TEXAS!

Texas gets a lot of bad press, none of it deserved. Sure, Texans brag a lot about their state, but they should. Texas is an amazing state.

Driving across Texas - which takes about two days - reveals an amazing variety of scenery. Far west Texas is desert country. Southeast Texas is a whole different world. In between is some of the world's greatest grasslands, and crops of every nature.

Along the Rio Grande, southeast of El Paso, a major crop is pecans... thousands of acres of pecan orchards. Up in the panhandle it is beef country with feed lots that seem too big to be true.

But Texas can hardly be regarded as primarily an agricultural state. It's major urban areas are as metropolitan as any cities in the world, and a good deal more vibrant than most of the world's large cities.

In many areas, around Midland-Odessa and around Houston, to name two, petroleum is big business. They do it all in Texas, from drilling to refining. They live with the smell and pollution 365 days a year so the elites of New England, California and elsewhere can cruise around in their luxury cars and breathe clean air.

Petroleum isn't the only energy source that is big in Texas. In several areas - western Crockett Country, for one - you will see hundreds upon hundreds of wind generators, providing clean, renewal energy.

Texans could build a wall around their state and continue to do very well. I question whether the remainder of the country could long do without Texas!

It is true that Texas was stolen from Mexico, along with what is now a good portion of the southwestern United States. But, what Texans have done with the stolen land is phenomenal.

I am not a Texan. Have never lived in Texas. And when I visit Texas, I am always happy to leave and go back home. But I admit (a bit grudgingly, perhaps) that Texas is truly bigger and better than most bragging Texans claim.