Texas, land of contrasts. Of diversity. Of variegated and stubborn opinion. Texas is a state that celebrates rugged individualism, provided each rugged individual thinks and acts the same as every other. From this derives our greatness. Though we represent many different cultures and backgrounds, Texans share a set of common values. These values are automobiles, air conditioning, and football. They are the foundation of our moral might, the fuel that drives the engine of our destiny. “Without them,” Walter Prescott Webb might have written had the thought occurred to him, “we are nothing.” And yet there are those few—those very few—who steadfastly refuse to subscribe to these simple tenets for which our forefathers gave their last blood in glorious martyrdom at the Alamo. They do not drive, they do not have central air, they think the Southwest Conference is a multistate seminar on alternative-energy policy. In the following pages, these “Texans” attempt to explain themselves and their peculiar aversion to everything we hold sacred. We have, in the interest of a vigorous free press, allowed their voices to be heard; but you and I know that they are voices crying in the wilderness.
Air Conditioning? Who Needs It?
