What it Means to be a Texan by Bum Phillips

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A TEXAN
by Bum Phillips

Dear Friends,

Last year, I wrote a small piece about what it means to me to be a Texan. My friends know it means about damned near everything. Anyway, this fella asked me to reprint what I'd wrote and I didn't have it. So I set out to think about rewriting something. I considered writing about all the great things I love about Texas. There are way too many things to list. I can't even begin to do it justice.

Lemme let you in on my short list.

It starts with The Window at Big Bend, which in and of itself is proof of God. It goes to Lake Sam Rayburn where my Granddad taught me more about life than fishin', and enough about fishin' to last a lifetime. I can talk about Tyler, and Longview, and Odessa and Cisco, and Abilene and Poteet and every place in between.

Every little part of Texas feels special. Every person who ever flew the Lone Star thinks of Bandera or Victoria or Manor or wherever they call "home" as the best little part of the best state.

So I got to thinkin' about it, and here's what I really want to say.

Last year, I talked about all the great places and great heroes who make Texas what it is. I talked about Willie and Waylon and Michael Dell and Michael DeBakey and my Dad and LBJ and Denton Cooley. I talked about everybody that came to mind. It took me sitting here tonight reading this stack of emails and thinkin' about where I've been and what I've done since the last time I wrote on this occasion to remind me what it is about Texas that is really great.

You see, this last month or so I finally went to Europe for the first time. I hadn't ever been, and didn't too much want to. But you know all my damned friends are always talking about "the time they went to Europe." So, I finally went. It was a hell of a trip to be sure. All they did when they saw me was say the same thing, before they'd ever met me. "Hey cowboy, we love Texas." I guess the hat tipped em off.

But let me tell you what, they all came up with a smile on their faces. You know why? They knew for damned sure that I was gonna be nice to em. They knew it 'cause they knew I was from Texas. They knew something that hadn't even hit me. They knew Texans, even though they'd never met one.

That's when it occurred to me. Do you know what is great about Texas? Do you know why when my friend Beverly and I were trekking across country to see 15 baseball games we got sick and had to come home after 8? Do you know why every time I cross the border I say, "Lord, please don't let me die in_____"? Do you know why children in Japan can look at a picture of the great State and know exactly what it is about the same time they can tell a rhombus from a trapezoid?

I can tell you that right quick. You.

The same spirit that made 186 men cross that line in the sand in San Antonio damned near 165 years ago is still in you today. Why else would my friend send me William Barrett Travis' plea for help in an email just a week ago, or why would Charles Stanfield ask me to reprint a Texas Independence column from a year ago? What would make my friend Elizabeth say "I don't know if I can marry a man who doesn't love Texas like I do?" Why in the hell are 1,000 people coming to my house this weekend to celebrate a holiday for what used to be a nation that is now a state?

Because the spirit that made that nation is the spirit that burned in every person who founded this great place we call Texas, and they passed it on through blood or sweat to every one of us.

You see, that spirit that made Texas what it is, is alive in all of us, even if we can't stand next to a cannon to prove it, and it's our responsibility to keep that fire burning. Every person who ever put a "Native Texan" or an "I wasn't born in Texas but I got here as fast as I could" sticker on his car understands.

Anyone who ever hung a map of Texas on their wall or flew a Lone Star flag on their porch knows what I mean. My Dad's buddy Bill has an old saying. He says that some people were forged of a hotter fire. Well, that's what it is to be Texan. To be forged of a hotter fire. To know that part of Colorado was Texas. That part of New Mexico was Texas. That part of Oklahoma was Texas. Yep. Talk all you want. Part of what you got was what we gave you. To look at a picture of Idaho or Istanbul and say, "what the Hell is that?" when you know that anyone in Idaho or Istanbul who sees a picture of Texas knows damned good and well what it is. It isn't the shape, it isn't the state, it's the state of mind.

You're what makes Texas. The fact that you would take 15 minutes out of your day to read this, because that's what Texas means to you, that's what makes Texas what it is. The fact that when you see the guy in front of you litter you honk and think, "Sonofabitch. Littering on MY highway."

When was the last time you went to a person's house in New York and you saw a big map of New York on their wall? That was never. When did you ever drive through Oklahoma and see their flag waving on four businesses in a row? Can you even tell me what the flag in Louisiana looks like? I damned sure can't. But I bet my ass you can't drive 20 minutes from your house and not see a business that has a big Texas flag as part of its logo. If you haven't done business with someone called AllTex something or Lone Star somebody or other, or Texas such and such, you hadn't lived here for too long.

When you ask a man from New York what he is, he'll say a stockbroker, or an accountant, or an ad exec. When you ask a woman from California what she is, she'll tell you her last name or her major. Hell either of em might say "I'm a republican," or they might be a democrat. When you ask a Texan what they are, before they say, "I'm a Methodist," or "I'm a lawyer," or "I'm a Smith," they tell you they're a Texan.

I got nothin' against all those other places, and Lord knows they've probably got some fine folks, but in your gut you know it just like I do, Texas is just a little different.

So tomorrow when you drive down the road and you see a person broken down on the side of the road, stop and help. When you are in a bar in California, buy a Californian a drink and tell him it's for Texas Independence Day. Remind the person in the cube next to you that he wouldn't be here enjoying this if it weren't for Sam Houston, and if he or she doesn't know the story, tell them.

When William Barrett Travis wrote in 1836 that he would never surrender and he would have Victory or Death, what he was really saying was that he and his men were forged of a hotter fire. They weren't your average everyday men. Well, that is what it means to be a Texan. It meant it then, and that's why it means it today. It means just what all those people north of the Red River accuse us of thinking it means. It means there's no mountain that we can't climb. It means that we can swim the Gulf in the winter. It means that Earl Campbell ran harder and Houston is bigger and Dallas is richer and Alpine is hotter and Stevie Ray was smoother and God vacations in Texas. It means that come Hell or high water, when the chips are down and the Good Lord is watching, we're Texans by damned, and just like in 1836, that counts for something.

So for today at least, when your chance comes around, go out and prove it. It's true because we believe it's true. If you are sitting wondering what the Hell I'm talking about, this ain't for you. But if the first thing you are going to do when the Good Lord calls your number is find the men who sat in that tiny mission in San Antonio and shake their hands, then you're the reason I wrote this tonight, and this is for you.

So until next time you hear from me, God Bless, and Happy Texas Independence Day.

The Spirit of L&W

As I have the opportunity to travel around the country visiting clients and helping our sales team grow our business I am always impressed with how many people recognize the L&W name. Over the years our name has become a symbol of quality in the telecommunications engineering and PM world and I am extremely proud of our accomplishments. We have an extremely competent team at L&W, but so do our competitors. So what is it that sets L&W apart? Well it is quite simply the The Spirit of L&W!

The spirit of this great team is hard to describe. You can't point to one specific thing, it is millions of selfless acts of caring by our team. It is:

It is Friday lunches
It is trivia nights and competitions
It is Hawaii shirt Fridays
It is “trash talking” between engineers and sales team folks about who are the best golfers.
It is team members recruiting new team members with passion and excitement
It is team members working all night to get a project completed
It is team members telling each other how good they are
It is mentors who let team members fail and then help them recover and grow
It is doing what others think is impossible
It is people caring more than most dare to care to support a fellow team member
It is raising $2500 in a matter of hours to support a soldier’s family who none of us know
It is a prayer chain for someone in need
It is each of our team members contributing and supporting the rest of the team as if they are their families.
It is . . . a special place our team has created.

Our team is the greatest in the world, not only because of how good they are but how good they are to their team members!

Perseverance- A Secret to Success

Perseverance - to persist in pursuing something in spite of obstacles or opposition
-Webster’s Dictionary

A Secret of Success

We'd like to think that perseverance has everything to do with it. Yet in saying this, we still haven't helped you. If you were lucky enough to be part of a creative community where everyone around consistently succeeded in creating and sharing wonderful things in the world, then you would most likely gain the traits of those around you. This is why stimulus.com was created, to give you the advantage of being with a community that shares its secrets with you.

If someone told you that anything could be accomplished by just sticking with it, you'd probably agree, yet not feel any better about experiencing this success yourself. What we are going to teach you here, is a secret to perseverance.

Now people who are called "naturally talented" are merely people that gained an interest in a particular skill early in life. There is rarely anything genetically special about them. Its just that when someone learns how to do something at an early age, they tend to excel at that talent in comparison to others. Later in life when they compare their skills with others, they feel a confidence that few around them have.

When you create something, you are guaranteed to overcome obstacles. If you have a lot of experience in the area where you are creating things, then the obstacles are easy to overcome, and thus you are known to be "talented" at that skill. Again, there is nothing special about this. It is just the result of experience.

When we say "perseverance," we mean the ability to finish what you start. Take a look at the graph to the right, it illustrates the common experience of completing a complex project.

Notice that the difficulty constantly increases as the project continues. Just before the first level of success is accomplished, the difficulty level does two things:

Peaks
Levels Off

This brings us to the secret: You always know when you are about to succeed, because the difficulty level will peak to a nearly unbearable level, and then sustain. Typically people in creative environments look for this pattern over and over again. When they feel the difficulty leveling off, their second wind comes crashing in to fuel the fire of success. Sadly, most people interpret this sustained level of difficulty as an impossible barrier and a sign of when to quit, never knowing that they were only moments from their destiny.

How can this apply to your life?

Never quit, and when you think you just can't bare to continue, you are most likely about to accomplish success. Here are a few examples that always follow this rule:

Learning an instrument
Painting and illustrating
Writing stories and music
Building things

As with any skill, the more successes you have, the easier success comes, fewer obstacles get in your way. Even a large collection of finished failures can give you the confidence required to continue to succeed. Don't rely on others to support you. If this happens, it is a wonderful thing, however. Without your vision being successfully completed, the chances of someone understanding what you're attempting is minimal at best.

Good luck, and see you at the top.

Ed Freeman - Congressional Medal of Honor Vietnam 1965

A Real Man...Once they were soldiers

You're an 18 or 19 year old kid. You're critically wounded, and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley, 11-14-1965. LZ Xray , Vietnam . Your Infantry Unit is outnumbered 8 - 1, and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 or 200 yards away, that your own Infantry Commander has ordered the MediVac helicopters to stop coming in. You're lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns, and you know you're not getting out. Your family is 1/2 way around the world, 12,000 miles away, and you'll never see them again.

As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day. Then, over the machine gun noise, you faintly hear that sound of a helicopter, and you look up to see a Huey, but it doesn't seem real, because no Medi-Vac markings are on it. Ed Freeman is coming for you. He's not Medi-Vac, so it's not his job, but he's flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire, after the Medi-Vacs were ordered not to come. He's coming anyway. And he drops it in, and sits there in the machine gun fire, as they load 2 or 3 of you on board.

Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire, to the Doctors and Nurses. And, he kept coming back...... 13 more times..... and took about 30 of you and your buddies out, who would never have gotten out.

Medal of Honor Recipient Ed Freeman died WednesdayAug. 20th, 2008 at the age of 80, in Boise , ID ......
May God rest his soul.....

Cafe Mozart - San Francisco

Almost 20 years ago I was introduced to the Cafe Mozart by a great friend in the wireless industry, Chris Gillespie, the founder of the engineering firm Gillespie, Prudhon and Associates. Sue Ann (my wife) and I were in town for a short vacation with our three kids (Jim, Melissa and Lauren) right before I headed out to Saudi Arabia for an extended business trip working for Aramco.

Chris graciously took Sue Ann and I out to his favorite place in the Nob Hill area of San Francisco, Cafe Mozart. It was a treat that Sue Ann and I talk about often. An outstanding quaint restaurant at 708 Bush Street. The food was unsurpassed and the atmosphere was quiet and serene. If you find yourself in San Francisco plan to spend an evening with a client or your best friend at Cafe Mozart.

I give Cafe Mozart the Country Boy from Texas FIVE STAR rating.

To link to the Cafe Mozart resturant web site, click on the title of this post.