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Home | Texas Pride Project |
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This month's featured essay comes to Henry from Mike McKay of Boerne, Texas.
WHY DO I LOVE TEXAS?
By Mike McKay
In my growing up of 61 years, it has been nothing but a privilege to live and thrive here in Texas. I've lived in Dallas, New York City, Little Rock, Arkansas, Dallas again, Houston and now for the rest of my life in Boerne, Texas.
My high school days in Dallas is where I grew up and made the friends of a lifetime. We were a peacock proud group of friends and called ourselves the Horney Toads. Judge what you may by the name, but it stuck with me the rest of my life. Horned toads were common around Dallas and we had a real affection for them. Hardly see them any more, but I love them.
My paternal grandparents lived in Athens and I molded my life after them. They lived on 150 acres of a big sand dune (as my young mind remembers). They were tender loving and the most influential people in my life. They were farmers as were my mother's parents. They knew the land and they loved it. My parents, having grown up as offspring of farmers knew how to save a nickel. I am very fortunate to have been brought up in a loving family who are very salt of the Texas earth.
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The one thing that excited me about Texas are the people that I meet every day. I really don't have much to say so I let them talk. I can't remember as well as I used to but I just love to hear stories with the slang and accents. Most people are warm and genuine, like I knew them all my life. When I talk, since I grew up in East Texas, I make a real effort to emulate the accents of that area and throw in some juicy Texas jargon. I intend to carry on the practice as long as I live. My thank you is a much obliged.
I get chills thinking about my travels on the back roads of Texas and enjoying the stories and sayings that I experienced. At this time in my life every thing related to Texas brings more than a tear to my eye. It's a state of my mind. My wife, God bless her, has put up with me and my eccentricities for all these years, but I think she wouldn't have it any other way. She's a real peach.
We have been to many other lands and had as much fun as we could stand, but Texas, somehow, shines brighter than any of them. The rest of the world can't figure out what makes Texas special: it's the people and their attitude. I love Texas.
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