Oh, KR, ya gotta come, you are so already an honorary texan, ya speak your mind, you are awesome and you are true to your self.
I think the best thing to do is for you and hubbie to come down for a weekend. Scope it out. It really is liek a whole other country. LEt me explain. Dallas Houston, Austin, Ft Worth and SA are really spread out. You can go from one end of town to the other and it can take you from 45 mins to 2 hours, dependign on which city you are in.
You also gotta remember, EVERYTHIGN in texas is almost new. We never had an economic boom tilkl the 50's, so everythign has sprung up since then. Of course the down side - you dont have the character you often see in the NE.
This is really hard. Describing Texas is like describing the color orange to a blind man.
I will say this, Dallas is very image concious. Its the LA of Texas. People are always making sure they look etheir best. But the reason they do is not because their vein, but because their is so much opportunity here. Ya dont wanna go to the grocery store lookign like ass, because you might run into the person you interviewed with last week for that job, and you wanna look on top of it. 5 million people in the metroplex and it really is a big small town. Repuitation is EVERYTHING.
The climate is roughly on par with Maryland. A bit more mild in the winter and a bit warmer in the summer, but hell, yall have humidity up there too.
The schools are amazing for the kids. All top notch systems
NO STATE INCOME TAX. You take more $$ hoem at the end of the year. We are one of only six states that dont have an income tax (I Knwo the others are Alaska and Deleware. I dotn knwo the others)
The cost of living is significantly lower here. Its cheap to live in Texas. Its not the next big thing yet (And I hope it isnt yet) So you money goes way farther.
Its awesome to live here, because, for the first time, you will have a sense of being soemthing besides american. Yeah thats cool, but most of us are texans too. It soemthing I cant describe, but read up on the I like Texas threads. Imagine you kids growign up LOVING their hoem that much. Its instilled in every kid here. Its what we do.
Its not about being tall, blonde, or anything. Its about being welcoming, friendly and gracious. Thats what makes our women seem so attractive, theyre so hospitible, they just seem more beautiful.
Unfortunately, the transportation here SUCKS. BUt it sucks in a different way than you might think. Freeway congestion isnt that bad. <People LUV to bitch about it, but hell, the mixmaster has always been a butch> TXDOT (Texas Dept of Transportation spends roughly 38% of the states ENTIRE CONSTRUCTION budget on Dallas/FT. Worth. Ya disagree? 1) Wooodall-Rodgers. 2)Central Expressway. 3)George Bush Freeway. All amazing roads while SA finally gets an interchange overhall 20 years in the making. (I-10 & 410) ITS NO DIFFERENT THAN ANY OTHER BIG CITY. What does suck is that theres no infrastructure outside of freeways. No train svc to Houston or Austin/SA. Regional bus service is a joke and quite scary. Light rail is STILL a joke. DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) blows. Its nice, but its STILL 30 years away from being seriously as viable as the DC subway system. You have to have a car in TEXAS. So the trade off is that You have to have a car to get around, but everything is geard towards the car, so its very easy to get around.
DFW. YOu would LIVE at an airline hub. In maryland, DC is not a hub. You gotta go to Chicago, NY, Memphis, St. Louid or Atlanta for a HUB. This also saves you cash when you travel.
The food is amazing.
The culture in Dallas is really cool. No one is from Dallas. So when they all came, they brought their own cultures with them.
Dallas has a primo arts community. One of the tops in the nation, because the oil barrons didnt wanna be known as hicks, so they endowed the hell outta some programs and Museums to make them selves feel better.
I wrote and posted this a few months ago about my land, my TEXAS, and have added some since:
I love texas. I cant express it better than that. I love being texan. I often imagine that I was born and raised elsewhere and wish that I was born here. Then I remember that I was born here and thank god everyday that I was. We have a sense of identity. Bigger than just being American. I am glad to be american, but proud to be a texan. The spark you get in your eye when you see the Texas flag waving proudly against a crisp blue cloudless sky on an October morning. The excitment of elementary school kids first learning of Stephen Fuller Austin (the father of Texas). The Bone Chilling Gosebumps one gets when they step onto the grounds of the Alamo. The hereoism and sacrifice is almost palpable. Deep Ellum. Mi Tierra. The Dixie Chicken. At the drycleaners on mens clothes, "Heavy starch on everything." Being willing to try anything. The wind encompassing you as you stand, looking oceanward at JP Luby state park in Corpus. Wheatfields. Las Colinas. Having a love hate relationship with Love Field. Understanding Love Field is the same place as Hobby Airport, just in Dallas. Redwings and khakis. Enchaliadas. SPID. Mo-Pac traffic. The feeling that you can see into forever looking out over the plains and praries of west texas. Quanna Parker. Knowing aboout 50 people named either Quannah or Parker. The thunderheads that you feel will engulf everything you know around Abeline. The antelope you see wondering around the canadian river in the panhandle. Being able to tell what part of the state a lady is from by the height of her hair. How anxious everyone on the coast gets when theres a tropical depression in the gulf, and that 100 years later we still pay homage to the Galveston hurricane of 1900. Stockyards. Our capital. Venison. KSAT. The first dip of the year in the guadalupe, and the feeling in it that you are connected to soemthing deeper, somethign longer, something almost primordial in you bones about the guadlup. HEB. Allsups. The Comal. Thanksgiving and the UT/AM game. Texans who think they surf. Christmas day being 70 degrees. The State Fair. The chill of the beach in front of the Raddison on South Padre at Spring Break. The drive from San Antonio to Dallas, and understanding that you are diving at 85 mph on the freeway up there, but cars will start to pass you around Waxahache -going 95. Its that thicket of pine trees around Brehenam that you dont understand how it got there. East texas vs. west texas accents. The cotton you see on the side of the highway around lubbock. King Ranch Saddle Shop. Marvin Zindler and "Slime in the Ice Machine" Watching yankees sweat as they eat chips and salsa. Knowing kids who have never seen snow. The panhandelers on Guadalupe in austin. A people with an eye on the past and an eye on the future. Bayfest. Towns with wierd little names, like Noodle Doon, Pampa and Cut and Shoot. Schlitterbahn. Pronouncing Spanish names properly. El Paso being 1 hour from good snow skiing. Lady Bird Johnson. A chicken fried steak the size of your head. Border towns. Knowing that Six Flags Astroworld is THE Grand Damme of theme parks. Recognizing a ranch by its brand. Port A / Aransas Pass. Texas wine. Bee Caves Road. A place where schools are named after heroes of the Texas revolution. Grapefruit from the valley. Taco Cabana to 3 am, knowing NO ONE there is sober where "I'd like a breakfast taco combo, potato and egg, bean and cheeze." rolls off your tounge as easy as your name does. Friday night lights. Highway 46. Caddo Indians. The warmth of an afternoon in winter the day before a blue norther passes. Deer season. Big Bend State Park. Going to Mexico for soem cultural exchange. Ann Richards, AND Gerode W. Bush. Low-water-crossings. Blinndergarten. Floores Country Store. The Bayou City. Kerrville Folklife Festival. Perpetual construction. The golden triangle. Rice University. Piney Woods. Not having to use the term "breakfast" when describing an egg and bacon taco. Homeade pico. UTMB. Irving. Lake LBJ. Any lake in Texas. Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavillion. Raising a finger (not the middle one) in salute to soemone you pass in the middle of west texas as a recognition that that is probable the only person you will see for an hour. Did I mention Barton Springs? Holding doors open for ladies. The smell of fresh cut grass.... in January. Sugar Land, where Sugar actually comes from. Raspas on Alamo square. Oysterbake. Christmas lights in Palm Trees. Nuevo Laredo. Tyler rose festival. Beer cans that have the texas flag on them. WFAA. DFW. Winter Texans. Tornado Warnings. The riverwalk. Mountain Cedar. Closing the town because someone saw snow. Sonoran Desert. Natural Bridge Caverns. Anna Nicole Smith. Rice Farmers. People who remember Braniff Airlines. People who flew Braniff Airlines. I still say its the Transco Tower. Gruene. Gruene Dance Hall and THe GristMill. Dan Cook. Remembering that there was a time before liquor by the drink. Wurzfest. I-10, I-35, and I-45. Political scandal. Living and loving the lone-star. Antiquing in Fredericksburg. Enchanted Rock. Everyone has a ranch, or knowing someone who has one. Garner State Park. Lost Maples State Park. The Cotulla/Sarita checkpoints. Bocktoberfest. Chimineas. Westlake HS Football. Judson Football. Trintiy University. Our state constitution with 350+ ammendments. Whataburger. House of Pies. Texas Trails Historical Routes. El Camino Real. The Trinity River. La Reunion. San Fernando Cathedral. CultureFest. Texas Folklife Festival. Tivy Antlers. Acuna. Sanderson. The Guadalupe Mountains. Teh Big Thicket. American Airlines Arena. Dallas Cowboys. The Dallas Cowboys Chearleaders. LBJ Freeway.
I'll also let others speak for me:
Posted on Sun, Nov. 24, 2002
THANK GOD FOR TEXAS
A transplanted newspaper writer gives thanks for still-warm homemade tortillas, waitresses who call you 'hon' and ice-cold Dr Pepper
By Jessie Milligan
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
The e-mail arrived on my computer the other day. "Are you enjoying Texas and Fort Worth? Is it as much fun as they say? Or is that just myth?"
Myth? I wanted to respond: Yes, hon, there is a Texas. It's as big and as full of possibilities as they say.
No, it's not perfect. We live under the shadows of clouds that blow in from far away, and our own storms sometimes darken our days. But mostly it's sunny, and it's the sunshine that we talk about the most.
Small blessings accumulate here and, when counted, amount to a blessing larger than Texas itself.
When the world seems too crazy, we can always say "Thank God for Texas." Thanks for waitresses who call customers "hon," and thanks for beautiful, ornate courthouses in small town squares.
It's the down-home, Old West part most of us brag about. That's our emotional comfort food.
*
We can sit at a corner table in a dance hall on a Saturday night and watch a couple twirl to Western swing so smoothly and sweetly that it looks like they are moving with one heartbeat. We can also walk down a street on a Sunday morning and hear the strains of the South -- a gospel choir sounding so goodness-almighty glad to be alive that we are happy to be alive, too.
We know we can easily escape our workaday worlds. When life gets too hectic, we can take a drive down a farm road and past a stand of oaks in a field so pretty it looks like a park. And we know that down the highway a piece, we're bound to see a shop called an antique store that is really a small museum of midcentury household goods. We have "retro" down pat, and in that we find comfort.
We all have our own lists of favorites. We have our longhorns, our cowboys, our cowgirls, our ranches, our oil-monied families, our Stockyards that serve as a living museum to days gone by. Those are our heroic images, the icons of the West, and this is where the West begins.
*
The West to a Texan also means fresh starts, bold ventures, pioneering aspirations. These ideas of old are transposed on our modern landscape, in business and in art, most visibly in large art, which embodies the cutting edge of the New West. Fort Worth is a city where a spare Isamu Noguchi sculpture stands across the street from sculptor Jonathan Borofsky's 50-foot-tall Man With Briefcase, both not too far from the latest addition to the landscape, the 67-plus-foot-tall Vortex by artist Richard Serra.
It's the bigger-than-life West here, allrighty, but it's also part Southern, part big-city, part country, part international, and all of that is worth saying grace over.
Texas is homemade tortillas and salsa one night, barbecue brisket washed down with icy Dr Pepper the next. A Brazilian steakhouse. A lunch of Vietnamese noodles. A dinner of Gulf shrimp curry. Pecan pie. An organically grown salad. Texas is the whole enchilada, and that leaves us with a sense that life is full of potential.
Blessings are counted here in this land so big it feels there's room to grow, so big it feels there is, as the Dixie Chicks sing, room enough to make the big mistakes. And there's room enough for big dreams under these great big skies. And for blessings large and small.
When I responded to my friend's e-mail, what I did say was this: "Is Texas a myth? No, hon, it's actually a lot better."
AND an email I got from a brother a while back...
When you're from Texas, people that you meet ask you questions like, "Do you have any cows?" "Do you have horses?" "Bet you 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?
In every man, woman and child on this little rock the Good Lord put us on, there is a person who wishes just once he could be a real live Texan and get up on a horse or ride 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 South Dakota? 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 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. Texas is Juneteenth and Texas Independence Day. Texas is huge forests of Piney Woods like the Davy Crockett National Forest. 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 and 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, and the Astrodome. Texas is larger-than-life legends like Willie Nelson, Buddy Holly, Waylon Jennings, Janis Joplin, Tom Landry, Darrell Royal, ZZ Top, Eric Dickerson, Earl Campbell, Nolan Ryan, Denton Cooley and Michael DeBakey, Sam Rayburn, George Bush, Lyndon B. Johnson, and George W. Bush.
Texas is great companies like Dell Computer, Texas Instruments and Compaq. 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 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, and NIOSA or the Fiesta Parade in San Antonio. Texas is ocean beaches, deserts, lakes and rivers, mountains and prairies, and modern cities. 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 we place being a Texan as high as being an American down here. (it is the only state that was its own country before it became a state).
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 if we wanted too, but never would. We included these things as part of the deal when we came on.
Texas is everything to us.
KR, at least come visit before you decide. We'd love to have ya.
Which big city doesn't have bad traffic?! hehehe
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