Rick Perry, Texas Poet?
Gov. Rick Perry is a man with great hair, great cowboy boots, and a great record in Texas. So it's easy to dismiss him as your run-of-the-mill politician who's neck-deep in the horse race, but not too deep in any other respect. If that's your sense of Perry, I would encourage you to read this piece about his childhood in the lone star state. It's poetic.
Here's Perry:
I don’t really have a hometown, and it’s just the peculiarity of where I grew up. It’s not a town. It was sixteen miles to Haskell, the closest place that had a post office, and if you went into Haskell today and said, “Rick Perry is a hometown boy,” they’d go, “No, he’s from Paint Creek.” It’s a very broad area but with very few people. For instance, my dad was a county commissioner. This is a county that’s nine hundred square miles, thirty miles by thirty miles, and his precinct was a quarter of that and there were about 350 registered voters.
We lived on a gravel road. If you drove up in May and it had been a nice, wet winter, it could be one of the most beautiful places you’ve ever seen, with wildflowers and green grass, the fields fallow, getting ready to be planted. It could be one of the most beautiful places or it could be one of the most desolate, brutal, uninviting, and uninspiring places. And that was generally a function of the weather.
The people who were adults that lived through the early fifties in West Texas, I think, are some of the most principled, disciplined people in the world, and faithful. Because every day they got up, it was dry. And the wind and the sandstorms. This was before the days of deep tilling, and the sky would become like before dawn in its darkness—and this is in the middle of the day. Huge clouds of dust would roll in from the west. The only time I ever remember seeing my mother cry as a young boy was—they rarely ever bought anything, and certainly didn’t buy anything new, but she had bought a new couch. And there were places in our house that you could see outside through the cracks by the windows, and this dust storm came in and there was a layer of dust all over that new couch. And it just, you know, kind of—it was a hard life for them.
You can continue reading about Perry's childhood here.
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Dec '10
Re: Rick Perry, Texas Poet?
I was breathing the air of my childhood reading that. The life he describes (and having lived an eerily similar one I believe his description) does not admit nuance. Such a Parmenidean, is/is not, view of things sets him apart from the politics we are accustomed to. I really believe he would be categorically different from the other candidates if he runs. I'll write his campaign slogan now...Rick Perry, I don't do politics, I do reality.
Mar '11
Re: Rick Perry, Texas Poet?
I am very pleased with this. I was raised in north-central Idaho, and this read true to me.
Jun '10
Re: Rick Perry, Texas Poet?
Emily....glad to see you weighing in on Perry. Please share your thoughts and link to the interview you conducted with Perry a while back.
May '11
Re: Rick Perry, Texas Poet?
"We were fairly self-sustaining. Mom was a very, very good seamstress and still is. She made my sister’s clothes; she made a lot of my shirts. Now, with blue jeans we wore Levi’s. But when I went to college, Mother still made my underwear."
From the article you linked. I don't know yet if I will vote for Perry, but I would vote for his mother. I wonder, however, if he was as proud of that homemade underwear then as he is now?
Dec '10
Re: Rick Perry, Texas Poet?
Having known nothing else, why not? The contrast between Perry and Bush is simply stunning. I may have to work a post comparing the two. Many fear "another Texas Governor," but the differences between the two are astonishing. People thought Bush was a cowboy, but that was simply a caricature he developed for himself. Perry is a real farm boy complete with an Ag. degree from A&M. He is the antithesis of every politician we have been saddled with for the last couple of decades.
Jun '10
Re: Rick Perry, Texas Poet?
That's a great piece. I really can't put a ranking on what is more touching -- Perry's humble farm roots or a sixteen year old Paul Ryan finding his dad dead in bed & working odd jobs (like driving the OscarMeyer Weinermobile.) I think people can develop character in many ways, & I wouldn't necessarily give the hat tip to the poorest or most rural. But I like both of their stories and find them quite refreshing.
Dec '10
Re: Rick Perry, Texas Poet?
The problem is that we've established Ivy League credentials, rather than character, as the threshold for leading the nation. It was past time to reevaluate this tendency when WFB wrote God and Man at Yale. It would indeed be refreshing to have a Mensch in the white house.
Re: Rick Perry, Texas Poet?
Yes, I'm a big Rick Perry fan. I think that if he gets in the race (and he will), that he's the best bet the GOP has right now.
I had a rare opportunity to sit down with the governor two summers ago at his house in Austin, and talk to him about his record in Texas. That interview, per your request, can be found here. Here's a short excerpt from it that's relevant today!
Dec '10
Re: Rick Perry, Texas Poet?
I am ready to give Perry a look. He does seem the antithesis of our recent choices. To combat the incrementalism that has lead us here, we need someone to pull the plow. Who better than a farm boy.
Jun '10
Re: Rick Perry, Texas Poet?
Emily, that Perry quote is priceless !!! I have an idea -- we'll each get hold of a gun. I'll head to Wisconsin and you head to Texas. We'll round up our men and let them decide who heads the ticket.
Dec '10
Re: Rick Perry, Texas Poet?
The direction of the country and the economy may already be a gun pointed at the head of his family. Perhaps that will be how he squares the quote with his getting in the race next month.
Re: Rick Perry, Texas Poet?
Good point!
Re: Rick Perry, Texas Poet?
Sounds like a plan -- and while we're at it, let's get Chris Christie in that room too.
Aug '10
Re: Rick Perry, Texas Poet?
I'll have to disagree with you that Rick Perry has great hair. He has a lot of hair for someone his age but needs a haircut - he looks like a refugee from the 70s.
Edited on Jul 28, 2011 at 1:32pmDec '10
Re: Rick Perry, Texas Poet?
The gun facing his family is right across the border. Texans are being murdered and kidnapped, today, in a way that most Americans cannot appreciate, and the primary fault lies in the former swamps of Maryland and Virginia, now known as Washington, D.C.
All the same, I am skeptical; LBJ had a similar upbringing. Perry will have to convince me that he believes in equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes. He's a (former) west Texas Democrat politician, son of a west Texas Democrat politician and I sense a patrician aspect. I don't need a dad, thanks all the same.
May '10
Re: Rick Perry, Texas Poet?
CJRun, I don't know where you're from, but I grew up on a Texas cotton farm like Governor Perry. Before the late 70's, "Republican" was a dirty word in these parts. It is no shame that he used to be a Democrat. Had he not switched parties, that would be a shame.
Jun '10
Re: Rick Perry, Texas Poet?
The mandated Gardasil vaccine issue does point toward that conclusion. I don't know enough about him yet. I hope the Ricochet Texans will fill us in.