I’ve never been much of a city girl. I grew up in a small town near Red River in East Texas and when I got married I moved to a rural area about five miles from the town where I grew up. Dallas is the closest big city and I rarely go there. Sometimes it’s necessary but I prefer the peace and quiet of our rural lifestyle.
I’m a Conservative. The big cities in this state are very Liberal. I have become more vocal about my political beliefs over the past decade or so and as more and more liberal people move here from other parts of the country I am increasingly glad that I don’t live in a big city. I would be miserable.
My roots are here. My ancestors came to Texas within a year of it becoming a state. I’m proud of being a native Texan and blessed to be able to continue to live here.
As much as I have disagreed with our current Governor over the past eighteen months of so-called Covid 19 pandemic, I am happy that he has taken a stand about putting a stop to mask mandates and future lock-downs and I hope to see our economy back where it was before all this BS and nonsense began.
The older I become the less likely I am to trust government whether it be county, state or federal government. It seems that we the people are the ones who lose. Every. Time. But I believe things have become bad enough recently that ordinary people have had enough and are standing up and saying not only No, but Hell No! If only our elected representatives would grow backbones and put those who elected them first instead of caving to special interest groups. They need to worry more about the people who put them in office and how quickly we will vote them out.
Things are getting better on the local level already. Just yesterday there were two articles on our local news station about full capacity for Texas high school sports this season and the Kueckelhan Ranch Rodeo back this weekend in Bonham.
When other parts of the country are being threatened with mask mandates and vaccination passports Texas is free of that and I seriously doubt it will ever be a problem for us. People just won’t stand for it.
Texans tend to have a different approach to life than a lot of people in this country. Some say it comes from having once been a Republic, a country of our own. I think there may be something in that. I also believe it has a lot to do with the fact that so many families, especially in our area, can trace our ancestry back to the very people who helped settle this state in the first place. There is a certain amount of well deserved pride in that. It means something. We belong.
I once had a rather comical online conversation with a woman from London, England while in a chat room on Pogo.com. She was joking around and wasn’t mean spirited at all but commented that ‘You Yanks think you can do anything.” I responded, “No. We KNOW we can. And by the way, calling a native Texan a Yank is about the most insulting thing you can say. We are not Damn Yankees, thank you very much.” She was quite taken aback and apologized profusely for not understanding the dynamic until I had explained it. She then went on to say, “But you do see what I meant don’t you? You people do think you can do anything!” Again I explained that we don’t ‘think’ we can do anything, we just do it.
And that is it in a nutshell. We don’t hem and haw and discuss a thing to death. We just get moving and get the job done. That woman was raised in a society where it really matters what other people think of you and if you don’t toe the line and behave like a proper little Englishman or woman your entire life can change overnight.
I’ve been told that 50% of the population of Texas is in the major cities in the state. That means that the other half is made up of small town and rural areas. Just like ours. As more liberals move here they tend to congregate in the cities and I can see at some point that the state will become more liberal than conservative and that scares the crap out of me. We can’t take this lifestyle of ours for granted. We have to speak out, stand up…and vote!
It all starts at the local level: City councils, school boards, County Sheriffs, Justices of the Peace, County Commissioner, and so forth. Just average people stepping up and running for local offices can effect a great deal of change in a short period of time.
What this country needs is courage. Courage, backbone, ethics and a desire to do the right thing. We can do anything we put our minds to and have done for generations, but I think people have forgotten that. It’s time to remind them who we really are. Politicians work for us. Not the other way around.
Rural Texas Knitter 