everything’s bigger in texas, part two

texas is a fabulously bizarre place, so here are a few brief observations:

(1) everything has to be bigger in Texas. i will limit this to what is readily discernible and refrain from making any comments inferring compensatory hyperbole. the state capitol building in austin is larger than the U.S. capitol, which could probably fit inside of it. most raods are four lanes or more, even downtown. and the highway onramps are unnecessarily elevated to what seems like 1,000 feet in the air, so that when you get on the interstate, you feel as if you’re taking off from the deck of an aircraft carrier.

(2) contrary to [my] prior presumptions, not <u>all</u> of Texas is brown, dry, and full of tumbleweeds and armadillos. in fact, the verdancy of the “hill country” around Austin completely took me by surprise. at times, the palm trees peppering the hilly landscape reminded me of Italy:

Austin itself was fainlty reminiscent of a southern California beach town, without the beaches, of course. but there is an abundancy of freshwater “swimming holes,” some closed off, natural waterways bound by cement walls, like large pools. so there are ways to escape the heat.

(3) at any given moment in time, there are precisely three (3) italians in texas. this is evidenced by how many times my cousin Chris, in his seven years in this state, has been asked, with curious innocence and obvious confusion, “what kind of a name is that?” most recently this question was posed by an unassuming Texas shoe salesman, who in fact revealed that his father was Sicilian, that he had a Sicilian name, and that no one has ever had a similar name in the vicinity of wherever he had lived his life in Texas.

(4) people from Texas just really are all about Texas. i’m used to seeing various license plates in cities. in Austin, i saw maybe 3 non-Texas plates (one belonging to Raquel, Chris’ girlfriend, who hails from Montana). unlike New Jersey, where all the kids who grow up there just really want to leave, Texans of all ages seem perfectly happy just being in Texas. they wouldn’t have it any other way. this leads to (a) an enduring appreciation for their very vast and storied state; and, conversely, (b) an appalling ignorance and nonchalance for anything outside its borders. an abundance of bumper stickers glorifying this state grace the rear bumpers of the “Texas edition” of nearly every domestic car or truck (my favourite: i
wasn’t born in Texas, but i got here as soon as i could). this is unique to everywhere else i’ve been in the Union, though i did receive some favorable comments and askewed looks from passersby for my “New Jersey: Only the strong survive” t-shirt, which i wore proudly. granted, we don’t have [official] “Jersey editions” of the Corvette, IROC-Z, or GTO, but hey, maybe we should push for one.

it was great seeing Chris, though brief, and especially great seeing him so happy with his wonderfully charming and beautiful Montana girlfriend, Raquel. they move out to LA together in a few weeks to start new lives in the “real world,” so wish them luck.

i really admire Raquel, who threw herself into Austin, a comparably grand city next to the tiny town in which she was raised in Montana. now she’s taking an even greater plunge into LA and, although apprehensive, she exhibits strong enthusiasm and excitement. sadly, she has “out-educated” – to use her expression – her hometown. this is a concept i cannot really grasp, and even Chris had interviewed with companies as close as Exton, PA, which is essentially home to us. but Raquel can probably never find a job that matches her level of education and experience for which she can be adequately compensated even remotely close to her parents’ home.

what does it feel like to never truly be able to go home again?

i wanted to insert Chris’ excellent argument for why the NFL is the only pure example of communism that exists at work in the world today, but i feel my words cannot do it justice. maybe he’ll post it here in a comment… hint hint.

strange dream

it was then… but i was stronger, better. i actually pulled my weight. even more so, i was a leader. i was stronger, happier, more confident… basically i was then what i am now. this differs from all the other “back to school” dreams, in which i’m usually filled with dread at an uncompleted assignment, show up naked, or both. in this dream, i am content.

training our way through the rolling green hills and piney, sandy vast open spaces of West Texas, i wonder – if we were to go back home, how would we be perceived? i know the perceptions of others shouldn’t be so important. but the real question is, are we proud of who we’ve become?

a dragonfly zips alongside, then falls behind, and then a turtledove tries to mimic him, and then flies away.

we’ve got one shot to show the world who we are.

everything’s bigger in Texas, part one

apparently, a Union Pacific freight train wiped out a bridge somewhere south of Little Rock. this means the train from Austin to San Antonio has been replaced by a bus, led by a very unhappy redneck bus driver who was furious to discover beer cans in the bathroom of his bus, and told us that a new law called the “Terrorist Act” permits police to lock up anybody consuming alcohol on public transportation – despite the fact that Amtrak has a bar on all its trains.

welcome to Texas.

i was so informed of this switch by a phone call at ten o’clock this morning from Amtrak and again by the conductor at Austin station. i am impressed by the phone call – actual customer service does not exist in Italy, where a station attendant sold me a ticket to naples via a route that was closed all summer for construction, and failed to inform me that a bus had taken its place, whereupon i discovered aforementioned bus after its sudden departure and had to float my way on private buses across the country.

i’m also impressed by the complete disclosure of details as to why we’re taking a bus instead of a train. of course, Amtrak does like to blame others for its own blunders, so maybe this is just another change to blast away at the freight companies that give them so much grief (the PA announcement, quite audible outside the station, came just as a Union Pacific train came rolling by along the tracks).

i’m out of Austin almost as soon as i’ve arrived, as the trains here run so sporadically and my cousin Chris is busy packing up the last 6 years of his life – he’s just completed his PhD at UT in Aerospace Engineering, making him a verifiable rocket scientist – to ship out to his new job and life in Los Angeles. that makes two of us headed to California.