Don't mess with TEXAS

Ok I didn't write this it was an email forward from a friend but it really sums up the place where I live. I have added a few things. It's funny, I never wanted to live here. If you told me 10 years ago that I'd be living in Texas for the majority of that time I'd have thought you were crazy. But here I am, and it really isn't as bad as I had once made it out to be. In fact its pretty cool. This thing really does sort of sum it up. So here comes the forward...

When you're from Texas, people that you meet ask you questions like, "Do you have any cows?" "Do you have horses?" "Bet you got a bunch of guns, eh?"

Have you ever looked at a map of the world? Look at Texas with me just for a second. That picture, with the Panhandle and the Gulf Coast, and the Red River and the Rio Grande is as much a part of you as anything ever will be. As soon as anyone anywhere in the world looks at it they know what it is. It's Texas. Pick any kid off the street in Japan and draw him a picture of Texas in the dirt and he'll know what it is.

In every man, woman and child on this planet, there is a person who wishes just once he could be a real live Texan and get up on a horse or ride off in a pickup. There is some little bit of Texas in everyone.

Did you ever hear anyone in a bar go, "Wow...so you're from Iowa? Cool, tell me about it?" Do you know why?
Because there's no place like Texas.

Texas is the Alamo. Texas is 183 men standing in a church, facing
thousands of Mexican nationals, fighting for freedom, who had the
chance to walk out and save themselves, but stayed instead to fight and die for their freedom. We send our kids to schools named William B. Travis and James Bowie and Crockett and do you know why? Because those men saw a line in the sand and they decided to cross it and be heroes. John Wayne paid to do the movie himself. That is the Spirit of Texas.

Texas is Sam Houston capturing Santa Ana at San Jacinto.

Texas is "Juneteenth" and Texas Independence Day.

Texas is huge! Nearly nine hundred miles of Piney Wood forests (like the Davy Crockett National Forest), breathtaking mountains in the Big Bend, unparalleled beauty of bluebonnet fields in the Texas
Hill Country contrasted by a sprawling desert a couple of hours to the west. Texas is the beautiful, warm beaches of the Gulf Coast of South Texas. Texas is the shiny skyscrapers in Houston and Dallas.

Texas is Mexican food like nowhere else, not even Mexico.

Texas is the original Six Flags (Over Texas!).

Texas is the Fort Worth Stockyards, Bass Hall, the Ballpark in
Arlington and the Astrodome.

Texas is larger-than-life legends like Michael DeBakey, Denton Cooley, Willie Nelson, Buddy Holly, Waylon Jennings, Janis Joplin, Kris Kristofferson, Tom Landry, Darrell Royal, ZZ Top, Eric Dickerson, Earl Campbell, Nolan Ryan, Sam Rayburn, George H. W.Bush, and Lyndon B. Johnson. And let's not forget Meatloaf, Pantera, Bowling for Soup(come on, you know it makes you simle when you hear "come back to Texas" on the radio and think that kids in freaking Arkansas or somewhere are listening to that lyric too!), Lance Armstrong, George Strait, and Pat Green.

Texas is great companies like Dell Computer, Texas Instruments and Compaq. And LOCKHEED MARTIN AEROSPACE,! Home of the F-16 Jet Fighter and the JSF Fighter.

Texas is NASA.

Texas is huge herds of cattle and miles of crops.

Texas is home to the most amazing sunsets of gold over an empty field.

Texans have pride like none other.

Texas is hundreds of deer running around neighborhoods and fields.

Texas is skies blackened with doves, and fields full of deer.

Texas is a place where towns and cities shut down to watch the local High School Football game on Friday nights and for the Cowboys on Monday Night Football, and for the Night In Old San Antonio River Parade at fiesta time in San Antonio. And what about the 2006 National Champions, the University of TEXAS Longhorns? Or the three time NBA champions, the San Antonio Spurs?

Texas is ocean beaches, deserts, lakes and rivers, mountains and prairies, and modern cities.

If it isn't in Texas, you probably don't need it.

Everything's bigger in Texas! Forget about a 2 liter of soda, its a 3 or nothing.

Where else does a statewide litering campaign become the world-wide slogan for your state. Most people don't even know that thats were the "don't mess with Texas" thing came from.

By federal law, Texas is the only state in the U.S. that can fly its
flag at the same height as the U.S. flag. Think about that for a second. You fly the Stars and Stripes at 20 feet in Maryland, California, or Maine and your state flag, whatever it is, goes at 17 feet. You fly the Stars and Stripes in front of Pine Tree High in Longview or anyplace else at 20 feet, the Lone Star flies at the same height - 20 feet. Do you know why? Because it is the only state that was a republic before it became a state.

Also, being a Texan is as high as being an American down here. Our capitol is the only one in the country that is taller than the capitol building in Washington, D.C. and we can divide our state into five states at any time if we wanted to! We included these things as part of the deal when we came on.

Texas even has its own power grid!!

Not to mention the live music capitol of the world is Austin, and in case you didn't catch it the first time, UT Longhorns are the National Champions.

If you are a REAL TEXAN you won't even need to be told to pass this on.