I once had the privilege of living for roughly three years in the state of Mexico, a state one magazine - devoted solely to matters about that state - featured a column about with a masthead "One of Our Fifty Is Missing." It's a common misconception of most Easterners that the state of New Mexico is actually within the nation of what we locals call here "Old Mexico," instead of what it truly is - one of the fifty states of this Union. It's also noteworthy to recall the fond and pleasant memories I have of that state and the people I had the opportunity to meet while I was there.
But let's say that a part of my stay within its borders also carries some extremely painful memories for me. The one most treasured souvenir I have of my time in the Land of Enchantment is also the very one I keep hung on the front door of my apartment to serve as a necessary reminder of a past that I fear that I might just as easily want to forget. I am too afraid to forget it - for it now makes up a part (good or bad) of who I am today.
You wonder why I would devote this amount of space to my experiences in New Mexico in a column about Texas culture. My answer: you can so easily find within the mystique of Texas culture a number of traits about who we are as a state and as a people. These are things the eviction notice I received from the State of New Mexico best describes: traits such as self-reliance, self-determination, rugged individualism. (After all, why do you think cowboy films are just as popular now as they were in the '30s and '40s?)
Texas as a state is probably one of the most prominent in the Union in agriculture and petroleum. I would bet that when most Texans people go through their annual financial rectal exam with the IRS, they list nine times out of ten that their occupation is "farmer" or "roughneck" or "rancher" or some other job related to those. Included within the very culture of these is the mystique of the Texan man being independent, free-wheeling, and no-nonsense. Whether it's in our history or within the contemporary fabric of our times, you can't help but stand up and take notice whenever a Texan walks into a room.
