I am what they call a naturalized Texan. I’ve been here my whole adult life so I sometimes forget that I haven’t always been a Texan. I started out a Southern Belle. Texas is NOT part of the South. It is it’s own universe. Memphis was and is as slow as molasses. People talk and talk and talk and talk. There is no such thing as a short meeting. You have to have at least 10 or 15 minutes of small talk before you jump into your business. I didn’t know that until I started handling my father’s estate. I spent three months in Memphis while Dad died and then afterwards to take care of things. It reminded me how Texas is not the South. How hard edged I have become. How worldly and cynical.
But it wasn’t always that way. I showed up in Austin in 1980 having run out of options in Memphis. This is the God’s honest truth; I filled out the University of Texas Graduate School of Business application because it was a one page bubble thing. No essay. I just found out that my friend Jackie did the same thing. I really wasn’t all that committed. But I got accepted and I rented a U Haul and off I went.
And what can I say? It was the most fun, fantastic, redemptive time of my life. I loved almost everything about it, except the content of the classes ….boring…..
But I did well, made good grades and better friends. And I got a job.
If Texas is a universe unto itself, Austin is it’s own planet. At that time Austin was a small town with no jobs. Had that not been the case, none of us would have left. It was heaven. Most of my Texas friends were from Dallas. I had only heard horror stories about Houston. Unsophisticated, bad traffic and hot and humid. Mostly just hot and humid. But Houston was where the jobs were and they paid up for the inconvenience of having to live there.
My very first foray into Houston was to interview at Texas Commerce Bank in February, 1982. I hopped on a Southwest Airlines flight for the 45 minute ride from Austin to Houston. This was during the hot pants and free drink era of the “love” airline.
For starters, exactly which cluster of skyscrapers is downtown? I’d never seen such a thing. Memphis has only one downtown and it is snuggled up against the river. Everywhere you look, there are downtowns in Houston.
But despite the abundance of tall buildings, the city was surprisingly cowtown. I took a taxi from Hobby airport to the right downtown, got out of the car and guffawed at the Jock Ewings parading up and down the street. Everywhere I looked there were bankers and lawyers wearing cowboy boots under their Brooks Brothers suits, some donning hats. Women, mostly the secretary kind, were also sporting their western wear. OK, note to self – adjust wardrobe. But the people seemed alive, there was a certain bounce in their step, a festive mood to the work day. I think it was some time after lunch that I commented to my host that the cowboy culture of Houston was a little surprising to this Memphis via Austin gal. It was then that he told me that it was the opening day of the Rodeo. I had landed in Houston smack dab in the middle of “Go Texan Day.”
Just Passing Through 