Archive for December 14th, 2008

Fort Worth, the historic cattle marketing center for much of northeast Texas, has a long history as the place country folks go when they go to the “Big City.” And if you drive in from any direction other than Dallas, the Texas countryside can be strikingly spare, a brown undulating land of pastures and mesquite trees, small holding and small stores, until without warning, the houses begin to thicken and the roads become better maintained, the freeway widens and you see the skyscrapers on the horizon. Suddenly you are in CowTown, the City of the West.

Here we have the things that country folks like to come in to see. The Historic Stockyards the big, fancy steakhouses, the stores that sell Dickies and Panhandle Slim western clothing and Justin Boots, which used to be made here. Fort Worth is exactly what a country person would expect: sky scapers, a river, big houses, lawns, shaded streets, parks, and lots of shopping.

Even so, you don’t get the finer shadings of this fact until you’ve stopped in places like West, Texas or Amarillo or Wichita Falls, in the Dennys beside the freeway, or a Dairy Queen in Waxahachie where there are pictures or prize steers raised by local youth lining the walls and you see people from town looking at you. “You’re from the city, then,” their eyes say. And you look at your clothes and your haircut and your car, and listen to yourself when you open your mouth to speak, and instantly you know that they’re right. It’s all over you, you’re from the City, a place which to them is both mythical and dangerous, and everything that is usual to you to the countryside of Texas is utterly foreign. So if you’re living in Fort Worth, remember, you’re holding up the Urban End of things for a lot or rural Texans. Know yourself and be proud.