How to Tell if you're a Texan

"If I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent out Texas and live in Hell." - Philip Sheridan, major general in the Civil War and military governor of Texas and Louisiana afterwards

When it rains, it pours

• A summer temperature of over 100 degrees F (about 38 degrees C) is not a strange occurrence, and is in fact quite routine. But you probably also see your share of torrential downpours.
• You take great pride in living in a state that is not just physically larger than any other state (you usually conveniently forget Alaska), you're also bigger than any European state outside of Russia -- more than all of France and the UK combined, along with an economy larger than all but the very largest nations in the world. You probably take all that land and wealth as a symbol of freedom and opportunity, no matter who particularly it benefits. 
• You have always wondered what it would be like to have a White Christmas.
• Santa Anna is the name of a hated dictator, not a type of a certain other state's weather patterns.
• You leave natural disasters like volcanic eruptions and earthquakes for other states to deal with -- you have your own worries about tornadoes (if you live in the north), hurricanes (along the coast), or floods (just about everywhere).
• You have probably never actually seen a desert before in person.
• You might have actually ridden on a horse before, but would never seriously entertain thoughts of using it as regular transportation -- certainly not when the next town is still over an hour away by car.
• You have little need ever to cross a state line (which is hours away by car), unless you are doing important business, in which case you would prefer to fly.  
  
• Outside of rural areas, where they are actually useful, the wearing of boots and cowboy hats is an affectation.  Because you live in a city, you see them fairly rarely.  Exceptions, like the attending of a rodeo, are exceptions that prove the rule.
  
• They don't call the armadillo the unofficial roadbump for nothing.

Ah, what would we do without football?

• If you're under the age of, say, 30 and are male, like everyone you played soccer as a child, but you put this away for more interesting sports like (American) football, baseball or basketball in your mid to late teens. Your first reaction to hockey is "What's that?" -- but if you do play hockey, you always do so inside, since it never gets cold enough outside. 
• To you the idea of state supported schools without industrial-scale sports programs is probably inconceivable. 
• If you're from a traditional religious background (like the Southern Baptist Church), you also might secretly harbor desires to reinstate school prayer.  On the other hand, if  you're a Southern Baptist, you probably think the Southern Baptist national convention is too conservative even for your tastes, and may have considered secession from that church; that, at any rate, has been your local convention's opinions. 
• You attend religious services at least monthly if not weekly.  It is not unusual to attend midweek religious services in addition.  The Divine (in some manifestation) is an important element in your life, and although there's no question that church and state should remain separate, you think such a separation has been used as an excuse to discriminate against religious people.   Talking about religion is in bad taste only in mixed company.  
• You think a political system dominated by two parties is only natural, and might be a little shocked and disturbed to find that there are people who really do believe in leftist ideologies -- you think Bill Clinton is quite "liberal". If you're a Republican, there is a very good chance you are the first generation in your family. If you lean towards European-style socialism, you probably live in a city and might have immigrated from some other state.  If you're not a social conservative, you sympathize with the Libertarian Party but could never bring yourself to vote for them -- they're just too wacky.  
• You expect state legislators of both major parties to get along with each other to get things accomplished, and expect them to maintain the universal consensus that favors business and social conservatives. You are generally not disappointed in either of these respects.
• Schooling is one of the great exceptions to your anti-statist attitudes.   Education should be universal, and the state should do what it takes to fund it.  Tuition to a state-run university is ridiculously cheap, by American standards: usually around $3,500¹ per semester for permanent residents of the State, thanks in large part to the Permian Basin.   Every once in a while, if the state budget is running a surplus, you might find this amount reduced even further. If you graduate in the top 10% of your highschool class, you are guaranteed a place in one of these state-run schools, though private schools, such as Rice, are usually more prestigious.  
• The state encourages students in primary and secondary school to say the pledge of allegiance to the United States at the beginning of each school day, as well as a separate pledge to the State of Texas, but in neither case are the students actually obliged to do so.
  
• As a student you have to go through several years of history about early Native populations, the Texan Revolution and Republic, and then general American and European history, especially British and French history. You probably know some about the rest of the world -- but not a lot.   
  
• Texas' quasiautonomous relations with Mexico are of practical importance to you, especially if you do business in the Valley (by which of course you mean the Rio Grande Valley). You look at California's treatment of immigrants and shake your head.  You don't have much of a problem with bilingual education, and see English-only legistlation for government use as a nonstarter politically, if only because it would exclude that 20-30% of the population that speaks Spanish at home.
• You see radical pacifism as every bit as dangerous as militarism.  This does not, however, in your opinion justify any given decision to go to war.  
• Conservative government is meant quite literally: while Texas's debtor protection laws are the most liberal of any state, that is because they have always been that way -- since 1839 at any rate, when Texas was a sovereign nation.  This meant, e.g., that one's household furnishings, food, farm vehicles or implements, tools of trade, wearing apparel, jewelry, two guns, motor vehicles, farm animals, pets, life insurance, health aids (e.g. a wheelchair), unpaid commissions for personal service and current wages, and many more, can to this day not be seized by collection agencies.
  
• There's a good chance you own a gun, though you don't think you would likely ever need one for anything but hunting for sport; there is, however, no question in your mind that anybody should be able to obtain one easily, whatever the case.
• You'd rather that the government not spend so much money and time with social programs, although you don't mind the idea of their being there for you if you need them. You prefer other social institutions (like your local church, synagogue or mosque) to carry out those duties instead. You are far more likely to donate to charity than New Yorkers or Californians.
• You find it strange if there is a public outcry that the State would execute a convicted criminal, and might become a little curious why such events ever make the national or even world news (heck, executions are commonplace, right?). While you do not really question the legitimacy of capital punishment as such, recently you have begun thinking more needs to be done to ensure fair judicial proceedings.  
• Not only do you think that the bureaucrats in Washington are pernicious and generally not to be trusted, but that much fuss could be avoided were most of that authority to be delegated to the State government, or better, to individual local governments. You would not mind the concomitant responsibility that would require of you, especially when it comes to schooling. You agree with the state constitution in this respect.
• A State income tax is anathema to you. You probably took former Gov. Anne Richards at her word when she said it was either that or a state lottery. The less money going to the government, the less they can abuse it (which is why your legislators are among the worst paid in the country²). A federal income tax of more than, say, 35% is practically obscene, and the idea of city income taxes (like in New Orleans or New York City) can be the source of conversations with the theme "Who are they?".
• Unlike some states, you have the right to hold a job without being obliged to join a union. You know unions exist elsewhere, but you don't belong to one unless you're a teacher.
  

Who are they?

• Crossing the Border is easy for you, but not so for the people living on the other side.
• The nationality people most often makes jokes about is Mexican, but you would never admit to it if you make them yourself. 
  
• While most non-Texans immediately understand basic culinary concepts such as the enchilada and the taco, it usually takes you a little more explanation for such items as chicken-fried steak or, worse, chicken-fried chicken. If the idea of TexMex comes up, you're used to other people thinking you're just using another word for Mexican. As for Taco Bell, that's neither Mexican nor TexMex -- it's fastfood. Period.
• You've had Blue Bell icecream before. You're used to non-Texas corporations hyping their supposed Texanness to sell you beer, cars, hamburgers and such.   
  
• Aside from English, the next language you are most likely to speak at home is Spanish, of course. After that (and depending on where you live), some German dialect, some variety of French, Vietnamese, Chinese or Korean. In school just about everybody takes Spanish; people who take other languages are either nonconformists or otherwise acting impractically. Only a comparably small intelligentsia takes French, German, Latin, or any of the more exotic European or Asian languages.
• Friendliness and hospitality are virtues not to be taken lightly -- after all, that's what the state's name means³. If someone totally unknown says hello to you in some public place, you wave back to them and think nothing of it, since to do otherwise would risk offending that person.  In most any non-fastfood restaurant, you expect the waiter or waitress to meet you at the door, show you to your seat, and read your mind as to when you want more water, which should of course be free.  As a result, you don't mind so much when they fill your glass up before you've asked them. However old, stopping to visit with the neighbors unannounced is not considered rude -- it's considered being a good-neighbor and showing your continued interest in them, as long as you don't overdo it or take advantage of their hospitality.  
• When someone stops by your home to visit, you ask them if they want something to eat or drink, and if they refuse, you go get them something anyway.  When you invite others over, generally you should provide the main course, although it's not unusual for the invitees to bring something too, depending on how many people are coming.  When you invite others to go out to eat at a restaurant, there is no assumption that you will be automatically obliged to pay the costs of both/all meals, unless it's a special occasion (such as a birthday), in which case you will be so obliged.  However, on such special occasions the invitation should be made explicitly for the special occasion, since simply asking others if they want to get something to eat is ambiguous.  
• When some neighbor or nearby relative is seriously ill or has died, you know it is incumbent on you to bring some kind of food, preferably a dish you have cooked yourself, to ease their burden or grief.
  
• Not making eye-contact is something just short of rudeness;  it's anti-social at the very least.  People who don't make eye-contact aren't serious, or aren't paying attention to you.  You're taught from a very early age to have very firm handshakes, lest you be taken as uninterested in the person you're speaking with or it be taken as a sign of lack of resolve.  You think people don't say "Ma'am" or "Sir" as much as they should. 
  
• Of course, you hold strong opinions about how other countries and places behave and how you're not like them. You're not as rude as Northerners, nor as naive as Californians, nor as corrupt as Louisianians, nor as poor as Arkansans, nor as decadent as continental Europeans; you're ambivalent about the British. To the extent that you are aware of their existence, all Canadians are polite and sensitive. You think Mexicans are unsophisticated, but lively and warm.  
• Owning a house as an adult is what you expect as a matter of course, not something you just wish for. Given the choice of whether you'd rather have a better heater or a better air conditioning system, obviously, you'd take the air conditioner. (Why would anyone want more heat?)
• Not only do you remember the Alamo, you remember Goliad, too.
• The date comes second, as in the rest of the US: 3/2/1836 (and you know what happened on that date).
• 1 x 10⁹ = 1 billion. 1 x 10¹² = 1 trillion.
• You live in a state that has been conquered only once, and you know it has flown under six different flags at various times; you probably, however, couldn't name them ⁴.
• You can rest safely at night knowing that funds from the regulation of the oil and gas companies help maintain among the best roads in the nation (that's your opinion, anyway). So, why bother with public transport? We never needed the TGVs anyway -- we all have at least one if not two or more cars, after all, right? Gas is cheap -- usually right around a dollar per gallon -- depending on how close you are to the oil refineries on the Gulf Coast. Riding on a subway is a novel experience for you, you have great disdain for your local bus system even if you use it, and no one but outsiders use taxis.   
• Oil to you is something you buy at the gas station, not something you get rich off of, or profit directly from.
• You still measure just about everything in the customary system of feet, pounds and gallons. You have, of course, also been taught the metric system in school, but the only practical use that comes of it is in buying softdrinks. [Incidentally, you describe any such softdrinks generically as "coke" despite the actual brand name. Certainly not "soda" or "pop".]
• The only times one does not say "y'all" when talking to two or more people is in highly formal situations, or on television ⁵.  Saying "you people" can be seen as rude as result.   
• You might know an eccentric or two who considers the War Between the States as one predominantly about Northern Yankee imperialism, which you find unsettling; but as for those people who want to secede (again), they're just taking things too far.
• The age of the Revolution and the Republic was a glorious period that helped found a Texan national consciousness.  You think that, unlike other states, the despot overthrown was a genuine despot, and the battles far more romantic. You irritate non-Texans by frequent reference to this.  
  
• On March 2, the day on which Texas celebrates its independence from Mexico, or on April 21, the anniversary of the Battle of San Jacinto, you might find yourself in public parades and events, and singing patriotic songs like "Texas, our Texas". You probably think that the people who complain about it being racist are trying to take away your heritage, or, alternatively, have ulterior political motives.  If you are African-American,  on June 19 you probably take part in your local Juneteenth celebrations to commemorate the day in 1865 on which slaves in Texas first heard the news of the Emancipation Proclamation.  If you are of Hispanic descent, similar events may occur on May 5th, which, Hispanic or not, you would call by its Spanish name, Cinco de Mayo, as well as on that other fiesta patria, Diez y Seis de Septiembre.
• The likelihood that you identify as a Southerner decreases at a roughly regular rate as you move from East to West.  But there's about a 25% chance, according to a recent Zogby poll, that you will consider yourself first a Texan, and only second an American.
  

¹  By comparison, Texans attending such schools pay less than five times the average yearly tuition that most undergraduates in the United Kingdom pay ($1,770 -- The Economist, 23 January 2003), rather than ten, twenty or thirty times as throughout the rest of the U.S.

²  Which, irony of ironies, makes it almost impossible to run unless you wouldn't have to work anyways.

³ Texas is a corruption of the Spanish word Tejas, which is itself a corruption of a Hasinai Indian word meaning "friends" or "allies"; originally the words Hasinai and Texas were used interchangeably as names for the region.

⁴ They are, in rough chronological order: France (1685-1689, in parts of Texas), Spain (1716-1821), Mexico (1821-1836), the Republic (1836-1845), the Confederacy (1861-1865), and the US (1845-1861; 1865-present).

⁵ It's actually considerably more complicated than that. At the highest register, such as in writing or in formal speeches, neither y'all nor its possessive form y'all's can be used, and you and your must be used for both singular and plural readings.  At the next register down, generally used in everyday speech with business associates or in public places, the distinction between you (sg.) and y'all is maintained, but the possessive must be your in both the singular and the plural.  At the lowest level, used among friends and family, y'all and y'all's are both the rule for plural forms, while you and your are used for the singular.  Any of these forms is of course available in any context, but their rhetorical effects may differ.  For instance, the use of a more formal you (when meant plurally) will introduce social distance between the speech participants and probably a note of seriousness or sobriety, whereas the use of y'all (or indeed y'all's) will add a colloquial, more emotionally warm feeling to the discourse. Note too that the set of speech-act participants included in y'all need not always be physically present, and this has become grammaticalized in the circumstance of speaking to a representative of a group (such as a waiter in a restaurant) as long as the person being spoken to is acting in his or her function as a representative of the larger group.  Thus, claims of a so-called singular y'all ought to be looked on with caution and skepticism, as they are generally made by speakers for whom y'all is not native and who thus are not aware of this peculiarity of its usage.  Also, all of the above applies for purely for y'all as used in subject of the sentence, though there is a discernible tendency for the distinction between you and y'all to be lost when used as direct object or as an object of a preposition; where exactly the distinction is lost varies greatly according to dialect and idiolect. 

Links of interest

• State government
• The Handbook of Texas online.
• Texas news from the Dallas Morning News
• Today in Texas History
  
• The Perry-Castañeda Library Collection of Texas Maps
• Office of the Governor
• Texas State parks and historical landmarks
• Texas State electronic library
• The Texas Historical Commission 
  
• The ongoing archaeological work on the ship of the French explorer Robert La Salle (1643-1687), La Belle