I'm not sure when it began or why. I can't really trace it to any one place, neighborhood, class, or time. But one thing is sure, the Texas man is changing. There was a time when ranchers -jackpumps gently rocking black gold from the earth, bank accounts swelling to inordinate levels- were still seen mending broken wire, cutting and hauling brush, or digging out a tank in the hard Texas clay for their new bulls. I remember watching multi-millionaires mowing their lawns on the west side of White Rock or giving their windows a once-over from a high powered hose. Michener wrote of the newly rich Texan wearing the same sweat-stained hat and puttering around in the same battered Ford pickup, daily adding new salty lines to his Stetson or new dents to his rusting quarter panels. By the time a boy was twelve, no matter his station, regardless of his family's wealth, he could shoot a .22 rifle, accurately hand saw a 2X4 without breaking a sweat, dig out a prickly pear, change a flat tire, neatly mow a lawn, drive a 3" framing nail with very few hammer swings, safely (under supervision) use a drill, a circular saw, an acetylene torch, a hedge trimmer, or an an axe, and perform many other tasks using simple levers, hand tools, and patient strength. Then, something changed. People began to eschew manual labor, to reject it as a type of work beneath them, reserved only for the underclass, the servants, the hired help. Across the state, lawn crews popped up, taking over first the jobs previously reserved for the more entrepreneurial of those aforementioned 12 year-olds tending lawns for the elderly or infirm, then expanding to replace the Sunday chores of entire neighborhoods. People didn't -and the following generation couldn't- maintain their own property any more.
Something is lost when you hire out every bit of your labor. There is a connection that Texans historically have with the land, a connection strengthened with each swing of the chopping axe, each pull of the starter cord, every pry at a stubborn rock. It has helped to shape the character of a state where virtually every acre is privately owned, mineral rights are handed down like heirlooms, and towns spread out with endless subdivisions checkerboarded by small plots of Texan pride. There is something that is lost when a father no longer teaches his son how to find and repair a leaking pipe, rip out a troublesome stump, or replace the window pane broken by an errant toss. We are all lessened by it somehow. Land ownership loses something when others maintain the lawn, haul out the leaves, cut up the storm-downed limb, re-plumb the new sink, or hang a new backdoor. We lose a connection to the first ones to tramp across the prairie, secure a small wooden structure against attack by angry Indians or angrier winds, feel the first bite of steel into sod, drink from a hand dug well, or reap the new crop and send the first herd in to market. I remember the way America mocked President Bush the younger when cameras followed him as he cleared the brush on his Texas ranch. Regardless of how one views his politics, those mocking sneers and jabs insinuated that this ex oil man was trying to "endear himself with the little man." However, they were interpreted by the true Texan as naivete: the result of too much big city apartment living, the opinions of people who don't know what it means to be a man in Texas, even a rich one.
But, perhaps I heard even a few Texans among those cynical and naive voices. Surely the change had started well before the beginning of this new millennium. But I missed it. I really didn't notice it...until I began to coach and teach. I noticed how so few boys in Dallas knew how to perform those tasks mentioned above; how few could begin to saw a simple board or drive even a penny nail. When my wife and I moved into our first house, it astonished us how few of our neighbors mowed their own lawns. When working with teenage boys in club volleyball, I was shocked how they struggled to master even the simple engineering involved in raising the nets. I wondered how many of these young men had no connection with their land, with the grime and mud and chalk and black prairie sod that is Texas itself. I wondered how they would handle being uprooted and plunged into Italy, Kaufman, Sweetwater or some other small Texas town where boys still learned the history of the Republic by sinking their hands into it.
There is a joy of ownership, a practice of delayed gratification, and an intense connection formed when one works his own land. There is something truly Texan about that. It is one of the reasons why Texas is the backdrop for so many John Ford Westerns, why the state is more recognized in foreign countries than any other, why Dallas (the old one) is the most popular American show in Lebanon and Syria. It's not the hats or boots. It's not the pick-ups or six-guns. It's not even the oil or longhorns. It's something else. Something in our character that marks us and individualizes us. Texas men are connected to their state through their property, their labors, their failures and successes. Sweat and blood links them forever to their land, and thus, their state. I hope that the current trend I've seen is fleeting. I hope that this desire we seem to have to rise above the "blue collar" class is impermanent. I hope that we leave our children with more than a list of lawn specialists, contractors, plumbers, and "handymen." When we take away the physical connection of the individual to his land, we lose something essential about being a Texas man.
