Hard to Know What to Say

A columnist for Texas Monthly received this comment from a reader in Lubbock Texas:

I recently read that Texas has hundreds of wineries, and that the Fredericksburg-area wine trail is one of the most popular in the country. How can this be good for our image as a bunch of saddle-weary, tobacco-spittin’, whiskey-swillin’, chaps-wearin’, campfire-singin’ cowboys?

Hmmm. The vast majority of those grapes for the Fredericksburg wine trail are grown in the Lubbock area. She might want to rethink her views on what’s good for their image. Is she opposed to the pick-up trucks that relegated “saddle-weary” to tourists on dude ranches?

It’s one thing to respect history and tradition and find continuity with one’s past. it’s quite another to draw one’s identity from bad movies about a small subculture that hasn’t really existed since the late 19th century.