Sports Writer, Huntsville Item

Don't forget the giant statue of Sam Houston. It actually is pretty cool to stand by.

 

I was in Huntsville once to cover a high school baseball game. Must have been the playoffs. I remember driving out that way and being surprised. "Holy crap," I thought, "they do have trees in Texas!" It was the first time I'd been to that part of the state.
That's all I got.

 

Why do people think there are no trees here? Is it the John Wayne movies?

Those weren't even filmed here.

 

Ask that to anybody who's ever lived in West Texas.

 

You know, I think of how back in the day when people would drive to California they'd take Route 66. That cut through the Panhandle. I can kind of see how people came to view all of Texas as looking like that. My girlfriend is from North Carolina and when she first came here she was also expecting not to see trees.

People also think of Louisiana as a swamp, and I can picture, in their minds, coming across the Sabine River into Texas figuring they'd see it go from swamps and alligators to desert and tumbleweeds on the other side...

 

You're right, though. For whatever reason, it's the images of the stark western landscape that most people equate to Texas. If not that, it's the border area and the dried up Rio Grande. It's never Big Bend. You can probably blame Hollywood for that -- not just the Duke.

 

The funny thing is much of Texas history was written in the piny woods, swamps and rolling grassy hills of East Texas. The Alamo is in San Antonio, which is still a ways away from desert. Nacogdoches, in the middle of the piny woods, is the oldest town. Huntsville, on the edge of the piny woods, was the home of Sam Houston. The war with Mexico was won at San Jacinto, between Baytown and Dear Park somehwere, on the east side of Houston. The oil industry was born in Beaumont, in the southeast corner of Texas. Columbia, about an hour west of Houston, is where the Republic of Texas first convened its congress.

 

last time I covered an event with Sam Houston State in it, whoever was there covering it was wearing a nice SHSU shirt

 

My guess? The guy who left their paper to be, essentially, their assistant SID...

 

Could see you see it glow in the dark? I mean come on, SHSU's colors are blinding (like the prison jumpsuits).

 

Fremont and Brian Griffin, I'd like to thank you for pointing out that the Texas does indeed contain areas that (A) have trees (B) experience rainfall and (C) aren't what everyone thinks TX is.

In my opinion, the eastern quarter of the state is the only livable part, with the exception of Austin/San Antonio.

 

Anyone know the cost of living in the area?