"T" for "Texas," "T" for "Thoughtfulness"

Well, I'll be jiggered. Looky yonder, y'all--in the straw chapeau! It's ol'

.

Angus Brangus is owner, operator, and head hillbilly at T4Texas ranchette, five carefully uncultivated acres of red ants, white oaks, and bluebottle flies in the eastern backwoods of the Lone Star State, out where the concrete don't grow.

Angus is a simple soul. And square. Real square. In fact, Angus is probably the squarest hillbilly in the backwoods: He loves to enjoy life to the fullest but tries not to enjoy life at the expense of his neighbors. That's pretty dadburned square, ain't it? "The way I see it," Angus Brangus says, "when we enjoy life at the expense of others, when our lack of thoughtfulness for others causes others to be unnecessarily disturbed, inconvenienced, stressed, or even put at risk, we send others a clear message: 'We'uns be better'n you'uns.' "Out here at T4Texas ranchette, we be hillbillies, but even we know that after we walk out the door of our shack, what we do affects other people--people we don't even know, people we don't even see. We affect them with the actions we take, the noises we make, the manners we forsake. "These days don't nobody live in a vacuum 'cept a Thermos jug," Angus says. "Yessireebob." Of course, apropos the word tejas (the origin of the word Texas and Caddo for "all who are friends"), Texans have a reputation for being friendly and neighborly. But these days, it seems to Angus, some Texans are what he calls "face-to-face friendly" and "nose-to-nose neighborly": Oh, sure, they smile and say "hidy!" when you are face to face with them. But there is much more to true friendliness and true neighborliness than a smile, Angus says. When people smile at you when they are face to face with you but then sashay off and act all Thermos juggy--as if they live in a vacuum and the rest of us don't exist--their smile is just paying lip service to the ideal of Texas friendliness and Texas neighborliness.

when you're driving you signal your intention to turn, change lanes, pull out and pull back in when passing another vehicle, and enter or exit the flow of traffic, whether you're on a farm road, the interstate, or the Wal-Mart parking lot,

you don't drive your pickup truck or motor-sickle with one of them loud, 'Hey, everybody, listen to me; I'm a real man' mufflers,

you don't chunk your trash out the car window onto the Travis-and-Houston-sanctified soil of the sovereign state of Texas,

and you don't honk your horn to announce your arrival at--or departure from--someone's home;

likewise, down at the Wal-Mart you don't take two parking spaces for one vehicle,

and you don't park in a fire lane or other no-parking zone just to save a few steps;

when you're inside the store you don't take more shared public space than you need, such as by strolling your shopping cart down the middle of the aisle or parking your cart away from the side of the aisle so that other shoppers can't squeeze past,

and at the checkout stand you have your form of payment ready before the cashier asks for it;

when you're back at your homestead you don't disturb your neighbors with loud music, loud ay-tee-vees, or loud barkin' dogs,

and you sure as shootin' don't go firin' off your squirrel gun if your neighbors can hear it! And unless you're a sure-'nuff Jed Clampett high-roller, you likely don't live on the hundreds of acres necessary to insulate neighbors from your gunfire."

T4Texas ranchette is located not quite three miles north of the town of Pert Near (population: a scootch shy of 1,200) and exactly seven miles south of the town of Smack Dab (population: 943 on the nose).
	Angus in front of T4Texas ranchette headquarters

Sometimes Angus Brangus leaves his beloved T4Texas ranchette and drives Old Blue, his trusty pickup, into the big, wicked city to visit his follicly challenged cousin, Stanley, who lives in the Handley section of Fort Worth:
	Handley Stanley's barber takes a shine to him

"Handley Stanley," Angus Brangus said to his cousin on a recent visit to the big, wicked city, "these days some country folks seem to be gettin' as thoughtless as city folks. Some folks like livin' in the country because it puts 'em beyond city laws. But livin' beyond city laws shouldn't put folks beyond common courtesy."
Handley Stanley shook his head woefully as he listened to his country cousin's lament.
"Tarnation! It's gotten as bad as all that, eh, Angus? That does sound a lot like the dire sitchy-ashun here in da hood of the big, wicked city. Common courtesy is pretty uncommon these days."

"All a fella needs to get by in the country is a high-lift jack, a come-along, and a lot of peace and quiet," Angus said. "And as you know, I've lived in the country in Tarrant, Johnson, Hood, Limestone, and Henderson counties, roamin' around, sorta like that ol' boll weevil, just a-lookin' for a home--a quiet home . . ." Handley Stanley finished the sentence in unison with his country cousin: "Out where the concrete don't grow." Both cousins laughed. "But the country just ain't as quiet as it used to be," Angus said. "You hear a lot more acoustic trespass. For example, these days you got Yosemite Sams who insist that their neighbors--near and far--listen to their gunfire.

"You got other folks who serenade the countryside with loud mufflers, especially on pickups and motor-sickles. Why, when some of them loud pickups and motor-sickles start belching brimstone, ol' hoss, the windows of your shack rattle, your Dollywood souvenir salt and pepper shakers wobble on the kitchen table, and your critters start repenting of their sins. "And there's more loud music, too. Sometimes you have to close your windows on a mild day. Heck, now and then you even hear a car with them subwoofer speakers. You can feel the pounding bass of the music from three hundred feet: thump thump thump thump. And you can hear it long after the car drives out of sight--thump thump thump thump. Sounds like a dinosaur tryin' to two-step. "Beats me why some folks who live in the country say they treasure its peace and quiet but then turn around and unnecessarily disturb it: loud mufflers, loud music, gunfire. Now I ask you: Is there any reason why the country should sound like east Dallas?" "You said a mouthful, country cousin," Handley Stanley said. "That ol' hippie attitude of 'if it feels good, do it' is what's wrong with this here world today." "Great knobs and cobs!" Angus Brangus said. "It makes me sad." Angus Brangus wiped away an itty-bitty tear but then brightened. "Hey, Handley Stanley," Angus said, slapping his plywood knee, "do you remember that counting game that my ol' pappy, Dangus Brangus, taught us when we was young'uns?" Handley Stanley smiled at the memory. "You mean Rights and Responsibilities? Sure 'nuff I do remember it. I hope I don't never disremember it."

Angus said, "The other day I was tellin' some of the boys down at the feedstore about it, about how Dangus would tell you and me to first count all our rights and put them in one pile. Then he'd tell us to count all our responsibilities and put them in another pile."
"Yeah!" Handley Stanley said, "Then he'd tell us that if our rights pile was bigger than our responsibilities pile, we needed to count again and to keep right on a-countin' until we had more responsibilities than rights."
"The way I see it," Angus said, "nowadays we got too many folks sayin', 'I have a right to' and not enough folks sayin', 'But I have a responsibility not to.'"
Handley Stanley said, "Amen to that. That's what your ol' pappy meant when he told us that there's two kinds of folks in this world: those who would and those who would not."
"And what he meant by that, of course, is there's folks who would take advantage of others, and there's folks who would not take advantage of others."
"And he warned us that the woulds usually prevail over the would-nots."
"But another thing that Dangus taught us," Angus said, "is to always take the high road. Two wrongs--or two million wrongs--don't make a right, no how, no way. For example, don't crank up your music just to show your neighbor how loud his is. Don't fail to signal turns and lane changes just because lots of other drivers fail to. A would-not should never join up with the woulds."
"Yep," Handley Stanley said. "Ol' Dangus told us instead to set a good example, said folks over twenty-one need good examples as much as young'uns do."
Angus said, "Ol' Dangus used to remind me that what we do in life is important, of course, but that many times why we do what we do is just as important--and maybe even more telling.
"'Why,' ol' Dangus said, 'is the biggest dadburned question ever asked. And "Because I can" ain't much of an answer.'"
"Especially if that person considers himself to be mature," Handley Stanley added.
"I remember," Angus said, "another lesson that ol' Dangus taught me when I was a young'un. We'd drive into town in that old GMC pickup of this. As we'd be driving along, if a car came up behind Dangus and wanted to pass, Dangus would always pull over, even if there wasn't a shoulder. One time I asked him that big question: 'Why?' Why did he pull over?
"Dangus said to me, 'Because it's the T-for-Texas, T-for-Thoughtfulness thang to do, son. So that driver could get on by and get on with his life. Shoot, I reckon I ain't important enough to be a hindrance to anyone.'
"Now," Angus Brangus said to Handley Stanley, "what ol' Dangus did and said that day might not sound like he was setting much of a good example for a young boy, but he was. Yessireebob. Dangus always taught me that I'm as special as anyone else, but on that day he also taught me that--more important--I'm not one iota more special than anyone else.
"My ol' pappy was just a hillbilly, like you and me. Had just a third-grade education. But his heart had a Ph.d. He told me, 'Son, laws require a lot from a man, but manners require even more.'
"Handley Stanley," Angus Brangus said, leaning back in his chair with a sigh, "you and me, we be hillbillies, but I'm a-thinkin' we was raised right. Yessireebob."