The National Blog of Texas

Texans are not whining about the elections.

Ok, Folks. Texas has given you complainers plenty of time to get used to the election results. After listening to all the whiners after the election, some folks from Real Texas have decided that we might just take matters into our own hands.

First a little history lesson. It’s our independent nature to point out the people who enjoy the Texas Lifestyle have the right to secede and form our own country once again whenever the people of Texas choose to do so. Some other states also have this right. The difference is, Texas has actually pulled that trigger before.

Yes, Texas was an Independent Republic before it became a state and can secede. Nothing inherently prohibits that from taking place.

Let’s get this straight. John McCain, a real American hero, carried Texas by over a million votes.  Texans can still smell the fires of the Twin Towers. We would also honor President Bush. George Bush simply did what any RealTexan would do and that is to go try his best to annihilate anyone who was responsible for attacking us. We don’t fault him for that. We applaud that sort of behavior. It’s Texas politics, Texas style.

We’re ready to secede.

Don’t get me wrong. We like ya’ll — We just don’t want to be like ya’ll.

#1: Barak Obama becomes President of the United States (all the other 49 states).

#2: Ross Perot becomes the next President of the Republic of Texas and invites John McCain to be an honorary Texan. We honor our heroes in Texas and honor their service. McCain is welcome here and he can be Secretary of the Texas Navy. Native Texan George Foreman will be Secretary of Defense. After that is all said and done, we wish Mr. Obama well. We really do.

We expect one of Perot’s first acts as President of the Republic will be to tear down the border wall and erect a 10’ wall around Austin to keep the “Austin Weird” folks in and away from the rest of us. If they will just pipe their Texas music out over the wall, it will keep the rest of us happy. ( Just kidding my Austin relatives on that one.) However, Willie will be Secretary of Agriculture and music. Wonder what he will grow?

So what does Texas have to do to survive as a Republic? Here’s a few things to be aware of. Texas is the 11th largest economy on the planet. We are bigger than Spain and right behind Great Britain. We are also bigger than Russia. We are an economic force to be reckoned with. We have a constitutional amendment to balance our budget….and we do it. We also have a multi-billion dollar budget surplus this year. We are so big, we have our own power grid. Yes, that’s true.

What else?
NASA is in Houston. (we will control the space industry). We refine over 85% of the gasoline in the United States. Defense Industry? We have over 65% of it. The term “Don’t mess with Texas,” will take on a whole new meaning. Oil - we can supply all the oil the Republic of Texas will need for the next 300 years. Obama states? Sorry about that.

As David Werst said, “We like ya’ll, we just don’t want to be like ya’ll.” You can buy oil (pronounced like ya’ll) from us instead of terrorist countries that hate you. We will love you for paying so much to us instead of Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait and others.

You don’t want to ‘drill baby drill’ or put up with those nasty oil wells? Well, we do and we know how to do it without polluting the land, air, and sea. BTW-We have our own ports and shipping lanes. We’re also not “waiting on our FEMA check” to rebuild Galveston. We are doing it right now as we speak. Natural Gas - Again we have all we need and again, it’s just too bad about you blue Obama states who don’t want drilling. We’ve been driving around with those big tanks in the backs of our pickups for years now. We’ll switch over to compressed natural gas. Obama will figure a way to keep ya’ll warm….according to your need. Or, you could use ocean waves, or make friends with Hugo Chavez or what’s his name in Iran.

Computer Industry - we currently lead the nation in producing computer chips and communications: Small places like Texas Instruments, Dell, EDS, Raytheon, Motorola, Intel, Austin Technology Centers Etc, Etc. The list goes on and on. Health Centers - We have the largest research centers for Cancer research, the best burn centers and the top trauma units in the world, and other large health centers. We have enough colleges to keep us going: UT, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Texas State University, Rice, SMU, TCU, University of Houston, Baylor, UNT, Texas Women’s University, etc. Ivy grows better in the south anyway. We have a ready supply of workers (just open the border when we need some more).

But, we won’t have an illegal immigration problem. Former Texas Governor candidate Kinky Friedman solved that. He proposed we pay 5 Mexican Generals a million a year to control illegal immigration-folks coming from Mexico to Texas illegally. For every illegal that slips through, we deduct $10,000. Wonder how many will get across the border into Texas? We won’t need a Border Patrol.

We like tourism. Come stay a while. Enjoy a Cowboys game or go to Six Flags over Texas….then go home. We don’t need any more Californians coming here and messing things up. Or, they could live in Austin where we can keep an eye on ‘em.

We have control of the paper industry, plastics, insurance, etc. In case of a foreign invasion, we have the Texas National Guard and the Texas Air National Guard. We don’t have an army but since everybody down here is heavily armed and has at least six rifles and a pile of ammo, we can raise an army in 6 hours if we need it. That’s the Texas way. When the tower sniper started shooting in Austin a few years back, citizens piled out of their cars and pickups and started returning fire within 2 minutes. Our citizens are licensed to carry handguns on their person.

We have a saying down here: “If you mess with the bull, you’re gonna get the horn.” And an even more remarkable finding from the past…. Average Murder per 100,000 residents in counties won by Bush: 0.1 of one percent. Average Murder per 100,000 residents in counties won by Gore: 13.2. In Texas, even some of our school teachers carry guns. We won’t surrender our kids to nuts and terrorists without a fight. Don’t even think about messing with us. If you want the sticker, click on it…

If the situation really gets bad, we can always call the Texas DPS and ask them to send over a couple of Texas Rangers. We are totally self sufficient in beef, poultry, hogs and vegetable produce and everybody down here knows how to cook them so that they taste good. Don’t need any food.

Arts? Bob Wills is still the king, but we also like different types of music, Country….and….Western. We even have our own beer. Lone Star, The National Beer of Texas. This just names a few of the items that will keep the Republic of Texas in good shape. There isn’t a thing out there that we need and don’t have. Just keep on reading David Werst’s RealTexas Blog for more details on how to be a RealTexan.

Now to the rest of the United States under President Obama: Since you won’t have the refineries to get gas for your cars, We’ll sell you gas too. We’ll call the gas company Texasco or something like that. Happy to do it. You won’t have any TV as the space center in Houston will cut off your communications or ask you to pay for the signal. It will be Texas Direct TV. Hank Jr. will move here and be in charge of programming.

Did you know we don’t even have an income tax?

We have all we need here in God’s country and like I’ve already said, if we don’t have it, we don’t need it. We will have cheap, plentiful energy. The new Texas Secretary of Energy, T. Boone Pickens will be putting up thousands of wind generators all over the west Texas plains and since everybody else thinks Texas is full of hot air, we might as well take advantage of it.

Good luck. Ya’ll are gonna need it.
Signed, The People of Real Texas

Here’s a song for you. Don’t be offended, that’s just the way it is according to Ray Wylie Hubbard.

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Q: What does a vampire drink at a party?

A: A Bloodweiser.

Happy Halloween from RealTexasBlog.com

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Here’s something interesting that might help folks in some urban areas as well as out here in the sticks in RealTexas country.  I really like the tip about one friend’s elderly parents using the information.

Yes, I go to Wal-Mart with everybody else and to the grocery store with the wife.  Sometimes I go out unsupervised and have to park in big parking lots.  Being semi-absent minded, I often forget exactly where I park in big parking lots.  It’s at these times I use the button on my car keys that turns on the horn. I hear the horn honk, then head that direction to find my car or pickup.  It’s a handy little trick that must have been designed especially for me.  Oh, you too?

But here’s another good use for that button on your car if you live in town or even if you don’t.  Read on:
Tell your spouse, your children, your neighbors, your parents your Dr’s office, the check-out girl at the market, everyone you run across.

Put your car keys beside your bed at night.

If you hear a noise outside your home or someone trying to get in your house, just press the panic button for your car. The alarm will be set off, and the horn will continue
to sound until either you turn it off or the car battery dies.

This tip came from a neighborhood watch coordinator. Next time you come home for the night and you start to put your keys away, think of this:

It’s a security alarm system that you probably already have and requires no installation. Test it. It will go off from most everywhere inside your house and will keep honking until your battery runs down or until you reset it with the button on the key fob chain. It works if you park in your driveway or garage If your car alarm goes off when someone is trying to break into your house, odds are the burglar or rapist won’t stick around… After a few seconds all the neighbors will be looking out their windows to see who is out there and sure enough the criminal won’t want that. And remember to carry your keys while walking to your car in a parking lot. The alarm can work the same way there ….. This is something that should really be shared with everyone.  Maybe it could save a life or a sexual abuse crime.

P.S. There is a “Share This” button at the bottom of this blog post and I suggest you send it on to your friends via email.  I am sending this to everyone I know because I think it is fantastic. Would also be useful for any emergency, such as a heart attack, where you can’t reach a phone. Here’s what one friend who has older parents told me, “My Mom has suggested to my Dad that he carry his car keys with him in case he falls outside and she doesn’t hear him.  He can activate the car alarm and then she’ll know there’s a problem.”

Good ideas come from anywhere.  Even from friends who read RealTexasBlog.com

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With Halloween coming, now is a great time to remember the all time scariest movies you have ever seen. You might even want to pick one out and play it on that night. Halloween falls on a Friday night this year and if you have a Texas High School football game that night, switch your horror movie to Saturday night. I have several lists for you to choose from and I’ve compiled my own Top 10 scariest movie of all time.
One of my early memories is spending the night over at my friends house and watching the late night horror movies on his TV. Yes, black and white of course and the screen size was probably just over 12″. Some poor guy in the studio dressed up as a campy character named Iago. You have to drag it out…eeeaaaagooooo. I’m sure it was one of the stations in Midland or Odessa and we all received a snowy picture via our TV antennae.
They had a section of the studio for poor Mr. Iago where he would entertain us at commercial breaks with bowls of eyeballs, lots of red sphagetti insides, and various blood potions. I would love to talk to that guy now!
The movies we watched were what you would call cult classics now. Some of the best were the Dracula movies. I vividly remember Frank Gorshen and his wickedly evil laugh after he ate bugs and spiders in his jail cell, all the while desperately wanting out to be able serve his master…Drraaahhcula. You would have to hear that wicked laugh to fully appreciate it. Lon Chaney (I think) was usually a werewolf, and Frankenstein was harassed by the townspeople of his village.
Those were good times and great horror movies.

Here’s a list of my all time favorite scariest horror movies:
1. The Exorcist
2. Night of the Living Dead
3. Rosemary’s Baby
4. Dracula
5. Psycho
6. Alien
7. Frankenstein
8. Jaws
9. The Birds
10. Carrie

There are others of different genres, and some of these obviously fit into the sci-fi, occult, and other categories, but they are a list of my all time favorites.
At the top of most people’s list is The Exorcist. It scared the bejeezus out of us all because most of us DO believe in the devil and evil in the world.

others horror movies I considered included:
Jeepers Creepers
Bride of Frankenstein
The Shining
The Body Snatchers
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The Thing
the Blob
The Amityville Horror
Poltergeist
The Omen
The Others
Christine
…and Wait Until Dark was the only movie where I jumped out of my seat and shouted a warning to a potential victim.
In my small town youth, the theater was segregated, we would enter the theater together and my black friends would take the stairs to the right and I would enter into the main theater. We though nothing of it, it was just the way it was. However, an older black gentleman we all knew would always tell the heroine to “look out girl” at the moment just before something happened to her, or before a giant bug ate someone. I thought all movie theaters were interactive like this.

And there are others I have missed or just can’t think of at this time. I remember a movie, it could have been called The Pendulum. A giant pendulum swung over a person tied down on a table and eventually cut them in half.
It made an impression on a young me as a horrible way to die.

You also remember some of the names. See if you can match these names up to your fav horror movie: Linda Blair, Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Mia Farrow, Gregory Peck, Christopher Lee, Vincent Price, Jack Nicholson, Anthony Perkins, Sissy Spacek, Robert Shaw, Rod Taylor, Jamie Lee Curtis, Bruce Willis, Craig T. Nelson, Nicole Kidman…ok so that’s a little obscure, but do your remember her in “The Others” with her two small children? Don’t forget “The Tingler” the big caterpillar bug creature that attached to your spine? That one was way ahead of Alien bugs.

There’s your pre-Halloween list of my picks for the scariest movies of all time.
Leave me a comment and tell me what YOUR favorite scary movie is……..

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In addition to chili cookoffs, brisket cookoffs, and bean competitions held almost every weekend somewhere in Texas, a new competition has come forward and it’s pretty hot stuff!

It’s a salsa competition or salsa fest as a lot of folks call them. It’s Hot Sauce, picante, or liquid fire. Take your pick on the name, it’s all good.

Salsa fests are very often held in conjunction with some sort of community fund raising efforts and the salsa fest we went to this last weekend was no exception. The Irion County Salsa Fest was held to benefit the Irion County Child Welfare Board headed up by a great group of small town volunteers. It’s these types of cookoffs and festivals that make living out in RealTexas such a good lifestyle.

And, you learn some useful life skills that come in handy . So, let’s introduce you to “Rhino Salsa.” Rhino Salsa is the creation of Ryan ‘Rhino’ Williams who is a proud resident of Sherwood, Texas. I’m not sure if you will find Sherwood on the map, but Rhino Salsa may eventually put Ryan on the map.

Just as every good Texan should be able to cook a brisket and a good pot of beans, another handy skill for any male or female RealTexan is to brew up a big batch of Salsa. I’ve tasted some of the best Salsa in Texas including Ramona’s all natural salsa fixed with ingrediants from our own garden, to Bertha Garza’s salsa, to the very tasty Rhino Salsa. If I have to have ’store bought’ hot sauce or salsa, then I would have to say Pace picante sauce is hard to beat or H.E.B.’s store brand Hill Country hot sauce or salsa. We always get the ‘hot’ version, not mild.

But, because I can have all natural hot sauce from my own garden from my own jalapenos and peppers, why wouldn’t I?

I think “Rhino” Salsa was some of the very best I have ever tasted. We got Ryan ‘Rhino’ Williams to agree to share his ’secret’ recipe with us here in RealTexasBlog.com

Try this out for some of the tastiest salsa you could hope to have.

‘Rhino’ Salsa from Ryan Williams

2 cans 28 oz whole tomatoes

1/4 cup cilantro

1 1/2 lbs Roma tomatoes

3 roasted chili peppers

2 roasted jalapenos

5 roasted garlic cloves

1 large white onion

3 tsp salt

2 tsp garlic salt

2 limes (squeezed)

5 roasted sweet peppers

2 roasted pablano peppers

2 roasted mango slices

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/2 tsp oregano

1 tsp vinegar

1 fresh jalapeno chopped

1 fresh chili pepper

6 oz tomatoe sauce

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

Ryan prepares all this using a food processor. Roast your peppers on your outdoor grill if possible.

If you don’t like using two squeezed limes, only squeeze one.

This mixture will make approximately one gallon of salsa and it is RealTexas gooooood!

Interview with Ryan video:

He makes his Salsa with a “little love and a lotta Texas”

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Some folks play fetch with their dog and some play tug o’ war with their bobcats. We fall into the latter category out here in RealTexas. Bobby the Bobcat came to live with us as a young kitten (both his parents were killed and we rescued him) and Ramona bottle fed him when his eyes were barely open. He joined a family of two adults, Joe David who was away at college, a domestic cat, and a big Chow-Chow dog named Stars who became Bobby’s surrogate mother.

Bobby quickly became a favorite out here in Real Texas and he comes and goes out of and into the house by way of a special ramp and doggy door we built for him to his outdoor pen. We don’t let him run wild because Bobcats are very good predators out here in Real Texas and most of us carry guns. He has killed snakes, squirrels, and birds who have unfortunately ventured into his cage (including Ramona’s favorite little baby chicken). He is a bed hog and feels he has to lay on top of Sandy, the domestic cat and Ramona. His purring is loud enough to wake the dead and to wake up face to face with a Bobcat is a little different to say the least. We have lots of ‘Bobby’ stories and he will be a more regular feature on future posts.
Facts about Bobby:
1. He is seven and half years old and weighs about 50 pounds. Very strong, very fast.
2. He eats a special diet we custom fix for him and we will publish that diet in a later post. BTW, it’s disgusting.
3. He is a one family bobcat. We don’t let strangers into his cage and we put him out of the room when we have company.
4. No, he doesn’t attack us or bite us. He does nip when he wants attention then squints his eyes and backs his head away expecting a smack in return…which he rarely gets.
5. He is very friendly when you are bringing him his supper.
6. He is otherwise very cat-like and sort of ignores you except when he wants attention.
7. When he wants attention, it is hard to ignore him.
8. Yes, we realize he is a wild animal and give him the respect he deserves in every way. No, we do not recommend anyone get a real bobcat to raise. They take a lifetime commitment.
9. He’s Ramona’s baby….Big, Big baby.
10. Bobcats are common out here in Real Texas. Bobby is a larger cat, but he eats regularly.
11. Stars the Chow-Chow rules the animals of the house and yard.

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Out here in RealTexas we often look for excuses to celebrate something. Over in the Metro Miles area, they celebrate the Miles Cotton Festival, hosted by the Miles Preservation Society. Miles is a blip in the road that a lot of folks in that part of RealTexas are proud to call home. Out here we think that small and rural is better than big and urban. The people at the Miles Cotton Festival offered us every kind of barbecue, ribs, beer, margaritas, hot dogs, Frito Pie, Gorditos, grilled jalapeños, and other food.

The cooker featured in the post was one of many. I intend to do a full post and video on barbecue cookers along with showing off the one I use and my own special recipe and technique for cooking a brisket from scratch. It’s not something I did right the first time, but now I do a pretty decent job. There were literally hundreds of cookers, smokers, and grills at the Cotton Festival and those folks were some serious outdoor RealTexas chefs who take their barbecue serious.

Lots of RealTexas folks have some pretty fancy cooking rigs, some have wheels and can be trailered from place to place and some are stationary like mine and stay out in the yard. Yes, the one and only wood acceptable for cooking a brisket is mesquite. Good thing we have so much of it. Life in RealTexas is goooood!

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Been really busy lately putting up a 70′ tower to hit another really tall tower several hundred feet tall twenty or so miles away in San Angelo so I can get true high speed internet. After two unsuccessful tries, the tower went up and started receiving strong signal the second it was activated. Hooray. That is the main reason there have been no posts for a few days now.

We have had Hughes Net satellite internet for several years because I thought it was the only option. I have really tall, massive, ancient pecan trees and no access to DSL because of our rural location. Finally had enough one day because my business model depends on high speed internet for streaming video. Couldn’t do that with Hughes. Went into San Angelo and visited with Bill Jones of Zipnet.us and he thought it might be possible, if we could get over the trees. After all is said and done, we NOW HAVE high speed and can do anything. I feel like the man with the lever who can move the world.

Of course there are several people to thank for the success of this project. Joe David Werst came and spent the better part of two days welding on the drillstem part of the antennae. Mike Dolan, a great Real Estate agent in this part of Texas, provided pipe, structural steel, and 4″ posts and concrete. He will probably never have to buy beer for the rest of the year. In addition to Bill Jones and his crew of Zipnet, Ramona did a great job also. She can do anything. The most accolades however go to chief engineer Richard Boggs. Richard ramrodded this venture and provided lots of technical expertise in a mostly polite way. Meaning he didn’t cuss directly at me most of the time. With the addition of the tower we can now proceed with our internet ventures including RealTexasBlog.com, and the not quite launched “So You Think You Can Ebay.com”. We have a great plan, and business model to grow on, and it’s all coming down the road in “high speed”.

Here are a few things that had to be done:

1. Had to dig a 6′ hole in the ground, (I’m a degreed ditchdigger thank you) welded two 4″ drill pipes close together with enough room for another piece of pipe to fit in between them to make the cantilever base. Put 6′ of the 4″ pipe in the hole and filled the hole with a yard of concrete and let it set for a couple days. BTW, drillstem is not plain old 2″structural steel pipe. About twice as heavy.
2. Put a drillstem 30′ pipe in between the two 4″ pipes and welded a pivot point onto it.
3. Welded another 33′ drillstem pipe onto that and then attached a 10′ aluminum pipe with antennae attached to it. Wired it all together with R6 romax
4. Attempted to raise tower. Tower was too heavy. Cut off top piece of drillstem and attached 30′ aluminum telescoping pole to that. Re-attached antennae.
5. Tried to raise pole again. Aluminum pole buckled. Cut a smaller piece of aluminum pole and drove it into larger piece, in essence one pole inside another for double strength. Tried to raise pole. Success. Got signal and living happily ever after.
6. That makes it all seem simple, but it was much more than that.
7. Where did the idea originate? From me. Who made it happen? Lots of people working together. That’s how nearly anything gets done. Richard was proud of his engineering and I was proud of everyone.
Here’s a short video of the last…and successful attempt at raising the pole. My pickup is attached to a cable which in turn is attached to a section of the pipe in the stand. Maybe I’ll have a picture later of how it all fits together. The dern thing is too heavy to raise by hand, so the pickup pulled it up. It nearly went off to the right too far, but we have the technique down pat now.

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OK, it’s a given that you can read, write, make money, procreate, swim, eat, philosophize, compute, ride, rope, drive a standard shift on the column or on the floor, be athletic, communicate with friends, socialize, network, and all the good things that modern Texans can do….but can you cook a brisket? And I don’t mean in the stove. Does your brisket have a little smoke ring around the outside and the inside is tender, not overcooked, and is cut properly and not shredded. Is it like Big John’s at Fuzzy’s Corner or Cooper’s in Llano? Yep, I prefer Big John’s.

If you can’t cook a good brisket, how good a Texan are you anyway? Yes, this is mainly for the men. Sorry, that’s just the way it is. I’ve always thought it was the man’s job to cook the brisket and the women’s job to let him, support him, and not criticize (laugh or curse) too much until he gets it right. Sometimes it take us a while. And yes, we know who does all the work at a barbecue and who gets all the credit for burning a piece of meat. We’ve been told all that before….and we empathize.

But back to brisket. We’ll attempt to show you how to get it right the first time in a later post, but what does it take really to be a good Texan? What is essential?

Here’s a start

What are the 10 essential skills every Real Texan should know.
That is those of you who live out here in RealTexas.

1. Cook a brisket. This is essential. It’s something you gotta know how to do sooner or later and it may as well be sooner. What Texan is not a barbecue lover? Unless you live in Lockhart, you gotta know how to do this. Heck, even if you live next door to Nieman-Marcus, you should be able to do this one Texan thing if you have any cajones at all. It’s a learned skill, kinda like frying a Turkey for Thanksgiving. But you CAN do this.
2. Kill a snake. Yes, kill. Snakes. Mainly rattlesnakes that is. You just want to do it right and every RealTexan should be able to kill a snake. The generally preferred method is with a shovel. I’ve blasted them with a shotgun, but it also put holes in my trashcan next to where the snake was. Shotguns are indiscriminate. You can bat it down with a shovel if it gets aggressive and tries to strike, and you can pin any part of its body down until you can get to the head and chop it’s head off or at least mash the head so it is no longer functioning. I’ve done that many times with rattlesnakes in the yard. Now I have to deal with Water moccasins coming up from the creek. No, I don’t kill non-venomous snakes, preferring a live and let live attitude with them. I’ve even had an arrangement with rattlesnakes before as long as they leave. But, if they show the slightest bit of aggression or they like living in the garden. They end up as buzzard bait.
3. Have a favorite beer. For the barbecuing of the brisket. Great Taste…less filling, The National Beer of Texas, Rocky Mountain Spring Water. Jax, Pearl. Bud Lite. I’ve seen it all and most Real Texans have a favorite. Preferably a Texas beer. Lone Star, Miller, and a few others. I personally have a ‘few’ cans of Coors Light around and I think it’s made somewhere in Northwest Texas.
4. Tell a joke. If I walk up to Cliff McMullan anywhere in Texas, he will have a joke for me. Ditto for several of my friends. Have yourself a favorite ready to tell. Not Nasty. Just funny, witty, and able to be repeated. Yes, it can be a little risque, just not in the gutter like one friend of mine. His jokes were gutter dirty. Not funny. He had a very nice decent wife. Made me always wonder about him. It’s a “good Ole boy” thing. Have a good joke at the ready. Always.
5. Speak a little Spanish. I walked into a store a Hispanic friend of mine owns and his son was working the counter. I spoke to him in Spanish and asked for a certain item. He couldn’t understand me. That’s a crime in Real Texas. Your kids (and you) should be able to speak a little Espanol on occasion. You don’t have to have a big vocabulary. But it is a GOOD thing to be bi-lingual. Not a one of my Hispanic friends wants to live in that hellhole called Mexico. Some of them sacrificed a lot just to get here. But this IS Texas and we do have traditions and some of those traditions are cross cultural. That’s a fact. Be able to converse in Spanish just a little.
6. Have a Texas Hero. Sam Houston. Jim Bowie. Not politically correct? Try Nolan Ryan. Earl Campbell. Roy Benavides. Bonnie and Clyde, O. Henry, Texas Native Americans, Buddy Holly, Mary Kay Ash, Ima Hogg. You a Republican? How about Karl Rove. You a Democrat? There’s LBJ. Find some Texan you can relate to and study them, learn all about them. Texans have enormous influence worldwide. Don’t believe it? Texan T. Boone Pickens is going to change the way we think about energy. Just watch the ads and watch a master (with money) at work.
7. Know how to make a Margarita. My wife buys her certain brand of tequila in Mexico. I can’t stand it. I get mine in Texas. But a good Margarita is essential. Study the history of the Margarita and make it a specialty. Maybe you will eventually learn to climb up on a table and take off your shirt.
8. Have a Favorite Texas Book. Even the dumbest guys I know read a little bit. Some of the smartest read a lot. However, pick a favorite author and start learning a little bit about Texas. I’ve personally read every book J.Frank Dobie ever wrote. Read a lot of McMurtry. A lot of Elmer Kelton, a lot of many others. Take your pick and find a good Texas author. How ’bout the movie/book “No Country for old Men”. Yep. written by a Texan.
9. Be loyal. When I served on the school board a number of years back, we had a new Superintendent. It came time to award bids for a new gasoline contract. I listened politely while the new Supt. made his case for a slightly cheaper out of town supplier who offered the district a very few cents less per gallon on his bid. He was doing his job. The current supplier was very competitive and had provided gas for the buses to run when shortages were rampant. He kept us and the kids of that district in business. Who did we go with? I don’t know if that new Supt. learned the lesson we tried to teach. We stayed loyal to someone who had stayed loyal to us. It meant something back then and it means something today. No, you don’t have to go to jail for someone, but common sense can prevail.
10. Be patriotic. Yes, God Bless Texas. March 2 is Texas Independence day. April 21 is San Jacinto Day. We all know about July 4, but that is a national event. Learn about Texas. It’s an essential trait and another reason to take the day off and cook a good brisket.

11. Cook beans. It’s essential to know how to cook a pot of beans. I know a surgeon who takes a lot of pride in his pot of beans. Red beans. Pinto beans. I don’t care if you just moved to Austin from Minnesota, learn to cook a pot of beans and you will be on your way to being Texan. There’s different ways and I have my favorite way, but every good Texas man has to be able to cook a pot of beans. You can live off those things. Add a little cornbread and you have a feast. Add some jalapeno’s on the side and it’s a gourmet meal.

Also important:
It’s also essential to know your directions. North, East, South and especially West.
Follow a favorite Texas singer or group. Yes, it is St. Willie, but if you don’t get carried away by C&W, how ’bout ZZ Top playing La Grange, (there’s a lotta nice women there) or Robert Earl, Lyle, Pat, T. Gosney, or the up and coming Zach Edwards, Gabe Garcia and Mellisa Lawson. Learn all about your favorite and be interested. Support your Texas singer/songwriters.

Follow a TEXAS team. It pisses me off greatly to see some kid in baggy pants wearing an Oakland Raiders jersey. What in the hell does that have to do with Texas? Nothing. If it’s sports, you’ve got your pick, Dallas or Houston. A&M or Texas, Rockets or Spurs, Odessa Permian or Southlake Carroll. Angelo State or Abilene Christian. Lady Raiders or Lady Longhorns. Ice Bats or Jackalopes. You get the idea. Your hometown Vs. anyone else. You don’t have to go out of state to pick yourself a winner. In case you haven’t figured it out lately it’s been us against the world. Let’s support us.

There you have it. 11 essential skills for Texans to master and a few other points to work on.

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