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To be Texas or not to be Texas, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of stupidity, ignorance,
prepotency, and outrageous fortune,
Taxes that improve little or nothing…and which
destroy industry, self-sufficiency,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing… end them.
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The waves come…and at times leave…searching for something magic that has filled movie screens, television hours, and all sorts of imaginings, books, boots, and musings.
Just to-day, Elon Musk was being interviewed on CNBC. It was an oddly moderate and dull financial production, quite unlike its pinky and whiney mommy, the National Broadcasting Network. Mr. Musk relatively quietly informed the nice interviewer about the why's and wherefore's he was moving his tents to the improbable destination of South Texas. His explanation was rather long, detailed, and pointed.
Another large financial company has also determined to leave New York City and move into the same misery in Houston…(bad thinking, fellows). Mr. Musk surprised your humble writer by exhibiting a bit of cold blood and reasonability concerning his choice destination. The financial services company has arrived at a seemingly improved choice, but they will rue the day they made that choice.
Mr. Musk has placed a rocketry launching compound that has had a bit of stuttering during the "lift - off" phase over the past few months. The compound is located close to the very most point of the tip of Southernmost Texas. Essentially it is near the Boca Chica (the "little mouth" of the Rio Bravo / Rio Grande) where the Rio Grande meets the Gulf of Mexico.
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This is Musk's most recent rocket
awaiting launch. Supposedly, within
one year, Musk's works may include
a Lunar visitation. There is some
rumouring about the owner might
will be aboard.
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There are some reasons for the location of this facility , having to do with centripetal and centrifugal force resolutions by being ever closer to the Equator, while remaining close to something reasonable in terms of comforts and normality. Just yesterday, another of the "test firings" was scrubbed, leaving an ugly behemoth of a rocket sitting forlornly on the launching pad. Another effort might be tried towards the weekend…two or three days from this date (9 December 2020). There are numerous millionaires in Texas. Many tend to ostentatiousness but, in the main, the majority might be mistaken for a ranch foreman or a small business fellow. Bankers tend to put on the stuff and cologne, but they're generally okay fellows. Musk has been view with a little skepticism, but in the main, the people are approving of his developing dream.
Sometimes are people are amazed to think about Texas as a potent national and international force. In terms of juxtaposition as well as geographics, things can become very interesting if studied correctly. For instance almost all high-school students make it through and continue with training schools, military, and/or university. Many, in my opinion, are prepared nowhere near as well as during the period from 1920 through 1967. In recent years, however, there seems to have been a bit of improvement in both traditional and new intellectual instruction techniques.
Before this ramble becomes a harangue, however, it would be my pleasure to point out quirky things people might not know about Texas once you decide to look us over. Texas is full of people who are very proud of knowing things that are not true. Davy Crockett swinging his best friend, the rifle "Old Betsy" on the parapets of the Alamo, surrounded by hundreds of bloodthirsty Mexican infantrymen is interesting, but not true. The true story is just as romantic and heroic and ridiculous. For instance, Travis should never have chosen to defend the old "Alamo" Fortress / Chapel compound. Two hundred infantry bottled up in an old abandoned church facility engaging 1,600 top-flight infantry and cannoneers is not good odds for the 200.
Another example of "how we are" even though we don't even know it, is found in the following picturesque real and imagined family history. This tale could be patterned after early arrivals and settlers back to the mid-1800s, and a bit before and a bit after. Only the Spanish colonised effectively, but sparsely, in the times from the 1570's (very few) through around 1805 (perhaps 40,000 souls).
A TELLING TALE…ALL TRUE:
A lady of high degree and pedigree…a Latin lady…prided herself in the length of her genealogy in what would become north central and northeastern-most Mexico and into Texas during the latest 1690's and into the 1760's. Almost all of her genealogy was central and southern Spanish.
Many of her forbearers had significant amounts of money to settle in where the environment was not precisely a garden party. In the higher elevations it is bitterly cold in the Winter sometimes, even heavy snows. Down lower along the coastal zones, fierce hurricanes could set back 15 years of hard work of bringing prosperity for folks, in less than 15 hours. Indians came through, sometimes more or less friendly and looking for trade, although the majority of the "Indios nativos" were hostile to a point. Lamentably for the Spaniards,the various Indian warriors were almost all triple - A minor league warriors or higher. They had adapted well to the use of horses, something they had never seen before the arrival of the Spanish colonisers.
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The second church built in Mier,
Tamaulipas, on the main plaza. The city
was founded in the 1750s, by the hand
of Jose de Escandon.
The church pictured is 210 years old.
Thespire is 160 years old.
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Moving on, we learned that there were two great settling efforts. One was a fellow whose last name was Carvajal y de la Cueva who settled areas more in the interior. Dry mountainous extensions are the rule there, but with some spring-fed rivers and good grassing extensions grazing and pasturing was good for goats, sheep, and cattle. There were even "joyas" (jewels) of extensions of good fertile soil for crops.
The previous settlers' agent came in during the 1569 through 1590 time span in three different groups. By the passing of forty years there was significant population, perhaps 40,000 people spread over 35,000 square miles or so.
The next coloniser was Jose de Escandon, regarded by many historians as the best of all of the colonisers. He bought in several thousand Spaniards, fairly late in the colonial period, those dates being from 1749 through the early 1760's. Many settlements were established, most of whom are still extant to this day.
SO Now we return to the issue of the nice lady who knew that her grandfather had been a hero in the War Between the States, thinking he had been a Yankee soldier. And on she went about her business. Remember, dear reader, that this nice lady is a really nice lady. She is proud but not pretentious, and she is well educated. She is gliding gladly through the nice little cemetery on the very frontier of Texas, within stone's throw of the Rio Grande, in a community known as Garciasville.
Then suddenly something catches her eye. Gasps…chortles, and catching of breathe. The nice lady sees a gravestone that she knew had to be in this cemetery, but because she lived about a few hundred miles away or whatever, she did not have a lot of chances to really spend time with her cousins at their place. The surprise, the dark doom of it all, causes the nice lady to confess her findings. "It must be a mistake." None of her ancestors would have ever owned a slave, it's impossible, she thought. The other family members together and gradually the real story comes forth. The Austin American Statesman had some necessary and comforting words:
Other readers, however, also quickly came to her rescue, not only with helpful history but also with a guide to finding out more about veterans buried around the state and the country.
“My ancestors on both sides of my family came to Texas from Mexico as soon as they could,” writes Fannie Cavasos Hewgley of Leander. “I am a third-generation American and have always enjoyed Texas history and our genealogy. But I recently discovered that one of my maternal ancestors, Fernando Farias Garcia, fought on the side of the Confederacy, and that a marker was recently placed on his grave in Garciasville Cemetery.”
Hewgley spoke of a gravesite in the town of Garciasville, up the Rio Grande from McAllen and Mission. “I would like to think that he fought because he needed the money rather than because he supported slavery,” she writes. “I do have so many interesting stories about my family, but I would like to find out … why the Confederate marker was placed on my uncle’s grave (and by who).”
I reassured her that the military usually keeps scrupulous records, although I was unsure if the physical resources would be available during the pandemic. I need not have worried. The internet solves so much these days."
But first, two readers wrote to reassure Hewgley that service in the Confederate military did not necessarily equate with support for slavery."
'My great-grandfather, Dario Gonzalez of Laredo, Texas, served under Col. Santos Benavides in a cavalry unit that acted as a home guard patrolling the South Texas area and dealing with bandits, federal troops and preserving the trade routes,” writes Alex Moreno Jr. of Buda. 'They had little to do with slavery as there were very few slaves south of San Antonio.''
Moreno recommends “Vaqueros in Blue and Gray” by Jerry Thompson, which lists the 4,000-plus Tejanos in Civil War units and the unit in which each served."
As time passed, slowly and quickly, the Confederate unit from deep South Texas under the command of Santos Benavides and his two brothers settled into the peace. Every analyst and commentator who researched this corps of 2,700 light cavalry did conclude that this proud collection of Confederate believers were the equal to the best who had served gallantly elsewhere for the Confederacy. This was the feeling of his peers as officers and later, during cold, hard evidence and analysis of Benavides's strategies and tactics.
Benavides and his men served until the end of the last battle. That engagement just happened to have occurred one month AFTER the signing of the accord between General Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant. Two matters were in place on the south point of Texas. The first was to protect a huge shipment of fine cotton in bales that in present-day terms would have amounted to about one billion dollars. It was an extensive amount of bales steadily being transferred to French soldiers on the south side of the Rio Bravo (Rio Grande). The French soldiers were part of a large body of same deployed in much of Mexico to defend and guard the Emperor Maximilian who had been installed as "Emperor of Mexico and Central America".
And the second point, there were Texans up in the San Antonio, Austin, Houston triangle and thereabouts who were debating and trying to re-organise. There was even planning for a re-withdrawal from any political nexus with the United States of America.
They would then reinstate the old Republic of Texas (1836 - 1845). Benavides, his two brothers, and their men learned that the troops had been ordered to stand down. Throughout the South a devastating "Reconstruction" began, and the rough treatment by the occupying Union forces and "business scouts" from the North and the disorder amongst the white-trash element of the Southern population drove the better parts of the populace into emotional and economic depression,
The loyalist Negro element and the Whites who had catechism and a sense of dignity and honour were the only things that helped lead the Southern people back to the conditions we find now in most places below the Mason and Dixon Line. It has been a long, long return.
This writer is relatively certain that the nice lady learned a bit about the system of slavery, manumission, bonded indenture, and freeman status. The story could to on and on. But we are here to speak to the issue of folks coming to Texas so as to avoid the poopy streets and alleys in downtown Los Angeles, New York City etc. It does not help that in the advanced liberal areas like California, Oregon, Washington State, and almost all the northeastern sector of the United States are truly deteriorating. Street bums and brazen thuggery and peculiar social codes have left people with a normal sort world view more than a bit out of focus.
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The toil of practice and requiring perfection, the stage hands,
keeping the restrooms clean, the tonnes of specialty lighting
and the engineers to operate them, the doormen, the security
people, the maintenance of buildings of this size,the physical
and emotional response a person must have after seeing so
many perform for so few…each person in the audience knows,
that for to-night,
I am a King or a Queen.
But not at the moment of this writing,
because there is no joy to-night in Mudville,
mighty New York City has struck out.
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We have seen it in the north, extending even to the once admired small towns and cities where everyone pulled together. Now the rot is setting in, and senseless laws, rules, and regulations are overloading the ability for medium and even small cities and other entities to do much about catching up.
My lineage, with many generations buried in the middle ranges of the Hudson, or the other line in Pennsylvania, at the doll house town of Montrose in Susquehanna County, the people are strong…but Pennsylvania in these times chooses to succumb to perverse games of social "gotcha" and the ridiculing of normalcy.
My grandfather lost two brothers of the Pennsylvania 96th Regiment of Infantry…one about 30 days before Gettysburg and the second one about 30 days after Gettysburg. It is said that their father Hubbard Newton (my great-grandfather) became an inert personality after losing his eldest sons. He would speak only rarely. He died, sitting in his chair on the porch, looking wistfully down the road to see who might be coming. He had opposed the War in the beginning and never changed his position.
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Downtown Montrose around 1902
The Newton place was about six blocks facing
the other way.
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Last we heard, in New York City and the surrounding area there have been 15,500 schools, decent saloons, restaurants large and small, movie houses, and attractions simply closed by order of some grand poobah bureaucrat or potentate Democrat office-holder. Similar actions have been taken in hundreds of cities and towns throughout the old Blue Union. Chicago Land, with Paul Harvey speaking at noon about the Korean War and us listening by radio all the way down on the Mexican border, seemed like magic. It was something that, as a child, fascinated me.
He came to McAllen, Texas one time on a speaking tour. I think it was 1955, held at our High School Football Stadium. There were over 2,500 people who turned out for one of his famous patriotic lectures. Of course, McAllen was not quite a city of 30,000. Those were the times.
But finally, we would like for all the people up north and over on the west coast to consider well before deciding to go to Texas because it's cheap and the people are so poor that they have to wait on the incoming people.
You might have to hear old jacklegs such as me say things like,"You know….there's a fact, that Texas has a bigger Gross National Product than all of Russia, and we only have thirty million folks and the Russians have 200,000,000."
Before the wanderer in a person begins to take to strong a hold, please consider a few things. First and foremost, Texas has many dimensions. Lamentably we have a segment of our population that believes like the politicians up north have come to think. If you, as a place shopper, want to find comfort and adjustment and peculiar interesting things it is best to not become a citizen of Austin…Dallas, to a degree nowadays…Houston…and lamentably El Paso.
My urging, without qualification of any kind, is to find yourself in the big city, and take your road map or geohydrogenating -distancometer or whatever works for you and drive out-a-ways, say between ten and forty miles. You will find yourself before long in semi-remote Nowheresville so full of pick-ups and rifle-racks that your hand-held abacus could never count them all.
You will encounter old-timers, busy housewives, beat-up old cars, normalcy, churches, nice little stores. You will then look for a bier hall or a tavern or a nice little eating-place and go in and act nonchalant. DON'T ASK NOTHIN' 'BOUT PROPERTY FUR SAIL. If you speak to the waitress or the cook or the owner, you can say, "I sure appreciate the chance find a place where I can clear my thinking…this is a really nice little corner of the world."
Remember that you are just arriving. Some of the people you might be sharing conversation with might be third or fifth generation. If you "let things happen", it will not be long before people might be telling you, "Remember, turn right on Baker Street, just two blocks down from here, and go about six blocks, and you'll see our 'Town Lake' so to speak…it's real pretty and full of all kinds of birds!"
Do this routine four or five times, leaving out from Austin proper. Obviously, try and go in different cardinal directions to the extent possible. Try your very best to avoid talking about political anything. Your new acquaintances might well be embroiled in pointless rants that really do not need you for a punching bag.
The passage of three to four months of this reconnoitering while comparing the places you visit to the downtown Austin, Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio to a degree, you might like many others say…"You know, we can buy a place out here, fix it up a little, when we really, really have to go into Houston…well, we can go and come back to this little place."
It is only fair that I advise that Texas is a huge place. In Amarillo, temperatures can bust zero degrees Fahrenheit in January. It can snow in San Antonio, and hit 90 degrees a month later. In the Lower Rio Grande Valley we have hurricanes, but little or no freezing temperatures or freezing precipitation.
Perhaps my "flow of consciousness and conscience" is a bit heavy handed. But we have tired of people coming from the north and saying, "Boy, everything is cheap down here. Too bad everything is so crummy." Or the forever favourite,"Back up in New Jersey things are a lot more better. Youse guys are behind the eight ball down here."
We await the future. But for this old geezer, it does not include living in a Democrat - controlled State. I genuinely would go to our little place in Mexico and stay there en lieu of suffering the likes of the governors of New York and California, etc. and the messes they have made of places that were quite survivable before.
We beg your permission as I take my leave due to the number of chores my wife has prescribed for me this pleasant evening.
Thanks for your attention. We will respond to individuals who would like further commentary about the pros and cons of the Republic of Texas.
EL GRINGO VIEJO
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To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them.
