Posted on 02/11/2014 8:32:21 AM PST by SeekAndFind
You most likely associate the phrase “Don’t mess with Texas” with cheesy t-shirts and that unmistakable brand of Texas swagger.
What you don’t know is that the slogan is the product of a 1980s anti-littering campaign and a federally registered trademark of the Texas Department of Transportation. The initiative is credited with cutting highway trash by 70% from 1986-1990.
So maybe the best way to piss off a Texan is to mess with our state — cruise down a Hill Country two-lane during wildflower season and throw your pickle juice and mustard-stained Whataburger wrapper out the window. Local law enforcement will be happy to collect the maximum $500 fine when they spot your out-of-state license plate.
No, I didn’t ride a horse to school. No, I’ve never been on a working ranch. Automatically pegging Texans as backwardly rural, uninformed, or unworldly would be sadly missing the mark.
I’ve met more fellow Texans while traveling (places like South Korea, Argentina, Belgium) than I have people from any other state. And just a mile down the road from my house, at the University of Texas, researchers are at this very moment using over $600 million in annual research grants to analyze data from the farthest reaches of space, design the computers of the future, and develop groundbreaking biomedical technologies that may one day help cure cancer.
What a bunch of hicks.
The state borders encircle 268,580 square miles — that’s more than 100 Delawares.
In the East we’ve got the Piney Woods, a forest of pine and oak that covers 54,400 square miles (20+ Delawares, for those counting). The Great Plains of North Texas and the Panhandle comprise cotton fields (Texas is the largest US producer) and other agricultural land. Out West things get pretty desert-y — oil wells share real estate with wind farms, and the Guadalupe Mountains rise to 8,750ft (over 2,000 feet higher than anything east of the Mississippi). The coastal plains of South Texas and the scrubby hills of Central round out the picture, but of course all this is still a gross overgeneralization.
Bottom line: Whatever image you’ve generated in your mind to define “Texas,” it’s woefully inadequate.
We get it — the world has a hard-on for Austin. But that still doesn’t explain why, when I’m traveling around the US and tell someone I live in ATX, they invariably respond with some riff on the above.
You’ve just dismissed over 25 million people out of hand. Kind of a dick move.
Go home.
W was born in Connecticut. HW was born in Massachusetts. While there are likely hundreds of George Bushes from Texas, they’re clearly not the ones you’re thinking of.
This is not a political beef — just a matter of birthright and heritage. But since you brought it up, maybe I should remind you there were over 5 million of us who voted for the other guys in 2000 and ’04. That’s like, 6 Delawares.
This is the territory of souvenir bumper stickers and franchise steakhouse wall art. Your joke will not land.
Because I grew up in a suburb of the 7th largest city in the nation.
You really need to specify anyway — are you talking East Texas drawl or West Texas twang…or the Mexican / Hispanic flavor that’s probably a more accurate, 21st-century reckoning of the “Texas accent”?
I know — you are a tourist. But here’s a tip: When you’re on a country highway, taking your time, enjoying the pastoral sights, and you suddenly check your rearview to see an F-350 bearing down on your rear bumper, find a good spot to drift onto the shoulder a ways so that cowboy/girl can pass you more easily.
If you see the hazards blink or a hand wave through the rear glass, you know you’ve done good.
In San Antonio it’s the Spurs, in Dallas the Mavericks, in Houston the Rockets. There are no exceptions.
Again, Texas is too big to have only one style of barbecue, but the Central Texas variety is currently ascendant — the main element of which is certainly not any kind of sauce.
When you order BBQ in Lockhart or Llano, in Luling, Taylor, or the hipster trailers in Austin, it’s all about the quality of meat, the wood used, and the cook time. Dousing that half pound of moist brisket in a pool of sauce is a kick in the spurs to the artiste behind the smoker. Go back to Kansas City.
Seriously? You came to the best place in the world to eat Mexican food outside of Mexico and ordered some Californian perversion of the real thing? There’s only one person who should be pissed off about that, and it’s you.
Just point out that Alaska is bigger
“Hal Amen”?!?!? Oh, please. And his sister, Jewel Bilation.
Ahhm, that great bastion of Liberalism referred to as "THE University of Texas" (that is what one disgruntled alum of that place called it when he and I talked about it).
"THE University of Texas" is largely foreign to Texas Culture.
There has been a remarkable turn around in people’s attitude toward throwing garbage out your car window in my lifetime. My dad was an early fanatic about that.
This Texan agrees!
But luckily I don’t get too pissed off about these indiscretions, since I live here and no one acts like this.
Except maybe newbies from other states who quickly learn how Texas works.
Confuse Dazavala with Days of Allah.
It’s a San Antonio thing.
I assume this means we're getting more Yankee transplants than ever. I've driven in the Boston and Chicago areas, and the average speed in those places is about 15 mph over the speed limit, with some doing 20 and 30 mph over the speed limit; always amazing that there seems to be no fear of traffic tickets up there.
I'm always the slowest person on the road up north, and now it's slowly moving that direction in Austin.
I hate the trash here in West Texas. It’s everywhere, and nobody has any respect to try to pick up their garbage.
I miss the clean streets back home in Kansas.
It is better in East TX at least.
Hell’s fuzzy, man! Us Texans don’t need you trying to explain our greatness to any foreigners (any other state in US). As long as they stay away thinking we are hicks or nothin is purty here, we get this place all to ourselves!
When I went out to Big Bend, I didn’t see much trash by the roadside. But I did see a Lone Star pre-punch tab top that had been in the dirt for many decades. It was sun bleached on one side, white and red on the dirt side.
His house is a mile from the UT campus?
EEEWWWWWWW!!!!!
I don’t get angry, but I do get amused with people who have no idea how big Texas is. I live in Houston, and a friend from the northeast told me he was going to be in my area for a business trip and we should meet up. Trouble was, he was going to Dallas. That’s about 5 hours away from Houston.
Reading this thread and looked up to note I have 1836 unread e mails. Kind of a nice coincidence, the number that is.
The time I lived in Texas, South of Fort Worth, was sone of best time of my adult life. Met some individuals whom are still very close friends. As they say in Fort Worth, it is where the West begins.
Who knows, maybe I will pull a MacArthur some day and return.
My neighbor, a policeman, one day told me this story: He pulled over a yankee on I-20 for speeding. She did not care, just wanted a picture of him in his “cowboy hat”.
I'm always the slowest person on the road up north, and now it's slowly moving that direction in Austin.
I once got pulled over on a Metrowest Boston road for doing 17 mph over the speed limit. Using my tried and true technique for talking my way out of a traffic ticket, I politely asked the cop: "Do you have any discretion here, officer?"
He replied: "Yes I do. I generally don't pull people over unless they are doing more than 15mph over the speed limit." Then he gave me a ticket.
That's how it is here in Massachusetts -- people routinely go faster than the speed limits (although I now make it a point now to never exceed the speed limit by more than 15mph and haven't had another ticket in the four years since).
Few things are more exasperating than driving on a long, sparsely traveled one-lane road at a normal speed (i.e. 10-15mph over the limit), and suddenly getting stuck behind what I call a "one-car traffic jam" -- namely, some jerk driving the at the speed limit for miles and miles.
It never occurred to me that those kinds of slowpoke drivers might be from Texas. But it would make sense -- I remember the one time I visited east Texas (which I loved, except for those giant man-eating cockroaches you people have down there). Anyway, I had to go to a super market, and the check-out line took forever to move, because the check-out lady was engaging in friendly conversation with every single customer on the line. Charming, I admit, but really frustrating to a Yankee-in-a-hurry like me.
No kidding. I recall a college reunion many moons ago, when I lived in El Paso. A fellow alum remarked, "you must spend quite a bit of time in Dallas."
He was a bit shocked when I told him El Paso is almost as close to Los Angeles as it is to Dallas. In fact, El Paso is virtually equidistant to Houston and Los Angeles.
I guess the don't mess with Texas litter campaign didn't work...Of course illegals are everywhere in Texas too, just don't tell their state cheerleaders that...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.