I Like Texas........

[SWTXBelle]

HA!

[alum]

Hmmm, lovely Ft. Bliss....

[epchick]

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

HA!

You know you read it and thought "Damn, epchick was right. El Paso is AWESOME!!!"

[SWTXBelle]

AWESOME - hmmm . . . not the adjective that came to mind the one and only time I visited your fair city . . .

[em_adpi]

I love living in DFW but I miss San Antonio right now.

I'm in dire need of a glass of Bill Miller tea and a nice dinner at Mi Tierra.

[barbino]

Originally Posted by em_adpi

I love living in DFW but I miss San Antonio right now.

I'm in dire need of a glass of Bill Miller tea and a nice dinner at Mi Tierra.

I'm in Chicago and I understand. San Antonio is my very favorite city. I'd be living there now if I could have gotten my husband to move. The thought of Mi Tierra brings back fond memories.

[SATX*APhi]

I took this from a newsletter from a professional organization I belong to. Enjoy!


TEXAS, OUR TEXAS

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?

In 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 a little 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 no one gives a dern about Iowa.

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 Davy 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 Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana at San Jacinto.

Texas is huge forests of Piney Woods like the Davy Crockett and Sam Houston National Forests.

Texas is breathtaking mountains in the Big Bend.

Texas is the unparalleled beauty of bluebonnet fields in the Texas Hill Country.

Texas is the beautiful, warm beaches of the Gulf Coast of South Texas.

Texas is the shiny skyscrapers in Houston and Dallas.

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, Minute Maid in Houston Park.

Texas is larger-than-life legends like Michael DeBakey, Denton Cooley, Willie Nelson, Buddy Holly, Gene Autry, Audie Murphy, Tommy Lee Jones, Waylon Jennings, Janis Joplin, Kris Kristofferson, Tom Landry, Darrell Royal, ZZ Top, Eric Dickerson, Earl Campbell, Nolan Ryan, Sam Rayburn, Howard Hughes, George H.W. Bush, Lyndon B. Johnson, and George W. Bush. And let’s not forget Pantera and GEORGE STRAIT!!

Texas is great companies like Dell Computer, Texas Instruments and Compaq, Bell Helicopter 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 home to the most amazing sunsets of gold over an empty field.

Texans have pride like no others.

Texas is hundreds of deer running around neighborhoods and fields.

Texas is skies blackened with doves and fields full of deer.

Texas is a place where towns and cities shut down to watch the local high school football game on Friday nights and for the Cowboys on Monday Night Football.

To drive across Texas is to drive 1/3 the way across the United States.

Texas is ocean beaches, deserts, lakes and rivers, mountains and prairies, and modern cities.

If it isn't already in Texas, you probably 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 US 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 or anyplace else 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!! We included these things as part of the deal when we came on. That's the best part right there.

Texas even has its own power grid!! ... Did I mention live music capitol of the world?

[epchick]

Originally Posted by SATX*APhi

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.

I just have to say that I absolutely HATE when I read things like this, to me it's inaccurate.

I guess it depends on how you are looking at it, but I don't consider it a fight for "freedom." Santa Anna & the rest of Mexico were not the bad guys, it was their land.

[SWTXBelle]

It was "their" land in the same sense the 13 colonies were England's, or Mexico was Spain's. The whole reason Mexico allowed the (largely) American colonists was because they didn't have enough natives interested in colonizing. Colonists fighting for the freedom to govern themselves resulted in the U.S.A., Mexico, and the Republic of Texas.

[epchick]

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

It was "their" land in the same sense the 13 colonies were England's, or Mexico was Spain's. The whole reason Mexico allowed the (largely) American colonists was because they didn't have enough natives interested in colonizing. Colonists fighting for the freedom to govern themselves resulted in the U.S.A., Mexico, and the Republic of Texas.

I guess I see the battle of the Alamo different than the American Revolution. Maybe it's the way that both battles have been taught to me throughout my schooling. Never did we ever think that the colonists were these poor innocent people who just wanted to be free from big bad ol' England. But that's the way the Battle of the Alamo (and all the info leading up to it) was taught to us. I don't consider those men "heroes."

[gamma_girl52]

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

Split the difference between Austin and San Antonio - live in beautiful San Marcos!

I would agree!!

So I've been here for about 3 months (some of ya'll might remember back in the summer when I said I was moving here) and I love it here. Texas State is a nice campus and I've been getting my workout on with all of these hills

And the outlet mall here! I went there and thought I'd died and gone to retail heaven

I also go to Dallas a lot too. The size and impersonal feel doesn't faze me. I lived in Atlanta for 15 years.
And knight_shadow I spend just about all my time in Oak Cliff when I'm there, LOL and so far I've made it out in one piece.

[SWTXBelle]

Originally Posted by epchick

I guess I see the battle of the Alamo different than the American Revolution. Maybe it's the way that both battles have been taught to me throughout my schooling. Never did we ever think that the colonists were these poor innocent people who just wanted to be free from big bad ol' England. But that's the way the Battle of the Alamo (and all the info leading up to it) was taught to us. I don't consider those men "heroes."

I'm pretty sure I didn't say anyone was poor, or innocent - just that they wished to govern themselves after feeling they were not being treated as equal to citizens in the motherland.

Look at the way the colonists were treated by the Mexican government - how about the imprisonment of Stephen F. Austin? They were willing to die for a cause to which they were committed. But to each his own.

It may be that my research as a living historian - and being married to a history major and being surrounded by both tons of books and having the good fortune to socialize with a former head of the Texas Historical Society and several Texian scholars of note has given me a perspective that is more finely nuanced than those who had learned it in jr. high or high school. I freely admit that having a grandfather in the SRT and First Families of Texas means that I have a definite bias, but I do think there isn't that big a difference between the motivations behind those who fought for freedom for Mexico, Texas, and the United States. I believe it possible to find heroes in all three revolutions. Mexicans themselves later turned on Santa Anna, which should say something about his reign and treatment of his fellow citizens.

You do realize that you now forfeit your Texas citizenship, don't you?
Can't trust those El Paso people . . .

[epchick]

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

I'm pretty sure I didn't say anyone was poor, or innocent - just that they wished to govern themselves after feeling they were not being treated as equal to citizens in the motherland.

Look at the way the colonists were treated by the Mexican government - how about the imprisonment of Stephen F. Austin? They were willing to die for a cause to which they were committed. But to each his own.

It may be that my research as a living historian - and being married to a history major and being surrounded by both tons of books and having the good fortune to socialize with a former head of the Texas Historical Society and several Texian scholars of note has given me a perspective that is more finely nuanced than those who had learned it in jr. high or high school. I freely admit that having a grandfather in the SRT and First Families of Texas means that I have a definite bias, but I do think there isn't that big a difference between the motivations behind those who fought for freedom for Mexico, Texas, and the United States. I believe it possible to find heroes in all three revolutions. Mexicans themselves later turned on Santa Anna, which should say something about his reign and treatment of his fellow citizens.

You do realize that you now forfeit your Texas citizenship, don't you?
Can't trust those El Paso people . . .

Hey hey hey there now! I'm just going by what i've learned in college, and most of my teachers aren't even Texan natives! lol. Aren't you suppose to believe everything you learn in college

I do admit I didn't even think of the "connection" between the Battle of the Alamo and the American Revolution until you said something. I kept thinking about it last night and all I could come up with was "but Texas is a state, it's different." Apparently, hard-headed me couldn't come to the realization that Texas was it's own country at the time.

Don't revoke my Texas citizenship After all, my ancestors were Texans long before the Republic came about.

[SWTXBelle]

Okay, okay, you get a pass because of the non-Texan instructors - but maybe this means you should have to be a Texian to teach our history!

My husband thinks it's funny that I qualify (and if I can find my stupid paperwork, including the original Mexican land grant, I"ll join) for DRT membership, but he doesn't, even though his ancestor was here and loaning money to the Texans. Ba ha ha ha - while my ancestor was risking his life at the battle of Bexar, his was smoking ceegars and, and least in my mind's eye, relaxing and putting his feet on a desk somewhere nice and safe.

[em_adpi]

Originally Posted by gamma_girl52

And the outlet mall here! I went there and thought I'd died and gone to retail heaven

I also go to Dallas a lot too. The size and impersonal feel doesn't faze me.

Isn't the outlet mall AMAZING?!?!? I love it.

Ever been to Fort Worth?