I recently did something that I vowed never to do – I went to Texas. My sister-in-law lives in Houston and was getting married, making it a completely unavoidable occurrence. The people were friendly, the barbecue was tasty (although inferior to my native Carolinian barbecue), and it was an all around nice place to be.

The tripalleviated many of the strangefears I have about the former Republic of Texas and its citizens. More importantly, though, it reminded me of a piece I had written about...