Q: I live in Arkansas but recently visited Port Aransas with my family for our summer vacation. We had never been to the Texas coast and were really looking forward to the trip, but it turned out that what could have been four beautiful days on the beach were marred by all the traffic! On the beach! Why on earth is driving allowed on Texas beaches? It’s not safe.
The Porters
Little Rock, Arkansas
August 2013
A: The Texanist is glad that the Porters were able to escape their home in landlocked Arkansas and enjoy themselves on a nice stretch of the long, sun-drenched, and beautiful Texas coastline. There’s nothing quite like the restorative effects of that salty Gulf air on both the body and soul, as you are now surely aware. Did you kick off your shoes and let that fine Texas sand work its warm magic on the old dogs as you reclined in your beach chair, sipping a koozie-clad Mexican beer with a little salt and a wedge of lime, while the white gulls cawed to one another and the brown pelicans soared in formation overhead and the sandpipers skittered nervously along the edge of the softly undulating surf? Cures what ails you, doesn’t it? Speaking of the local fauna, it sounds like, in addition to these seabirds, you may have also been treated to a few sightings of the common Texas beach yahoo. These colorful beasts owe their existence, in part, to the Texas Open Beaches Act, passed in 1959, which at its core guarantees that “the public, individually and collectively, shall have the free and unrestricted right of ingress and egress to and from the state-owned beaches bordering on the seaward shore of the Gulf of Mexico.” It’s important to note here that the state owns the entirety of Texas’s 367-mile coastline and that while some of the aforementioned public do indeed opt to make their ingresses and egresses vehicularly, the beach yahoo stands out by accenting his arrivals and departures with a signature yell and a couple of engine-roaring, sand-spewing doughnuts. The beach yahoo can be a dangerous bird, especially when in close proximity to young family members, and your outrage is understandable. It’s also worth noting that the Open Beaches Act leaves the particulars of “public access” up to local jurisdictions along the coast and that some of them have opted to disallow vehicles from motoring upon the seashore. Such serene settings do not make good habitat for the yahoo, and it is generally found there only if it has become lost. The Porters ought to consider this when planning their next Texas getaway.
Q: Did I miss the memo that said it is unsafe to give people a friendly wave in traffic these days? Why doesn’t anybody do it anymore?
Gerald
Helotes
January 2009
A: Unfortunately, getting the lifted index finger, or the hi sign, as it is sometimes called, from an oncoming pickup driven by an old farmer in overalls and a slightly askew gimme cap who’s chewing on a piece of wheat straw has, as you point out, become a rarity. It is just another slice of a simpler time that is slowly falling victim to the ever-encroaching go-go hurly-burly of city life, with all the drive-through coffee shops, 24-hour Super Wal-Marts, and Wi-Fi-enabled gentlemen’s clubs. However, this is a practice the Texanist is unwilling to let go of. And so, when on the occasional foray to our state’s larger metropolitan areas, he treats his fellow drivers on the humming thruways no differently than he would back home. While Houston’s Loop 610 at drive time may not be as picturesque as Texas 118 through the Davis Mountains, the Texanist forgives it and simply relishes the chance to “Drive Friendly—The Texas Way” with so goddam many of his citified countrymen.
Q: I have received three speeding tickets in the past two years. My wife has been riding shotgun on all three occasions. On the last one she asked me, quite angrily, why I always say thank you to the officers. What exactly is the proper response in this sort of situation?
Name Withheld
May 2011
A: Driving friendly is the Texas way, and the Texanist finds no fault in your kindly responses to the ticketing agents of the highway patrol. They are, after all, just doing their job. Your query, however, begs a few questions with regard to the behavior of your co-pilot, which may help to get at the root of the problem. Does she ever angrily ask why your knuckles aren’t white? Why the bugs are splatting on the windshield with so little velocity? Why you’re not yet at your destination? Or why you’re driving so damn slow? If so, it may be time to tighten the reins on your lead-footed lady and have her just enjoy the ride.
Q: While traveling in the Valley recently, I found my trip hampered not once but twice by slow-moving tractors in the roadway. After both encounters ended in horn blasts and a few choice words, I began to wonder, Just exactly how long is long enough to wait behind this sort of slow-moving rural roadblock before a person is allowed to react in the manner in which I did?
Name Withheld
June 2011
A: The Rio Grande Valley, with its rich, loamy soils and subtropical climate, is the fruit basket of the state. And the vegetable basket, the cotton basket, the sorghum basket, and the sugarcane basket. And anytime you drive through a basket, you’re bound to have some trouble. You see, even though some of the basket’s produce does grow on actual trees, none of it grows on metaphorical ones. These crops are carefully cultivated by farmers who work sunup to sundown so that you will have food to, as President Bush once said, put on your family. And farmers don’t go places in a hurry. In fact, the way the Texanist sees it, the farmer’s role in society is not only to grow