Texas

A day or two ago, the Yellow Doggerel Democrat was readying himself to attend his state's caucuses for the primaries, satisfied that events had transpired in a way that Texas, in spite of the late date, was going to have something to say on the nominations after all, commensurate with its size and importance. I asked him to let us know -- and he did == exactly how it went, because I felt sure that, caucuses being what they are and Texas being ...Texas, events out of the ordinary would take place.

In the course of that I mentioned that in the past he may have noticed a certain attitude on my part toward his state, and he replied with comprehensive testimony on the glories of the place..

I had already said too much on that thread, so I didn't post a response to that. If I had, it would have gone something like this:

I would never dispute the virtues of Texas, Steve. I have the feeling that actually it is much like the state where I live, save for the facts that it has a much larger assortment of truly exotic creatures, like armadillos, roadrunners, gila monsters, rattlesnakes, scorpions, and the like, and it has a much different proportion of prairies to mountains, and, totally unlike Virginia, it has a long southern border that is constantly pushed upon by a vibrant, populous, and different culture, many of whom seem to have no doubt that the Lone Star state is the place to be.

Actually, when you think about it, those factors alone do make Texas VERY different from Virginia, don't they?

Texas is one of only six states in the Union that I've never had the pleasure of visiting, though I did ride through Amarillo once ...on a train. Having lived for Westerns when I was a child, I was deeply disappointed when I didn't see the Long Ranger, Tonto, Tom Mix, Buck Jones, John Wesley Hardin, Pancho Villla, Cabeza de Vaca, or anyone else of interest through the windows. Everything just looked dry, dusty, yellow, and vast. Even the Longhorns were somewhere else, though not till recently did I realize that they may have been wandering about keeping a watchful eye out for armadillos.

That last refers to photos that Mr. Y.D. Democrat took of an eye-catching display in front of a local eatery, showing red-eyed armadillos sporting Texas-sized horns.

It occurred to me just yesterday exactly why I have (almost) never been to Texas, and on the face of the situation, it's a strange thing to say, when you consider how that state jumps right out at you when you look at the U.S. on a map. From the point of view of my wife and me it was nevertheless in an out-of-the-way spot.

Whenever we took our long sight-seeing trips across the country from D.C., our focus was always on natural sights instead of the manmade stuff like cities, and we would get out of the eastern third of the country as quick as we could, so that we could spend more time looking at all the wonders in the western states like Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, and all the places bordering the Pacific, and Texas was off even the less direct routes to those places.

Texas is usually spoken of as being western, but to my map-conscious eye it is actually the true Deep South, much more so than is that band of states to which that name is always given: Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The Big Bend park beckoned, but it was too far south, and I hadn't lost anything in Mexico. Meanwhile even when going to New Mexico to check out the pueblos or to Arizona to ogle the Grand Canyon, it was never necessary to go through Texas. Also it was obvious that to cross it would take a whole day and maybe more, and that was too much driving just to get through one state. Montana was bad enough.

Maybe one day I'll get to Texas after all and stay long enough to take a good look around, while through my mind will run memories of one of my favorite movies, the Coen Brothers' "Blood Simple," which for me is the quintessential Texas film. The opening lines reflect on the state in an interesting way that is tested by events in the film, and as spoken by the great character actor, J. T. Walsh, they should be required memorization for all movie buffs.

When I do visit, I'm confident the Texans won't keep me there. Except that once, before it became unthinkable, I toyed with the idea of driving down the Pan-American highway all the way to the Canal Zone, I never thought I could risk thinking as charitably about Mexico, or most places in Central and South America, or in any of the countries in Africa except Egypt, just as I will always strongly resist visiting a prison. What if they don't let me back out?!!

This morning the first thing I read in my Google News was a Washington Post article saying that all across Texas, lots of the caucuses were marked by confusion. There were a great many of them, more than 8,000 in all, and the rules were complicated. Some of the people running the caucases seemed to have been unprepared for the huge turnouts, and a number of those new voters must've been unprepared for the process. No wonder. Ever since I voted in one, caucuses have struck me as being weird events.

Actually all that was a good sign, and Texas itself was not at fault. As with a soaking rain after a long drought, it merely found itself the recipient of an unusually good political season.

Meanwhile, along with mid-sized Ohio and tiny Rhode Island, Texas in the main voted the same as I did, and it helped keep H. Clinton's hopes alive, and this means that in the next four months the Republicans can't home in on just one of the Democrats with their usual showers of poison darts. In a sense, even as they continue to go at each other hammer and tong from now until the convention, just by still being very much in the running B. Obama and H. Clinton will protect each other.