God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State

by Lawrence Wright

commissioned Gale Borden Jr., a publisher and surveyor who would later invent condensed milk,

When disaster strikes Texas, one of the most effective first responders is a local chain of grocery stores, H-E-B, which dispatches a convoy of fifteen vehicles, including mobile kitchens that can produce 2,500 meals an hour, fuel tankers, portable generators, and Disaster Relief Units that contain pharmacies, ATMs, and business services equipment.

I mentioned that I’d just been to the capitol and visited the snake handlers. “Oh, I love Texas!” she said with a lack of irony that is hard to convey.

“How do you hunt them?” “Well, I don’t hunt ’em myself, but I got a friend who does.” He punched an intercom button on his phone. “Honey, get Sharp on the phone,” he said. In a moment, John Sharp, the state comptroller of public accounts (now chancellor of the Texas A&M system), was on the speaker. “Sharp,” said Laney, “I got a young man here wants to know how you hunt pigs.” “Oh!” Sharp cried. “Well, we do it at night, with pistols. Everybody wearing cutoffs and tennis shoes. We’ll set the dogs loose, and when they start baying we come running. Now, the dogs will go after the pig’s nuts, so the pig will back up against a tree to protect himself. So then you just take your pistol and pop him in the eye.” And these were progressive Democrats. More or less.

Bill Miller, a friend and neighbor, has worked in the lobby for three decades. When he first arrived, he noticed that all the political leaders had animal heads mounted on their walls, so Bill had a papier-mâché sea lion head made up for his office. “Wow, you killed a sea lion?” an impressed legislator asked. “Yeah,” said Bill. “With a surfboard.”

I used to think Marfa was a kind of practical joke that West Texans were playing on cultural elites.