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EMAIL RESPONSES See Article RE: Happened to Me, Too Dear Mr. Mitchell; I greatly enjoyed your article published in this Sunday's Houston Chronicle. It brought back memories of September, 1970, when this young Texan began graduate school at Stanford. When introduced to another graduate student (from California) at a party, his response was " oh - you're from the state that killed the president". To this day I regret not coming back with " oh - your from the state that killed his brother". It also didn't help that the current president was from Texas and leading an extremely unpopular war. At least I never had a date walk out on me! My son (a native-born Texan) just moved from California and is now in Washington DC. He would really enjoy your article, however I can't find an electronic version to e-mail him. If you have an electronic copy, I would appreciate a copy to send to him. Otherwise I'll resort to the tried and proven method I learned in Kindergarten - cut and paste. Thanks for the memory! Bill RE: Chron Article Enjoyed reading your article "Guilty of being a Texan" in Sunday's Houston Chronicle. Whereas, I am on the other end of the political spectrum from you, you are still a TEXAN!. Don't let those from the Kellogg state (land of fruits and flakes) get you down. When a state has been jealous of another state for so long, how can you expect them to act any differently!! It's similar to the Aggies love/hate relationship with my Longhorns!! The remedy is to come home every now and then, rejuvenate yourself and go back for more punishment. p.s Find you a nice Republican girl. Maybe she will be nicer to you! M.K. RE: On Being a Texan Joe, if you don't mind being called that, I enjoyed your article that appeared in the Chronicle, and it stirred up many memories of the problems of being Texan has caused for me over the years. But, I'll assure you of one thing, no person in this country gets more respect or recognition when traveling here or abroad, even with current problems of terrorism. Being liberal and from Texas, you would typically be a minority or a misguided do-gooder who is going to change the world and I think you are probably in the latter category. I grew up in Texas at a time when being a Republican almost got you run out of town and was the first member of my family to switch over when I was at the University of Texas and Eisenhower announced he would run. We had all had a belly full of Truman and his getting us into the Korean Conflict, as it was called. I've grown much older and wiser in passing years and consider Truman the best man who ever sat in the White House, considering all the obstacles he faced. Now, on the subject of perceived discrimination due to our president being from Texas . Get used to it because if it wasn't for that reason, it would be for another, as that is the way it has always been for Texas. A lot of fear, a lot of resentment, but a whole lot of respect when you come right down to it. Read about the Texas Revolution and you'll find how a relatively few poorly armed men eventually whipped a vastly superior army in numbers and equipment. Read about the Civil War and you'll find that no group of fighting men was more respected than Texans. Read about the Spanish American War and you'll find that Teddy Roosevelt came to San Antonio to first recruit his Rough Riders. The World War I had many heroes from Texas, and World War II produced more Texans fighting in more areas than from any other state, and many of the most recognized heroes, including Audie Murphy, the most decorated. The Texas 36th Division fought longer in combat than any other division and its 300 percent casualties was the highest of any division. Even the Battleship Texas (which can't be said to be a true Texas product, but does have the aura) was the only fighting ship of any navy to fight in both world wars, and the only battleship to fight in both the Atlantic (support of fighting at Pont de Neuf and Omaha Beach) and the Pacific (at Okinawa) and was famous for only having one death in combat. The Korean War and Vietnam and the others have had their share of Texas commitments also. I had never traveled much outside of Texas until I was drafted in the early 50's and sent to Fort Ord in California for basic and first ran into the Texas Discrimination problem, where we were lectured as a group on being court marshalled for showing any discrimination - we had a lot of fights and won them all anyway and no one ever bothered us because we didn't start them. I ran into similar problems at Fort Holabird in Baltimore on my two assignments there. When I spent two years working in the oil business in the Rockies, I ran into much resentment about Texans being up there, and yet everything that was being accomplished seemed to have Texas people or money behind them. But, you are too young I think to know the cruelest resentment Texans ever had to face, particularly if you lived in Dallas, as I did, when John Kennedy was shot there. We were accused of actually being the assassins, although all the parties involved, Kennedy, Lee Osward, and Ruby were all from somewhere else. We were reviled on TV, in the newspapers, and every trip we took out of state usually had awkward moments where some jackass would want to make a scene with us. Even when I took a promotion in IBM to move to New York two years later, I was still being hassled by idiots wanting to know why we killed their president. Even in my travels overseas for IBM, I ran into questions about our violent and murderous behavior. And, then I'll never forget August 5, 1965, when I was in Tokyo and the morning paper happened to blare out a full page of a jerk from Florida who climbed the tower at the University of Texas and gunned down dozens of people and I think killed about 17. I would be introduced at my lectures in Japanese and at the end I would hear the word "Texas!" and the master of ceremonies pretending to pull two pistols and going "Bang, Bang", while everyone gasped and then laughed. I could go on for hours on this subject, as you might tell, but the point is this, if you are from Texas, you are going to be blamed for the most outlandish things in the world, so get used to it or cover your tracks and hide. You are a liberal so you have a special problem, but most of us realize this criticism is a tremendous case of envy, and we wouldn't trade places with them for anything. Just remember that Texas doesn't need the rest of the country as much as it needs us, and that particularly goes for California, which would be up a very big creek without our oil and gas and chemicals, which they don't want messing up their pristine soil. Good luck, T.S.
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