Tyler, TX

Well I am in Tyler, TX at the moment, the East Texas town that I will be working and residing in after graduation. Other than the fact that you have to drive 30 minutes away to purchase any form of alcohol outside of a bar, Tyler is not a bad place at all.

Now, call me crazy but wouldn't it be safer to allow local residents to enjoy a cold beer in the comfort of their home rather than forcing them to operate a motor vehicle after pounding several post-work margaritas at the local Chili's. To tell you the truth, I have never seen so many people crammed into the bar areas at what I consider wholesome family dinner restaurants. I know that the Chili's, Applebee's, and TGI Friday's chains enjoy wracking up the tabs but Tyler must eventually get over these outdated laws created by the devout southern baptists churchs that are scattered all over the place. People must realize that times have changed and it is okay to reconsider laws that were mandated several decades ago, especially if the area is already known as "the wettest dry county".

I spent last summer here working for an independent energy company making a daily commute to the Odessa of East Texas: Longview, which from my summer assessment is most likely the birthplace of your generic trailer park drugs such as crystal meth. Actually, my employer sponsered a drug seminar on a Wednesday afternoon to educate all of us "field hands" about how to spot a meth lab. The seminar was actually very informative, but a co-workers stories about doing drugs and making trouble with Pablo Escobar's cousin really stole the show.

The people out here are really nice and the families hold true to the traditional values that they themselves were raised on. It is just strange to see that good ol' Johnny traded in his polo's and sweater vests for black lipstick and Michael Vick's dog collar. Thats right, the latest generation has begun to rebel against their parents and have decided to go the gothic route. So, times are changing and the once small "pleasantville" town is growing into a small city. The next step of course will be to de-segregate North and South Tyler.

Now, my dad has told me many stories about his high school days at Tyler Lee. His class was the first de-segregated freshman class in the history of Robert E. Lee high school. Of course some things must change during the desegration process, this included throwing out the Rebel flag, the Fightin' Reb mascot, and a refurbished civil war cannon. According to my father, this cannon makes the Ol' Smokey (cannon at UT football games) look like it was created for toy soldiers.

Now, I understand throwing out the confederate flag but changing the schools mascot and traditions is going to far, the confederacy did have beliefs and values that were not solely based on slavery. In fact, a majority of the confederate soldiers did not own slaves or endentured servants, a very small minority of southerners owned plantations. The southerners faced with extreme poverty would even work on the plantations themselves. Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general forever enshrined in US history, did not believe in all of the values put forth by the Confederacy, in fact his mind sided with the Union but his heart followed his home state. I know that General Lee owned slaves himself, but he did believe that slavery was becoming an outdated tradition.

Anyways, I don't mean to bore you with Civil War history, the point that I am trying to make is that my fathers high school did not need to make all of those changes to ease the segregation process. In fact, the changes enraged most students who dreamt of operating the cannon or playing for the fightin' rebels and also created more tension between the black and white students. The black students did not want to be at Tyler Lee and the white students did not want them there. All of this tension brewed and eventually boiled over in various forms of violent activities, such as riots.

So, I hope that my view of Tyler has not offended anyone because that is not the purpose of this blog. I don't really have a purpose to this blog, it is just for fun. I must warn you, I am not good about keeping up with things of this nature, so my posts will probably not be on any sort of schedule. That is all, thanks for reading.