Texas Independence Day

Today is the 170th anniversary of Texas breaking off from Mexico to become its own nation. The story is long and complicated plus there’s a general synopsis conveniently placed at www.history.com. 
 
Being a Midwesterner by birth and pigeonholed into the Yankee species by Southerners, I don’t really know the intimate details leading up to the secession between the WASP settlers and the Mexicans. I’m sure there’s plenty of ugliness from both sides since the truth has more gray than any clear-cut black and white. But it’s fun to get those uber-patriotic Texans’ panties in a knot when you remind them that owning slaves was one reason for the declaration of independence. Oh I know the Mexican regime under Santa Anna was awful too yet you have to give it credit for at least outlawing slavery. They just had a more immoral policy towards the Indians which didn’t result in them making hundreds of Westerns bragging about it. 
 
I do admit a tad of jealousy since the state of my birth, Illinois, wasn’t created out of such colorful history. It also results in foreigners giving you a bewildered look about its location and personality until you sigh, roll your eyes and then tell them, it’s where Chicago is. When you say Texas, they automatically visualize that by the look in their eyes. I can at least take pride in growing up in the region and city that gave the world Abraham Lincoln, the president who administered the South’s ass kicking in the (American) Civil War—attrition, not Grant and Sherman won the conflict too.