Messin' with Texas

Current Mood: Happy

A few weeks ago, I went to see this guy speak:

His lecture (see the title of this blog post) was part of a series of five lectures put on by the Mcfaddin-Ward House, on the future of Texas. This particular one I was chomping at the bit for. Texans are an interesting group of people. Very diverse and very different. I am not very fond of southeast Texans (the only group I know intimately), so I was eager to see what this guy would have to say. I wanted to see if he could truely explain to me why Texans are the way they are. Before coming to Texas, I had an image of Texans pretty much in line with the following Bud Light ad:

After having been here for two and a half years, that image hasn’t changed much other than to grow stronger. I wanted Mr Patoski to show me something I hadn’t seen before.

Mr Patoski is the epitome of “Mr-way-too-proud-of-Texas guy.” In a 90 minute talk, he 51 comparisons between Texas and other states, or the whole world, in which Texas either did it first, bigger, the best, or had the most of what the thing in comparison was. Texas has the most border of any state, the best football, best crawfish, best blues music, best country music, best bbq, best marching bands, first dance team (cheerleaders at football games), only state that entered the USA as it’s own sovereign nation, has the biggest ranch in the US, at one point had more sheep than any country in the world (yes they even track the things they were first in 100 years ago), largest heard of white tail deer, invented Dr Pepper, largest helium well in the world, largest rose garden in the world, etc. Hell, Texans are even proud of the fact that first word spoken from the moon on July 20, 1969 was Houston, and that the only place in the US whooping cranes will hang out is in Texas.

Needless to say this guy got tiring fast. I actually stopped counting how many things Texas was first, biggest or best at in the 60th minute and extrapolated the 51 times in 90 minutes statistic above. Who cares that whooping cranes like hanging out in Texas outside the world of ornithology? Listening to this guy was like listening to baseball statistics which, for those of you who are not American, are plentiful, and often meaningless because of the multitude of seemingly random constraints placed on them (example: “John Smith bats a .288 against left-handed pitchers normally, but historically, on a Tuesday night, during an away night game in july, like tonight, he bats a .074. The manager may want to consider that when choosing his line up tonight”).

My immediate reaction to this guy was he’s bragging. He is way too proud of Texas and he’s bragging about it. Mr Patoski very early on addressed that concern almost as if he was reading my mind. “It ain’t bragging if it’s true,” he said. He then said it again and again and again. 13 times he assured me that he wasn’t just bragging about Texas, which is good, because had he not said that, the presentation would have been a 90 minute monologue about how great Texas is, and how much greater it is than every other state. I expected an interesting, intellectual and well supported talk about the Texas mentality, social behaviors, politics, contemporary history, and economics. Instead I got tricked into listening to “Mr way to proud of Texas” for 90 minutes without an escape route.

Then a funny thing happened. About the 60th minute I stopped counting how many times Texas was number one, and I generally stopped listening to the ‘text’ of the lecture. Instead, I started paying attention to Patoski himself, and I found something very familiar about him. His body language was full of energy and excitement. His eyes were brightly light and his words zipped happily about the room, taking over the small room. I suddenly felt like i was looking at myself. His talk reminded me of when I talk about my time in Turkey. I love Turkey. All the people that were part of my life when I was in Turkey had a huge impact on me. The things I did, the events that transpired and the people I met, made for an incredible experience. When someone asks me about my time in Turkey, I talk their ear off. I go on long monolgues, carefully seeding landmines that I know my listener will ask about, causing them to explode into a torrent of semi-related stories. By the end of it all, my victim doesn’t need me to state the obvious – that I love Turkey.

I saw Mr Patoski for what he was – a man in love. He is in love with Texas and everything that it is. The energy coming from him was his passion and love rushing out of him as fast as it could so as to not consume him from the inside. Had the lecture been canceled at the last minute, his built up anticipation might have blown him up on the car ride home (perhaps that’s where myths of spontaneous combustion come from?).

Realizing this, I walked away from that presentation with a different view of Texans. Just as Turkish people are fiercely proud of the republic formed by Ataturk, Texans are proud of Texas. Just as Turkey was a mixing pot of different people and cultures under the Ottomans, Texas has been a mixing pot of different peoples since settlers first moved in. I realized that anything I had against Texans was at best completely ridiculous, and at worst jealousy. Texas is a gigantic state with a wide variety of cultures, climates and landscapes, yet they are all bound by a great pride in their history. This is something that should be admired and respected. A lot of them are obnoxious about it, and I will probably always feel the same way about them, but I admire Texans like Mr Patoski who are truly in love, and want nothing more than to share that love.

I sincerely hope that when I get off on my long monologues about living in Turkey, playing Diplomacy, or anything else, that my spectators/victims draw this same conclusion; he’s in love.