Family Reunion in Texas (Texas)

I love going to the annual Kieschnick Family Reunions and I love going to Texas to celebrate that. But I must also admit to what many Texans (including some of my relatives) may consider a set of mortal sins. There is stuff going on in Texas that I hate. I hate the idea of arming the Texas National Guard to protect it from an invasion by the USA. I hate the reality of everyone insisting that it’s important to carry guns to school, church and family picnics. I hate it that too many Texans think sexual orientation is a choice which must be stopped. I hate it when I experience (at best) paternalism for Blacks and downright denigration of Hispanics. And if any of my Texas relatives or friends have gotten past this paragraph and have not deleted this blog and inserted a two word expletive in its place then I am ready to proceed and tell you why I love Texas.

On my recent flight to Austin we had not preceded very far east of El Paso before I began to enjoy the beauty of that vast and varied state. Texas had wonderful spring rains and the fields were unusually green for late July. The hills were alive with lush green trees. Herefords and Holsteins roamed the fields. Massive rolls of hay were strewn in the vast fields. The few visible clouds added just the right touch to a beautiful landscape. The feeling that I have when looking across or driving in the rolling green hills of Texas brings me to bliss.

When my sister Mimi welcomes me into her house with her beautiful slight Texas drawl and the temperature of the house is just right and the refrigerator is filled with cold beer and there is a bottle of Scotch nearby what could be better!

In the morning I join a couple of my California and Connecticut kids and some of their family for breakfast. I get upset when my wait for the table runs to 30 minutes. And then the waitress comes and it’s true joy. Her Texas accent flows from her sweet and accepting face. She offers us all the options we might want with unusual graciousness. Then she brings the just baked biscuits, the cream gravy and the strong black coffee. I could stay here all day.

In the evening we go to the first of a series of feasts. The back yard is as immense as it is inviting. The beer is on tap for everyone. The pork butt bar-b-cue is so wonderful I think it can’t get any better until I add just a bit more of that bar-b-cue sauce and I check whether or not I am already in heaven.

The style of the Pitching Washers game has changed a bit but there is room for all from ages 8 to 88-and from then on the Super Bowl could not be more competitive but it is all in good fun

My granddaughter has come from California to experience Texas and she gets the full treatment. The first gentleman with whom we converse at the first party is a former rodeo competitor and tells about bucking broncos and calf roping. The next day she goes to buy her western straw hat and the salesman discovers she is from California and within minutes figures out that she is here for the Kieschnick and tells her he is a housemate of a person from the Kieschnick clan. He gets just the right hat for her!

The next few days I continue to be immersed in some of that good stuff that is essentially Texan: marvelous chicken-fried steak, freshly picked ripe peaches, crisp pecan pie, fried okra, five or even seven layered dip. And I visit an ancient smoke house where a generation ago at least 7 deer a year were smoked, dried and preserved to provide meat for an entire year.

I drive by the old cotton gins. Brother-in law Raymond’s longhorn cattle come to the edge of the fence to greet us, and the country western tune on the radio blares “Beautiful, Beautiful Texas the land where the bluebonnets grow. We are proud of our grandfathers who fought at the Alamo “

As I walk down the airport corridor for my return flight to California I take one more look at all those U. of Texas Longhorn caps, shirts, etc., hear one more “Howdy” from a Stetson wearing exec and I head into the plane thinking, “Sure hope we come back to Texas next year for another Kieschnick Reunion.”