- Table of Contents
- 1. What about Texas?
1. What about Texas?
From 1996 thru 2001, I lived in Irving, Texas, which is roughly north-west of Dallas, and north-east of Fort Worth.
Irving is probably most famous as the home of the Dallas Cowboys Football Team. With the behavioural problems they had in the late '90s, it seemed more appropriate to boast of the Cowgirls Cheerleaders instead...
In any case, Texas is most definitely a place where football is highly worshipped. If the Dallas Cowboys have had a tarnished image, there is no such tarnish on the college ball teams. As a foreigner (in more ways than one) I resisted being drawn into any of the conflicts between the proponents of UTA, Texas A&M, or Baylor, which is a good thing, because they take their schools and their football teams really seriously. (My alma mater, University of Waterloo, had the unfortunate fame of a football team with an 0 for 36 record in the late '80s while I was there. Students that graduated the year before I did never saw their team win once during their university careers. And moreover, UW is more-or-less the king of apathy...)
Spiders
Texas is the home of some "entertaining" spiders, including the infamously poisonous Black Widow, Brown Recluse, and Aggressive House Spider varieties. Overall, wasps and bees cause a lot more deaths per year than spiders, but they're certainly nicely icky...
I once got to "stomp" a less-dangerous "House spider" in my kitchen; its body (ignoring legs) was about 2cm long. I discovered that dropping a big tax book (like a phone book, only thicker!) on a big spider sitting on a carpet only makes it irritated. Destruction didn't happen 'til he ventured onto linoleum and I grabbed a boot to throw at him. Big stomp; big splash... I'm glad he wasn't on the carpet...