I just wasted over an hour of my life, one of the most stressful hours I have ever spent. If you live in Dallas, you probably waste that hour and several more every day.
It was a foray down Central Expressway from around North Park Mall to downtown. It wasn't during rush hour, or maybe it was, since rush hour now starts at 6 a.m. and ends at some time after 8 p.m.
The next day I talked with a commuter who told me that 18 months ago it took him 50 minutes for a one-way commute that now takes an hour and a half if there isn't a fender bender on the freeway. I was driving at 3 p.m., easing past a 70 mph speed limit sign while chugging along at 15 mph before trying to exit, which meant crossing two packed lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic on the access road.
I've driven in Mexico City, New York, Paris, and Benghazi, Libya, so I know you won't ever find an opening big enough to cross two lanes of solid traffic, so when you get a 10-inch gap, you have to get your right fender just ahead of the car in the lane to your right and ease into the lane, while you give the other car a thumbs-up and ignore that motorist's inevitable rude salute.
Still, I love a lot of what makes up Texas. It is, as its advertising touts, a whole 'nother country.
When I graduated from the University of Arkansas, I headed straight for Houston with a master's degree in geology to look for a job. I got a job with Exxon working out of Kingsville, Texas, as a production geologist. I went to work every day on famous King Ranch, evaluating wells being drilled. That put Vertis and me in touch with places such as Hubert's Danceland and Kings Inn in Riviera, King Ranch's Santa Gertrudis bull auctions, and trips to Laredo, Brownsville, and all of Mexico's border towns.
We spent the next 12 years in Texas, with a two-year break for a foreign assignment in Benghazi, then back to Corpus Christi where we adopted two native Texans, our children Lara and Ashley. You can tell we were more sophisticated from being worldwide travelers, since we named our kids after movie personalities in Dr. Zhivago and Gone with the Wind.
We made some great friends, enjoyed the Gulf and its fresh seafood right off the boat, were part of a dynamic church, and rode out a couple of hurricanes. Celia, the toughest of the bunch, destroyed a third of the houses in Portland, a bedroom community of Corpus where we lived, and we and the other Texans worked shoulder to shoulder to rebuild.
A couple of years later, I decided to get into politics by running for state representative against a 20-year incumbent who was a deacon in our church, and said he had heard Jesus speak audibly to him on a dark road in Karnes County. We were both Democrats, and I was running with an anti-corruption coalition against Gus Mutscher, Speaker of the Texas House, who happened to be married at the time to former Miss America Donna Axum. My mother was Donna's chaperone to the Miss America contest. That made for a tense church situation and a steely-eyed mother who told me she prayed that none of her children would get into politics.
After a hectic six-month campaign over most of three large counties where I was endorsed by numerous organizations, at midnight on election night, I told my supporters one box was out and wouldn't post results until the next morning. If we carried the box, I would win. Out of over 40,000 votes cast, I lost by 122 votes. That experience gave me contacts, insight, and friends that are still one of my most treasured memories.
After that near-win my supporters wanted me to run for a state Senate seat that had just come open, but we wanted to build our dream house, and our architect had just finished the plans. It was 4,500 square feet and was to be built on piers over Corpus Christi Bay. What was I thinking?
Our architect put it out for bids and a few weeks later he came back with the low bid. He was excited. "I have a bid for $225,000. It is a great bid, and I recommend you take it." I was about to accept, then began to have second thoughts.
The night before we were scheduled to either reject or accept the bid, I commented to Vertis, "If we build this house, we'll never go home. Is that what you want to do?" She hesitated a few minutes, and then she just said, "No." That's exactly what had been going through my mind for months.
It was the hardest thing we have ever done, since we left everything we had worked so hard to achieve, dozens of friends, a great church, a working environment that had been unbelievable. All to return home. We have never regretted the move, but we have always loved that special time and all those wonderful people called Texans.
Richard Mason is a registered professional geologist, downtown developer, former chairman of the Department of Environmental Quality Board of Commissioners, past president of the Arkansas Wildlife Federation, and syndicated columnist. Email richard@gibraltarenergy.com.
Editorial on 07/08/2018