Sunday, August 18, 2013

Stoners Unite

I live in a state that was settled by poor gringos invited by the Spanish government to kill as many Kickapoo and Karakawan Indians as possible so the land would become commercial. That backfired when years later the Anglo settlers waged war on Mexico (who had fought for Independence from Spain) and declared their own Lone Star Republic as independent. (This was the war that included The Alamo defeat).  It was complicated further when the war debt to the United States and continued Mexican harassment compelled the lone republic to join the states (really, they were forcibly annexed but don't mention that to any Texan. It hurts their pride.) Mexico really regretted their earlier mistreatment of Texas when a war was manufactured in 1845 that resulted in the seizure of Texas (Until then Mexico didn't recognize the Lone Star republic), New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, California, and some of Wyoming. I owe my free music education to this blatantly immoral event. To show their gratitude for their official liberty, Texas joined the Confederacy as a slave state about 12 years later...and then back to the Union after Lee surrendered to Grant. Are you following all that? France had a short claim to territory on the coast that's hardly worth mentioning except it's the 6th flag referred to by the amusement park.

Texans have an official policy that is intolerant of drugs. Zero tolerance. The people themselves, including the politicians, are not very concerned with drugs. The main priority is sovereignty as their history should suggest. Any hint that Washington Yankees or "Northern Suits" are dictating business in Texas riles the locals like nothing else. My presence here is tolerated because I try to adapt, wearing cowboy hats, working on the pipeline, chewing tobacco, driving gas guzzling vans...etc. But I'll never be a Texan. I'm not a Yankee either. I'm not even American, although that's what my passport says.

Creative Commons License
Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.