Texas Rules: Reasons # 218937-218943

Although The Deets and He Who Follows Four Seasons would like you to believe otherwise, I really did grow up in Texas. Sure I was born in Illinois and spent a year or so in Manhattan when I was wee, but my formative years are purely Texan. Here are some pictures of my trip back home with Emily.

One of my sisters lives with her family in St. Hedwig, a town (for lack of a better word) about 15 miles east of the San Antonio metro area. One day my brother-in-law should start his own blog and he can tell you tales like "How to Kill a Rattlesnake With Your Wife's Honda Civic." Until then, these pictures will have to suffice.



How to catch a Minnesotan Golden Gopher: lay a cow spine on a prickly pear near some barbed wire. This picture looks posed, but it's not. I think a dog must have dragged the spine across the prickly pear patch and left it there.



One of these scoundrels is the likely Spine Dragging Culprit.



The white gunk residue on the prickly pear is actually NOT white residue from deodorant. It is a critter.



One of my brother-in-law's three horses. My sister also has a pinto, but we didn't get a picture this time around. Oops.



My senior year of college, a housemate of mine had a puppy. He thought it was a good idea. The eight other people thought it was a terrible idea. I was one of those eight. The dog, pretentiously named Shakespeare (not by me) had epic battles with me back in the day about his role in the house.

It's a long story, but after I graduated my mom actually ended up with the controversial dog. She was only supposed to have him for a year. Well, one rattlesnake bite, one seizure disorder, and 12 years later, Shakespeare (or "Shakey" as my family calls him--less pretentious) is still living with my mom.

He looks and walks like a grandpa, but he does still enjoy life, as you can see here. I am shitting you negative, he is actually chewing on the jaw bone of a pit bull. How the pit bull jaw ended up in his mouth is also a long story.




Home of Da Smoke BBQ is a barbecue shack (a literal shack as you can see) outside of St. Hedwig. Everything besides the church, VFW, post office, and feed store can be considered "outside" of St. Hedwig. Home of Da Smoke had some of the best barbecue I've ever had. I had ribs, pork loin, candied yams, fried okra, corn bread, and sweet tea for less than ten dollars. And that is reason #218943 why Texas rules.



Here I am being a tourist in my own state, with Emily and all that food I just wrote about.