Of Bears and Penguins

Come a little closer…
There’s a weird time warp thing on I-35 between Dallas and Austin. Although the drive allegedly takes 3 hours, there is something that makes it feel like five and a half. I believe that the urban sprawl of Dallas and Austin contribute to this, and the flatness in between.
Time warp aside, the way that the plains of north Texas give way to the beginning of the hill country never ceases to be beautiful to me.
I stopped at the Czech Stop and got my usual order of 1 apple and 1 cherry kolache. Spend a quiet moment in memory with my fruit pastries, and got back on the road.

Do you fear this man’s invention that they call atomic power?
So Blythe and I are sharing a pitcher of beer at a dark little dive in Austin when the subject of the Apocalypse comes up, like it does. After solving all the problems the world we headed towards San Marcos for a small concert. Our friend Addie, whose boyfriend’s band was playing in San Marcos, told us about a honky tonk called Giddy Up’s just south of Austin.
There was a woman behind the Giddy Up’s bar who had impossibly long legs and hair that fell past the middle of her back. The regulars called her Blue and she wore cowboy boots with a red and white checked skirt and a black blouse. There was a pool table and folks two-stepping while a band played country tunes up at the front. And so it was here with a warm breeze blowing through the door, and a tall young man two-stepping a short grandma around the room that I wondered how I could possibly be leaving Texas again in the summer.

Like a band of gypsies, we go down the highway...
After introducing Blythe to the wonders of stuffed jalepenos, we set off for San Antone and the Rodeo. We found O’s new digs, met the cat and left on the adventure.
I’ve been to a couple of rodeos and one Spanish bullfight. Now, maybe I’m thinking about this too much, but isn’t it interesting that two cultures developed two different sports that involved angry bulls. Furthermore, if the bull is supposed to symbolize the struggle of life and death, then what does that say about American culture?
The bullfight wears the bull down before the matador comes out vulnerable and alone to face danger. Before the end of the bullfight, the bull has already been wounded multiple times, tired and bleeding it faces the matador.
In bull riding, the bull is healthy and the cowboy just hops on for the ride. The bull doesn’t die at the end. Does that mean that the American attitude is to just take all of life by the proverbial horns and hold on with all you got, while the European attitude is to wait life out and see if you can beat death at the end? I don’t think so, but it’s interesting, no?

And about that war…
While in San Antonio we got into a very forceful discussion about Iraq…tempers and passions and voices were raised. But I believe that we’ve got to keep talking about it, we’ve got to keep thinking about it and we’ve got to keep finding a way to make things better.

Home again
So I returned to Dallas, the laughter of my friends, the satisfaction of good discussion and the Texas wind in my hair.

Just to set the record straight…
Some folks are real picky about who qualifies as a Texan or not. I am a Texan by birth, the rest of my family are Texans by immigration and choice. But for some people, birth is the only valid claim anyone can make to being a Texan. Well, those people are snobby twits and not fit to be called Texans.
All Texans must make a choice at some point of where their home lies; no one chooses to be born here, but one may choose to leave their affections in this place. The original settlers who came from Missouri and other states made a choice to come to this hard and strange land. Texas has always been a place for wanderers, outlaws, idealists and other ragamuffin, vagabond souls. I don’t believe that Texas is an elite club entered only by birth. People get here all sorts of ways and at the end of the day they look back over their shoulders at the pink Texas sunset and call it home.
I believe that those “elite club” Texans are wrong, and shouldn’t call themselves Texans at all if they believe in ideas like “elite” and “clubs,” but they are a picky, bothersome noisy bunch. Thus, I would like to offer my own Texas citizenship in sponsorship for the recent immigrants.
Let it be hereby known that should Blythe, Bree, Aurora, Jason, or Matt ever wish to refer to themselves as Texans they may do so with full approval and endorsement of a native Texan.