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Texas, 1979: I Got Here as Soon as I Could
I wasn’t born in Texas, but I got here as soon as I could. It is a popular bumper sticker in Texas. In a way, it describes my life.
My wife Quilter and I are natives of Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was a nice place to grow up between the 1950s and 1970s, when the two of us were growing up. When I graduated from college? Not so much. In 1979, Michigan was going through a recession which was emptying out the state. Jobs were not to be had, perhaps especially in Ann Arbor. The supply of labor was sky high due to new Michigan graduates who wanted to stay. Thanks to the Michigan recession, the supply of jobs was about as low as a submarine’s keel at test depth.
Quilter and I could have lived in my parent’s basement (literally – they had a suite built into it). Back then, when you were married and had a freshly-minted BS in Engineering, you did not go that route. Besides, thanks to the engineering bust of 1972-74 (when I started college and no one else was crazy enough to major in engineering), the demand for freshly-minted engineers was at record levels. Outside Michigan that is.
I landed a job in Houston, Texas, during my final semester. The job had three big draws. The Houston labor market was smoking hot, Texas had no state income tax, and … I was going to work on the brand-new Space Shuttle program. In 1979, you did not get cooler than that.
Wheels, circa 1979
I had never been in Texas before, much less Houston. Lockheed, the company that hired me, did not pay for a trip down there. (They did pay to move our worldly possessions — which were not all that much.) We packed up the furniture (and books) in a moving van, stuffed our little four-door hatchback with everything we figured we could not live without, and took off on a three-day road trip to Houston.
In many ways Houston was further from Ann Arbor than Houston is from Oxford, England, today. I spoke to my editor there yesterday by Skype.
Remember these? Not if you’re under 45.
Now kids, it was like this. There was no Internet in 1979. Nor cell phones, much less smart phones with all sorts of useful apps. Yes, you could speak to someone on a landline telephone across the whole country, but back then that was this thing called a “long-distance phone call,” which you paid for — by the minute. It was expensive, too. And sometimes long distance was across the road. (A year before, it had still been a long-distance call from Nassau Bay on the south side of NASA Road 1 to the Johnson Space Center on the north side.)
You wanted a hotel reservation? You went to a travel agent. (Back then every town had one — right next to the shop where they sold buggy whips and poodle skirts.) Route planning? Get a triptik from Triple A. (Fortunately, my parents were members.) Credit cards? If you were right out of college you had a gasoline card, and maybe a Sears or Penney’s card, but not BankAmericard (now Visa) or Mastercard.
State-of-the-art navigation, circa 1979
I had a Phillips 66 card, an Amoco card, and that was it. We loaded up on traveller’s checks — special paper instruments you bought at the bank to exchange for goods when you travelled — and used them for purchases other than gasoline. We hoped we could find enough of the right kind of gas stations along the route. Did I mention that the second OPEC oil embargo was going on and gasoline prices were sky high? If a station had gasoline, that is.
Mark Twain once said all you need is confidence and ignorance and success is sure. Quilter and I had plenty of both. So we blithely got in our car and set off for Houston on Memorial Day Weekend in 1979.
We followed US 23 south through Kentucky into Tennessee, and spent an evening somewhere between Nashville and Memphis. Our car had no AC. Back then, AC was an option on economy cars. You did not need it much in Michigan. We really noticed its lack by the time we hit Cincinnati. (I had been there three months earlier, when the temperature was 23 degrees below zero. It was making up the deficit in average annual temperature.)
We reached Texas at the end of the next day, spending the night in Texarkana. Why were we moving so slowly? Well, kids, back then the maximum speed limit on the Interstates was 55 mph. As a Yankee in the South, I figured I was fair game for the local constabulary if I exceeded it. I stuck to it, as did most everyone else with license plates from states north of the Ohio River. Except for the ones stopped by the side of the road, having conversations with the local constabularies.
The Sun Has Riz, The Sun Has Set, and We Ain’t In Ta Texas Yet
At the motel we stayed I got a first introduction to Texas. The desk clerk asked if we wanted to join the local club. It was only $1. Why would I want to join a club? Texas then had dry counties, where alcohol could not be sold, except at private clubs. The county we were in was one of those. How … interesting.
The next day we drove down US 59 to Houston, using Texas 2-55 air conditioning (two windows down at 55 mph). Then all the cars ahead slowed down and started swerving. When we reached that spot we saw an Armadillo running back and forth across the road. You would not think those critters could move so fast on those tiny legs, but they did. I wondered why everyone was avoiding it. Thinking they knew something I did not I decided to do the same. (Later I learned if you drove over them, they would jump and hit your engine mount at 55 mph. Bad news for the armadillo and your car, both. Good news for the mechanic who fixed it.)
Why did the armadillo cross the road?
We reached our motel in Houston by early afternoon. We got our first lesson in Houston geography. I had asked for reservations at a Triple-A rate place in southeast Houston. The Space Center was in southeast Houston, right? Except our travel agent’s idea of southeast Houston was Old Spanish Trail at the Gulf Freeway. The Space Center was another 25 miles down the road. By Michigan standards (back then at least), it was a long drive. No problem. We checked in for the day — the next day was Sunday. We would scout out a motel a little closer, and move there.
For two kids from Michigan, Houston was something. The heat and humidity were breathtaking. Literally. Someone had left the oven on somewhere with a big pot of water boiling. It was still May! On top of that, the place we stayed had palms filled with guinea pigs. At least they sounded like guinea pigs. When we looked more carefully we discovered they were grackles. Big ones, viewing us through hostile eyes. If they had been four times larger they could have been the velociraptors from the then-unwritten Jurassic Park. Michael Crichton must have spent time in Houston.
Got my eye on you, bub.
The next morning we decided to take it easy. It was Sunday. Texas then had blue laws preventing the sale of most goods except groceries and gasoline, so we could forget buying stuff we needed but had forgotten about when starting out.
We turned on the television. VHS TV. Broadcast. Local stations, and local shows. Cable was the latest thing, and there were few cable networks — most national channels were rebroadcasts of some city’s independent stations, like Ted Turner’s in Atlanta. CNN was a year from being born. No satellite radio, either, or national radio talk shows. Besides, this was an opportunity to learn about our new home.
A show was going on. It seemed to be something about local restaurants. This guy was screaming into the camera about SLIME In The Ice Machine (I could hear the capital letters), and How He Would Leave His Wife If Her Kitchen Were THIS Dirty. He was wearing a white suit, had strange blue tinted glasses, and appeared to have some strange, flat mammal perched on his head. It certainly was not human hair.
Our welcome to Houston
After five minutes of watching him, Quilter and I looked at each other. Finally she said “Let’s go back. The people here are weird.”
Instead, we stayed. It was the beginning of our life in Texas. Locals assured us the guy we were watching was weird. He was a local television personality, known for his eccentricities. Houstonians proved a friendly and cosmopolitan group, with a mix of Southern hospitality and folks who’d relocated from every corner of the world. I enjoy visiting elsewhere, but Texas is home. I got here as soon as I could.
Published in General, Group Writing
No, the expression is “It’s raining buckets.” We don’t get those tropical thunderstorms as often as we used to. But when we do, expect to be drenched in the 10 seconds it takes you to sprint between your front door and your car.
…or truck, I should say. This is Texas.
That 55mph limit was super annoying, and the lifting of it a cause for rejoicing. During the oil crisis that brought it into being, you tried to slow down but not ever stop at lights, nor accelerate much generally, because you’d use more fuel if you came to a full stop. The lines at gas stations were nasty, and you thought twice about driving anywhere. I remember, too, that relatives in Chicago were shocked by what we were experiencing in the D.C. area, because there were no shortages or long lines there. Hmmmm. Nothing like the presence of Congress and its little lobbyist friends to make your life more pleasant.
For further clarification of Texan lingo:
“drizzle” — Cool walking weather. I hear they call this rain in Seattle.
“rain” — Take an umbrella and boots. Plan for drowned roads. Ignore the newcomers who think a little slip-and-slide means they should drive slower.
“storm” — Pack an oar and a life jacket.
“Tornado Watch” — Grab your chainsaw. Meet the neighbors. BBQ begins in the cul-de-sac at noon and continues until the power comes back on. BYOB.
Baby booties my aunt made for me when I was born. Just try finding baby booties with 6-shooters attached to ’em in any other state.
Slugs are to Washington State as armadillos are to Texas, and people in Seattle don’t talk about the rain — they don’t even realize that it’s not normal for it to rain every day ten months of the year. I remember going to California when I was maybe 12, 13, and realizing that light came out of the sky, every single day. Bright light. Warm, yellow light that made everything look like it was bathed in … sunlight. I decided I never wanted to go back to Seattle.
Got assigned to Ft. Hood, 1st Cavalry Division, in 1972. Had never been to the Lone Star state, and my arrival was brought to mind by this excellent post.
Arrived at a motel that had only brown cold water and roaches you could saddle up and ride. Moved to another that was a bit more civilized.
Rented a sumptuous trailer, single wide, and plugged in my TV to make sure the military contract movers hadn’t broken it during the trip from Oregon. A cowgirl about 9 years old popped up when the snow cleared, and declaimed, “I laaaaaack thuu taste of Biug Red!” Thought I’d arrived in a foreign country for my three year tour.
Since then I’ve grown to appreciate Texas, have returned many times, both on pleasure and business.
Did you change your residence to Texas while stationed there? A lot of military did that when they got a Texas assignment, to take advantage of Texas’s lack of an income tax. When they got reassigned to another state, they retained their Texas residency, and did not have to pay state income tax at their new assignment.
I visited Ft. Hood a lot during the 90s, when I was doing e-commerce for the military. They have the last remaining horse cavalry unit in the US Army. It is a parade unit.
Seawriter
Hahaha!
Right Angles, those are the most precious & most BAD-ASS baby booties I’ve ever seen!! -lucky baby. :D
We had a rotary phone and I’m only 37 (good grief, how unpleasant to see that in print).
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Liz, we had one too, a pee-yellow rotary wall phone, in my mom’s Carol Brady yellow, orange, & green kitchen. I’m only 45 (but halfway to 90!).
Ain’t it so! Great story. Reminded me of my exodus from Pennsylvania to South Florida in my early twenties. Twain is right, it took confidence and ignorance (lots). But still, when I think about that trip today — Wow! Really? Just picked-up and moved? I can’t believe I ever did it. And did so pretty much without a second thought, a worry — or even a job; although I did have a girlfriend from high school who had already moved here.
Today, I am still where I landed at the end of that trip. It’s strange to think about, but even as a child, I think I knew the city where I grew-up wasn’t my home.
Palmetto bugs in Texas? I thought they were the State bird of Florida. Shortly after my move to Florida, very late one night, I encountered my first gigantic, flying creature (did not know what it was at the time). I was sure it was deliberately coming after me. I — frantic, screaming, terrified, and not knowing what else to do — actually called the police department. The person who answered, seemed a bit annoyed, but I could hear laughing in the background. Sad, but true story.
I wasn’t familiar with the term “palmetto bug”. I think you’re referring to flying roaches (as opposed to ribbed roaches). Or did you mean the thumb-size stink bugs (beetles)?
Don’t live near a subtropical port city unless you’re prepared to encounter new bugs every year. When I worked with produce in high school, I found some surprises in the banana boxes.
I’ve had a tarantula in my kitchen. And once I saw one the size of my open hand, walking up the neighbor’s front walk like it was going to ring the doorbell. It was brown with yellow polka dots. I thought I’d walked into an Indiana Jones movie for my whole first year here.
Almost certainly. There were some folks originally from Florida and Georgia living in the same apartment complex as us and they called the flying wood roaches palmetto bugs. (The Georgian always referred to South Carolina as the “Palmetto Bug State” instead of the “Palmetto State.”)
When I was in Palestine, TX I and another instructor at the local community college walked into a new building and came across two scorpions battling in the hall. He looked at me and said, “Maybe they are faculty, battling over tenure.”
Another Texan told me out in West Texas tarantulas would crawl out on asphalt roads after dark to soak up the retained heat. If you drove over them, they made a noise like a popped Ping-Pong ball. I was also told crushed tarantulas made a road as slick as a two-inch layer of snow, and you had best be careful or you would spin off the road in ground covered by tarantulas.
Seawriter
EW!
Not as bad as the killer bees, though.
Now, that’s the one thing about the North, and was it Matt or Hank or Drew who mentioned it already? But a lot of those critters, like fire ants, can’t survive when it gets cold, like -10 F. I believe that is also true of the Africanized “killer” bees.
My reaction, too.
Seawriter
Yes. Once when I was in the agricultural inspection/quarantine offices near the airport, I saw multiple large display boards of the various insects that have come in with various plants, produce, etc. Amazing, alien, strange creatures (insects, beetles, spiders, etc.)– some very small, some very large given what they were, some with horns, some with multiple eyes — all scary; sure inspiration for a sci-fi film.
Yes! This is a very big benefit to cold winters…
The only time I ever saw a tarantula around here was doing electrical work with my brother-in-law. We found one in the temporary power box — black and bright orange fur. It was pretty, honestly. Being a country boy, my brother picked it up.
There’s a lot of wildlife here that doesn’t often get seen, like bobcats and wolves.
There is a transformer behind my house which provides power to my block. For some reason it attracts suicidal opossums. They crawl up the pole and short the circuit between the transformer and the line. There is a loud BANG! Then the lights go out. It has happened so often I have the Electric Company’s service line on speed dial on my cell phone. (Because you cannot look it up on the Internet when your block has lost power.)
Why the opossums climb up there is beyond me. They have the transformer arranged so squirrels will not trip it, but opossums are larger. Yeah. They are possums – every time. The crew who go out there always say they find a dead possum at the top of the box or on the ground at the bottom.
Seawriter
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My husband and I joke that we are Neo-Luddites. We still use a rotary phone.
That is so weird. I found this guy on my bird feeder:
Still have my at&t princess phone, it’s the newer push-button model that lights up; very heavy but works just fine. I’m thinking it is at least 30 years old. It’s in our “survival” kit; doesn’t need electricity to work; doesn’t ever need to be charged. I would really enjoy having a rotary phone. When I was a child I really enjoyed the sounds it made when dialing.
Someone I knew in Fort Worth had a wall-mounted rotary phone with the old bell-shaped ear piece and a cone to speak into… like people used in the 1930s or so. The structure was classic but the electronics were modern, so it was as clear as a modern touchtone phone. Very cool, if not entirely practical.
That might be as civilized as Texans get.
You can still purchase old rotary phones on ebay and elsewhere, and even use them if your phone company supports them, that’s assuming that we will continue to have landlines, God help us.
Rotary phones are quite old, but I don’t think most people had them until after WWII or even later. What we did have was an operator who answered when you picked up the receiver, and who, in a small town, knew everyone. When you called someone long distance, you could hear the long distance operators talking to each other as the call went through various switchboards. They also handled all sorts of emergencies. Before we had 911, you called the operator.
Great story, and we’re happy to have you in Texas! As you were moving down to the reclaimed wetlands along the Harris-Galveston county line, I was in my second year at UT-Austin and the next summer would begin frequent trips to Clear Lake Forest (we lived in Clear Lake City when I was in 3rd to 7th grade) to woo the lovely young woman who became my wife 32 years ago. I worked a summer job on the Ship Channel during the horrible summer of 1980, when the humidity compounded the damage of triple digit temperatures each day, but at least I got to work indoors. My college era transportation was a navy blue Datsun B210, with louvered slats on the hatchback and a manual transmission.
Michiganders gone to Texas! Now there’s a topic. I’m particularly interested in those who went to Texas right after the 1832 Black Hawk war, including the three stagecoach operators on the Chicago-Detroit stagecoach line. I’ve long wanted to include places from their Texas lives in my bicycle destinations, and next month it’s due to happen!
One. Did a lot of early surveying in Michigan, including the townships just to the north of me. The county surveyor tells me his work was almost fraudulent (but not quite). In Texas his son was killed at the Alamo, after which he (a Quaker) then got non-pacifist and fought at San Jacinto. His survey instruments came back to Michigan in the 1960s.
Two. Left his wife in Michigan and started a new family in Texas. Was hanged by vigilantes during the Civil War, in a rural area not too far from Houston. I’ve met descendants.
Three. There was a big controversy in papers nationwide over how he got a govt mail contract. Then he went to Texas. Got out during the Civil War, but later went back and died there.
There are others, but will start with these.