Texas, My Texas: Musings of the Rambling Boy

51. "TEXAS, OUR TEXAS" AND OTHER STATE SYMBOLS

186 +- +51 + "TEXAS, OUR TEXAS" AND OTHER STATE SYMBOLS NE ARLY ALL Texans know that the bluebonnet is the official Texas state flower, and that there is a hefty fine for picking bluebonnets on the highway right-of-way. Almost as many probablyknow that the mockingbird is the state bird, the pecan the state tree, "Friendship" the state motto, and "Texas, Our Texas" the state song. These are what we might call the Big Five among our state symbols: flower, bird, tree, motto, and song. All were sanctified by joint resolutions of the state legislature between 1901 (bluebonnets) and 1930 ("Friendship"). They have been with us a long time. Some of the Big Five were the result of national movements. The idea that every state should have a state flower started at the 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition, a world's fair which also gave us the Ferris wheel and the hootchy-kootchy dance. Getting the states to designate a flower became a project of women's clubs all over the United States. The Texas legislature, lagging behind the rest of the country as usual, did not get around to acting until 1901 , when the bluebonnet got the official nod. State trees were a project of the American Forestry Association, along with Arbor Day; in 1919 the legislature named the pecan the state tree, probably motivated by Govemor James Hogg's muchpublicized love of pecan trees (when he died in 1906, he left instructions that a pecan tree be planted on his grave). The National Audubon Society was probably behind the state bird movement. The legislature picked the mockingbird as the state bird in 1927; that same year the legislatures of Alabama, Florida, Maine, Missouri, Oregon, and Wyoming also named state birds. The state song, "Texas, Our Texas," came along in 1929, the result of a statewide contest to choose a state song. The music was written by William Marsh of Fort Worth and the words by Gladys Yoakum Wright, who was a cousin of my father and who was known in our family as "Gladys, Our Gladys." It is irredeemably corny (Texas, our Texas! All hail the mighty state / Texas, our Texas! So wonderful, so great!) and over the years several unsuccessful attempts have been made to substitute "The Eyes of Texas" for it. I myself would much prefer Governor Pappy Lee O'Oaniel's "Beautiful Texas," which is equally corny but not as pretentious. The state motto is a liberal translation of the word "texas," which is a phonetic Spanish spelling of a Hasinai Indian word meaning "friends." Now you would think that five official state symbols would be enough for anyone, and evidently most Texans felt that way until 1969, when the legislature designated a state stone, petrified palmwood ; a state gem, Texas blue topaz; and a state epic poem. Since then, forty-six more official state symbols have been created, including a state insect, a state snack, a state shrub, and three state mammals (large, small, and flying). The state stone/state gem selection process throws light on how state syrnbols get created. The idea came from the Texas Federation of Mineral Clubs, which was seeking a way to publicize their hobby. Mineral clubs are divided into people who collect gems and people who collect rocks, and it was evidently impossible for them to agree on a single candidate for designation, so both the blue topaz and petrified palmwood were put fonvard. Never mind that petrified palmwood is not technically a rock at all but a fossil, there is plenty of it in Texas and it makes handsome bolo tie slides. (When the Louisiana legislature set about designating a state fossil in 1976, there was a move for the honor to go to 188 +state senator Edgar Mouton of Lafayette, but when he declined, petrified pahmvood was named.) Carried away by enthusiasm for new state symbols, the 1969 state legislature also designated a 390page poem "The Legend of Old Stone Ranch" by John Worth Cloud of Albany, as the state epic poem. These actions created what lawyers call a slippery slope. Five more state symbols were named in the 1970s, including a state grass, sideoats grama; and a state dish, chili. In the 1980s we got five more state symbols, including a state fish, the Guadalupe bass; a state shell, the lightning whelk; and a state maritime museum (to put them in?), the...