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?"
They all want to know if you've been to Southfork. They watched "Dallas".
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. What happens if I show you a picture of any
other state? You might get it maybe after a second or two, but who else
would? And even if you do, does it ever stir any feelings in you?
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 in a
pickup. There is some bit of Texas in everyone. Did you ever hear anyone in
a bar go, "Wow...so you're from Idaho? 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 the cause of 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 forests of Piney Woods like the
Davy Crockett National Forest. Texas is breathtaking mountains in the Big Bend.
Texas is the unparalleled beauty of bluebonnet fields in the Texas Hill
Country. Texas is the beautiful, warm beaches of the Gulf Coast of South Texas.
Texas is the shiny skyscrapers in Houston and Dallas.
Texas is world record bass from places like Lake Fork. Texas is Mexican
food like nowhere else, not even Mexico. Texas is the Fort Worth Stockyards,
Bass Hall, and the Astrodome. Texas is larger-than-life legends like Willie
Nelson, Buddy Holly, Waylon Jennings, Janis Joplin, Kris Kristofferson, Tom Landry,
Darrell Royal, ZZ Top, Eric Dickerson, Earl Campbell, Nolan Ryan, Denton
Cooley, Michael DeBakey, Sam Rayburn, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Lyndon B. Johnson.   

Texas is great companies like Dell Computer, Texas Instruments and Compaq.
Texas is NASA. Texas is huge herds of cattle and miles of crops. Texas is
skies blackened with doves, and fields full of deer. Texas is a place where
cities shut down to watch the local High School Football game on Friday nights and
for the Cowboys on Monday Night Football, and NIOSA River Parade in San Antonio.
Texas is ocean beaches, deserts, lakes and rivers, mountains and prairies,
and modern cities. If it isn't in Texas, you don't need it. No one does
anything bigger or better than it's done in Texas.

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 at 20 feet, the Lone Star flies at the same
height - 20 feet. Do you know why? Because we place being a Texan as high as
being an American down here. (it is the only state that was a republic before it
became a state, that is the reason I was taught).

                                                            

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
if we want to! We included these things as part of the deal when we came on.
Yip, I'm from Texas Ya'll, and I'm real proud of it!