Okay, I survived my visit to Texas. My family relations are intact. Still, there were parts of the trip that mystified me. Why, for instance, does a chopped-up highway, much of it under construction, have a speed limit of 75 miles per hour? Just keeping with the flow of traffic as I navigated a parade of semis felt like taking my life in my hands. If Texans can’t drive 55, how about 60…or even 65? (“There’ve been lots of bad accidents on that road,” my father said. No kidding!)
Next time, I might take the connector flight from DFW to my parents’ local airport.
My parents live in a condo building with oversized units. Theirs is about three thousand square feet, including a walk-in closet to die for. Texas likes things supersized from vehicles to homes. (My nephew, an exception, lives in a “tiny home” near Austin.) I jogged all through their neighborhood which was full of monstrous homes that made me wonder, Who lives there and what in the world do they do with all that space? Do days pass when they never see another family member? Do they sometimes skip meals because the kitchen is too far?
Fortunately, we did drive through some older neighborhoods where the homes had character. Some houses might even have been described as bungalows. Lovely. This also got us off The Loop which circles Tyler and is dotted with strip malls, gas stations, fast food outlets and car dealerships. Yeesh. Zero charm anywhere along the way.
One of my takeaways from my visit is the notion that Texans don’t like change. This includes denying a changing world (e.g., global warming) if those changes mean they have to do something differently, however innocuous. Going out for meals, I realized Texas—or the places we went, at least—wasn’t doing anything to consider its environmental footprint. People drank from paper coffee cups even as they stayed and finished their drinks in the restaurant. Everyone had plastic straws. They automatically came with every cold drink. Doggy bags were Styrofoam containers. Can’t remember the last time I’ve seen Styrofoam. Later, as I asked at my parents’ home where to put some recycling, my mother explained (to her chagrin) the condominium complex voted down recycling. No one wanted to haul a big bin out for weekly pickup. I hadn’t realized opting out was an option. How is it people are still resisting recycling?
All of this was extremely frustrating. In British Columbia, we go strawless (or use admittedly icky paper straws). Food containers and to-go utensils are made from recyclable materials and are compostable. I know the focus needs to be on what we do as individuals, but it’s mighty maddening knowing that large swaths of the planet are doing nothing. There are easy fixes but Texas won’t go there. To change would constitute a nod to the possibility of climate change deep in oil country. Why have any regard for environmental impact?
And so I segue into the political/religious milieu of what I experienced in Texas. To be clear, I did not have conversations with strangers. I did not mention the orange dude’s name and, thankfully, my ears didn’t prick up with others talking about him. Whew. Things were more subtle. On Sunday, I drove along The Loop, stopping at a dozen gas stations and drugstores, on a quest for a copy of The New York Times. Nothing doing. I can only conclude that Tyler, Texas does not carry that paper. Why would it want something representing that dang “liberal media”? Why would it want another point of view?
As I knew would be the case, my parents watched Fox News each night… “but only the broadcast with Bret Baier.” A balanced journalist, as my mother asserted. I tried watching. On a segment about the government shutdown, all their interviews and quotes were from Republicans except for one Democrat whose aired soundbite wasn’t even a full sentence. Sorry. Nothing balanced about that, no matter who the news anchor is. I did not point this out; instead, I went to the guest bedroom and did a Wall Street Journal crossword.
At the coffee shop where I wrote on a couple of mornings, there was a Bible quote from Luke covering a full wall. I don’t recall the quote as being particularly polarizing; I’m just not used to having anything biblical in my face as I have my oat milk latte. Stranger perhaps was when I returned my Hertz rental car at DFW. As I got out of the car and greeted the attendant with a friendly, “How are you?” she responded, “I’m great because the Lord Jesus Christ is still my Savior.” Um. What? Is that even allowed from an employee to a customer? Of course it is. It’s Texas!
Sheesh.
Perhaps the most bizarre moment came during the last twenty minutes of my stay at my parents’. While my father was in his office space, giving away personal information that might well have been part of a scam (“I hung up before I gave away too much.”), my mother entered the living room and began a monologue of news items of the day, each piece delivered with a distinctly skewed conservative bent. Don’t respond, I told myself. But how could I read my novel while she continued to rant?
My mother knows very well how radically different our views are. As she rattled on, I wondered if I had done anything to bring this on. I couldn’t recall making a single political statement. I’d duly admired churches (“nice architecture”), strolled rose gardens and obligingly sampled egg salad for dinner. I can only assume that slipping out while Bret Baier finished his newscast the night prior had left my mother thinking I was missing out.
I really wanted to keep my head down, to stare at the paragraphs of my open book. That would signal I was otherwise occupied. But then I also knew this would be interpreted as ignoring my mother. Guilt trip to follow. I made occasional eye contact, doing my best to keep my facial expression neutral. My mother surprised me with an out of left-field (er…right-field) Margaret Thatcher quote about socialism. Please, I thought, Let this command newscast come to an end.
But not soon enough. I finally had to interrupt. “I’ve had a really nice visit. Can we please not end it on politics?” One more political comment and that was a wrap.
Later at DFW airport as I waited for my flight to depart, I scrolled Twitter as a break from writing on my laptop. My eyes caught the name Margaret Thatcher. I stopped scrolling. By god, it was a Fox News tweet—how is that in my feed?—with the exact quote my mother had spewed that morning. And yet she claims she’s not beholden to the network. It was a disappointing ending to the visit. I did my best to shake it off, trying not to think how much a single news source was shaping her views.
Oh, Texas. What have you done to my parents? After forty-seven years of them living there, they are most definitely full-fledged Texans. They have always been conservative. Just not so unabashedly so. Still, I feel a sense of triumph. They will not change; rather. Instead, it is up to me to change. I kept my mouth shut for once. I’d like to think they will have nicer memories of my visit. In the end, that’s what counts.
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