Branding

Chuck Wagon

Greetings From Texas

Red River Valley

TEXAS (circa 1939)

Texas- occupies all of the continent of North America except a small part set aside for the United States, Canada and Mexico. Texas is bounded on the north by 25 or 30 states, on the east by all of the oceans except the Pacific, on the south of by the Gulf of Mexico and South America, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean and the rest of the world. Texas is so big that the people in Brownsville call the Dallas people “Damnyankees”. It is farther from El Paso to Texarkana than it is from Chicago to New York, and Texarkana is closer to Milwaukee by airline than it is to El Paso. The United States with Texas left out would look like a three-legged Boston terrier.

Texans are so proud of the Lone Star State that they cannot sleep at night. If a Texan’s head should be opened, the map of the state would be found on his brain. The word ‘Texas’ is of Indian origin and means ‘Friends’ and the Texas people are that way yet unless you take a slam at their state. Down on the King Ranch the front gate is 150 miles from the front porch and the owner is thinking of moving the house back so as not to be annoyed by the passing automobiles. Other Texas landlords have whole mountain ranges on their ranches and one Texan has 40 miles of navigable river on his farm. If the proportion of the cultivated land in Texas were the same as in Illinois, the value of Texas crops would equal that of the other 47 states combined. If all the people of the United States were to move to Texas, it still would be no more densely populated than Massachusetts. Texas has land enough to supply every man, woman and child in the whole world with a tract 20 X 200 feet, and have enough left over for all the armies of the world to march around five abreast.

To move the Texas corn crop would take a string of box cars longer than the distance between New York and San Francisco. If the 1,500,000 tons of sulfur mined in Texas annually were in the hands of his Satanic Majesty, they would solve his fuel problem. If all the cotton grown in Texas were baled and built into a stairway, it would reach to the Pearly Gates. If the 485,339,998 barrels of oil produced in Texas in 1939 were made into gasoline, it would run a well known make of light car throughout eternity. If all the hogs of Texas were one hog, he could dig the Panama Canal in three roots and one grunt. If all the Texas steers were one STEER, he would stand with his front feet in the Gulf of Mexico and his hind feet in Hudson Bay, and with his horns, punch holes in the moon, and with his tail, brush the mists off the Aurora Borealis.