Texit

This is going to be one of the tougher things I will try to write. As they say, stuff is complicated. I’ve been in and around Texas ever since Berkeley, which is now going on nearly four decades. It sure ain’t 1980 any longer, when I left Philly as the City of Champions, not the Butt of Jokes. That’s where the current chapter really began. It is now at an end, but I’m not even sure where to begin. Few regrets, but then again, as Frank sang, too few to mention. Yeah, I did it my way. I’m not here to settle scores–that I will do privately. In the unlikely event that one of my admirers is reading this, you were warned.

I owe Texas a great deal. Things that were never going to happen in California happened here. We bought a home and had two lovely if obstreperous children, now a lawyer and a classical musician. In California, we learned the hard way that prestige doesn’t pay the rent and tends to attract false friends. We went broke, got disgusted, and left. It was our decision. And looking at the mess California has become, you’re not going to convince me we made a mistake–Nobel Prize parties and all. Even if Texas has changed in very unpleasant ways.

Not everyone can pick up and move. But we can, I think And so we are going. Back to the Motherland. Not Philly proper. But our to what used to be the Western suburbs. I always thought of Paoli was some kind of terrestrial Mars where the Main Line (the Paoli local train) ended. It is in Chester Country, if you keeping score which does not have the cachet of Montgomery Country or the fame or patois (dubious) of Delaware County. But it is green, a Hell of a lot cooler, temperature wise, and we can see old friends. It is also North of the Mason-Dixon line. We have had it with South. I don’t Demonize the South–it does a good enough job all by itself. Lots of Pennsylvania is admittedly not a whole lot better, but the part to which we are removing is a bastion of the world I grew up in. And thanks to the Disaspora, pretty good Mexican food as well. First things first. We checked. El Limon in Wayne is already a goto, and the waitress is from the state of Mexico. She was thrilled with my Spanish–desperation will do that to these poor guys.

Why has Texas changed? I don’t know. When we got here, Mark White was Governor and Lloyd Bentsen was US Senator, a far cry from the crap people here routinely elect now. My state senator is an imbecile named Donna Campbell, and Chip Ahoy aka Roy is my Representative. Both of them make me sick. About Hot Wheels, a term that even Texans use for Greg Abbott, the less said, the better. Go ahead, be scandalized. Reality has a way of reducing certain inhibitions. And it gets worse, but why dwell on it? I once listened to a debate in which John Cornyn, our Senator, took place. Corn Dog is also an idiot, although not really evil, as far as I can tell. Just stupid. It’s been a long fall from John Connally, as disgusting as he was. Nobody thought Connally was stupid. Quite the opposite. Repulsive, but clearly pretty bright. And a survivor. Literally. Remember 1963? I do. Which is probably why I am going home. I hate to see a generation’s worth of progress vanish. And have no desire to go back to the 1850s, which is where Texas is headed.

And in Texas politics,at least, that is what has changed. The current crop of Texas Republicans is utterly repulsive. And by and large, mean, lazy and stupid. They mirror the change in the Republican Party, which was once respectable, and for whose candidates I sometimes voted. Never again. I have plenty of problems with the pronoun-addled Democrats, whose seem to have lost the plot sometime around Reagan, as my older relatives started to peel away. I suppose Texas, which is now minority-majority, was destined to go the same way. Except the old majority really has nothing to fear from the new one. The Latinos vote Republican and seem to dislike Black people even more than the crackers do. American populism a beautiful thing. It works, even as it’s screwing people over. Not my problem, as they say. I fought the good fight and ran the good race. Now I will go home to enjoy–I hope–the balance of my time on this Earth.

Vicente Fox actually said this!

Many of my concerns are parochial. You don’t care if the University of Texas turns into a dung heap–again. And I guess I should not either. But you know, silence is consent, so we vote with our feet, loudly. Besides, as Texans joyfully remind us, there are plenty more Californians where we came from, and they’ll do just as well, if not better. Property ain’t as cheap here as it was years ago–better not be, because we have got to finance this errand into the wilderness somehow. But unless disaster strikes, we will survive. And if we don’t, well, life goes on don’t it? That’s the one thing you do find out sooner or later.

Nobody is irreplaceable.

Bye for now. More to come when I ain’t a feared of my neighbors up North. But as Concrete Charlie said to an opponent, “This Game is Over!”