Goodbye to Texas?

 

There’s a song called, “Leavin’ Old Texas.” The cowboy/singer laments that they’ve roped and fenced the cattle range, “and the people there are all so strange.” Well, it’s true—the open range is fenced, the mythic days of the cowboy are gone, and some of the people in Texas are purely strange now.

But when a writer friend posted on Facebook that she didn’t understand why anyone would live in Texas and not leave, let alone move there, I jumped to our state’s defense. Possibly she was referring to the strict abortion restrictions, so much in the news with the Kate Cox case recently. Or maybe she meant the absence of gun control—no training, no screening, no license. Want to carry a concealed gun? Be our guest. Or perhaps it’s the troubles at the border with record number of illegal immigrants last month. Maybe it’s the restrictions on what can be taught in classrooms, from kindergarten through college—don’t even think of mentioning DEI, which is now outlawed. (How you can outlaw an abstract concept is beyond me, but Gov. Greg Abbott has managed it.) Maybe she meant book bans—we lead the nation in the number of titles marked for “consideration” or actually banned. There are many reasons to leave Texas for states, even countries, where there is more personal freedom and you are not forced to accept the state doctrine. (Does that echo of Nazi days? The state doctrine? Yes, it does).

I haven’t seen statistics on how many people leave Texas because of our extreme right-wing politics, but I know from personal experience—friends who have thrown their hands up in the air and said, “I’m through. I’m leaving.” Often they are couples of child-bearing age. And new corporations? Again, I don’t know statistics, but I have heard of companies that refuse to relocate here—despite our attractive tax laws and other incentives—because employees with families would not follow along.

I credit Texas’ disastrous reputation to Governor Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and Attorney General Ken Paxton. I’m not sure what fascination these men hold for Texans, except perhaps the habit of voting Republican and a blind, inbred of fear of Democrats that makes it hard to pull any lever, mark any ballot except the red one. Why would you ever vote for a man who puts razor wire in a river to injure and kill people? Or who sent poorly dressed, hungry migrants by bus across the country to a northern city where no provisions have been made for their unannounced arrival? If you live in a small town or rural area, why vote for a man who desperately wants to close the school that is the center of your community? It makes no sense.

But I digress. When I read that post, angry as I am at our state government, I immediately felt defensive, compelled to leap to the defense of Texas. I am not a native Texan, but I have lived here almost sixty years, and my two careers—as an author and as a publisher—have relied heavily on the history and literataure of this state. I feel invested in it, and I’ll be darned if a mean little man like Abbott is going to ruin Texas for me and my family.

There’s so much to treasure about our state, politics aside. We have, I suspect, the most varied landscape in the 50 states. In Texas, you can go from beach to mountains, from the stark, spare country of South Texas to the lush high plains. We have forests and pastures and rolling hills and vast expanses of empty land. Texans value their history—okay, we now pretty much agree much of the Alamo legend is in large part myth, but there’s still valuable history in the basic story. And in Sam Houston’s Runaway Scape and defeat of Santa Anna’s troops at San Jacinto. There’s history in the early cattle drives and the gradual shift from an agrarian to an urban economy in too much of the state. We have a proud and strong literary tradition, with writers who chronicled Texas history and wrote their own versions of it, from J. Frank Dobie and his pals to Larry McMurtry, Cormac McCarthy, and Elmer Kelton. Women writers too—Sarah Bird and Sandra Cisneros come to mind. Dr. Ron Tyler has given us several books documenting important artists of our state. Texas food, once mocked as brown food, can compete with upscale servings across the country. We have James Beard award-winning chefs and upscale restaurants with offerings for the sophisticated palate. We also have Tex-Mex, chili, barbecue, and down-home food.

Enough singing the praises of the state I love. My point is Texas is too wonderful to abandon to the narrow minds of right-wing politics. I am not leaving. Greg Abbott was not always governor and will not always be. I will stay to fight his inhumane policies, joining such groups as Mothers Against Greg Abbot, the Texas Democratic Party, and Beto O’Rourke’s Power to the People and speaking out whenever I feel the need. Texas needs to regain its proud reputation, and I want to help. How about you?                               

 

The power of women—and a note on influencers

 

I am so excited that Christian put up my yard sign for Mothers Against Greg Abbott. After it arrived in the mail, I asked him if he would put up my MAGA sign, and he was horrified. “Juju, MAGA?” I laughed and told him, “No, not that one.” So he was glad to put this up, saying, “I’m no fan of Greg Abbott.” Now I’ve seen another yard sign I want, though I’m not sure how Christian would feel about putting this one up: “I am WOMAN. Hear me ROAR! Watch me VOTE!”

A friend who was here to talk about writing this morning lived in Mexico for quite a few  years and keeps up with what’s happening in that country. When I mentioned that Mexico’s Supreme Court just decriminalized abortion throughout the country, he said that things get done in Mexico because the women know how to do things, The men strut, the women act. And, according to him, it looks as though Mexico may soon get a woman as president.

And that led into talk about women. He reminisced about women he’s known, reflecting that he can think of several women, most of them elderly when he encountered them, who had a profound influence on his life. Try as he might, he could not think of that many men. First and foremost was his grandmother, Ethel Yeager, whose writings he collected and published as A Soul Housed Up, available on Amazon. He began to reminisce about women who had influenced him at various times in his life and career both as a scholar and an Episcopalian priest.

And I got to thinking about women today. We’re always hearing that women are in the ascendancy, the power that Gloria Steinem and Angela Davis worked for is coming to fruition in our day and age. Today there are twelve women governors, twenty-five women senators, 135 women in the House of Representatives, and 424 who are mayors of cities with a population of over 30,000. But more than that, women’s movements are active on the progressive scene: Mothers Against Greg Abbott, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, Red, Wine, & Blue powered by women, just to name a few. At the other extreme is Moms for Liberary, a far-right extremist group. Women are influencers, though they often aren’t named as such.

And that thought, plus an article I read, made me think about what today we call influencers. I”ve never been sure about that term—how does one get to be an influencer? Is it a job you apply for? Who hires you. I know TikTok has a lot to do with it, but I am not a TikTok user. Today an article in Texas Monthly answered those questions.

Writer Russell Gold saw an ad for tweets in support of Kenneth Paxton, our “Impressively corrupt” AG. Curious, Gold filled out a Google form, and posted two “middle-of-the-road” tweets—one a link to an article about key people in the impeachment proceedings and the other a speculation of whether or not Paxton would be acquitted. This week, he received a check for $100, even though the tweets did not directly support Paxton.

It seems that stirring up noise about the case is enough to make Texas big money happy. The check came from Influenceable LLC and the payer was the wife of Brad Parscale, former head of digital operations for trump. The money apparently came from a wealthy Texan named Dunn whose monehy is behind the campaign to exonerate Paxton. The thing that amazed me is that there is thia enormous dark network or organization working to spew out buzz or spin or whatever on behalf of Paxton. Gold, unwittingly, found himself a paid propagandist for Kenneth Paxton, a position he did not want. To his credit, he donated the $100 to a charity and wrote the article to alert others to what’s going on. Read it here: My Brief Career as a Paid Pro-Paxton Propagandist (texasmonthly.com) Not a Texas Monthly subscriber? You can log in as a guest.

So now I have a new goal: I want to be an influencer for the election of Joe Biden. Unfortunately, I don’t know anyone who is paying for such work. Then again maybe I’m already doing it pro bono. Problem is I don’t know if I have any influence. How will I know when I can call myself an influencer?

 

MAGA (no, not that one!) and a new book

 

The first thing I do in the morning, once I settle at my desk with a cup of tea, is to read emails. I have two addresses—one at TCU that I have had for forty years and prefer to use; the other with groups.io. When Yahoo Groups disappeared, two writers’ groups I belong to—and treasure—switched to groups.io, but TCU did not like their security certificate (who am I to understand what that means?) and would not talk to them. So son Jamie opened a gmail account for me to communicate with those groups. This morning the TCU site was out of control.

There were thirty-five Facebook messages from the Mothers Against Greg Abbott page. The thread was about the firing of James Whitfield as Heritage High School (Colleyville) principal on the grounds he taught CRT, which the school board admits he didn’t. A conservative, right-wing gentleman, formerly on the school board, Stetson Clark, accused Whitfield of disrupting and destroying the districts by encouraging systemic racism. It’s no coincidence that Whitfield is black and married to a white woman.

The posts this morning were in support of Whitfield. Earlier students staged a walk-out in support of his leadership. At the board meeting, many parents spoke out in support of him. The Grapevine/Colleyville Independent School District board voted unanimously to fire him—they put him on administrative leave through August 2023; he gets paid but forfeits the pay if he accepts another job. I expect he’ll get many job offers—probably not so much from Texas—and has a good future ahead of him.

But what struck me this morning was the outpouring of support from across the state. In spite of our reputation as a deep red state, there are good, sane people in Texas, people who are outraged by much of what is going on. Representative Matt Krause, running a deep red campaign to replace Ken Paxton as Attorney General (which might be out of the frying pan and into the fire), announced he is examining over 800 books in school libraries to see if they are inappropriate. Not to be outdone, our governor announced he is investigating “criminal pornography” in our schools. Let those words sink in—criminal pornography. To me, that means administrators, teachers, and librarians deliberately introduced salacious literature with the intent of corrupting our students. I am appalled, scared, and worried about my grandchildren. And I am a strong supporter of Mothers Against Greg Abbott (after all, banning books is just one of his attacks on freedom which include women’s rights, voter suppression, etc. while he supports threats to the general welfare—open carry for guns and liquor, but hey, we cannot infringe on people’s rights by requiring vaccines).

Sorry about the rant, especially after I promised to modify my speech, but I feel strongly about this. And I hope each of you do too.

Meantime in my own little world, there was a highlight today. I opened a blank page and typed those fateful words, “Chapter One.” And then I wrote a thousand words of what I hope someday will be Irene Keeps a Secret. Felt kind of good about that.

About four, when I was sound asleep, Jordan woke me to say that Matt, who does some odd repairs for us, was here to look at my kitchen drawers. The problem is that I have so little space we overload these two drawers with dishes, pots and pans, and things like oil and vinegar. The sheer weight is too much for the bottom of the drawers. Matt reglued them, added some nails, said to let it dry, and said if I don’t rearrange it will happen again. Rearranging is a real problem.

So when an old friend arrived for happy hour, half my kitchen or more was spread out everywhere. No matter. We had a good visit. She lost her husband last spring, and I was glad to see that she’s doing well, if not back to normal—who would be? Still, we had a lively discussion about books (she’s a bookseller, and a part of me envies her that) and about mutual friends. A pleasant visit. After she left, I cleared enough of a spot to scramble a couple of eggs for my supper and gave up on the kitchen until Jordan can help tomorrow. She’s much better at organizing than I am. I did send a 5 lb. sack of flour into the house with her. I figure that will help the weight problem in one drawer. I think this is called it’s always something.

Sweet dreams.