By Daniel Hill
Texans are proud of their state, and they should be. People are proud to live in this state because Texas has immense history and astounding tradition.
I grew up in Texas, and I love things like BBQ, fried foods and every other sort of southern charm. I said words like “y’all” and “fixin to,” and embraced everything about the South. I love pick-up trucks and sodas, especially Dr Pepper.
I was a born in Texas and used to consider myself a Texan. I embraced life in Texas to the fullest.
Then when I was 12 years old, my family moved out of the Lone Star State and to Seattle.
I remember the night my parents told my siblings and I that we were moving to another corner of the United States. I was heartbroken to leave Texas. When our family left, we stopped at the border and took a picture with all of us posing by the “Texas” sign.
When our family moved to Seattle, I was going into the sixth grade. On the first day of school, all of the kids laughed at me because I was from Texas. They all thought I was a redneck and wondered why I didn’t have a cowboy hat.
In reality though, I was just a kid from a suburb of Houston called Friendswood. I wasn’t very country at all. I remember my classmates teasing me by quoting a SpongeBob SquarePants episode whose sole purpose was to make fun of Texas.
Because I was from Houston, I took the brunt of jokes for being Texan. I quickly stopped doing or saying anything that would associate me with being a Texan. I stopped saying “y’all” and “fixin’ to.” I learned that in Seattle, a soda is called a “pop.”
I also learned when it’s raining, you don’t use an umbrella, you just get over it and resume business as usual.
I remember for the first year of living in Seattle, I was constantly comparing Texas to Seattle. I compared the Texas heat to the Seattle cool, the Seattle mountains to Texas terrain, the Seattle’s Puget Sound to Texas’ Gulf Coast. I tried to find any reason to compare the two places.
What makes me like Texas is what I dislike about Seattle, and what I like about Seattle is what I dislike about Houston.
For example, Houston is always swelteringly hot and Seattle is rarely warm. Most people don’t even have air conditioning in Seattle.
The one thing that I love about Seattle is how open people were to people and lifestyles that were outside of their beliefs.
Finally when I went off to Baylor, I decided that between Houston and Seattle neither one was better than the other, they are only different from one another.
While every Texan loves Texas, I just have to say that there is more to the U.S. than Texas. Sometimes the Texas braggadocio can just be too much.
Let’s get over ourselves.
I like Texas so much that I even came back here for college. Ultimately though, after college, I want to settle in Seattle and enjoy all four seasons and cool summers. I consider myself to be a Seattle native and a Pacific Northwest guy now.
Daniel Hill is a senior journalism major from Seattle. He is a sports writer for the Lariat.
