from home and follows his older brother Buck who has joined Davy Crockett’s Tennessee Volunteers. Sherry Garland’s account (see below) is more nuanced and therefore more thought-provoking, but Ms. Cousins’ story gives the basic traditional outlines of the story of the Alamo as the Texians experienced it and may be more appropriate as an introduction for sixth graders.

In the Shadow of the Alamo by Sherry Garland. Gulliver Books, 2001. This book is different because it’s told from the perspective of a Mexican boy, Lorenzo, who’s conscripted into Santa Anna’s army and forced to fight the Tejanos at the Alamo and at San Jacinto. It may be a little too graphic and mature for some sixth graders.

Inside the Alamo by Jim Murphy. If the fictional accounts are too hard to find in sufficient quantities (The Boy in the Alamo) or too advanced for our sixth graders (In the Shadow of the Alamo), I may go with this nonfiction book by award-winning author JIm Murphy.

Make Way for Sam Houston by Jean Fritz. Putnam, 1998. Biography of famous Texan general, president, and governor Sam Houston.

Come Juneteenth by Ann Rinaldi. Slavery in Texas during and after the Civil War. Harcourt 2007. I read this book a long time ago. Is it too mature for sixth graders?

Wait for Me, Watch for Me, Eula Bee by Patricia Beatty. Fiction set in West Texas, 1860’s. William Morrow and Company, 1978. I also read this one a long time ago, but I remember it as exciting with some good things to discuss about family loyalty and cultural engagement.

Cowboys of the Wild West by Russell Freedman. Nonfiction, late 1800’s. Clarion Books 1995. I have this one on my shelf, lots of pictures, a good break from fiction for those who prefer their information in a nonfiction format.

Old Yeller by Fred Gipson. Texas frontier, 1860’s. Harper Classics, 2001. Old Yeller. Classic. Natch.

Search for the Shadowman by Joan Lowery Nixon. Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1996. Set in contemporary times, this story would be a good introduction to a family history/genealogy unit since it tells about a boy who researches his own family history and discovers facts that may be better kept secret. There are a few holes in the plot, and some of the information on how to use computers to research genealogy are a little dated, but most kids probably won’t notice. The historical part is set in c.1876-1888, so I put it here is the list to keep to chronological order.

The Texas Rangers by Will Henry. Landmark book/out of print. I haven’t seen this one either, and it may be too difficult to get copies for all our students. But I would like to have something about the Texas Rangers.

Galveston’s Summer of the Storm by Julie Lake. Fiction set during Galveston Hurricane of 1900. TCU Press, 2003. I reviewed this book a couple of years ago, and I liked it very much. I said then: “Lots of historical detail, information about sailing ships and steam trains, and book characters that make the history come to life all make this book an excellent choice for middle grade (3-6) readers and classrooms.” Unless someone else knows of a better book on the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, this one will be on the list.

Mooonshiner’s Gold by John R. Erickson. Fiction set in Texas Panhandle, 1926. Viking 2001. Great action-packed adventure with engaging characters and a lot of history sneaking in through the back door. John Erickson is known for his Hank the Cowdog series, but this stand-alone adventure is just a good as the Hank books and should be just the right reading level for most sixth graders.

The Underneath by Kathi Appelt. I’m hesitant to include this one even though I loved it. It does have some seriously evil villains, and the Native American mythical elements may bother some people in our (very conservative) co-op. I think it would have to be introduced to the class with care and enthusiasm. But it’s such a good book! Semicolon review here.

Holes by Louis Sachar. Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 1998. I think this one might be a good book to end the year. It’s set in a sort of mythical, contemporary Texas, and it ought to be fun for the kids to talk about the plot and the characters in relation to their own lives and experiences.

Any help, comments, suggestions, you can give, I will appreciate. I know there’s lots more fiction set in and around the Alamo. Which one is the best? I don’t have anything set during the Civil War except for Come Juneteenth, which may be too mature for sixth graders. Nor is there anything set during the Dust Bowl era, the Great Depression, or World War II and the latter half of the twentieth century.

Also, most of the books feature a male protagonist. Any girl-y books about Texas that you all can recommend? Poetry? Short story collections?

Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan

Jun3


The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan

“We dream of the faint gurgling sound of dry soil sucking in the grateful moisture, but we wake to another day of wind and dust and hopes deferred.” —Caroline Henderson, 1934.

“We are getting deeper and deeper in dust.” The Boise City News, 1934.

“Our country has been beaten, swept, scarred, and torn by the most adverse weather conditions since June, 1932. It is bare, desolate and damaged. Our people have been buffeted about by every possible kind of misfortune. It has appeared that the hate of all nature has been poured out against us.” —John McCarty, editor of the Dalhart, Texas newspaper, The Texan, 1935.

“Three little words, achingly familiar on a Western farmer’s tongue, rule life in the dust bowl of the continent —‘if it rains.'” —Bob Geiger, AP reporter.

“If God can’t make rain in Kansas, how can the New Deal hope to succeed?” —A U.S. congressman on ambitious government plans to renew the soil and bring rain to the Dust Bowl.

An amazing true story. My grandparents and my husband’s parents lived in West Texas during these times and must have experienced some of the drought, dust storms, and hard times chronicled in Egan’s book. But I never heard them talk about anything like the stories in the book: dust so thick that people got lost and ran their cars off the road, respiratory diseases caused by the dust, dusters, clouds of dust so tall they blotted out the sun. I remember dust storms when I was growing up in San Angelo in West Texas, but nothing like the cataclysmic storms of the 1930’s.

Austin Isn’t in West Texas

Aug2

I hate to be disrespectful of a man who’s probably doing his Yankee best, but either I know nothing about West Texas, despite having been born on the edge of the Edwards Plateau and having lived half my life smack dab in the middle of Texas ranching country, or Mr. Hynes likes weirdly unrepresentative books about West Texas.

in this Salon article, Destination: West Texas, Hynes admits his lack of qualifications for writing about West Texas literature:

” . . . as your tour guide to West Texas literature, I’m a foreigner, a native Michigander, an NPR listener, a daily reader of the New York Times, a Midwestern college-town liberal, a wearer of Birkenstocks, an atheist. A Yankee, in short. So the selection of books that follows is by no means an official one. They’re just the books about West Texas that I love.”

So, my first question is: why didn’t they find a Texan? Preferably, the editors at Salon could have hired somebody from West Texas since that was the area in question.

Of the four authors that James Hynes recommends in his article, I know one: Larry McMurtry. Yeah, Lonesome Dove and others by McMurtry are worth reading to get a sense of Texas and the West. As far as the others are concerned, they sound mostly like violent, gritty guy-books. Sorry, I don’t read romances, and I don’t read “combative, horny, smart-mouthed” nor “ferociously cynical and deeply unsettling noir” nor “gritty and emotionally blunt and often violent.” If you like those descriptions, you might like Mr. Hynes’s list better than mine.

Giant by Edna Ferber is really a fantasy. I just don’t know very many people in Texas who live like the Benedicts or who ever did. And Ms. Ferber was from Michigan just like Mr. Hynes; I’m not sure she ever got as far as Austin. But Giant is a fun Texas fantasy, and it does manage to give the sense of how everyone in Texas wants to at least pretend that Texas and all its cultural appendices are bigger than life.

James Michener’s Texas is even better. The book itself is big, over 1000 pages long, and it covers all of Texas, not just West Texas. James Michener did make it to Austin, and he did his research, and he can tell a story, several stories in the course of this epic. In fact, Michener made Texas his home in his later years, and he died in Austin in 1997. If you want to read fiction and learn about Texas history and culture in the process, Michener is the guy to read.

Elmer Kelton is underrated because he writes westerns, I think, but he’s a very good writer. I recommend his Lone Star Rising three fiction stories in one book about the formation and history of the Texas Rangers. Two other good books by Kelton are The Time It Never Rained and The Day the Cowboys Quit. Kelton was born in Crane, Texas, and he used to live in San Angelo, my hometown, maybe still does. His day job was editor of The Sheep and Goat Raisers’ magazine and associate editor of Livestock Weekly. How’s that for authenticity?

These books have the flavor of West Texas.

Austin, where Mr. Hynes lives, isn’t even in West Texas, and neither is Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Galveston’s Summer of the Storm by Julie Lake

Jun27

Fried chicken and pinto beans. “I’d give my eyetooth” and “getting a goose egg on your head.” Iceboxes and clotheslines and feather beds and porch swings. Dr. Pepper and lemonade to drink. Playing dominoes in the parlour and croquet in the front yard. Hand-cranked ice cream and watermelon. The Tremont Hotel and Ashton Villa in Galveston and Hyde Park in Austin. I could tell that Julie Lake is a native Texan when I read about all these things and even more Texas-y stuff in this fiction book for elementary age children about the Galveston hurricane of 1900.

I read Isaac’s Storm by about a month ago, so it was interesting to compare the information in these two very different books about the same event. Isaac’s Storm is nonfiction, written for adult readers, and would be good background material for teachers or older children who read Ms. Lake’s book for fun or as an introduction to a study of hurricanes and natural disasters or Texas history.

Published by TCU Press, this story takes a long time to lead up to the crisis of the hurricane —all summer long, in fact. Fourteen year old Abby Kate is visiting her grandmother in Galveston for a few weeks. Illness in the family at home in Austin means that Abby Kate must stay in Galveston for a lot longer than originally planned. And she’s still there on September 9, 1900 when the deadliest disaster to ever hit the United States comes to Galveston Island, a category four hurricane.

I’m not sure that someone from, say Michigan, would enjoy this book quite the same way I did. The familiar colloquialisms and the comfort foods and the Texas details were so much fun. However, it’s a good story in its own right, and especially timely as we face another hurricane season a year after Katrina and Rita reminded us that even in the twenty-first century hurricanes can still wreak havoc. Not only does Ms. Lake spend several chapters leading up to the hurricane’s arrival, her descriptions of the event itself are vivid and compelling. Then the reader gets to see how people on the Island and on the mainland coped with the aftermath of the hurricane.

Lots of historical detail, information about sailing ships and steam trains, and book characters that make the history come to life all make this book an excellent choice for middle grade (3-6) readers and classrooms. I’m thinking that we could use it a the basis for a unit study in our homeschool co-op, tie in a field trip or two to Galveston and to the Weather Service. Yes, I definitely recommend this one for Texas readers and for others who are interested in the turn of the century history and or in Texas history or in the history of natural disasters.

Isaac’s Storm by Eric Larson

Jun1

“As we watched from the porch were amazed and delighted to see the water from the Gulf flowing down the street. ‘Good,’ we thought, ‘there would be no need to walk the few blocks to play at the beach, it was right at our front gate.'”


The deadliest hurricane in U.S. history was not the one that hit New Orleans last year. It was the Galveston hurricane of September 8,1900; author Eric Larson calls it “Isaac’s Storm.” (Hurricanes did not begin receiving official names from the U.S. Weather Bureau until the late 1940’s.) Isaac Cline was the chief weatherman for the U.S. Weather Bureau on Galveston Island in the year of the hurricane.

This history is not the best organized one I’ve ever read. The narrative skips back forth from Thursday to Saturday to Friday and back again. However, I did learn some fascinating facts about the Galveston Hurricane and about Isaac Cline:

1) Before being sent to Galveston, Isaac Cline was stationed at Fort Concho in West Texas, a fact which is of interest to me because I was born and grew up in San Angelo, Texas, the town that formed in the shadow of Fort Concho.

2) On Galveston Island at least 6000 people died in the hurricane, possibly as many as 10,000. Records were not carefully kept, and the dead had to be buried or burned rather quickly to prevent disease.

3) In 1891 Isaac Cline wrote that “[t]he coast of Texas is according to the general laws of the motion of the atmosphere exempt from West India hurricanes and the two which have reached it followed an abnormal path which can only be attributed to causes known in meteorology as accidental.” The two hurricanes of which he wrote struck Indianola, Texas in 1875 and again in 1886. After the second hurricane, the town was abandoned.

4) After the Indianola hurricanes, the residents of Galveston did make plans to build a seawall, but it was never built—until after 1900.

5) The storm surge in 1900 covered the island with water, uprooted trees, toppled houses, and carried masses of debris that did as much damage as the water itself.

6) Isaac Cline’s pregnant wife, Cora, died in the hurricane, and Cline’s brother, Joseph, who also worked for the Weather Bureau, became estranged from Isaac apparently as a result of the events of that day.

The most interesting aspect of the story was the failure of the U.S. Weather Service to warn Galveston of the approaching hurricane. Weather forecasting methods were not as sophisticated or accurate as they are now, but other problems included a rivalry between the U.S. Weather Bureau in Cuba and Cuban weather forecasters and a reluctance to frighten the public with possibly false alarms. In fact weather forecasters were not even allowed to use the word “hurricane” in their forecasts without permission from Washington. This failure followed upon the the failure of the weather service to warn the public of the Blizzard of 1888 and both caused people to further lose faith in the ability of the weather service to predict storms and precipitated changes in the organization and leadership of the weather bureau in order to improve its performance.

Nevertheless, we are dealing with some of the same problems today. When is it prudent and/or necessary to tell the people of a large metropolitan area to evacuate in the face of a possible hurricane? How accurately, even now, is it possible to predict the path of such a hurricane? Can we trust the instructions given by government bureaucrats, or should we trust our own judgment? Even as the freeways backed up and became impassable in Houston before Rita, we were being told not to leave yet, but rather to wait until the next day. Was this advice, heeded by hardly anyone, good or bad? Would it really be possible to evacuate Galveston Island and the coastal areas behind the Island and up towards Houston in the face of a major storm? Would people listen to evacuation notices, or was Rita the “false alarm” that would cause people to stay home and take their chances rather than face gridlock and dehydration and gas lines on the freeways again?

Lots of unanswered questions even 100 years after the Galveston Hurricane that practically destroyed that city once. By the way, hurricane season in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico officially begins today.

Texas, Our Texas

Dec29

On this date in 1845 Texas was admitted to the Union. Sixteen years later on February 1, 1861, Texas seceded from that same Union. After the war was over, Texas was readmitted to the Union along with the other states that had been in rebellion. Amazingly enough there is a group of people in Texas who claim that Texas was never properly readmitted to the union or never properly annexed in the first place, and therefore the Texas Legislature is illegitimate and Texas itself is a free and independent nation. We actually know one guy who associated with this group and who refuses to pay taxes to the US government. He’s had a bit of trouble getting a job lately because he doesn’t want to pay Social Security taxes and doesn’t want his employer to withhold income taxes.

I am, however, proud to be a Texan and an American. And taxes are a necessary evil.

Texans voted on a revised state constitution in November 1869 and elected a state government. Once convened, the legislature voted to ratify the 14th and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution (the 13th amendment having already been fully ratified) and elected two U.S. Senators, thereby completing the requirements for reinstatement. President Grant signed the act to readmit Texas to Congressional representation on March 30, 1870, and this federal act was promulgated throughout Texas by a general order issued by General Reynolds on April 16, 1870.

No requirement exists — either in the Reconstruction Acts governing the rebel states or in the document readmitting Texas to full statehood — for the governor of Texas to sign a document reaffirming Texas’ position as a state within the United States republic. The only ongoing requirement of Texas government was that no constitutional revision should deny the vote or school rights to any citizen of the United States —Texas State Library

Ways to be Texan

Aug30

I saw an issue of Texas Monthly (yes, of course, we Texans have our own national magazine) on the newsstand when I was at the grocery store, and the lead article was: How To Be Texan.

“More than forty Texas icons, customs, and facts of life, including the Bowie knife, Big Red, the two-step, the cattle guard, cedar fever, the tumbleweed, the Marfa lights, and more.”

I didn’t buy the magazine or skim through it there in the checkout line because I have the advantage of having been born in Texas and having lived here for over 40 years. I can make my own list of “Texas icons, customs, and facts of life” probably better than those Austinites who write for Texas Monthly.

And I like lists, so here’s mine of things that are quintessentially Texan..

1. Tex-Mex food. A Texan’s favorite restaurant is usually named something like Ninfa’s or Chico’s or Fat Maria’s. At said restaurant, Texans order enchiladas or fajitas or burritos or tacos. Also, non-Baptists drink margaritas.
2. SBC or Catholic. Although I have recently switched to another denomination, lots of native Texans grew up either Southern Baptist or Catholic. And those who didn’t have at least been to a Southern Baptist Vacation Bible School or youth group event–unless their priest forbade it.
3. Pick-up trucks. Texans, especially men, like pick-up trucks. I don’t know why; they just do. I think it has something to do with being able to haul lots of stuff in the back.
5. Texas words. If you really want to sound Texan, just use Texas words such as “y’all” and”fixin” and “ahced tea.” As in, “Ah’m fixin’ to have some ahced tea, Y’all want some?”
6. Texas accent. My urchins say I put on my Texas accent when I want to sound country, and I’ll admit to being able to take it off and put it on. Mostly I prefer to put it on. It’s all in the vowel sounds, no clipped-sounding dipthongs. Long i sounds like aah. The other long vowel sounds just hang on longer than they do up North.
7. Bluebonnets. These flowers are the state flowers of Texas, and they’re all over East Texas this time of year. If you’re from West Texas, you’ve seen pictures of bluebonnets and a few of them growing in yards, carefully cultivated and watered, but you have to go east to see fields like this one. Artists in Texas paint pictures of bluebonnets.

'Bluebonnets' photo (c) 2009, CC Rogers - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

8. Hot sauce. Texans eat hot sauce or jalapenos or picante sauce or pico de gallo or salsa on most everything: hamburgers, scrambled eggs, potatoes, tortillas, hot dogs, rice, beans, anything a Yankee would put ketchup on. My mom calls burgers with ketchup on them “Yankee-burgers.”
9. Dr Pepper. Dr Pepper was invented in Texas, in Waco to be exact. I will admit that it’s not my favorite soft drink, but if you like prune juice, Dr Pepper will be right up your alley. And it is a Texas icon. (Big Red is sort of Texan, too, but as far as I know it wasn’t invented here. Or was it? See comments.)

'Dr. Pepper Mural' photo (c) 2009, Rich Anderson - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

10. Rain. Real Texans value and appreciate rain even when it comes at inconvenient times because we know what it’s like to pray for rain and wait for an answer. Especially in West Texas where I grew up.
11. Homemade ice cream. Bluebell is good, but there’s nothing better than a bowl of hand-cranked homemade ice cream. It should be made from your grandmother’s recipe, hand cranked by all the big people in the family taking turns, while the little kids take turns sitting on top of the ice cream freezer on a towel to keep it still. I like plain old vanilla best, but you can get fancy and use Texas peaches.
12. Fruit. We can’t do much in the way of apples (not cold enough), but Texas grows the best peaches, grapefruit, apricots, and strawberries anywhere. Some places in Texas are beginning to grow some fine blueberries, too.
13, Pecans. Texas pecans are a great addition to any dessert, any cake, brownies, fudge, most refrigerated salads, muffins, . . . Yeah, well, I add pecans to everything until I run out at the beginning of the summer, and then I have to either buy the really expensive brand-name ones at the grocery store or wait until November for a new crop. We buy 50 or so pounds cracked, and then we shell them and put them in the freezer and use them up way too quickly. (By the way, it’s pronounced puh-CAHN, not PE-can.)
14. NASA Johnson Space Center. Not only does Engineer Husband work at JSC, but we Texans are immoderately proud of NASA and the space program and the astronauts and engineers that keep it going.
'ALAMO' photo (c) 2009, Person of Interest - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/15 The Alamo. Anyone who wants to be a Texan has to know about Jim Bowie, Colonel William Travis, and Davy Crockett and the 180+ brave men who held Santa Anna’s forces at the Alamo in San Antonio for thriteen days before the Texans were defeated and killed to the last man.
16. Front porches. Most people don’t really have one, but we wish we did. I’d love a big wrap-around screened-in front porch with a couple of rocking chairs sitting out front.
17. Aggies or Longhorns. Most Texans have a preference even if they didn’t attend Texas A & M or the University of Texas at Austin. I’m a Longhorn myself; I think A & M is a cult. Hook’em Horns!
18. Willie Nelson and kicker music. Not all Texans like country music, but most of us learn to tolerate it. “Let’s go to Luckenbach, Texas, Waylon, and Willie and the boys.”
19.Cattle, sheep and goats. We used to call country boys “goat-ropers.” I never have been up close and personal with sheep, goats or cattle, but I certainly know people who have.
20.Windmills. All Texan artists are required to paint at least one picture with a windmill in it. It can be the same picture with the bluebonnets, but that’s not required.

'Windmill' photo (c) 2009, Hans Pama - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

21. Mesquite. I always remember newcomers to my hometown in West Texas complaining that Texas didn’t have any trees. Well, I thought mesquites were trees, and I told them so.
22. Friday night football. It is a Texas icon, but the movie Friday Night Lights got it mostly wrong. I don’t know how to tell you what the Friday night high school football experience is like in Texas, but that movie wasn’t it.
'Oil well' photo (c) 2007, Michael Krueger - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/23. Oil and oil wells. Yes, if you drive around Texas, you will see working oil wells like this one. Unfortunately, none of them is mine.
24. Lone Star Flag. Texas is the only state whose flag is allowed to be flown, by law, at the same height as the U.S. flag.
25. HEB. We have Kroger and Tom Thumb, but HEB (named for founder, Howard E. Butt) is the really Texan place to buy your groceries.
4. San Jacinto Day (April 21). About a month ago Texans celebrated the anniversary of the defeat of Santa Anna and the Mexican army by Sam Houston and the Texicans at the Battle of San Jacinto just a few miles from my home here in Houston. I forgot to celebrate, but as a Texan, I should have at least told my children all about it. Maybe next year we’ll go to the reenactment at the battlegrounds.
26. Boots, Saddles, and Leather Notebooks. I think I wrote about this somewhere, but all the really cool kids in my high school carried huge zip-up leather notebooks with their names hand-tooled in the leather on the front. Some of them wore boots, too.
27.Rattlesnakes. Rattlers are Texas snakes. Cottonmouths (water moccasins) are common here, too, and also very dangerous, but they’re not as well known as rattlesnakes.
28. Westerns. Read Louis L’Amour, Elmer Kelton, Zane Grey.
29. Armadillos. Sometimes you see them dead in the middle of the highway. Sad. Did you know that nine-banded armadillos always give birth to four identical young, developed from the same egg? Quadruplets.
30. 42. As far as I know, Texans and those who have learned the game from Texans are the only ones who play 42. It’s a domino game. We also play regular dominoes, but 42 is more fun.
31. Barbed wire, also known as “bob war”.
32. Roadside parks. It’s a long drive between X and Y in Texas, especially in West Texas, so the Texas Department of Transportation (affectionately known as TXDoT) has lots of places to stop along the way. “There are approximately 1,000 roadside parks maintained by the Texas Dept of Transportation. Tables, benches, grills, and rubbish incinerators are provided. Some have water.”
33. LBJ and GWB. Hey, we believe in the fairness doctrine. We gave the United States at least one of each kind of president, Democrat and Republican. You get two Bushes for the price of one.
34. Tornado Alley. OK, Tornado Alley extends up into non-Texas territory (but most of it used to be part of Texas). How many non-Texans have stood out in the country and watched a funnel cloud moving off into the distance? I did it standing in the front yard out near Mineral Wells, Texas at my Aunt Audrey’s house. And I sat inside a relative’s house in San Angelo while my daddy and a cousin tried to hold plyboard up to the window to keep a tornado from blowing the glass out. They dropped the plyboard and ran when the tornado winds came through and broke the glass anyway.
35. Juneteenth (June 19) A purely Texan holiday.
36. Chicken fried steak. Quick and easy recipe: Buy what they call “cube steaks” at the grocery store. Make one bowl full of flour, salt, pepper, and whotever other spices you want. In another bowl, mix two eggs and a cup or two of milk. Dip the steaks in the flour, then in the milk/eg mixture, then back in the flour. Fry in hot oil until browned on both sides.
37. Deer season. In Texas lots of men go deer hunting in November. It’s a tradition. They bring home venison steaks that are cooked just like chicken fried steaks.
38. Horny toads.
37. Dairy Queen. You aren’t really a Texan if you’ve never eaten at Dairy Queen. Every small town in Texas has a Dairy Queen, even though the first DQ was in Joliet, Illinois. According to
the DQ website, “Texas has the most DQ restaurants with more than 600 locations.”
38. Jalapenos. I don’t eat jalapenos (ha-la-PA-nyos), but I know someone who eats them even on his hamburgers and then breaks out into a cold sweat.
39. Six Flags. It’s not just the name of a theme park in Fort Worth; it’s also a fact of Texas history that the flags of France, Spain, Mexico, Texas, the Confederacy, and the United States have flown over part or all of the state of Texas.
40. Iced Tea. We need it iced in Texas where heat is a fact of life nine months out of the year. But we drink iced tea all year long–sweet iced tea.

'Welcome to Texas' photo (c) 2009, Tim Patterson - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
'don't mess with texas' photo (c) 2009, Chelsea Oakes - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/

41 “Drive Friendly” and “Don’t Mess with Texas.” We Texans pride ourselves on being friendly—and tough. Texas people will greet you, ask after your family, and take care of you when you’re having troubles. But don’t mess with us. We remember the Alamo as a victory, not a defeat, because the Texicans there stood and fought to the last man.