I suspect you are familiar with Jeff Foxworthy’s You might be a Redneck comedy routine, and now he has taken it a step further with You may live  in Texas, which it was forwarded to me in an email recently. I could relate to all of his scenarios, but a few really hit home, like this one: If you’ve had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed a wrong number, you may live in Texas. I called my mother, I thought, one day, to ask what I was doing wrong when cooking fresh green beans, and I started the conversation with no greeting but just bombarded the person who answered with  the question. This voice on the other end hesitated a minute, gave me an answer, paused, and then said, totally dumbfounded, “Who is this?” After I apologized for calling her instead of my mother, we laughed, talked a minute, and then hung up. Neither one of us  had a clue who we were talking to,  but we had a nice little visit.

As for Foxworthy’s  other You might live in Texas  statements, I can confirm that my students used to wear shorts and a coat to school all the time; we always measure our trips in hours rather than distance; I know how to use jumper cables; I have definitely driven 80 mph in Houston; and when we finally got a cold front yesterday and the temperature dropped to a pleasant 60, after all this 100+ degree weather, darn it, it did feel a bit chilly! This list got me to thinking about things particular to our little town, which, of course, might also apply to your town, but maybe not. So with thanks to Jeff Foxworthy for celebrating our Texan idiosyncrasies and apologies for borrowing his format, I present my list of observations based on life in Muleshoe.

You might live in a small West Texas town if- your preacher wears cowboy boots and Western clothes on Sunday morning,  and he isn’t even the Cowboy Church preacher; your town actually has a Cowboy Church; you see pick-ups with stock trailers still hooked up in the church parking lots on Sunday morning, just because its handier that way; your town has one stop light, down from seven back in the old days; everyone goes to Friday night high school football games, even if they don’t have a child or relative on the team or in the band; you see everyone you know strolling up and down the aisles of the new United Supermarket, the grand opening of which is more like the social event of the year rather  a store opening; your  former student, the  son of the owner of the water well drilling company, brings a back-hoe to your house, digs a grave  in the pasture, buries your horse, and never charges you for his trouble; the only time you have to lock your car is in the summer to keep friends from sneaking their surplus okra and squash into the back seat; they know your husband by name at McDonald’s where his group goes for morning coffee; if the drive-though line at McDonald’s is too long because of all the pick-ups and stock trailers in line in front of you, you can admire the rumps of a couple of good horses while you wait; the neighborhood three-legged pit bull-ours- is known by name and welcomed at the golf course and in the pro shop.

And this last one needs a set-up. Years ago we made a trip to Ft. Smith, Arkansas, to visit relatives. As we passed by Ft. Smith Country Club, one of those exclusive, old money clubs, Bill pointed it out to the kids, who were probably about nine and eleven at the time. AJ took one look at the fancy cars parked neatly in front of the clubhouse, and remarked, quite seriously,  that it couldn’t possibly be a country club because there were no pick-ups in the parking lot…which brings us to my last observation-

If nearly all of the vehicles in your Country Club parking lot are pick-ups, most of  which probably aren’t locked and might have a rifle behind the seat, you just might live in a small West Texas town.

Can you add anything to the list?