Texas Studies!!

"Shee-it, Texas wishes it was part of the South!"

--- A Guy From Georgia


Okay, Texans, I have a geography and culture quiz
for you:

You are in your car and you have just left Shreveport, LA
and crossed the state line into Texas.

How far west do you have to drive before you are no
longer in the South (Dixie)? :)

Please feel free to grab a map or atlas and be as
precise as you want. You can use a city or town as a
marker if you want. (Tyler? Canton? Mexia? Dallas?)

I'm just curious to know what folks think.

We are so darn big and great we can be anything we want! :D

You know ..."where does the gorilla sit when he walks into a full bar?" ...answer : Anywhere he wants to. :)

We can be middle America(note our location on a map of the US)...we can be part of the South..(I sure do think that Houston is farther "south" than Atlanta..correct my geography if I am wrong there) We can be north if you use Dallas in comparison to Savannah, Ga. We can be the wild west if we want (see most old westerns for validation to that) Heck we are east compared to California. :D

What do you do all day Harrison? Do these strange things just pop into your mind at odd times or do you try hard to think them up? What is your fixation with Texas anyway? Freud might say it is a size thing... :D

Hey Harrison...since you have some time on your hands...here is a great (and I really think you will like it) article on this topic. :)http://xroads.virginia.edu/~DRBR/REED/tears.html

What do you do all day Harrison?"

Um....stuff that doesn't allow me to accumulate over
1600 posts on Ageless! ;) :D

Why is Texas important?? Well, look at who's running
our country! :eek:

Anyway, let's see what the other folks think!

As a native Georgian who loves a Texan...

I don't think they know their directions in that state.... How is the Texas Panhandle "West Texas" instead of "North Texas" which is reserved for the area between Dallas and Oklahoma?

Oh, by the way... I love the title of this thread. I always enjoy my Texas Studies....

Stopping now so this thread doesn't get moved to "Sexually Speaking" ;)

I've always insisted that Texas isn't part of the South in a cultural sense. There are parts of East Texas that are pretty heavily Cajun, but Cajuns aren't Southern anyways. They originated in Acadia, which was part of Canada. I'd say, although we have such ecological diversity, that we're more Western than anything else. Cattle drives originated here, Wild West outlaws lived and caused trouble here, people drove wagon trains through this land to reach California. What more do you need to call this place Western? :D

It is a big place, and we have plains grasslands, a huge desert, mountains, swamps, beaches, pine forests, hardwood forests, cliffs, canyons, and anything else you might want, so we do defy definition at times, but culturally I think the Western and Southwestern influence has been more prevalent than anything else, no matter what part of the state you're talking about.

Really, read the article. It is a good one. My post average is only 3 more per day average than your average. :D

I was on a USAir flight one time, and was seated next to a guy and we got talkin about Texas.

I remarked, quite offhandedly, that I was under the impression that Texas had only football players and prostitutes.

He gave me quite the 'LOOK'..:mad: and said "my wife is from Texas"...

So I did a fast shuffle and asked "what position does she play?"



:p ;) :p

Ok.. not a Texan.. but if we are looking at it historically, Texas was part of "the South" that seceeded from the Union, and was eventually cut off from the rest of the South (along with Arkansas and Louisianna) when the Union forces took control of the Missisppi. But still was considered a "rebel" state at that time.

Culturally though, I think I tend to agree more with PinkPanther. Maybe Texas is just so awesome, that it can fit all categories!! Seriously, I'd love to visit there one day! So all you Texans beware.. lol

Originally posted by Genevieve
.
Maybe Texas is just so awesome, that it can fit all categories!! Seriously, I'd love to visit there one day! So all you Texans beware.. lol

Well, you better come see me when you do! :)

Leave the light on for me Tru, darlin'! Hehe. :)

in my opinion.

All the reading I've done, plus my kinfolks' stories
about growing up there helps me make that decision.

In "Texas" the Texan writer Dick Reavis says:

"When journalist John Gunther drove through Texas
in 1946, he noted that 'The east is, by and large,
cotton country, with tenant farming, a Mississippi
Delta culture, mushrooming industries, big towns,
poor whites, most of the state's Negroes, and of
course, oil.' "

So, where does East Texas begin? Reavis uses
I-35 and I-10 as markers --- east of I-35 and north
of I-10.

This would include part of Dallas and part of
Houston, eh?

Now, I wonder if folks living in those cities consider
them to be "Southern cities?" ;)


P.S. Tru, I read the article. Interesting, but I think
it short-changes East Texas.

We are also the only state that when it re-entered the union after the civil war has the right to seceed at any time and the right to divide into 5 more states if we choose. We also are the only state to have our own armed forces.

Most who put down the state of Texas are just jealous. The state has almost everything to offer in the way of topography, weather and culture . . . and no state income tax. Plus friendly people . . . what more could you want!!

Personally, I think we should seceed and be our own country.

Actually, Peachy, that's half right.... Texas can split, but so can any other state, if the appropriate permissions are granted. It's just the only one to be specifically granted in writing that permission.

However, no authority to secede was ever given in the Act of Statehood, and certainly none was given after the War Between the States... the South was under Martial Law until 1877, why would they let any of us leave, and if they did, why would Texas have stayed under Reconstruction?

The ability to "un-ratify" the Constitution and secede from the United States was definitively denied by the "Civil" War. You can try, but they will beat you into submission and burn your state to the ground (I, and many Georgians, still hate William T. Sherman for what he did to our state).

Snopes.com article on it: http://www.snopes.com/history/american/texas.asp

I'll just add to what islander said. Secession may or may not be constitutional, but Texas has no more right to secede than any other state of the Union.

http://www.urbanlegends.com/politics/texas_secession_rights.html

Ok.......


anything south of Waco is South Texas.
Anything west of San Antonio is West Texas.


Cowboy

I have my own theory about why Texas seceeded with the South in the Civil War (not really based on any factual evidence, just my opinion on a factor that might have been at play). Texas had just entered the United States in 1845, and had only been a state for 16 years when it seceeded. Perhaps, instead of identifying with the Southern cause or culture, at least some Texans were in favor of secession because they preferred a Confederate-style government rather than the Federalist Republican government they had gotten themselves involved with? Texas has always been a largely populist state and a confederacy would certainly be more in line with populist thinking than a republican government would be. It also would have been easier to become their own country again if the need should arise if they were a part of a confederacy.

Pink, that sounds like a dead-on target analysis to me.

TEXAS IS A WHOLE NUTHER COUNTRY........AND I AGREE TOTALLY WITH YOU COWBOY.
:)

BTW, Im sick of people saying, look at that Texas Flag, its the only one not lowered and all the other states lower their flags before the US flag. They are so arrogant. OKAY LETS CLEAR THIS UP ONCE AND FOR ALL:

WE DO NOT LOWER OUR FLAG, we always fly it at the same level as the United States flag when all the 50 states are represented or we are alone with the US Flag because it was one of the rights given us when we entered the Union as a soverign country.

I don't mean to be busting Texan's bubbles again, but that right is given to any state.

United States Code Title 36, Chapter 10, §175f:


When flags of States, cities, or localities, or pennants of societies are flown on the same halyard with the flag of the United States, the latter should always be at the peak. When the flags are flown from adjacent staffs, the flag of the United States should be hoisted first and lowered last. No such flag or pennant may be placed above the flag of the United States or to the United States flag's right.

As long as it's flown on it's left (our right) any state can fly their flag at the same height as the United States flag. It's just more prevalent in Texas...

http://www.usflag.org/us.code36.html#175

But this doesn't change my belief that Texan women are better than any other women in the world! :D

As long as the other states fly to the right, they can be at the height of US flag, that is CORRECT, BUT WE CAN BE ON EITHER SIDE, WE are NEVER to fly lower than US flag.

Notice next time you see the flags at the White House or anywhere else, all states will be lower but Texas Flag. Im sorry, but I got this information directly from a Texas History professor. BTW, it takes 2 years to teach Texas History so much involved, and you will never see the Texas Flag lowered unless someone didnt't get the right info.


OKAY I STAND CORRECTED: See below

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/texasflag.asp

Personally, I have always thought Texas was a pretty cool place, but haven't given it much thought until about a month ago. Now, I have this growing affection for it, especially the upper right corner...grin

That would be your left sweetie if you are facing the computer :)

"Texas has always been a largely populist state..."

-- PinkPanther

Say WHAT??? :confused:


Now I'll buy "populist" for a place like Wisconsin. But
today, Texas is the last place I'd think of as a populist
state.

Isn't the Lone Star state a safe playground for large
corporations, and especially the oil and petrochemical
industries?

Just curious: what does "populist" mean to you?

I thought the divider between East and West Texas was the Pecos River. I seem to remember a sign stating that when I was driving over it at Del Rio. However, I do not know if that is the separater between The South and the West..but it makes sense to me <shrugs.>. You know that old saying..West of the Pecos...

The Texas oil industry didn't become fat and happy until the OPEC embargos of the 70's. Prior to that it lost money at every turn. But it is true that since the Civil War large landowners and ranchers have held a great deal of power at the expense of the majority. This is not necessarily a result of the will of the people. A huge percentage of the South's population during slavery was black, but does that mean they had any political control? No. The majority does not always rule.

Prior to the Civil War, Texas was mostly populated by populist farmers. Texas was a land where individualism and self-reliance were praised and people could start over and try their luck in a new land. Even today Texans are largely hostile to government and big business, although business and government have learned to work together to overrule the will of the people.

Following the Civil War, Union Reconstructionists attempted to modernize our impoverished agricultural state, but failed. The result was a coalition of 90 Southern ex-Confederate officers and landowners who seized the opportunity in 1875 to gain power by manipulating our constitution to fit their own needs. They broke executive power up into five separately elected offices (leading to one of the weakest and most ineffectual governorships in the nation), hampered state senate proceedings by forcing them to vote on bills in the order in which they are presented, limited the congressional terms to two years and required that they only meet every two years. They also denied voting rights to blacks, and required whites to pay a poll tax and register to vote a year in advance for every election.

All of this was done to preserve their own power. BUT these were not Texans. These were Southern carpetbaggers who seized the power that the Texas farmers could not. In the 1890's Texas saw a revolt by the farmers, who were fed up with an outside minority taking so much control over their state. This led to a Populist Uprising (http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/PP/wap1.html), which was unfortunately defeated.

Hey, thanks, Pink Panther.....

Looks like you know quite a bit about Texas!

I'm impressed. :)