Ich bin ein [Texas-Born] Berliner

I plan for the imminent future a little stroll down this particular geographic and psychological stretch of my personal Memory Lane derived from the first sixteen years of my life, spent in my birthplace El Paso (where you could walk across the international bridge over the sometimes totally dry “Silvery Rio Grande” into Los Estados unidos de México, locally sometimes specified as Old Mexico to differentiate it from the United State just a few miles up the road a piece to the north), plus two more years at the University of Texas in Austin.

Every Texas young ‘un memorizes and sings, hand on heart, what long ago became that one-time independent republic’s national anthem, unofficial if not 100% official, but not even many of us natives really know that inspiring old song’s history, which you can catch up on by clicking here.

For the moment I’ll attempt to grab your attention for my approaching Memory-Lane stroll with my all-time favorite Texas story, from Dallas - where, as all native Texans know, two kinds of millionaires compose the really important part of the population, the poor millionaires and the really big-rich rich millionaires.

One of the latter genus, as a proper Dallasite, soon after his most recent financial killing had acquired along with it a sense of obligation to do something for his beloved city along the lines of what my newly acquired fellow Germans lump together as Kultur.  For openers he hired a high-priced eastern architect then much in vogue to design a new dream house for him and his beloved wife.  When the architect asked about specific wishes, his employer had only one: a spacious living room, say somewhere along the lines of a football field, large enough for him to ride his hoss into should he sometime take a notion, with a vast expanse of wall-space where he envisaged what he called a muriel, in keeping with his hobby as a recent American-history buff.

To paint that muriel he commisioned a muralist from one o’ them European countries, who’d cut quite a swath through Dallas’s upper-crust rich millionaires.  When the painter asked for tips about what he might have in mind, his patron summed that up in three words: Custer’s last stand.  Then he and his wife took off on a world tour.

When they finally got back, they set out to explore the brand-new palazzo awaiting them, but when they came into the living room they both stood rooted to the spot, horror-struck.  At the mural’s left-hand end the artist had painted a cow, with a halo over her head, regarding what composed the entire remaining vast expanse of wall-space: one sweeping, seething, sweating expanse of naked Native Americans, copulating with one another in every imaginable position and constellation.

The new house-owner let out a bellow, and the artist came on the double.  “Look, stupid”, his patron roared, “what that hell ya tryin’ to do to me - me, a pillar of this community, not to mention the Southern Baptist Church?!”

The artist said he’d done exhaustive research, and really extended himself to depict in an artistic medium what someone at either the Library of Congress or The Smithsonian Institution had definitely provided him as General Custer’s last words.

“Last words?  Who the hell said anything about Custer’s last words?  I wanted you to paint Custer’s last stand!”

“Sir, a thousand pardons, but I swear that in your excitement you asked me for his last words.”

“Words?  Stand?  What’s the difference?”

“Sir, the most exhaustive historical scholarship available to me said that local oral history had recorded General Custer’s last words, just before those irate natives massacred him and his troops, as “Holy cow - look at all those fucking Indians!”