The stars at night, are big and bright...

So...Texas.

We started out our journey in Central Texas; Fort Hood area. Nothing like being near a southern military base to remind you of the bubble we live in here in New York --how spoiled are we liberals, or non-Christians, or those left-of-center. I'm used to being able to make a disparaging remark about the President to a perfect stranger, and know with near certainty I'll get a sympathetic, equally outraged response. Not so in Central Texas. If you don't support the man and his war, you shut the hell up --or suffer the consequences.

The war is palpable there. Fort Hood is nearly devoid of men. Well, few between eighteen and sixty. You see women pushing baby carriages mostly, all wearing "Proud [wife, mother, sister, daughter] of a Soldier" T-shirts. When they travel in groups you overhear talk of the end of missions and tours of duty. They discuss the last time they heard from their loved one(s). Many have already lost a son or husband. It's absolutely heart-breaking. And beyond frustrating --the complicated business of combining sympathy and outrage in the presence of people who believe, or have to believe, this war is worth losing your life. My frustration became tears in a shopping mall as I walked past two soldiers (a fresh-faced young couple no more than twenty) picking out engagement rings --in full combat fatigues.

And so the bulk of our trip was spent not saying much about politics. G and I spent one evening listening to his grand-dame Texan Grandmother (who I absolutely adore despite her political beliefs) go on about the wonderful things Bush is doing, how hopeful she is for his re-election. The hole I bit in my lip that night is healing nicely, thanks.

Several years ago I accompanied my Mom on a work-related trip to Vale, Colorado. I couldn't stand Vale. I felt like an accomplice to something just by being there --like I had gone to the park to attend a fundraising picnic, and found out it was hosted by The Klan. However we had the last few days of the trip to ourselves, so we drove to Boulder. As we rounded the corner into town a kid with a green mohawk passed on a skateboard, two women walked by holding hands, and a mixed-race couple gave us directions to our hotel. Waving goodbye to them Mom turned to me and said, "There. Feel better now?" to which I replied, "Immeasurably."

I experienced equal relief as we arrived in Austin. Bush/Cheney placards all but disappeared, urban landscape emerged, along with the broad-spectrum of people that usually inhabit a large college town. And I encountered a strange new (for me) phenomenon: The Liberal Redneck. Being a half urban/half redneck girlie myself, I cannot describe the sheer joy, the total delight, the shock and awe that was pulling up on a Ford F-250, good-as-a-good-ol-boy-gets at the wheel, that is covered with pro-abortion, anti-Bush, anti-war, anti-religious-conservative bumper stickers. I felt like an adopted child who spied someone with a matching birthmark and found out it was my birth mother. All I can say is: Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings? I get you now.

My lasting impression of Texas is a strange one though. If you're going to Texas, bring a sweater. No, really. It may be a hundred outside, but they keep it a frigid sixty or so indoors. I spent a week shivering, in some cases too cold to sit still without periodic trips out into the heat, which, of course, landed me a nasty sunburn. A land of extremes, that one.

Posted by Antigeist at September 1, 2004 04:27 PM