Welcome Home, Boys

It looks like a couple of fellow bloggers out on the left coast will be moving to Texas soon. CD and Paul are the latest in a burgeoning trend of Tex-patriates (I'm proud of that one...) returning home. In another one of those serendipity things, the San Antonio paper recently published a couple of stories on that subject. (Paul - FYI, I read "California" as "left-coast," which includes Washington and Oregon).

The first one is by one of my favorite authors and commentators, T.R. Fehrenbach. A Texas native, Princeton graduate, and Korean War combat veteran, T.R. is a historian by profession. He currently writes an op-ed column for the San Antonio Express-News, and his pieces never fail to make me stop and think. You'll see what I mean from these excerpts of a recent column that touches on the differences between California and Texas, and by extension, between Californians and Texans.

California and Texas today are the most prominent states in the Union. Both are huge, bigger than many countries, and their individual gross product transcends most national economies. If they were sovereign nations, each would rank high. But they are very different places.

I did not understand things bred into me until I went to school in California.

Before World War II, the state was magic country, and I don't mean Hollywood. The coastal climate is among the most pleasant in the world. The topography includes seacoast, desert and mountains: You could surf and ski on the same day. Back then, California grew two-thirds of the nation's fruit and vegetables, and organized marketing let farmers make money. Orange and cherry orchards surrounded Los Angeles. There were only about 4 million people in Southern California, and “aliens” were affluent retirees from the Midwest.

The Texas I came from seemed grossly inferior. The climate was lousy, too hot or freezing. Parts of Texas were a dust bowl. Most farmers were tenants, poor and knew nothing about marketing. Cotton farming at 10 cents a pound was hard scrabble. We had oil, and petroleum millionaires, but oil at a nickel a barrel (in 1935) made us limit production. Houston was becoming a great seaport due to the East Texas field, and Dallas was raising itself by its own bootstraps, but compared to clannish San Francisco, this was yahoo country.

At first I did not like California. Where I was raised, I could go hunting and fishing on our own property. Here I could not even buy BB shot. People played badminton and tennis and never went to high-school football games, which were held immediately after class. Compared to the teeming Gulf, fish were downright scarce.

By the time I left the state, I understood many things. I came from people who had gone to Texas to get land and above all, independence. My (California) classmates had a different outlook bred into them; they seemed content to become (high-paid) hired hands and had no distaste for corporations or primordial fear of government, which could tax and build roads through your land.

At age 16, I decided that Texas had been settled by a tougher crowd, and a lot of the losers in Texas went on to California.

It may be a radical idea, but perhaps California has been too hospitable to losers, whether from Texas or wherever. When I was in school, the big political issue was “Ham 'n Eggs,” state handouts for oldies. California already had a sales and income tax, unknown in Texas. I could understand Louisiana, run by crooks, but why would a rich state need to engage in robbery?

The answer may define the difference between Californians and Texans.

I think he's on to something. I particularly like the part about how California was populated by people who couldn't cut it in Texas. But of course, I'm biased.

Moving on, we have another story that notes an ongoing migration of Californians to Texas. We always have room for people who are willing to work, but hopefully the ones looking for CA-style handouts will stay out there in La-La land where they belong.

Census figures show that more than 363,000 Californians have moved to Texas over the past five years, helping the state grow more than twice as fast as the nation as a whole since 2000.

Texas' relatively strong economy is getting most of the credit — the state's unemployment rate of 8.5 percent is substantially less than California's and below the national average.

As an oil- and gas-producing state, Texas has felt the benefits of high energy prices. In addition, its housing sector has fared better than those in other parts of the country.

For Californians moving to Texas, the state's lower cost of living is another factor driving their decision-making

All of which is a good thing for CD and Paul, as they make their way back to God's country. Sorry for the upheaval in your lives, dudes, but I'm confident things will work out for the best - and hopefully, soon.

Godspeed...