GENERATIONS

I am trying to understand the arrogance of Texans.

I am a Texan. I was born and reared here. But I don't understand the braggadocio.

Yes, "reared" is correct. One raises cattle and crops. One rears children.

I'll flash my generation card for the sake of credibility with the purists. I am a sixth generation Texan. Tarrant County has streets bearing my maiden name. Real estate agents in Waxahachie will not speak to me because of my maiden name being synonymous with the tense history of Johnson and Ellis Counties. Folks that quickly respond with claims of being an eighth or ninth generation Texan are suspect and might be lying. Flash that, and I'll need to see your Ancestry.com account before I believe you.

I was born a Casstevens. We are as much a part of this state as the Alamo and the Battle of San Jacinto.

I more than belong to the club. Doesn't mean I particularly fall into lock-step with the culture of stereotype. I...find it difficult to brag about Texas, though I have been known to discuss it with a touch of pride. Not as much now as I did when I was younger. I have grown up since then. I see things as they are, not as I wish them to be.

Texans get described often as big, loud, brash, and obnoxious. I find that true among some of the transplants, but not generally the 4+ generation crowd. The real 4+ generation crowd. They know who they are and where they came from. No need to discuss pedigree. No reason to whip it out and swing it around. Real confidence keeps its counsel. Remember that.

I puzzle over the obsession with our flag. It is beautiful in its simplicity, but I never considered it home decor. I find it rather pedestrian to wear it as apparel or display it in lawn furniture. It is our state flag, but I am of the mind that some people feel the need to wrap themselves in it because they do not feel secure enough in their place here.

Mind, if y'all are decorating with that Lone Star, that's your choice. I'll respect it. It's just not something I can get behind except in rare instances. But y'all do y'all.

I find that a lot of Texans use their "citizenship" as a means to cover up a great deal of insecurity. They look at those "natives" who do not conform to their ideals of open-carry gun culture, anti-intellectualism, and the aggressive pursuit of a lack of sophistication as not quite Texan enough to wear the brand. They turn their noses up in a peculiar mode of snobbery to those of us Texans who choose to be mavericks and do our own thing rather than perpetuate the redneck bumpkin image.

I was not aware that there were a strict set of rules to being a Texan of which the top three included being ignorant, uncouth, and xenophobic. I choose not to abide by those rules. Independence from the collective is more Texan than conformity will be any day.

Sidebar: I own guns. I am pro-2nd Amendment and quite all right with conceal-carry. I simply think open-carry advertises insecurity and fire-power to your enemy. The display of a gun appears to be making up for "smaller things" of the person showing it off. Signs announcing that trespassers will be shot tells criminals you have a gun safe ripe for the breaking and entering. If you're comfortable with your adversary knowing what your weaknesses are and how much property they can take from you, more power to you. Good luck. You'll need it.

That last statement is more Texan than many will understand and I speak it from a place of confidence. If you are a real Texan, you will know that instinctively instead of being offended.

I, and other Texans of my ilk, get accused of being "liberal," something that is not considered Texan at all by Rexall wranglers. But Gene Autry, Tioga's native son, composed the Cowboy Code that embrace what some consider liberal today:

Autry was one of my father's favorite celebrity cowboys. No one was more Texan than my daddy. So I think being "liberal," or--as I see it--simply being a decent person, is pretty nicely outlined by a native Texan and cowboy of legend. I think that makes me quite possibly more Texan than the pretenders who sneer at me.

This is not political. This is common decency. Holster your righteous indignation.

John Steinbeck was married to Elizabeth Anderson, a Texan and the final Mrs. Steinbeck, for 18 years. He had a special view of Texas and Texans because of his wife.

Steinbeck, for the uninitiated, was John Ernst Steinbeck Jr., an American author who won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature. In his book, Travels With Charley, he wrote:

“I have said that Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closely approximating a religion. And this is true to the extent that people either passionately love Texas or passionately hate it and, as in other religions, few people dare to inspect it for fear of losing their bearings in mystery or paradox. But I think there will be little quarrel with my feeling that Texas is one thing. For all its enormous range of space, climate, and physical appearance, and for all the internal squabbles, contentions, and strivings, Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps stronger than any other section of America. Rich, poor, Panhandle, Gulf, city, country, Texas is the obsession, the proper study, and the passionate possession of all Texans.”

That's one way to put it.

I love that Steinbeck made use of the Oxford comma, by the way.

I would like to see Texans ditch the divisive attitude toward those of us who do not conform to the stereotype to which they so tightly cling. I would like us to regain that tight cohesiveness of which Steinbeck wrote. I would like to see Texans become a little more Gene Autry and a little less embarrassing to know.

After all, I am a Texan, too, stereotypes be damned.