Partially Settled Vagabonds

To Texas, With Love...

This weekend Margaret and I took advantage of a new mode of renting movies...Netflix. Via the Internet, you choose the movies you would like to see, and they show up in your mailbox two days later, with pre-paid postage envelopes to mail them back. We rented Friday Night Lights, the story of the 1988 Odessa-Permian high school football team. It made us realize how we have been unfaithful to our dear mistress, Texas. You see, we love New Jersey. The scenery is beautiful, our house is great, we have access to some of the greatest cities in the world, and our town is out of a storybook. But it doesn't have the same kind of intangibles. It doesn't have the twang, the bbq, the sunsets, the Mexican food, and the slower pace.

At orientation in the fall, I was talking to a guy from Ohio who had just completed his MDiv at Union in New York. He and his wife live in NYC, and we were talking about the commute. I asked him when he finished his degree if he wanted to move out of the city, to which he replied, "No way man, the city is where it is at." I took him aside and privately admonished him about ending sentences in prepositions and tarnishing my reputation. Then he asked me if we would consider moving back to Texas. I said that we hoped we would at some point in time. He laughed and said that he had never met a Texan who didn't want to go back to Texas, and that he just didn't understand it. Of course he didn't, he's not one of us. He doesn't understand that when you are driving across the panhandle and the smell of manure from the pig lots rolls in on the wind, it isn't a time to roll the windows up, you roll them down and take a deep breath and become grateful for the animals who feed you. He doesn't understand that Waco water is an, um, acquired taste, or that a Mariachi band serenading you at your table in San Antonio isn't a nuisance, it's a gift. He doesn't get that Dallas, with all of its attempts to be London or Los Angeles, is still charming and full of interesting places with colorful characters. And more than anything, he doesn't understand the religion that is high school football.

Margaret and I had breakfast this weekend with middle-aged strangers who had traveled the world, but never been to Texas. We were talking about Friday Night Lights and they asked if football was really that big of a deal in Texas. We were at a loss for how to describe it, but assured them that it was.

I know those who are from other places have different opinions. Ed no doubt holds New Jersey in the same regard as I do Texas (and for good reason, I might add). But there is something powerful about knowing your roots, knowing your promised land, and holding its picture in your mind while you sojourn in foreign places until the day that the exodus is over.

posted by John and Mag @ 7:05 AM