How to be Texan Wherever You Are
The Wherever You Are part is very important.
That is because I have friends who live in places other than the paradise of Texas due to unfortunate circumstances like their jobs or having married into a non-Texan family. This is an eBook I 
have had written for a couple of years now and have never released. So, I’ll just release it in parts. The material seems to be more suited to Real Texas related blog posts rather than any kind of true fiction. I’ll leave my true fiction book for another day.
And yes, it IS nice to be certain of who you are and where you live. “I don’t care if I ever go to Delaware anyway.”
Pretty provincial, huh? It’s just that I don’t consider my Texan ways to be limiting. I’ve been to Delaware….drove the entire length in a few hours. I have driven farther than that to go eat dinner with friends. And farther than that to a Texas high school football game. I really don’t care if I ever go back to Delaware.
Part of being a Real Texan or growing up in Real Texas is being naive enough to walk up to a rather large Lady Longhorn and offer her a tasty morsel of clover such as Ramona is doing. We are kinda naive in our thinking here, but still, it is nice to cling to the security of Texas as a whole and enjoy our lifestyle.
I received an email quite a while ago from a very nice lady named Sue. She became my friend on Facebook. She grew up in Uvalde, Texas, but has spent a considerable amount of her life in Pennsylvania.
My response to her? Go Coyotes! You see, we know each other out here. I feel there is a bond with Sue, even though she is in Pennsylvania and has been for many years. I know that Uvalde used to travel over a hundred and fifty miles to play in my hometown basketball tournament. We put the Uvalde kids up in our homes and fed them and got to know them. They didn’t stay in a motel; they stayed with fellow Texans.
So, when Sue contacted me to be my Facebook friend, and explained she missed Texas, I felt a connection with her because of our Texan heritage. This book will show Sue several ways she can continue being Texan…..wherever she is, even in Pennsylvania.
I have an internet friend who recently moved to Florida with his job. He is about as Texan as you can get. I’m good friends with his brother, also, and as kids, they used to swim the Spring Creek where I now live. We laughed because as a going-away present, the Texas weather sent hailstones down and beat his pickup to pieces two days before he left.
He wrote and explained that he would serve as Ambassador from the Republic of Texas to Floridians. This eBook will give him a lot of ways to remind him to display his Texan ways and be a positive Texas influence on his grandkids who live in Florida. He will teach them How to be Texan Wherever They Are.
My friend Jim Bob moved from West Texas to Houston a couple of years ago. It has been quite an adjustment for him to go from Dairy Queen to Starbucks for his morning coffee shop visit. He can try to maintain his Texas manhood and continue to Be Texan Wherever He Is, even in those trying times he has to live in the big city.
And, there is a young man whose job took him to Washington, D.C. Now it may be great for him to live in D.C. as a young man, but while there, by applying what he reads in this eBook, he can remain true to his Texas roots even while in that hellhole, and teach others from the Great State to be Texan Wherever They Are.
So, even though you might be in Pennsylvania, Florida, Houston, or Washington, D.C. By reading and applying what you read here, you can be a good Texan Wherever You Are, even in Texas.
More to come….
P.S. If you like Texas History, be sure to get your own copy of Texas Tidbits. Just tell us where to send it via email and we’ll get it on along to you. It’s all Texas….all good.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m looking forward to your “How to be a Texan wherever you are” on your blog. I feel like I’m doing pretty good on my own but I welcome all suggestions on how to be a better Texan even up here. One thing I’ve found out is that rural Pennsylvanians are not all that different than rural Texans, they love their states rights, small government, pickup trucks, guns and hunting just like we do in Texas. As long as you stay away from the big cities up here you can do pretty well and feel pretty comfortable.
Sue: I was in Pennsylvania a few years ago because my son got married up there so I had to go. I sure was dreading it, but you are right, it was pleasant and very pretty out in the country and we ran into some nice folks. I guess there are nice folks all over the place if you can just find them —- mostly transplanted Texans probably. We did cross over into New Jersey just to say we had been there and we even ate lunch there — boy, did that place suck. So, as Dave says: “I don’t care if I ever go [back] to New Jersey” — or Delaware for that matter.
Dave must have been drivin’ real slow when he crossed Delaware – I can drive across it in 30 mins or less! Hee Hee!
Folks up here don’t believe me when I tell them its not unusual for schools in Texas haul kids 100+ miles to football and basketball games on a regular basis.
That’s right Sue, you can drive across it in 30 minutes. I drove the entire length of the state in a couple of hours. and could have made it much faster if there weren’t all those dang stop lights every two or three miles.
Yes, Jersey Sucks…
My wife and I, both retired teachers, are history buffs—especially Civil War buffs. Four or five years ago (don’t remember exactly as we have seen so many CW battlefields) we went to Gettysbury. We never make hotel/motel reservations in advance because if we see something intgeresting along the way we will stop and maybe spend 4 or 5 hours. We got to Gettysburg and no vacancies, but there were many many good people there that helped us find accomodations in nearby Chambersburg. We stayed there for 3 or 4 days, took a day trip into DC, then went over to Hershey for a day (That was back before Hershey moved its production to Mexico), then on to Valley Forge the next. Same thing there, but a very very nice elderly gentleman at the VF Visitor Center found a place for us. He said something about we might not want to stay there because it was so far away. I asked how far and he said 19 miles. We didn’t laugh till we were in the car going to the motel, which BTW turned out to be exceptionally nice, clean, and family (US) operated. (Not a single employee of that motel had one of those red scratch-off spots on their forehead–you know the one where when they get married the husband gets to scratch it off to see if he gets a 7-11, a motel, or a taxi cab.)
We visited VF which was very interesting and then one day took public transportation (Bus) into the historic district of Philadelphia. That was sort of like all the rides at Disney World all thrown into one. I’ve never been on a bus ride quite like that. Not sure I ever want that experience again.
We thought that it would be fairly easy to visit all the historical places since it was the middle of the week and during the year when school was in session. NOT! I think every school in Pennsylvania had sent a class on a field trip there that day. We had to wait in line for well over an hour to see the Liberty Bell up close.
We did a lot of driving around in the countryside of PA and I would say that everyone we met and talked with was as nice and friendly as any Texan.
We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to that state, and would recommend others go there.
Always love reading your updates on yours and Pat’s escapes. I notice she doesn’t let you out unsupervised anymore……
I get to go to Dollar General by myself—-but they won’t let me in.