Growing up, we had a barbed-wire state-of-Texas on our kitchen wall, right next to the table.

[conuly]

We had Texas shaped platters, and Texas-motif mugs, and when my father wasn't wearing his white suit you might see him in a University of Texas sweatshirt. We had, and still have, two or maybe three longhorn... horns. I don't think I've ever seen his grave, because he is buried in Texas. (Buried wearing the aforementioned white suit. He almost had to go in the sweatshirt before my mother thought to check the laundry.)

I've heard it said that Texas is the only state in the union where you can find more of the state flag than the national flag. I don't know if that's true, and I have no idea how to check it, but we certainly had at least one Texas flag. My father wasn't very patriotic, in the usual sense. No petty American flag-waving for him!

It's possible he just felt outnumbered, living in New York with a native New Yorker wife and two daughters who barely remembered living anywhere else. Of course, he was also outnumbered as the only male in the house (excepting the cats), and he didn't plaster the place with guy things!

I don't really think about it much, but yesterday I innocently decided to check the prices of waffle irons on Amazon, and one of the options on the very first page was a Texas shaped waffle maker! (You can bet my dad would've loved it if he could've had it.)

NYMagazine somewhat facetiously (I think) referred to "expat Texan hangouts", and that might be it. It's hard to say, given that I'm basing my experience on my dad, but then again, you don't see anybody making waffle irons in the shape of Iowa or New Mexico, do you?

Comments

[kyrielle]

Not waffle-makers, but: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/state-shaped-cast-iron-skillet-152414

[conuly]

Verily, my world is better for having seen that : )

[steorra]

This entry is complaining about bad HTML. It looks like you missed the quotation mark at the end of a href="http://nymag.com/nymetro/nightlife/n_8516/

[conuly]

Fixed, thanks!

[sayga.livejournal.com]

I lived in Texas for three years and you're right: I don't think anyone else is as obsessed with the size/shape of their state more than Texans. I have lived in Oregon for 2 years now and I still am not positive what shape Oregon is (I couldn't DRAW it, and if I did, even if I did an awesome job, I don't think everyone would go "that's Oregon!" like they would with Texas), but I knew how to draw Texas right away because that shape is EVERYWHERE. Texans are funny people!

You don't usually talk about your life growing up, so this was a nice read.

[conuly]

You know, it's weird, but 18 years of childhood compress into about ten minutes worth of story. It's frustrating to the nieces as well that we can't tell them very many stories about our childhood because it doesn't add up to much.

My memories go back as far as everybody else's, one or two at the age of 2, a few from 3 and 4 and 5; and I don't have any huge gaps in them, they just don't... add up to much.