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When most people think of Lyndon Johnson they don't envision a man with a great sense of humor. He was in power in turbulent times. When I see his face in my mind I see a man who was troubled – an unsmiling man with furrows in his brow accentuating unrelenting worries. Yet even in those dark moments his humor would surface unexpectedly and lighten his mood. He once said, "When the burdens of the presidency seem unusually heavy, I always remind myself it could be worse. I could be a mayor." He also said, facetiously, "There are no favorites in my office. I treat everyone with the same general inconsideration." Though he didn't have the public eloquence of Kennedy or King, he was interpersonally charismatic. He was a wonderful storyteller. Last week, I had the pleasure and the honor of speaking with Doris Kearns Goodwin for about 30 minutes. As you may know, she worked closely with LBJ for seven years. Because of her professional relationship with him, out of all the biographies about him, I would argue that hers is the most humanizing. No writer knew him better. Dr. Goodwin told me that LBJ was a fantastic storyteller and she never tired of listening to him, though eventually she came to realize that his stories were not all completely true. He might have used my tag line. Some of his stories were apocryphal. Goodwin told me that like Lincoln, LBJ used stories to animate his points, to skewer his adversaries, or simply to amuse and entertain folks. He learned his storytelling, she said, from his father and grandfather. He listened at night as they talked politics on the porch with local powerbrokers. That became LBJ's unique power, too: interpersonal persuasion. He could read people and package an argument, often in story form, so that it was uniquely positioned for them. Let me share a couple of LBJ stories that my father, a great admirer of LBJ, shared with me long ago. LBJ liked to refer to Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller as Barry and Rocky. He said: "I understand that Barry and Rocky, in running for the GOP nomination, are both cutting way back on their visits to California. Reminds me of a case in Texas where a man wanted to run for sheriff against an unpopular incumbent named Uncle Johnny. Man asked his friend Dave if he thought he had a chance. Dave said, 'Well, I guess it depends on who meets the most people.' 'Yeah, that's what I was thinking,' said the man. Dave explained further, 'If he meets the most people you'll win and if you meet the most people he'll win.' That's the situation Barry and Rocky find themselves in." One last story is about a boy in Texas "who was very poor and tired of seeing his mama struggling so much to feed her family. So he sent a letter to God asking for 100 dollars for his mama. The letter got forwarded eventually to the postmaster general in Washington D.C. He took pity on the boy and put 20 dollars in an envelope and mailed it to him. Two weeks later, the postmaster got a letter back from the boy that said, 'Dear God, thank you for sending the money. But next time don't send it through Washington, 'cause they took 80% of it.'" Doris Kearns Goodwin said that it was LBJ's time teaching in Cotulla that inspired and shaped his vision for the Great Society. She's happy to see that LBJ is getting long-deserved credit now for the progressive laws and policies he passed in his time, like Medicaid, Medicare, and the Voting Rights Act, plus the institutions he helped to found, like NASA and public broadcasting. She just wishes he was still around to see it. He would certainly smile.

Early Texas towns took hold alongside protected bays: think Galveston and Corpus Christi. Others developed along the banks of fine rivers, such as San Antonio, Goliad and El Paso. But later, it was the steel tributaries called railroads that planted the seeds that raised towns alongside them. Railroads, more than any other technology, ushered Texas into the industrial age and commercial wealth. The railroads got a slow start in Texas, but the 1876 constitution changed that. It gave away 16 sections of land for every mile of railroad constructed. And tracks began to get laid down with urgency. Imagine, for every mile of track you constructed, your company would get over 10,000 acres as payment! And that wasn't all. You'd also get a government loan of up to $6,000 dollars per mile to help you pay for the building of that railroad. Within a few years, the state had to cancel the program. Texas was running out of land. It gave away 32 million acres under this and similar programs. That's 20 percent of all of Texas! And I hate to tell you, there was some corruption involved, too. There were many reasons that townships took hold along railroads. One was because every twenty miles or so, steam locomotives needed water. So water depots were built, even if the place wasn't otherwise so favorable a spot for a town to pop up. Valentine, Texas, is such a case. The story goes that the stop for the water depot was given that name because the railroad crew reached it on Valentine's Day, 1882, although another story says it was named for John Valentine: a big stockholder in the railroad. Both could certainly be true – a twofer, you might say. The little town of 130 or so people still exists, and does a booming business at the post office on Valentine's Day. Other towns sprang up haphazardly because of grading camps lasting long enough for communal roots to grow. Langtry, Texas, was such a place: a tent town where railroad bed builders lived for some time. Langtry was named for George Langtry, a railroad engineer for the Southern Pacific. But Judge Roy Bean, famous as the law West of the Pecos, rewrote that history by force of personality. He sold worldwide the fiction that he had named the town for Lillie Langtry, the gorgeous British-American actress. He was so successful in selling his myth that she stopped to visit her namesake town – and Bean's grave, shortly after he died. Abilene, Texas was created by the building of the Texas and Pacific Railway line, cattlemen and developers working in concert. They wanted a cattle market similar to Abilene, Kansas – the city for which Abilene, Texas was named. They needed a place where such a market might develop. The railroad bypassed the better-established community of Buffalo Gap. Many of its citizens soon moved to Abilene, since the railroad lines were the life-blood of commerce in those days. Alongside those tracks on the first day of lot selling, the First Presbyterian Church was founded. It prophesied the future of Abilene, which has the reputation of more churches per population than any town in Texas, along with three Christian colleges. In 1860, the Houston and Texas Central Railways built a line through the region that would become College Station – so-named largely because the railroad was there. Texas A&M University, originally The Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, opened its doors in 1876. The next year, the U.S. Postal Service designated the town College Station, since that was the name of the railroad passenger depot at the new college. The railroad is still there, bifurcating the enormous 5,200 acre campus that it once bordered only on the west side. Texas has more miles of railroad than any state in the union: 10,539 miles of them, still powering our state's commercial prowess.

One way I know a book is special is if I keep thinking about it years after I first read it. "Miles and Miles of Texas: 100 Years of the Texas Highway Department," by Carol Dawson and Roger Allen Polson, is such a book. I first read it several years ago, and even recommended it on air back then, but ever so briefly. I was unable to do it justice in the ten seconds I had to devote to it that day. So, let me give it the time it deserves right now. One reason I have a particular fondness for the book is because my father drove me and my brothers all over Texas when we were kids and bragged about our great road system. This book makes my father's case, and also, quite honestly, lays out just how early Texas political corruption (can you say Ferguson?) raided the highway funds and delayed the quality work that eventually became routine, thanks to meticulously ethical overseers who finally took charge. This book is about how the Texas highway system got built, the story of how the state, as the authors say, "got the farmer out of the mud." Farm to Market and Ranch to Market roads – FM and RM – were pioneered in Texas. The wildflowers being seeded along the highways was started long before Lady Bird Johnson took on the promotion of the practice as her special project, and enhanced it. That story is here. "Miles and Miles of Texas" points out that "throughout recorded history, roads have provided opportunities for criminals." Bonnie and Clyde used the good roads for fast getaways. Serial killers stalked the interstates. Smugglers of all kinds took advantage of the anonymity offered by crowded, fast-moving expressway traffic. Roads do not always mean universal progress. Roads connect, but they also divide and circumvent. They unite some and isolate others. Eminent domain is often invoked for the public good, but it's generally the poor that pay the biggest price for the "public good." What I most love about the book is that it is overflowing with marvelous anecdotes that are sometimes shocking, sometimes inspiring and sometimes just hilarious. One I found particularly amusing was how inmates working road construction during World War II got tired of people doing drive-bys with their kids just to gawk at them in their prison stripes. The inmates would pick the scariest looking among them and chain him to a tree with a forty-foot chain. Then, when cars would come by, he'd run after them until the chain grew taught and then he'd strain at the end like a zombie. The car would speed off with the kids staring out the back window, wide-eyed in horror. I imagine those petrified kids kept their parents up late into the night. Some poetic justice in that perhaps. Another aspect of the book that is noteworthy is the photographs. They were chosen in close cooperation with the Texas Highway Department, which has phenomenal archives. The book contains dozens of these rare photographs of Texas roads and bridges in all phases of construction. The photographs were often taken by engineers and others uniquely involved in the building of roads so you feel privileged to see perspectives few have seen. This is a book that truly animates history because of the unique relationships between the photos and those who took them. Impressive, intricate research went into compiling this book. I enjoy it as an extraordinary read, cover to cover, and as a coffee-table book to be perused at leisure. Compared to other states, we have some impressive achievements in our road system. We have, as mentioned, the pioneering of FM roads, the landscaping of the highways for beauty and safety, the invention of the Texas turnaround (where you don't have to go through the light to reverse direction on a freeway), and truly exceptional, even beautiful, roadside rest areas. "Miles and Miles of Texas" is an entertaining collection of Texana. It's worth a look.

Could there be a better name for the world's faster runner than Usain Bolt? It's a dead solid perfect aptronym, which is the formal word for a name that appropriately fits one's occupation, sometimes humorously. A neurological scholar in England was knighted and became, I kid you not, Lord Brain. The president of Barclays Bank used to be Rich Ricci. What else could he have done but become a banker? The same may be said for George Francis Train, a major player in building the eastern portion of the transcontinental railroad across the United States. Barbara Boxer didn't go into boxing literally, but as the long-serving former California senator, she was in the full contact sport of politics. I thought I'd look at aptronyms of Texas – people from Texas who have names that are, or were, particularly apt for them. My friend Judge Ken Wise has an ideal name for a judge. He uses his name, too, aptronomously, for his podcast, "Wise about Texas." In East Texas we used to have a federal judge whose name was William Wayne Justice. He really was all about justice, too. He forced East Texas to integrate their schools and ordered that children of undocumented parents could go to public schools. There are those who study, seriously, the connection between names and destiny. Researchers Brett Pelham and Carvallo Mauricio found that men named Cal and Tex, born outside of Texas and California, had better than 50/50 odds that they'd move to their namesake states in their lifetime. Cals would go to California and those named Tex would mosey on over to the Lone Star State. They also found that the name Dennis is disproportionately represented in the field of Dentistry. Dennis the Dentist. There are also inaptronyms. They are ironic rather than descriptive names. For instance, we used to have a state treasurer in Texas named Jesse James. We put a famous train robber in charge of the money. John Tower was not physically towering, but he was a towering force in politics, both influential and powerful in the U.S. Senate. So his name works both ways. Here's a few more fun Texas aptronyms: Barbara Staff was great at building staffs for Republican political campaigns. John Sharp, the politically astute former comptroller, is now Texas A&M University chancellor. The last name of Tito of Tito's Vodka fame is Beveridge. Richard King built a ranch empire that was, and remains, one of the biggest ranches in the world. Great name for the man and the ranch. Ken Starr has certainly seemed to be a star in many political events of the last few decades, with the Clinton impeachment being his biggest starring role. Finally, I have to go back a long way to tell you about Robert Neighbors, a man who was the primary Indian agent in Texas back in the 1850s. It was his impossible task of attempting to forge peace between the white settlers and the Comanche. He was one of the few people, at the time, other than Sam Houston, who spoke a Native American language fluently. He used that skill to talk with Comanches in their lodges and teepees and build trust for the treaties he negotiated with the settlers. Sadly, Neighbors was shot in the back and killed by Edward Cornett because he thought Neighbors was too friendly with the Comanche. Despite the fact that there were three eyewitnesses to the crime, Edward was never tried for the murder. It helps to have your brother-in-law on the grand jury.

Tex is an incredibly popular nickname. It is so fitting for some… that it pushes their given first name entirely out of use. I thought it would be interesting to look at a few famous folks known mostly as just Tex. Tex Ritter is probably the most famous person named Tex. I doubt more than one in hundred Texans could tell you that Tex Ritter's first name was Woodward. Full name: Woodward Maurice Ritter. More people likely know that he was the father of actor John Ritter of "Three's Company" fame. The elder Ritter was an incredibly popular recording artist, television and movie star from the 1930s to the 1960s. Here's his most famous song: "You Two-Timed Me One Time Too Often." Everyone knows that you're untrue, Honey you and me are through, You two timed me one time too often, I'm so tired of your abuse, Guess I'd better turn you loose, You two timed me one time too often. Then there's another famous recording star, Tex Williams But he wasn't really from Texas. He was born Sollie Paul Williams, in Ramsey, Illinois. He just got the Tex nickname because early in his career he played Western Swing in California, a musical genre that had a lot of Texas fans there at the time, and so he was given the nickname to connect him to his audience, and it stuck. His most famous song was "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)," which you may remember from the 2006 film: "Thank You for Smoking." Smoke smoke smoke that cigarette Puff puff puff And if you smoke yourself to death Tell St Peter at the Golden Gate That you hate to make him wait But you just gotta have another cigarette Tex Brashear, born in Kerrville, Texas, is a voice actor, narrator and movie trailer announcer with a deep bass voice. You've probably never seen him, but you've likely heard him. Known as the man of a thousand voices, he's won 102 Addy awards. Here's a promo he recorded for NBC for Lethal Weapon: https://soundcloud.com/tex-brashear (first one, NBC – 33-40?) According to the babynamescience website, Tex is a unique modern baby name for boys. Only 1 in 335-thousand babies were given that name in recent years. And it's even rarer for girls, which brings us to our last entry here – a famous woman who was nicknamed – not Tex, but Texas. Texas Guinan. She was a well-known actress and vaudeville singer, comedian, and speakeasy performer during prohibition. The life story she told about herself was that she was named Texas the day she was born in Waco in 1884. Not true. She was named Mary – not Texas – but she built her entire show-business persona around the Texas claim, and it served her well. She left us some memorable quotes. As hostess of speakeasies for the rich and famous she would often welcome customers from her place on stage, with this line: "Hello suckers! Come on in and leave your wallet on the bar." And her most famous line: "A politician is a fellow who will lay down your life for his country." There are hundreds more. There's Tex Schramm, the first President of the Dallas Cowboys. Randall "Tex" Cobb, the Bridge City-born boxer, actor. Tex Avery, the cartoonist and Warner Brothers animator who was born in Taylor. It's a long list. Younger generations are picking it up, too. We have Tex Sands, the outube star. And the youngest, on-the-way-to-fame-"Tex", is voice actor Tex Hammond, 14, known for the two animated series, The Loud House and Vampirina. I say name your babies Tex, boys or girls. It's a rare given name and seems to lead to great things. In my little town, as was true for many ag towns across Texas, we thought of watermelons as our fourth sport. The fall started with football and then we had basketball and baseball, and then, watermelons. We thought we should have been able to letter in watermelons. For those who played football, pitching melons half the summer was ideal conditioning. There were three kinds – grays, stripes and black diamonds. The grays were kind of like footballs – a little heavier of course. The stripes were enormous – and averaged 35 pounds or more. The black diamonds were the most despised because they were heavy and round like a medicine ball. Hard to pitch and hard to catch. The best thing about watermelon season was being able, when tired, to cut open a beautiful melon in the field and to eat just the cool, sweet heart of it, and move on. Nature's Gatorade. There was a hierarchy in the fields. You'd start out as a pitcher, making a dollar, twenty-five an hour, at least that was the going rate in the late 1960s. You would work with a crew of four or five and take a large trailer, generally pulled by a tractor, out into the fields to load with melons. The crew would fan out and then, like a bucket brigade, toss the cut melons in their path to the next guy in line and he'd pitch it to the next guy who'd throw it up to the man in the trailer. You didn't want to be the man working by the trailer because you had to handle every melon and lift it up over your head for the guy in the trailer to set it down with reasonable care so as not to break it open. The best job was to be either the man in the trailer or the outside man who handled the least number of melons, only those in his path. Yet it didn't matter which job was yours, it was still brutal work. You worked in the giant sauna of the Texas summer, often in 100 degrees with no wind and stifling humidity. But it was about the only work you could get at 13 or 14, so you gladly did it and when you got your 80 dollars at the end of the week, you felt rich if not sunburnt and tired. And you longed for the day you could move up to cutter or stacker. Being a cutter was a good job because you didn't pitch anymore. You went down the rows and identified, by sight, the melons that were ripe and ready to harvest and the proper weight for the store wanting them (H-E-B for instance – grays 18-to-24 pounds). You would cut them from the vine and stand on them on end for the pitchers to come along later and get them. The only downside was you were the first to come upon the rare rattler hidden in the vines. For this job you made $3.00 an hour. Double the pay. Knowledge is power. The final and best job in the field was stacker. You might get to be stacker by your third or fourth season, when you are 17 or so. You'd work inside the big 18-wheeler trailers and stack the melons "to ride." The little trailers, or pickup trucks would come in from the fields and the line would form to pitch the melons to you inside the trailer. Stacking was an art form. Taking into account the weight and shape of the melons you'd stack them into tiers about 8 or 9 rows high, nice and tight, so they wouldn't shift and break on the long ride north. The best stackers would start the season in the Rio Grande Valley and follow harvest north all the way up into the Panhandle where there would be a late summer and fall harvest. They'd make 25 dollars per 18 wheeler. Serious money, then. The greatest thing about those years and that work, at least for many men (and some women) who worked in those fields, is that they say it taught them a work ethic that has never deserted them.

The young lieutenant was 22 years-old. He was riding his horse south of Corpus Christi in the vicinity of what would one day, seven years later, be called the King Ranch. But for now, this vast stretch of sandy prairie was known simply as "The Wild Horse Desert." In some ways it was a spooky place – ghostly. You would see horse tracks everywhere, but no people. There were plenty of well-worn trails, but the population was merely equestrian, numbering perhaps more than a million. Folks reckoned that these horses were the descendants of the ones that arrived with Cortes or de Soto, three centuries before. Some had escaped, gone wild, and bred like rabbits (if you can say that about horses). Our young man – a newly-minted second lieutenant from West Point – was riding with a regiment of soldiers under the command of General Zachary Taylor. They were under orders to establish Fort Texas on the Rio Grande and to enforce that river as the southern border of the U.S. Fort Texas would shortly become Fort Brown, the fort that Brownsville, Texas would take its name from. The young lieutenant, who had excelled as a horseman at West Point, was so impressed with the seemingly infinite herds of wild horses in South Texas that he made a note of it in his journal. He said: "A few days out from Corpus Christi, the immense herd of wild horses that ranged at that time between the Nueces and the Rio Grande was directly in front of us. I rode out a ways to see the extent of the herd. The country was a rolling prairie, and from the higher ground, the vision was obstructed only by the curvature of the earth. As far as the eye could reach to the right, the herd extended. To the left, it extended equally. There was no estimating the number of animals in it; I doubt that they could all have been corralled in the State of Rhode Island, or Delaware, at one time. If they had been, they would have been so thick that the pasture would have given out the first day." Both General Taylor and his second lieutenant would distinguish themselves on that journey. Zachary Taylor had no idea that this Wild Horse desert would lead him on to victory in Mexico and to political victory back home. He would become the 12th President of the United States. His dashing second lieutenant would also ascend to the presidency, 20 years after him. The young man on high ground, surveying the primordial scene of thousands of mustangs grazing before him, would become the hero of many battles in the years ahead. He would ultimately lead the union forces to victory in the Civil War and become the youngest president of the U.S. His presidential memoirs would become a runaway bestseller – a book Mark Twain would publish and call "the most remarkable work of its kind since Caesar's Commentaries." It is that book that gives us this story. It was written by Hiram U. Grant. Well, that was his birth name. But when he entered West Point, due to a clerical error, the name Hiram was dropped and his middle name became his first name, the name you know him by: Ulysses – Ulysses S. Grant.

Most Texans probably know the Brackenridge name. But, depending on where you're from, you might have a different landmark in mind. In Austin, there was the area's first public hospital – named for a Robert J. Brackenridge. In Edna, there's the 1,000-plus acre Brackenridge Recreation Complex. That one's named primarily for a John Adams Brackenridge. But the Brackenridge we want to focus on today is George Washington. George is the brother and son of those other two we mentioned and the namesake of Brackenridge Park in San Antonio – which includes a zoo, the Witte Museum and one of Golf Magazine's best courses. And he may have given more to Texas, in financial terms, than anyone else – including others in his philanthropic family. Perhaps the most far-sighted gift George Washington Brackenridge provided was the protection of what many call the "oil money" that supports both the University of Texas and Texas A&M university systems. Brackenridge was a UT regent in the school's infancy. He went on to be the longest-serving regent ever. In the position, he insisted that the West Texas lands set aside for the university by the state Legislature, be transferred from state to university control. The state agreed. Back then, most thought the lands were just hard-scrabble grazing land of little value. That, of course, was before oil was discovered there. Brackenridge was a banker and paid out of his own pocked to have the land properly surveyed and managed. It turned out that this formal protection of the university's prime asset was of inestimable value when oil was indeed discovered there. Not long after Brackenridge died in 1920, Santa Rita One brought in the first of the oil money and resulted in the Permanent University Fund, which provides for construction of buildings across the UT and Texas A&M systems. Had Brackenridge not done that, the state would have likely found a way to grab a share of that money, or force a land swap. Brackenridge was so protective of UT that when Governor James "Pa" Ferguson threatened to cut off all funding for two years until the university hired and fired faculty according to his preferences, Brackenridge pledged personally to pay for the entire operating costs of the university for the biennium. It didn't come to that, but he had the means to do it for sure. In addition to his visionary services as a regent, Brackenridge donated 500 acres along the Colorado River to UT so that it would have room to grow. Today that land is used in part for the Brackenridge Field Lab and family student housing, but it's likely worth at least a billion dollars or more on the open market. George Washington Brackenridge made the bulk of his fortune in banking. He was president of San Antonio National Bank and San Antonio Loan and Trust. It's believed he made his seed fortune during the Civil War, when he profited handsomely from Matamoros cotton exports. During the war, though, he was a unionist and left Texas for a few years. In fact, George was so troubled by the fact that his father had owned slaves that he created his own reparations plan. He calculated how much money would have been paid to them for their work according to the standards for labor at the time, and though impossible to get money to them directly because of deaths or dispersion, he gave hundreds of thousands of dollars, over his lifetime, for the building of African American schools. One such school he founded in San Antonio he named for his brother, J. T., saying that it was "much better to build a school than to place a tombstone in the cemetery." Brackenridge also pushed hard for women's rights. He championed the admittance of women into UT. He also insisted upon hiring women faculty at UT and demanded complete equality for women. When women couldn't attend the medical school in Galveston for the lack of women's-only housing, Brackenridge donated the funds to have a dormitory built. He also donated passionately in support of women's suffrage. Brackenridge was never married and had no children. So upon his death, at age 88, he put the bulk of his wealth into a first-of-its-kind foundation in Texas. The George W. Brackenridge Foundation primarily supports charter schools and what it deems "transformative education." That seems fitting because he preferred to invest in people rather than buildings. He especially loved investing in young people because he believed older folks had had their shot. During his life, he loaned untold sums to students for college and all they had to do was sign a contract that said, "I agree to repay when circumstances permit." By his own standards, judged from this distant perspective, George W. Brackenridge lived an extraordinarily successful life. He said that he wished only that the world would be a little better place for his having lived in it. No doubt it is.

A while back I had occasion to travel across 400 miles of Texas, about half the state, with my older brother, Redneck Dave. We call him that out of admiration for his unbending and unapologetic devotion to life as he sees it. He loves his nickname, by the way. Wears it proudly. He is one who is not particularly talkative on long drives, but does share a few observations between long silences. In fact, he's not very talkative anywhere. Even if six or seven guys are sitting around at the house shootin' the bull, he's not likely to say much. He'll just be in the corner quietly whittling a stick. He doesn't carve it into anything, he mostly whittles big sticks into little ones and then starts on another stick. Once in a while he'll look up and share a thought or correct someone on something, and it is then that people pay attention because he's got a tiny bit of Confucious in him, a tendency to nail down the truth in a way that sticks with you. When I travel with him, which is rare because he doesn't much care to travel, he is different from most riders because he doesn't have a phone to distract him. He just looks out the window and watches the world go by, seeing things the average person would miss–because they'd be scrolling through their phone–or because the things that fascinate him wouldn't even register in most of our minds. It's like having your personal color commentator along for the ride. So I made a note of a few things Redneck Dave said on our drive across Texas. They are these: "Let's take the FM roads as much as we can. Stay off the Interstates. I don't want to be looking at the butt-ends of 18 wheelers all the way." "I'd like to meet the guy that built that fence. Always liked a man who could build a good fence. We'd get along, him and me. Look at that. He's got eight inch round posts ever' forty feet set in Quickrete and t-posts every ten foot in between. King Ranch fencing. Straight as a West Texas highway and tight as a banker. That wudn't stretched with a come-along, I'll tell you that for sure. That was done with a tractor. Can't get a fence like that that tight with just a come-along." "They built all these expressway bypasses around these little towns. Terrible thing. A bypass will save a man with a bad heart, but it'll kill a town. Sad to see it come to this. These little towns is what made Texas Texas. Hell, where do you think the talent and know how in them big cities come from? It came from these little towns. They're killin' off the farm teams." "You're drivin.' You can't look, but there's a beautiful Brahman Bull back there about 200 yards in that pasture. Must be a trouble-maker. Appears to be pastured all alone, separated from the herd." "That's hell of a big pothole you just hit. I think you had to aim for half a mile to get lined up right." "These big ole windmills they have. What's that? Turbines they call 'em? Yeah. Well, to me they're just windmills on steroids. I'm not against 'em for what they do, but they sure do ugly up the place. Do they need so many? Looks like greed won out over pretty." "Heads up. You got a big freight truck comin' up behind you doin' 90. Ever notice that as you get close to a big city, about 40 miles out, everybody drives faster? The closer to your destination, faster you drive. Not true for old people though. They're all closer to their final destination in life, and they drive slower. You'd think teenagers would drive slow, given all the time they have, and old people would be in a hurry, but it's the opposite." "That was a good lunch. Used to they'd give you a glass of ice water before you sat down. Now you have to buy it–for three bucks. Not even Texas water. Comes from Japan or one of them snowy countries in Europe. " "I'm gonna have to see a man about a horse pretty soon. No, I don't want to go to no rest stop. Eight-hundred people in those places. Might as well take a number. Just pull over there by that fence. I prefer the rancho grande. No line, no waiting. And I always go on the road side of the fence. Government land." "You need to lose weight. Here's my diet for you. Work more than you sit. Don't eat if you ain't hungry. Big meal at noon. No second helpings. No eating after supper, which is at 7." "Thanks for the ride, brother. I'll get on down there to see you soon. Just have to wait a while. DPS ain't real happy with me right now. Supposedly I owe them some money. Best I'm not out on the public highways just now and sadly there ain't enough dirt roads to reach you. When they settle down I'll come see ya." Redneck Dave is always a delight. I'm sure most Texas families have one of their own, or wish they did.

My wife Lupita and I were celebrating Cinco de Mayo at home Tuesday. We had a couple – or so – margaritas in honor of General Zaragoza's victory at the Battle of Puebla. Lupita said, "I wonder if Texans know what they're celebrating when they party on Cinco de Mayo." She's originally from Mexico and, though she knows the history well, she also knows that most Mexicans outside of Puebla don't celebrate Cinco de Mayo as much as people do in Texas. "I think many people treat it like they do St. Patrick's Day, a fun theme party of dressing green, drinking green – a good reason to party without knowing much about the real St. Patrick," she said. "To many, Cinco de Mayo is Mexican food, margaritas and tequila shots, and I'm totally down for that, but I bet some Texans would be surprised to know that General Zaragoza was a Texan, and 500 of the men at the battle were Tejanos." Now on a mission, she downed her margarita and whipped out her cell to Google it right quick. "Ah ha, mira, right as usual." She showed me a survey that said only one in ten Americans know Cinco de Mayo's true meaning: 39% think it's Mexican Independence Day – it isn't, 26% say it's a celebration of Mexican culture and 13% of the exceptionally honest say it's a good reason to drink. Most planned to celebrate by eating Mexican food, drinking margaritas or Mexican beer or having a Cinco de Mayo party at home. Interesting. I was more focused on the Texas connection myself. I was not surprised by the poor familiarity with the meaning of the date, or troubled by the faux association of Cinco de Mayo with "Three Amigos" and their saving of Santo Poco from El Guapo. People gotta have fun. I knew about General Zaragoza being a Texan, but I didn't know how deep his Texas roots went until I did some digging – pun thoroughly intended. He was born in Goliad in 1829, when Texas was part of Mexico, and only a few years before Texas Independence. If we look at his full name, Ignacio Zaragoza Seguin, we learn something. That last name, Seguin, was his mother's name. She was from San Antonio and a cousin of Juan Seguin who fought Santa Anna in the Texas Revolution and for whom the city of Seguin is named. Ignacio's father owned 11 leagues of land along the Red River, or about 50,000 acres, according to the Texas Land Office. He bought it for 100 pesos a league. That's mind-blowing. You couldn't even buy a square foot of that land today for 100 pesos. All this proves General Zaragoza's Texas bonafides. When Ignacio was in his early twenties, he joined the revolutionary army of Benito Juárez and eventually led an army of volunteers in defeating Santa Anna. Yes, that same Santa Anna. Zaragoza's victory effectively removed Santa Anna as dictator of Mexico. That's another reason we should recognize Zaragoza. Like all good Texans, he despised Santa Anna and wanted him dead so democracy could live. It is astonishing that Santa Anna was in power again 20 years after his humiliating loss at San Jacinto. But that man had more political lives than a cat. He was president of Mexico 11 times. No one man ever failed so often and so badly and still managed to claw his way back into power as Santa Anna did. Now, on to Puebla. The French, under Napoleon III, wanted to make Mexico their own colony in the Americas. They sent a large force of crack troops – 8,000 men – to take Mexico by storm. Juarez sent General Zaragoza to Puebla to defend Mexico from the Imperialist Invasion. This was Mexico's San Jacinto moment. Zaragoza had half as many men as the French army. He was definitely the underdog in this fight and was expected to lose badly. The French army's commander had the same haughty attitude that Santa Anna had about the Texans. He saw them as riffraff, as commoners, low-bred men without discipline. The French commander, Ferdinand Letrille, wrote that the Mexicans he faced "were of a lower race, poorly organized, poorly disciplined, of low morals" and in a uniquely French insult of a military force, said that they "lacked good taste." General Zaragoza enjoyed a stunning victory over those crack troops of good taste that day. The French lost 500 men at the Battle of Puebla: the Mexicans lost 100 and sent the French back to the coast, licking their wounds. The French hadn't lost a battle in 50 years, so this was a demoralizing defeat and a victory of national pride for the Mexicans that cannot be overstated. Sadly, General Zaragoza died four months later of typhoid fever. He was just 33. So we raise our margarita glasses on Cinco de Mayo to salute native Texan, General Zaragoza Seguin, for removing Santa Anna from power – forever – and for his San Jacinto-like victory at Puebla.

One of the best books I've read this year is "Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI." I was late to this literary party. This nonfiction work has been a super-bestseller for well over a year now. It has been on the Paperback Nonfiction bestseller list for 49 weeks. Dave Eggers writes in his New York Times Book Review that author "[David] Grann has proved himself a master of spinning delicious, many-layered mysteries that also happen to be true. … It will sear your soul." I won't spoil this book for you by revealing any part of the whodunit. I'm more interested in the who pursued 'em. You have three levels of tension here. First, there is the Osage tribe – the richest people per capita on Earth at the time, around 1920. They were the only tribe that owned mineral rights to the worthless land they got from the federal government as their very own reservation in Oklahoma. Why not? It was worthless scrub-brush land that was mostly sandy and rocky with random clumps of grass. When oil was discovered, though, they became, collectively, unfathomably rich. J. Paul Getty, for instance, was in a bidding war Harry Sinclair for Osage oil leases. Soon after the money started piling up, the Osage started dying, mysteriously, and in large numbers. The second level of tension is that they were being murdered, seemingly randomly. "Serial killer" was not yet a term in the crime lexicon, but as a reader, you arrive at that conclusion quickly. You feel it must be a serial killer. But not one singular method was used. Some Osage were shot, some poisoned, some blown up in their homes with dynamite. Sixty had died by the time that J. Edgar Hoover took the case for the feds. It was up to him to find the killer or killers. Here's the third level of tension. Hoover was just acting director of what was called the Bureau of Investigation at the time. He was only 29 years old. The case was a blessing and a curse. If Hoover could solve it he could elevate the this new agency to a formidable and powerful national police bureau. If he failed, he would be pushed out; his career hung in the balance. Hoover was wanting to create an FBI that was modern, full of smart college graduates skilled in the use of the latest scientific techniques like fingerprinting, but the last agents sent to solve the mystery either made no headway, or were themselves killed. To solve this case, Hoover needed to send to Oklahoma the kind of agent he wanted the agency to shed. Now, at this point you might be saying, as my dear sister-in-law said to me when I told her this story, "Why are you, Mr. Texas, talking about Oklahoma?" I'll answer you as I did her: "Hold your horses, I'm fixin' to get there." Hoover had to bite the bullet and bring in the cowboys. He sent for Tom White, his bureau chief in Houston, who was an ex-Texas Ranger, to take charge of the case. As Hoover said, "He needed a man who could handle men." It wasn't exactly a "one riot, one ranger" situation, but it had elements of it. Grann describes him this way: "Tom White was an old-style lawman. He had served in the Texas Rangers near the turn of the century, and he had spent much of his life wandering on horseback across the Southwestern frontier, a Winchester rifle or a pearl-handled six-shooter in hand. He was 6 feet, 4 inches and had the sinewy arms and eerie composure of a gunslinger. Years later, a bureau agent wrote that he was as "God-fearing as the mighty defenders of the Alamo. He was an impressive sight in his large, suede Stetson. … He commanded the utmost in respect and scared the daylights out of Easterners like me." Of course, it was a white Stetson he wore. Hoover explained to White that he needed him to direct the investigation without a hint of scandal, and as quietly as possible. He told him there could be "no excuse for failure." Hoover told him to call in as many agents as he needed, and so White called in those men that Hoover considered the cowboys (two were ex-Texas Rangers) – men who were good at "infiltrating wild country, dealing with outlawry, shadowy suspects, going days without sleep, maintaining cover under duress, and handling deadly weapons if necessary." So there you go. The plot is set. The characters are in place. A great Texas story awaits, even though it's set in Oklahoma. If you don't care to read the book just now, you can wait for the movie, which, rumor has it, will be directed by Martin Scorsese and star Leonardo DiCaprio. De Niro is said to be in talks for a role as well. I'm W.F. Strong. These are Stories from Texas, by way of Oklahoma. Some of them are true.

I was looking at a list of honorary Texans recently. It is quite a long list. Only about a tenth of them would be known to most Texans. John Wayne – no surprise there. The only surprise is that it took until 2015 to make him one. Chuck Norris, born in Oklahoma, was made an honorary Texan a few months ago. Gov. Rick Perry made many of his favorite political allies honorary Texans: Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, for example. George W. Bush made Bob Dylan an honorary Texan. Ann Richards chose Don McLean, Bob Hope, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, among many others. Alan Shivers made General Douglas MacArthur an honorary Texan. The one case that stands out to me as the most astounding in this honoring business – and to my mind, the most deserving – is when Gov. John Connally, in 1962, awarded honorary Texan status to thousands of men, simultaneously. He made the entire 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the 100th Battalion, C divisions of the U.S. Army for World War II, honorary Texans. In light of the recent Memorial Day holiday, I thought I would tell you how this came to be. We must begin our story with the 1st Battalion of the 141st Regiment comprised of the Texas National Guard. Their nickname was the "Alamo Regiment." In 1944, they were at the lead of a push to drive the Germans out of France. The battalion had a large supporting force during their campaign but they pushed ahead so fast in the Vosges Mountains that they found themselves cut off and surrounded behind enemy lines. They became known in World War II lore as "The Lost Battalion." The only good thing for the Texans is that they were on top of a mountain and so they had the classic advantage of high ground and line of sight. But they were still pounded by German artillery. It was foggy, rainy and very cold. They quickly dug fighting positions in the wet, muddy soil and covered themselves with tree limbs, rock and dirt. They did everything they could to provide cover from the splinters of tree bursts and shrapnel from exploding shells. They were also out of food and water. Exceptionally courageous pilots were able to fly through the rain and fog and airdrop small supplies of water-purification pills, c-rations and ammunition to sustain them. Even Hitler became aware of the Texans' situation and he issued orders that they were not to slip away. They were to be killed or captured at all costs. The Army redirected its push to the Rhine to focus on, first, saving the 1st Battalion from the Germans. American forces pounded the German lines with their artillery, but the forest was so thick they weren't having much effect. So they had two different infantry battalions try to break through the German lines and each was repelled by horrific hailstorms of bullets from the German machine guns called "Hitler's buzz saws." This is when the 442nd and the 100th Infantry combat regiments were called in. Battle-hardened, they had a reputation for succeeding in just these situations. Their motto was "Go for broke." It took them five days of brutal, close-quarters combat on muddy terrain in bone-chilling weather to reach the Texans. They fought tree to tree and yard by yard to reach the top of the mountain. The 442nd started out with 3,000 men and took 1,000 casualties. 800 wounded and 200 killed in action. By the time they reached the Texans, they, too, had been fairly decimated. The Texans had lost over 20% of their force; they had been killed, wounded and captured. It is said that the first soldier of the 442nd to reach them merely walked up to their commander, Lt. Marty Higgins, and nonchalantly pulled out his Lucky Strikes and said, "Cigarette?" Higgins gratefully accepted. After almost a week, they were freed from the German onslaught. What makes this an even more surprising story is not just the ferocity with which the 442nd fought, or the casualties they took to save their brothers in arms. The real surprise is that the 442nd was a Nisei regiment, comprised of second-generation Japanese-Americans. Most of them, along with their families, had been put into internment camps at the beginning of the war. These men, however, asked if they could fight, rather than sit out the war. And they were extraordinary fighters. The 442nd was called the Purple Heart Regiment because they received more Purple Hearts than any other unit their size in WWII. Over the course of the war the 442nd was awarded 5,200 Bronze Star medals, 588 Silver Stars, 52 Distinguished Service Crosses, seven Distinguished Unit Citations and 21 Congressional Medals of Honor. The late Sen. Daniel Inouye was one of the Nisei who fought to rescue the Texans, and later earned his Medal of Honor when he lost his arm taking out a German machine gun nest in Italy. When the 442nd returned from Europe, President Harry Truman said, "You have fought not only the enemy, but you have fought prejudice – and you have won. Keep up that fight, and we will continue to win – to make this great Republic stand for just what the Constitution says it stands for: the welfare of all the people all the time." Many years after the war, President Bill Clinton upgraded a good number of the military awards for the 442nd. Some of the Nisei had not received their due because, sadly, they were Nisei. Clinton said, "Rarely has a nation been so well served by a people so ill treated." And that is why Gov. Connally, too, paid tribute to the 442nd and 100th Battalion by making them all honorary Texans. It was his way of demonstrating to the these soldiers, and their descendants, the solemn gratitude of the Great State of Texas. We will always be grateful for the supreme sacrifice they made in saving our men.

Go east of Dallas on Interstate 30 until you reach Highway 67 near Mt. Vernon. Take that on east and about 30 minutes before you reach Texarkana, you'll arrive in a little town of about 1,000 people named Ingersoll. Well, it was called Ingersoll when it was founded around 1875. But the name was unofficially changed to Redwater ten years later and was made official by the Post Office almost a decade after that. How the name came to be changed is a story worth telling. Let's begin with the name Ingersoll, or should I say, Robert Green Ingersoll. That's the man the founders admired and decided to name their new town after. You may have never heard of Robert Green Ingersoll, but that's only because you didn't live in the late 1800s in America. Back then Ingersoll was one of the most famous people in the nation. He was friends with Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain and Ulysses S. Grant. He was a giant in the Republican party and any Republican who wanted to succeed at the national level needed and lusted after Ingersoll's endorsement – and his oratorical talents. Had he wanted to, he would have made a formidable candidate for the Presidency himself, except for the little problem of his nickname: he was known everywhere in America and abroad as "The Great Atheist" or the "Great Agnostic." There is, of course, a great deal of difference between atheism and agnosticism, but for fundamentalist theists, there is no difference because both groups are destined for eternal damnation. Ironically, it was the concept of Hell that Ingersoll most despised and likened to a vengeful fairy tale. In any case, such a label, whether agnostic or atheist, was considered too great a liability for a politician in that era to overcome. Might be still. Despite his reputation as a free-thinker and anti-religious zealot, he was well liked. Many religious people truly enjoyed his company and found him warm, engaging, charismatic, eloquent, even brilliant. Ingersoll attacked religious belief, but never the believer. From 1860 to 1899, he was one of the highest paid speakers in America – and mostly he spoke about the dangers of religion, even though he himself had been a Presbyterian minister's kid. The subjects he spoke about, like "Some Mistakes of Moses" and "The Frightful Dogma of Hell," were considered blasphemous by many, but he nonetheless packed the halls where he spoke with believers and skeptics alike. He called HIS religion "humanity." His central doctrine was this: "Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so." Ingersoll was quite ahead of his time. He was an outspoken abolitionist and for voting rights for blacks and women. He said it was a shame to think that women were always restricted to the shallow wisdom of their husbands. People used to gather in front of his home in Washington, D.C., to pray for his conversion. One woman visited him in his home often to try to convert him, but she finally, after seeing him accept both the high and mighty and impoverished into his home with equal graciousness, gave up. She apologized and told him, "I do not care what you believe. You are leading more of a Christian life than I ever hope to accomplish." But Ingersoll's fame died with him, in 1899. It seemed he would be confined to the century that had defined him. So we return now to Texas. How did Ingersoll lose his town? Well, in 1886 a revival meeting was held there and it was a mighty successful one in terms of saving souls. There were 110 people from that region baptized, or – you might say – born again in that week. And given that the town only consisted of about 50 to 60 people then, it suddenly became thoroughly devout and could not suffer the indignities of living under the name of a famous agnostic. So they all agreed to rename the town Redwater, after a new well was found to yield red water. So that is how Ingersoll, Texas, became Redwater, Texas. And how Robert Green Ingersoll became, as The Washington Post called him in 2012, "the most famous American you never heard of."

You can never underestimate the value of a good friendship forged early in life. If not for such a friendship, Texas would be nearly 1,000 square miles smaller. Before I get to the friendship, come with me up to the northwest corner of the panhandle where Texas meets Oklahoma and New Mexico. If you were looking at a map, you would see that the border between Oklahoma and New Mexico doesn't meet up exactly with the border between Texas and New Mexico. The line makes a jog to the left. It goes 2.3 miles left before heading straight south. That jog is the result of a survey error that some have called the worst survey error in U.S. history. But it isn't just a two mile error – that error gets bigger as it continues south, 310 miles to the bottom Texas-New Mexico corner, where it turns west and heads for El Paso. All totaled, the mistake amounts to a 942 square mile error, a land mass bigger than Houston, though long and skinny, like a gerrymandered voting district. In truth, that land should have gone to New Mexico. That was what was supposed to happen when Texas sold off its northern and western territories for $10 million in 1850. The border between Texas and the New Mexico Territory was to be exactly along the 103rd meridian. When the official survey was undertaken, almost ten years later, there was a problem with water, Indians, stars, algebra and math, which all contributed to the error that ended up a blessing for Texas. Naturally, there's quite a good long story behind the mistake. It is far too complex for these few minutes. I will give you the "cut to the chase version." A man named John H. Clark was hired to do the survey and plant the monuments along the 103rd meridian. He started from the south and surveyed northward until he ran out of access to water. So he stopped and said, "I'll just go up to the north end of Texas and come down." So he did. Clark started again northwest of present-day Dalhart, and headed south until the native Americans frightened him off. Though he was about 70 miles from connecting his two lines, he figured it was good enough and turned in his work. His two lines wouldn't have intersected anyway. The problem was his northern starting point was about 2.3 miles west of where it should have been and his southern corner was nearly 3.8 miles west of where it should have been. Consequently, that border slides imperceptibly 1.5 miles ever so gently southwest over a distance of 310 miles. Pull up a Google map on your phone and align the southeastern corner of New Mexico with your left straight-edge phone border. You will see that the border slants off to the right up at the top. That's the error. It amounts to 603,348 acres. That's about three-quarters of the size of the King Ranch. Well, nobody knew it was wrong and so the bad survey based on poor calculations was certified by the U.S. in 1891 and it became the legal boundary. By the time New Mexico was about to get statehood with the Enabling Act of 1910, it had become aware of Clark's error and slipped into the statehood law a clause saying that the eastern boundary would be the true 103rd meridian. New Mexico would get its land back. All was going well and nobody was paying attention to the land grab except for John Farwell, who was an original investor in the XIT Ranch. Those were the same investors who essentially built our state capital in Austin. Well, he realized that the XIT would lose hundreds of thousands of acres (and mineral rights) if the New Mexico plan went through as it was. He couldn't get any legislators to listen and so he did what we all do in times of trouble: he said, "Who do I know?" Just so happened that he knew President William Howard Taft. They had been good friends during their college years at Yale. So he went to see his old buddy, Howard. He explained the predicament and Taft immediately summoned powerful men to his office and told them that the Clark border would be the legal border when New Mexico was made a state or it wouldn't be made one. He said that since the boundary had existed for more than fifty years, and had been certified 20 years before, it had to be grandfathered in. Otherwise, people who believed they were Texans would suddenly be in New Mexico and litigation over land titles would never end. And that is how a survey error, and an old friendship ended up making Texas almost a thousand square miles bigger than it was supposed to be. Once again, it's all about who you know. A final note of interest. There is a town out in the Panhandle called Farwell, Texas. It's just a few feet on the Texas side of the border with New Mexico. It is named after John Farwell. Had he failed to convince Taft to keep the old border line, the town named for him would have become Farwell, New Mexico. Sources Brock, Ralph H. "Perhaps the Most Incorrect of any Land Survey in the United States"Southern Historical Quarterly, April 2006, pp. 431-462. Haley, J. Evets. The XIT Ranch of Texas and the Early Days of the Llano Estacado, University of Oklahoma Press, 1953. Hoover, Mike. "The Southeast Corner of New Mexico." The Texas Surveyor, May, 2015, pp. 16-23.

One of the most fascinating Texas Rangers of all time was Samuel Hamilton Walker — no relation, we should say right off the bat, to Chuck Norris' fictional character Cordell Walker. Many Ranger aficionados rate Sam Walker the second-most-important Texas Ranger of all time, behind Jack Coffee Hays, with whom Walker rangered. Now that's a dream team. Samuel Walker arrived in Texas six years after Texas had won its independence. In five more years, in 1847, he would be dead. But in those five years he would defend San Antonio from Mexican forces, invade Mexico four times, escape from a Mexican prison and help design one of the most famous guns in history, the Colt Walker six-shooter. Walker's first foray into Mexico was part of the ill-fated Mier expedition, which was for the purpose of punishing Mexico for its illegal incursions into San Antonio. Walker was not yet a Texas Ranger. He was with a group of men who believed they would repay Mexico for their illegal incursions into Texas. His group was attacked by a much larger army of Mexican troops who engaged them in defense of the Mier. 180 Texans were taken as prisoners. Santa Anna ordered them all shot, but cooler heads in the Mexican government prevailed and a decimation instead: one in 10 would die. The Texans were ordered to draw a bean from a pot. Among the 159 white beans were 17 black ones. Those who got a black bean would be executed on the spot; those who drew white beans would live. Sam Walker got a white bean. The prisoners were marched 800 miles across Mexico's brutal deserts. Walker mentioned in his journal of the Mier Expedition that he would not trade Texas for 100 Mexicos. He was however, impressed with the fine architecture he encountered in the churches of San Miguel de Allende, which remains true for the many expatriate Texans who live there today. Once in the capital, some of the prisoners, including Walker, was imprisoned at Tacubaya, suburb of Mexico City, and some were marched another 100 miles and incarcerated in the infamous Perote Prison.Walker's group was forced to do road work, including building a road from Mexico City to Santa Anna´s summer villa, which further enraged Walker. This amounted to a lot of salt in a deep wound, and he nurtured his loathing for Santa Anna — indeed, for all Mexicans — all his life, so much so that his friends called him "mad Walker." There is a much-shared myth about Walker's time imprisoned in Mexico. The story goes that he was ordered to dig a hole for a flagpole and raise the Mexican flag. According to one version of the legend, he put a dime at the bottom of the hole and vowed to return one day, reclaim the dime, and raise the Texas flag. Several years later, the story goes, he retrieved his dime when he returned with American forces to occupy Mexico City. It's a good story, but probably not true. Walker never mentioned it in his journals. Also, the flagpole in the various versions of the myth is always in Perote Prison, in the state of Vera Cruz, and Walker was never incarcerated there. He was, however, part of Winfield Scott's invasion force that sacked the prison in 1847, and that may well be where the legend has its origins. Walker eventually escaped from the Tacubaya prison — a story that would make a good novel in itself — and made it back to Texas. He joined up with Jack Hays and the Texas Rangers in 1844 and fought in many of the most famous Indian battles. When General Zachary Taylor sent out a call in 1845 for volunteers to scout for his federal troops, Walker immediately signed up. He ran messages through the Mexican lines to keep Fort Texas (soon to be Fort Brown) aware of Taylor´s plans for invading Mexico. Walker led the charge in the battle for Monterrey.It was after Taylor's forces had secured Monterrey, in 1846, that Walker took a brief furlough and traveled back east. There he gave Samuel Colt some ideas for improving Colt's earlier model of his revolver called the Paterson pistol. Colt, in gratitude, named a special, very heavy model of his new six-shooter after Walker. Walker next joined up with General Winfield Scott's campaign to pacify Mexico City. Though he was officially made a U.S. soldier, everybody still thought of him as a Texas Ranger and called him Ranger Walker. Scott's army invaded Mexico at Vera Cruz and advanced from there toward Mexico City. On the way, they sacked Perot Prison, released the prisoners and turned it into a fort for the American forces. But Walker would not live to make it back to Texas. He was to die a few months later, fighting the army of his old nemesis, Santa Anna, at the town of Huamantla, where Santa Anna had positioned his forces to stop the U.S. troops' march to rescue the American garrison under siege at Puebla. Walker led his company, which was ahead of the main U.S. force, into battle there. His men fought fiercely until the main force arrived to defeat Santa Anna, but Walker didn´t get to enjoy the victory. He lay dead; his prized Colt Walkers at his side. He was 32. In retaliation, his men went on a wild rampage, sacking, looting and pillaging the town. Walker's body was returned to San Antonio; eventually it was interred in the Odd Fellows Cemetery next to the unidentified remains of the defenders of the Alamo. It's said that Walker was not a man you would much notice in everyday life. He was of average size, and quiet. But in battle he was a lion. In his Notes of the Mexican War 1846-1848, J. Jacob Oswandel observed of Walker that ''war was his element, the bivouac his delight, and the battlefield his playground." Walker lived more in his short life than your average ten men live in their long lives combined. He is the Walker, Texas Ranger, that should be most remembered.

Back when Facebook was new on the net, in order to spur participation on the platform, Facebook made a page for every state and issued a challenge: "Let's see which state can get to a million likes first." Texas won and won handily. It wasn't even close. Given Texas's galactic reputation for state pride, the only surprise would have been had Texas not come in first. California and New York were much more tech savvy and digitally connected at the time and should have at least come in second and third, but they didn't. Colorado took second place, probably because the state was proud that it was once part of Texas. I say that with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Since that time, Texas pride pages have proliferated on Facebook. Most have sister sites on Twitter, but I'm choosing to focus exclusively on Facebook for today. So here are ten pages, of the hundreds in existence, that you might enjoy "liking" and seeing their posts in your news feed – I certainly do. I'm leaning away from the strictly business, news, political or government pages in favor of those that are mostly about celebrating Texas as a beautiful land and culture. The order is random and the choices are mine. Traces of Texas shares fascinating photos from Texas history, recent and distant. Most are high quality black and white photos. Traces of Texas followers send in never-before-seen-by-the-public photos from old family albums and library collections. Traces of Texas is an online museum of Texas history – created by Texans, for Texans. Texas Humor has a huge following because – I figure – most people like a good laugh as often as they can get one. They don't publish jokes in the traditional sense. Their humor is largely visual, comprised of Texcentric memes that are all the more funny if you're Texan. For instance, you will see a picture of wind turbines with the caption: Texas is so hot we've installed fans outside. I Love Texas is perfectly named. It focuses on celebrating Texans' love for their state, in breathtaking photos of Texas landscapes, cityscapes, and historical stories in short form. They have a sister page called I Love Texas Photographs which is certainly worth following. I Love Texas greets you every morning with a stunning photo that says, "Good Morning from the Great State of Texas" and signs off every night with a prayer for those in the military serving overseas. Texas Hill Country is likely the granddaddy of this genre, with nearly a million followers. It has been around since before Facebook, as a site devoted mostly to exquisitely beautiful photos of the Texas Hill Country. Now it still has the photos, but has added nostalgia, music, historical stories, humor, etc. THC also has a companion page named simply Texas. Texas Highways is a publication of the Texas Department of Transportation. It is one of the few older publications that has successfully migrated onto the net and gotten better. I enjoyed Texas Highways as a kid for their photographs and enjoy it even more today on Facebook for the same reason. But is more than photographs. It is, in their words, "the official travel magazine of Texas and the ultimate guide to the Lone Star State." Texas Back Roads is, like the title suggests, a backroads travel page. They say that, "From Abbott to Zunkerville and Antiques to Ziplines, we are letting you know what there is to see and do in Texas." TBR also provides a good deal of historical stories. Texas Storm Chasers is the premiere Texas weather page on Facebook. It further proves that the weather in Texas – and in general – is an everlasting subject for discussion. Started by two high schoolers in 2009, their aim is "to provide weather information in the evolving digital age and to share our professional storm chasing content." Here you will find unsurpassed video and photographs of extreme weather. Texas Country Reporter is the Facebook companion to the TV show where you'll get links to the stories and additional Texas-centric posts that they think you'll enjoy. Texas Monthly is another of the classic Texas publications that has adapted to the digital age quite well, where they remain the "indisputable authority on the Texas scene," from arts to food to travel. Now, I said I wouldn't mention any business pages in the list but I must include the largest following in that category by far. With 65 million "likes," it is – drum roll please – Texas Hold'em Poker. Yep. 65 million people learning when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. The Honorable Mentions, which you can find by searching Facebook: Best of the West (West Texas) Texas Farm Bureau (Splendid Photos) I AM A Texan Texas Pride Images from Texas Texas Pride Texas Mountain Trail Region (West Texas) Vintage San Antonio Flashback Dallas The Texas Observer 100% Houston El Paso Historical Society Landscapes of the Texas Hill Country (Superb photos by master photographers) The King Ranch Schumacher Cattle (Texas Longhorns) Cowboys of the Waggoner Ranch Stories from Texas My Favorite Texas Landscape Photographers: Wyman Meinzer (State Photographer) Carol M. Highsmith Tim McKenna Jeff Lynch Larry White David Pine Rob Greebon Travis Yust George McLemore Matt Sklar John Martell Srini Sundarrajan