A renaissance man for the twenty-first century!
Huge numbers of Germans migrated to Texas in the mid 1800s – so much so, that even today you’ll find German villages in Texas, and a number of Americans who have been born here but speak German — not English — as their first language!
You can still see this German heritage everywhere around San Antonio, such as shown in this snap here:
As far as I can tell, countries like Switzerland treat their police just like everyone else. Not so in the US, where companies do their best to encourage police to shop at their stores and eat at their restaurants.
This snap from San Antonio, Texas, shows a parking place reserved for police officers at the local grocery store – just to make it a bit easier for them to come in and do some shopping.
Not only has San Antonio had (at the time of this writing) more than 100 days with temperatures above 100 deg F, but the skies are filled with red sand from the Sahara. What should be a blue sky with clear air looks like this:
Doesn’t look like an oil refinery, just west of Corpus Christi, but it sure smelled like one:
I took this snap in the southeast Texas seaside town of Corpus Christi, just a few months before the Covid pandemic erupted. It shows a dead weed in front of one of the zillions and zillions of refineries you’ll find in South Texas:
Note added on 05.05.2021: My Dad just informed me, this weed is the dead remains of a so-called sawtooth cactus. According to him – and my parents lived for many years in Corpus – the neighborhoods around the refineries are increasingly becoming devoid of vegetation. There are the laws that regulate the nature of the refinery pollution – but then there is reality, which often differs considerable.
The Gulf Coast off of Texas is like the South of France – the air is always kept crystal clear by the prevailing winds.
Looking south on a cool summer’s day:
A beach is a beach is a beach? Not so. Padre Island National Seashore is the largest undeveloped, untouched barrier island, not just in the United States but in the world! It’s long enough and isolated enough that, after even a modest drive, you are truly on your own: no mobile telephone services, and indeed no other human beings for 30+ miles in any direction.
Continuing the series, another shot of the amazing robotically-operated garbage trucks in Texas:
I have very much mixed feelings about this blog post. Sadly, Texas is the state where the largest proportion of residents have diabetes – at least count, over 60% of all Texas have diabetes. This leads to mobility problems and, ultimately for many suffers, huge numbers of people with amputated feet.
But in contrast to other countries or even other states, Texas stores do their best to enable their customers who are mobility limited.
This is no unusual sight at the entrance of any store in Texas, be it do-it-yourself store or supermarket or any other large store: a fleet of battery operated buggies:
And this is no unusual sight in any supermarket:
So you can see: it is a real tragedy that so much of the population suffer from health problems – but it is a real blessing that commercial enterprises have done their best to enable their mobility limited customers.
I can’t think of any other state than Texas that offers so many commercial opportunities via the drive-thru channel.
Here is a drive thru bank. You stay in your car, and real people (called bank tellers) pass money to you via pneumatic tubes:
America is highly segregated into areas that reflect the financial class of the residents. So here is a similar shot at a much fancier bank in a much more affluent neighborhood:
Need to hand in your cowboy boots for a good cleaning or a bit of repair, handy if you can stay in your three-axel, 6 wheel, 300 HP pickup truck to do it:
And last but not least, it does make a lot of sense that – particularly if you are sick – you stay in your automobile while you get your medication from the pharmacy:
Sadly, I don‘t have a snap to show, but some states have quite impressive drive thru liquor and beer stores. In Pennsylvania it was illegal to buy individual cans of beer – a case or 24 cans or bottles was the minimum size you could buy – so you‘d drive your car into what looked like a garage, where someone would load the beer into your car. Never seen one of these in Texas, however.
Not just in Texas, but this is increasingly a common sight in many places in the United States:
In Texas we might say something like: This ain’t worth a hill of beans. The overwhelming majority of easily transmissible infections are URI’s, or upper respiratory infections – and the overwhelming majority of them are caused by viruses, not bacteria, that are not affected by topical alcohol.
I thought snap taken at the Padre Island National Seashore in Texas made for a very interesting subject:
The United States is the largest producer of oil in the world, and Texas is the largest producer of oil in the United States.
So if Texas produces a lot of oil, it makes sense that it would have a lot of refineries – and it does.
Interestingly, refineries in Texas are often huge polluters. The refinery operators often have excellent contacts with the local politicians, so it is very common to read about things like an accidental release of toxic gases that occurs once per month like clockwork.
Anyway, here is one huge refinery near Floresville, Texas:
Normally I do no post-processing of my snaps except for cropping, but in this case Google helped me to assemble multiple shots into a single panorama.
Texas is an amazing, amazing place. Not a lot of people know this, but it was founded by thousands upon thousands of European immigrants that settled here in the early 1800’s, bringing their language with them and creating miniature villages of how they lived back home. There were Irish villages, Norwegian villages – sadly, most of these are now just ghost towns (but you can visit them, if you know where to look).
But a few of these European villages do not just survive but thrive. Depending on the village, here you will find Americans, born and raised in these villages, that do not speak English as a first language, but rather speak Alsatian or French or German or – believe it or not – Schwiizerdüütsch.
Castroville, a tiny village just outside of San Antonio, was founded by Alsatian and Swiss settlers, and a significant number of the old timers are Americans who actually speak English as a second language to their native Alemannic.
As you head into town, you’re greeted by an authentic Alsatian bakery, selling authentic Alsatian baked goods, in an authentic half-timbered house no less!
While visiting this village with my father and I had the honor and privilege to meet Connie, a 90-year-old native speaker of Alsatian and Allemanic – and I could confirm, she spoke fluently and would be right home in Alsace or even Switzerland! In fact, she was kind enough to take my father and I on a tour of Castroville, where she shared her memories growing up here in this Texas community where there were essentially few or no English speakers.
In fact, she and her father wrote the very first ever American / Alsacienne foreign dictionary!
There are plenty of other historic buildings, including a Catholic church. This is what it looks like from the outside:
And this is what it looks like from the inside:
But the highlight has to be an authentic half-timbered house that came from Alsace itself; it was taken down piece by piece, sent to America a few years ago, and re-assembled in the village by handworkers from France:
I hope to return to Texas soon, and visit a unique French village, where the number of Americans who have French as their first language is shrinking fast.
Anyone not familiar with America is likely to also be not familiar with Bass Pro Shops – an store that sells outdoor sporting goods.
Well, the term store is not the right word – mind blowing wonderland is more appropriate.
And the term sporting goods is the right word either – massive collection of boats and four-wheel-drive-vehicles and tents and guns and more guns and even more guns is more appropriate.
Here is what some of it looks like from the outside (the huge collection of over 20 boats are behind me and not visible in this photograph):
Inside the store, this snap does not even show 20% of what there is:
There is not only an archery section, but also an indoor archery range where you can freely try out any of the gear:
Sadly, this Bass Shop lacks the usual indoor gun range, as well as the private room that have historical antique guns costing tens of thousands of dollars – and usually, my favorites, big bore elephant guns used if you want to shoot real elephants!
But this one still has plenty of guns on display – and many, many more locked in a safe (tip for experts: if you are looking for a particular make and model of gun, always better to ask. Could be they will have it, but not on display at the moment!):
What’s really terrific is that the people working in the gun area are usually older, retired gentlemen, and even if you are not a serious buyer, they are happy to let you handle any guns of your choice – and they’ll spend hours with you, just chatting about firearms:
This Bass Pro shop also lacked an indoor hunting area where – and I am not kidding – you can hunt wild stuffed animals using a laser equipped rifle. Sorry, no laser hunting here, but I’d say well over 200 stuffed animals all over the store:
Now, I’ve never see a Bass Pro shop where you can actually fish – but there are plenty of fish and in fact an entire indoor waterfall:
So, if you are planning a trip to the United States, I highly recommend you see if there are any Bass Pro shops near to where you are going to go!
You can see the oil platforms dwarfed by massive rain clouds just off the coast of Texas in this snap, if you look hard enough:
South Texas is famous for its cotton fields. Here the cotton is ready-to-pick:
It really begs the question: what happen if it rains?
The old western song made famous by the Bluegrass musician Bill Monroe tells „When them cotton balls get a rottin‘, you can‘t pick very much cotton.“ So presumably it is possible for cotton to rot.
But after a rain shower, do farmers worry about how much moisture the cotton has before harvesting? Is the water content somehow tied to the price? This is in fact the case for feed corn: the higher the water content, the lower the price.
Not only does Texas have one of the longest coastlines of any entity in the world, but in fact – like most of Texas itself – it is an empty coastline.
Here I am standing deep within the Padre Island National Seashore (itself at over 100 km long, the longest protected stretch of beach in the world) watching the thunderstorms brewing in the distance.
I‘d say the nearest human to where I am standing now is over 25 miles away. This is one reason that keeps drawing me back to Texas, time and time again.
My artwork is completely fresh out-of-the-camera and unretouched in any way. This now definitely belongs to one of my all time favorite snaps.
I took what I hopefully believe you‘ll agree is a magnificent snap on a recent holiday in Texas. I‘ve waded out into the water at the North Padre Island National Seashore. As usual, none of my artwork is re-touched or enhanced in any way: this is a color snap from my iPhone 8, and I did not even need to crop it.
If you look closely you‘ll see a few seagulls in the sky.
Some of my photos are quite boring to Europeans, because they show very common European scenes – but having never seen them, Americans are fascinated.
In this case, the situation is reversed. No American would hardly raise an eyebrow at this:
It’s a bank! Although cash machines and cash cards have been around in America for a long time, many Americans still write checks by hand, and pick up money from a so-called “bank teller” – a real person who works at a bank! The money and checks are transferred back and forth to the cars via pneumatic tubes.
A guest blog, by Arlene Ritley
Hello, my name is Arlene. And yes I am addicted to buying new purses and handbags.
I currently have, at last count, at least fifteen handbags. Some are very expensive and come with their own dust bag. Others are fine leather ones I purchased at discount, paying very little considering the quality of the leather and trim. Some are made of fabric not to be used when we have inclement weather.
Some people make fun of me – “What! Another purse?” I simply laugh it off and say I really needed a new one. I often give them as gifts for birthdays or Christmas. I fool myself into thinking all my women friends are just waiting for a new handbag.
I have given much thought as to when this obsession had started. I have come to the conclusion that it started when I was about seven or eight years old making my First Holy Communion. My mom and I went shopping to buy a communion dress and veil. But along with the ensemble there was a very small white purse with a gold religious emblem sewn on the front with a prayer book inside. How could you not feel special carrying this purse?
But like all items people obsess over, the euphoric feeling doesn’t last long. And before you know it you will find me in the handbag section of the department store.
BUT – this all changed. Finally, finally I found the one purse that fulfills my every requirement. It is large but not too large. It has an opening on the outside for a cell phone plus a charger. Once I open the zipper of the main compartment I find six compartments to hold everything I need. I’ll never have to buy another purse again!
(Who am I kidding? Just thinking about not purchasing another purse makes my hands shake; I feel dizzy, nauseated and agitated. Am I addicted – you bet your bottom dollar I am.)
This guest blog was submitted by Arlene Ritley, an editor with the Island Moon Newspaper – one of South Texas’s largest community newspapers.
These snaps are courtesy of my mother in San Antonio. Here is a baby possum on a fence:
And here is the Mama Possum
Everyone’s heard the word barbeque, even if not everyone has tasted it. And everyone’s heard about Texas, even if not everyone has visited it.
But a Texas Barbeque is really something special. The snap below is of the hugely famous Bill Miller Barbeque, and I’m told it wouldn’t be unusual to see Willy Nelson here – although I never have.
But the amazing part is what you don’t see. These Texas barbecues generate so much heat and smoke, that as soon as you drive into the parking lot it gets a bit difficult to breathe.
For this reason, most people order their food in advance, and even if it takes just a few minutes to pick it up, you leave with your clothes deeply soiled with the wonderful barbecue odors.
In biology there is the concept of convergent evolution:
In software engineering there is the concept of a design pattern:
During recent trips to both Spain and Texas, it made me first realize that both convergent evolution and design patterns are describing something very similar. Have a look at this:
Spain is filled with Spaniards, and as everyone knows Spaniards are very tiny people. So until recently they drove very tiny cars. But recently Spaniards are getting bigger. I took this picture in Spain, which now seems to be representative of how Spaniards park their cars:
Texas is filled with Texans, and as everyone knows Texans are very big people indeed. But in recent times, Texans have been getting even bigger. I took this picture in Texas, which now seems to be representative of how Texans park their “dualies” (as they call pickup trucks with dual rear tires):
Convergent evolution (biology) or design pattern (software engineering) – you be the judge!
