Property taxes are due the end of this month, and for this household the total comes to five grand - yeah, that's $5,000.00, if you need to see written out.  And that's for good old redneck rural Texas - Brady, to be more exact, the heart of Texas.  There's nothing special about Brady, and that's one of the reasons we moved here.  It's just average small town size (6,000 population), average people (mostly just normal rural Texans), average housing, average schools, and just about average anything else. 

I made an appointment this morning to take the dog in for yearly shots.  My veterinarian friend is leaving, heading down to Bryan to be a part of the big Texas A&M aggie vet program there.  I'm happy for him, but I sure hate to see him leave.  The gal at his office who made the appointment said I'd be one of his last customers, and they didn't have a replacement for him.  If they can't find another vet to come in, they'll close the clinic.  She said none of the people they'd tried to get here would come because their wives wouldn't live in small town Brady.

So . . . I hang up thinking, is this the day and age we live in?  First off, just where the hell does a vet belong?  Are we getting down to where all the vets these days want to be city slicker cat and canary vets?  If so, that's bullshit!  If that's what vet schools are turning out these days, I'd just as soon they stay in the city . . . where they belong.  Besides, I don't want anybody tending to my pets who doesn't have the guts to tell their wife (or husband) that their practice often requires of them living in small towns.  My vet was mostly a big animal vet who worked on horses and cattle and such.  I tend to like vets like that better than the little dweeby, pansy-assed vets who opt for city work.  And I don't own a horse or cow.  I guess what it boils down to is that I love small towns, and small town people.

I hate to say it about my city cousins, but you guys are a bunch of weenies.  Yeah, just a bunch of spoiled, have-everything-at-your-disposal woosies.  And if you guys think us country boys look clumsy in town, you ought to get a gander at how you guys look out here where the rural folks live.  Yeah, I live in a town with just four medical doctors, two dentists, and one eye doctor . . . and now just one vet.  We've got a small hospital with an emergency room.  The closest big hospital town is 75 miles away.

We don't have decent grocery stores here, but a new super Wal-mart is opening up in a month.  Our golf course only has 9 holes, but it's a nice and they keep talking about expansion.  We've got a really nice lake just three miles from town, and we're right on the top edge of the Texas hill country, some of America's most scenic countryside.  Life in rural Texas is slow paced compared to big cities, but we're not spoiled into thinking we need everything handy either.  When it comes to some things, we just do without . . . but that's life in rural America.

Yeah, taxes are due this month, and I'm not a happy camper right now with a lot of things that go on around here.  But . . . we live in a very nice home, and we're getting along.  We have to work hard to make ends meet, but at least we manage to make them meet.  We could make it easier on ourselves, if we were willing to give up some things, like the nice house we live in.  Yeah, over 2,800 square feet, and that doesn't include a patio room on the back of the house.  The yard is nicely landscaped, and we've got nice furnishings - not fancy, but nice.  I've got three vehicles in the driveway - old but still working fine. 

My point is that life in rural Texas isn't a bed or roses, but it's not bad either.  I think you could find the same situation in most small towns in America.  We do without some things, but they are not all that important, if you really think about it.  I don't like cities, so I'm willing to give up a lot to stay away from them.  And if I get a craving for something the city has, I can be there in a couple of hours.  Then I can come back to a nice house in a nice little town and get back to a life that suits me best.

And besides . . . I don't really like beds of roses.  Did you ever notice that the bush a rose grows on has lots of thorns?

D. Paz, 1/14/08