European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - March 4, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Magazine by Peter Applebome new York times n 1981, Larry Mcmurt Tow wrote an essay few the Texas observer a set Oil Junous howls throughout Texas Mcmurtry virtually dismissed Allol Texas literature saying Texas writers were unduly fixated on the past and largely because of Hal had produced. Almost nothing of lasting value. He lamented thai he had been far too optimistic when he predicted 14 years. Earlier the demise of it Crane extolling the Rural glories of wide open spaces and yahoos on horseback. One reason for my optimism was my sense that the country 01 Western or Cowboy i Iylah had finally been worked through he wrote. "11 was Clear by then 1hal this myth had served its time and tool its  maybe not unite so Clear. Five years after treating Texas nostalgia with contempt Mcmurtry won a pulitzer prize for his epic novel lonesome Dove a 945 Page Best Selling account of a 19th- Century cattle drive Iron Texas to Montana it aired in february As a Lour Day mini  lbs. To High ratings the Rural Texas of old May. Be Gong bul its reverberations linger on with. Astonishing  in the state and. Outside of it. As Texas pulls  together after the economic debacle of recent years there s much talk of a changed and sanitized slate beyond Oil. Bui what remains the same about the state in terms of altitudes and sensibilities is at least As compelling As what has changed ii culture is often what was As much As what is. Texas is a prime example of i Texas is a irl to like Eril Lany or Wales places Hal have been absorbed into a larger culture but retain sheif own  said . Fehrenbach the author of Lone Star perhaps the Best regarded history of the slate. 1 Twenty fiver 30 years ago i thought like Mcmurtry Hal would fade out by i be changed my mind he said. People who think that Jusi because you drive the same cars or Wear the same clothes or work in the same office buildings you become like every place else just Don t understand human  partly Oul or Pride and partly out of a Genius for marketing texans Are experts at playing up to outsiders preconceptions most of them quaintly out of Dale Texas still thought of As a Rural state is now 60 percent Urban indeed the Rural population has been dwindling since the 1940 census. Texas 1 is the Only stale Wilh three cities Dallas Houston and san Antonio that rank among the 10 largest in the nation. Half of its population now lives in he Dallas and Houston metropolitan areas. The difference Between the new crowd of powerful texans in Washington president George Busti Secretary of stale James a. Baker 3rd. Secretary of Commerce Robert a. Mosbacher among others end the world of Lyndon b. Johnson and Sam Rayburn is the Dike Renco be Woen a world with a Rural base and an Urban one. Similarly while Texas remains heavily dependent on Oil and Gas. Natural resources will never again dominate. In 19827 percent of the state s economic output was in Energy industries. Now it is 15 percent. A Rise in Energy prices could push that up temporarily but oilmen  Texas is simply running out of recoverable Oil and that the Industry can no longer support the slate. To some the urbanization and changing Economy of Texas will inevitably Load to a place that is Mote like the test of the United states. But cultural changes Seldom move in tandem with economic and demographic ones and events Long since burled in history can have enormous Power to shape present attitudes. Consider Mcmurtry and the Trail rides. Asho has noted the epic cattle drives irom Texas to Kansas or farther North to Nebraska Montana Wyoming and a Dakota lasted or Only 20 years and were All but Over by .1bb9. By the Trail ride denied the myth of the Cowboy one of the nation s most powerful symbols and that same myth has enormous Power today no place More so than in Texas. Similarly the other aspects of Texas history that defined the slate help shape it  was the Only stale  the Union As a Sovereign nation. Texans can remind you of it and nausea but it docs help explain Why people in Small towns , Waskom and Kimborly feel links to Dallas and. Houston. In away you won t and people in other states feeling about their metropolitan centers. Because of the Way it entered the Union All the Public land in Texas belonged o the state nol to Iho Federal government accentuating the state s sense of its own Independence. And the lure of Dirl cheap ranches and homesteads that brought people16 Texas has had a lasting effect on texans1 reverence Lor the rights of landowners to do pretty much what hey please with their property. I is no Accident that Houston is the Only big City in the country Wilh no zoning. Similarly the brutal Frontier that shaped Texas Only a Century ago and the far lung settlements that defined it until recently created a self reliant and olten harsh darwinian world View that remains characteristic. H Texas after the Biral is not quite the imperious Oil kingdom in liked to Sec i sell As before in still has the sense of a sett contained. Sprawling duchy with ils own rules. Many stale Legislatures Pride themselves on their eccentricity but the Texas legislature is the Only one where the opera is literally not Over until the hotly lady in the person of Good natured state rep. Ernestine Glossbrenner gels up and sings. The state May be Urban by Here Are still enough newspaper stories about events like High school athletic directors being indicted for cattle hell to remind you where it came from and though Texas cannot to the same with a base in Manul alluring and electronics Asil would with a base in Oil and cattle it is Worth noting that the state s Lisl computer magnate was h. Ross Perot who could have been right at Home Wilh Augustus Mccrae and the other characters of lonesome Dove texans can Lake All this a Lille too seriously we Are lha guardians of the real Texas just As we Are to guardians of the Texas myth the Linal keepers of. The Texas holy  the Dallas writer . Greene said in iqb6 at the 50th anniversary of the Texas Institute of letters. And to some this veneration of the Pas has done As much harm As Good leaving Texas Ollyn looking wistfully backward while California Wilh which Texas once liked to compare itself was leaving it behind in the dust. Texas has gone from Cotton to cattle to Oil and now it May have to develop a base not entered on wealth from ils of soil. But As the new Texas begins to take lorm there s Little indication that the old one is gone i recently left Texas after living there Lor More than a decade. There were More than a few times alter too much exposure to Dallas shopping malts or Small town Burger Kings that i came to see the Texas image As a movie set masking o place much like every place else. But a Doubter needs Only to got in a car and career along the endless expanses of West Texas or the craggy Bluffs of the Hiil country scratchy country music crackling through the night to know that he mythic Texas is still out there a ghost Hal still lives Long after it was supposed to have died reverberations from Rural saturday March 4, 1989 the stars and stripes " " Page 13