The “lone star,” found throughout Texas’ culture and its enlightened capital of Austin.
According to family lore and not entirely persuasive paperwork, my mother’s father was the seventh cousin of Sam Houston, the first and third president of the Republic of Texas. I’m more certain that it’s true that my sister’s husband was born, raised and educated in West Texas. My son now lives in Texas, although in Austin, which is hardly Texas at all.
But still, Texas seems to be creeping closer.
Texas is huge, the largest by far of the 48 contiguous states…..100,000 square miles larger than what’s left of scorched California; more than 100 times the size of Delaware, the first state of the USA; and more than 200 times the size of Rhode Island.
Texans have promoted and relished the notion that everything in Lone Star State is supersized. Ranches, steak and Bar-B-Q, for example. Egos and hats. The Dallas Cowboys. The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.
When a state refers to one of its cities as “The Big D,” not much more needs to be said about its citizens’ frame of mind.
But there’s another point of view.
Long-time Texas resident, Lawrence Wright, author of “God Save Texas — A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State,” offers this bit of humility. He writes:
“Texas is where everything peters out — the South, the Great Plains, Mexico, the Mountain West — all dribbling to an anticlimactic end, stripped of whatever glory they manifest elsewhere.”
JER
ALL OVER THE MAP 