T.R. Fehrenbach

T.R. Fehrenbach just did an article, "Drain of Thought" in the November 2012 issue of Texas Monthly. 

I like T.R. Fehrenbach.  

In addition to writing in Tx Monthly from time-to-time (not enough for me; I'd like to have more articles by him), he also writes for the San Antonio Express.  I read, This Kind of War, about the Korean War while serving with the Marines in South Korea and I think I read Lone Star (although, if I can't remember it, I probably need to read it again!).  I've got Comanches, but haven't read it yet.  (I first saw this book at the Panhandle-Plains Museum in Canyon back in the '80 & bought the book at Half-Price Books [probably in Houston]; I know it's going to be a hard read.)

The article, Drain of Though - Why Texas Has Never Had Much Use for Ideas, dwells on Texans being primarily a people of action. The Texas Dream was to own land vs. the American Dream of a job, a home, and a car.  Conversations centered on weather, crops, politics, and oil prices - practical things. (In the 19th C., back East, being able to quote Latin or Greek often substituted for thinking.)  Geography and history profoundly shaped Texas values: 

• Pragmatism and courage.
• Texans were fighting Mexicans, Indians, and Yankees.
• "We fought  for this land, we took it, we mean to hold it."
• It's better to take a whupping than to back down.
• Owner--> Foreman-->tenant--> Ranch hand.

T.R. thinks it's time for us to debate these concepts and their meaning.