What happened to the Foreign Floridian?

As someone who spent his entire life living within smelling distance of the beach, I did not know what to expect upon moving to South Texas.

After dropping off my girlfriend at the airport in Houston my phone died on the drive back to Victoria. For nearly 90 miles it was just me and the music to pass the time driving through cities that seemed to get smaller the further south I drove.

There were no palm trees, or reminders to visit a beach to keep my attention. It was just the countryside. Clearly, this was going to be different. Outside of spending one summer on internship in Shreveport, La, I had never spent more than three weeks away from Florida.

Initially, when I told people I was from Florida it was as though I named some exotic and foreign place. (Candidly, that is what I thought about Victoria when I first moved here, which was why I titled my blog at the Advocate the Foreign Floridian.)

When the quizzical looks subsided what I found were friendly people who preferred good news above all else. Negativity was frowned upon, but tolerated if disseminated without spite or a sense of an agenda.

As I pack up and return to Florida this weekend there were far more positives than I ever imagined when I drove along that seemingly desolate highway 21 months ago.

Any conversation with Gary Moses; challenging a pair of gentlemen to a tennis match; covering a canoe race; the story of how my cell phone became waterlogged covering said canoe race; the passion of the football fans in Port Lavaca; the excellence of the 2011 Refugio football team; the time I wrote a story about a boy who loved football and his mother left three dozen cookies on my desk as a thank you; the Twitter banter with students and athletes at Victoria West high school—special shout out to my hype men Qualian Bryant and Jonathan Vahalik, who retweeted many of my comments – and the conversations in the press box at Victoria East football games are just some of those positives.

Two years ago I had no clue what Shiner Bock was, or where it was brewed. I still haven’t tried it, but I can say that people in Shiner, Texas follow the golden rule, which is to say that they treat everyone well.

Of course there were people and things that irritated me. As time goes on those things will be forgotten, the memories that remain will only elicit smiles.

Esther Perez became a dear friend. Through the Advocate I met Camille Doty, who is not only a friend, but the person responsible for introducing me to my church home while in South Texas. And a special thank you to my college classmate Gheni Platenburg. Without her encouragement, I never would have accepted an offer from the Advocate.

 Advocate business reporter Allison Miles may be the kindest person I have ever met in my life. Miguel Torres’ daughter attended the smallest high school in Victoria, but he was such a fan of every child in the community it was impressive. Even people my editor told me were “surly” and “difficult”, like former Victoria East soccer coach Tim Eaton, wound up being energetic and engaging.

If there was one thing I learned about life in Texas it was to give people a chance. Frequently, when I went on assignment I didn’t know anyone. But people were always willing to open up and share with me.

On my first week, I underestimated the distance between Victoria and Yoakum… while my gas light was on. Were it not for Yoakum resident Paul Ebner, the Sports Information Director at the University of Houston-Victoria, telling me there was a gas station right around the corner, unbeknownst to me, I likely would have been stuck walking in the wilderness on a sweltering summer day.

No matter where I was, I always found a gas station and a Whataburger. Those two things were just as important to my random journeys as a notebook and digital recorder.

As I write this I am sipping on a root beer from another late night run to Whataburger. There are a few 

Whataburger locations in Florida, but it’s not the same. Whether I was in Refugio, Portland, Goliad, Port Lavaca, Cuero, Corpus Christi, Schulenburg, San Antonio or Kingsville I always knew where to find a Whataburger because on Friday nights the restaurants became a mobile office.

Fittingly, the last story I submitted to the Victoria Advocate was filed from a Whataburger.

As much as I enjoyed covering other sports, and sporting events, my passion was catching soccer games. Whether it was UHV, or one of the area varsity teams, I found any and every excuse to write about the sport.

This March one soccer player told me “I didn’t know you played soccer.” Her coach looked at her, looked and me and said “He’s plays every weekend. Hey, Will, why aren’t you leading this goalie drill? Aren’t you a goalie?”

Indeed I am. Within a month of arriving in Victoria, I found a soccer team to play with. It didn’t matter that my Spanish was limited. It was a chance to play and release some energy. When word leaked out that I played on weekends my attempts at being a “portero” was a way to connect with local soccer teams.

The Victoria Advocate published for more than 160 years before I arrived. The newspaper will continue to publish long after I return to Florida. But, I will always cherish the connections I made and the friends I found in the time I was here.

Laughs and liveliness,

-Wb

p.s. Anyone who enjoyed my writing, or my work, should thank Advocate photographers, page designers, copy editors, like Esther, as well as my former colleagues Mike Forman, Clay Whittington and Albert Alvarado on the Sports desk.

How does one find a team to call their own?

I have no shame. For years, my football fanaticism was open and available to any team with stylish play. A team I loathed in the past could just as easily recapture a different place in my heart.

In middle school I had a crush on a girl named Maggie. She was Polish and the biggest Real Madrid fan one will meet on this side of the Atlantic. She liked European soccer, which meant I liked European soccer.

Eventually, I became a Borussia Dortmund fan because they played exciting soccer and had these garishly bright jerseys. This devotion lasted long enough to con my mother to spend more than $100 on a jersey for my 14^th birthday. (To this day, the jersey hangs in my closet next to apparel from future sporting crushes.)

Once Dortmund stopped making routine trips to the latter stages of the Champions League my ability to follow them waned. The German club found financial troubles, then nearly folded, before morphing into every football hipster’s favorite club the last two years.

While Dortmund was in the wilderness, so was my soccer support. Major League Soccer was in its infancy. Though the Tampa Bay Mutiny played right up the road, I only went to one game. Apparently a Who’s Who of American soccer was not enough to encourage me to care.

High school came and went. There were things to occupy my time other than the nearby professional soccer club and what was going on in Europe.

The obsession was rekindled in 2002 when I heard Maggie’s Real Madrid conquered Europe for the third time in five years courtesy of one of the best goals of all time. (I was so oblivious I didn’t know Dortmund won the German championship that year until a Wikipedia search more than a decade after the fact.)

Two weeks later another World Cup kicked off, and I picked up where I once left off. Of course, had I been a true fan I would not have worked bagging groceries the day Brazil won the tournament.

Growing up, I didn’t know too much about the technical side of the game, or tactics. Looking back at my attempt to play varsity soccer I ran around like a capon with his head cut off.

It was around that time, that I realized it was easier for me to stop goals from being scored rather than create them. Though I dabbled at goalkeeper for years, I didn’t really give up playing in the outfield until college, when it was apparent my touch was far behind the others on our club team. In goal I was able to read the game, diagnose what teams were going to do and occasionally stop them from scoring. I hated playing from the back for two reasons: I was always taught to launch the ball to safety and I rarely had faith in the touch of my defenders.

In the college years I lost touch with Maggie, but found my touch on the pitch. Things I was unable to do in high school I could do when playing with my friends. Eventually, I become good enough to play in goal because I wanted to, not because there was nowhere else on the field. During that evolution, I became attracted to teams that added substance with their score lines.

First it was the Galactico Era at Real Madrid, then the thrill of Liverpool’s refusal to quit in cup competitions. There was a brief love affair with Arsenal, but that one-sided relationship was washed away in disappointment when they lost the 2006 Champions League Final.

Though I thought Juliano Belletti’s goal to vanquish Arsenal in ’06 was lucky, I became a reluctant Barcelona fan. Barcelona had so many great players, who moved the ball in a way I couldn’t even imagine. It was a relationship that lost its luster after the constant diving and theatrics in 2010 when teams had the gall to dispossess, let alone, defeat them.

This was the time I realized I was a soccer vagabond, doomed to wonder from team to team in the hope some player, or some team would encourage me to reconsider.

It was only confirmed when I saw Cristiano Ronaldo, who Maggie later told me is her favorite active player, inexplicably escape three Ivorians in the 2010 World Cup and unleash a 35-yard shot. The goalkeeper was beat. The goalpost was another story. It was such an incredible moment of skill — from a player I thought was a closeted thespian — it still plays in my mind like a personal Youtube clip.

Ronaldo’s near miss only reaffirmed my preference to commit to football causes, not football clubs. By then it had been nearly a decade since the two MLS franchises in Florida folded. Geographically, my choices were either D.C. United or the Houston Dynamo. But, I hated Marco Etcheverry when I was younger—maybe, it was the mullet—so the Dynamo became the team I would support with lukewarm enthusiasm.

An eventual move to Texas, just two hours away from the Dynamo’s sparking new stadium, deepened my roots. Covering, then attending, a game in that cauldron of orange opened up the possibility that my odyssey was nearing an end.

Maybe it was a sign of maturity, as all boys eventually discover. Maybe it was the enthusiasm for the franchise that a friend and former colleague imbibed into me. Maybe it was an appreciation for the gritty, scrappy and winning formula this club has cultivated. Whatever it was, I realized Texas may not be home, but I am Forever Orange.

Laughs and liveliness,

-Wb

How do you overcome a blank page?

The blank screen dared me to type something profound. The blinking cursor was a motionless reminder that prose cannot come on command. All I had to do was write three or four sentences about myself.

It should have been simple. However, anyone who knows me understands I am far from simple.

That night the screen remained empty for nearly 10 minutes before I gave up. Instead of writing about myself, I am writing about why I am a writer. Why anyone else should care about this internal conflict is beyond my comprehension.

I didn't like writing until my junior year of high school when I wrote an essay for a cousin of mine. I flouted that he was going to get an "A" on the assignment, because I felt like it. It was a brash pronouncement that was met with skepticism the second I said it. To be truthful, I wondered why I spouted off in the first place.

For one my bravado was confirmed. That was around the time I was introduced to F. Scott Fitzgerald. The ego affirmation and his timeless storytelling were enough for me.

One can be intoxicated by the knowledge that words can make people think. The best writing is more vivid than your last spanking for cursing in front of your parents. All five senses can be aroused when someone strings together words properly.

Most people use aroused in a sexual sense. I use aroused, erect, upright and others in my writing with a wink and a grin, hopeful that others understand a double entendre is like an adulterous penis. (There are two options, but one is more wholesome than the other.) 

I would scan the dictionary just to learn new words and throw them at people to catch them off guard. If you say masticate fast enough people might mess around and thinking you're talking about something other than chewing.

One of the first things I did after arriving at college was buy a dictionary. More than 10 years later, the paperback dictionary is at my office, dog-eared, with a broken spine and on the verge of the page with the word sardonic missing.

Not too many people keep a thesaurus at their desk, two dictionary apps on their phone and three different notebooks filled with ideas at their home office.

I'm not comfortable as a salesman. I can work in a team setting, but I don't like being told what to do. The politics of a career in big business are enough to frustrate me. A college professor suggested I go to law school and become an attorney. I smiled and told him that I'm not a good liar, so it's best that I not go. Of course I could create my own company, but that requires selling something. And, clearly, "I'm not comfortable as a salesman."

So that leaves journalism as my best option. Maybe, one day I will teach, in a classroom and not through the media. But, that requires more patience than I currently possess.

Most people would wait until the inspiration strikes. I'm not one of those people. For me, the right words bubble up like a Florida spring. They are something that can be enjoyed by everyone unless their natural beauty is molested by those looking to shape it into something unnatural.

To me, life without lyrics is a boring one. When there is not a book by my bed or a song in my head, the days drag on like a polysyllabic word crossing the precipice of a page. We do not know when it will end, whether it will pick up again, or simply continue on the listless trend.

And that is why I am a writer.

Laughs and liveliness,

-Wb

“Is it wrong that I liked your writing before I liked you?”

One of my very good friends told me back in college that my writing style was very distinct. So distinct that one could take my name off the story and it’s still apparent I was the author.

At the time I didn’t believe him. I figured he said because both of us were known for thumbing our noses at conventional methods for sports journalism.

To this day I still do, albeit, with more pragmatism than my college years.

My style is intricately descriptive. I am bluntly honest and routinely write exactly what people are thinking, but won’t say in mixed company. Above all, I’m fair to those who take the time to speak with me.

I’m a sports writer, not a policy maker, or crafting diplomacy dictums.

People may not always like what I write, but, again, I’m a sports writer. I like to make people think about things beyond the realm of sports.

Today’s rapid-fire style of reporting usually prevents that. Context is washed away in the race to get the minutia first, fastest and factual.

The best piece of journalism I ever read was published by Wright Thompson back in 2009. It was about the whirlwind Fall of 1962 at the University of Mississippi.

The story was published on ESPN.com. It was more than 14,000 words explaining the cultural shift that was underfoot at a university that James Meredith later wrote was “the holiest temple of white supremacy in America, next to the U.S. Capitol and the White House, both of which were under the control of segregationists and their collaborators," just two years prior.

Until I read Thompson’s story I had no clue Mississippi’s football team were undefeated in 1962.

The forgotten Rebels finished No. 3 in the country that year. That year was the last time Mississippi rolled through the Southeastern Conference without a loss.

The best writing, sports or otherwise, the author invests something in every word they share. Words are tools to take you to the scene of the action, even if the action is fictional, takes you there. An empty soul produces hollow copy that lack passion, zest and credibility.

Great writing can be a teaching tool. It can expand vocabularies, horizons, and understanding. The best of us do it consistently.

Every Monday, I log onto ESPNFC.com to read Phil Ball’s column. It’s supposedly a column about Spanish soccer, but it intertwines politics, culture, current events and behind-the-scenes context about the game in the Iberian peninsula.

Of course there is more to the world than sports. And, we all prefer different styles of writing.

My style may not be the most popular, yet, but it certainly has its devotees. My fiancé might be the most committed, considering she once told me “…I liked your writing before I liked you?”

Laughs and liveliness,

-Wb

Is your information up to date?

It was late one night and I was killing time after deadline reading the many newspaper websites that are part of my daily reading.

Some nights I go off on these tangents, reading articles and commentaries that are far removed from that day’s events. It was on one of these meandering searches I ran across a discussion about the importance of encyclopedias.

The New York Times had a roundtable discussion about the fact Encyclopedia Britannica will no longer publish a print edition after 244 years. Titled “Britannica: Define Outdated” it featured researchers, novelists and others to discuss whether the announcement, which was made earlier this year, was some substantial loss to our collective knowledge.

I was hooked. Not because the lower two levels of my bookshelf are filled with a complete Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia from 1993, but because I occasionally get lost on a website, or Wikipedia or that complete encyclopedia set at my apartment.

Admittedly, I am a nerd. Owning an encyclopedia set should have been enough to charge me of that. Admitting to opening it is sufficient evidence for a conviction.

One of the arguments of the discussion is that knowledge and information has become more democratic in the information age. It is easier for people to disseminate or receive information.

That is undeniable.

However, the reason I never trashed my archaic collection of books was because there was something permanent about the words being collated into books. Once something is printed it’s tougher to confiscate than words written electronically.

Maybe that is the newspaper man in me thinking.

The elimination of the Britannica came to mind this week when I heard about the origins of Memorial Day.

Two different people told me the holiday to honor the millions of American soldiers that gave their lives fighting in wars — under real and perceived threats — began in 1865 in Charleston, S.C. … by black people.

The first person to tell me is a decorated American veteran who has seen time in combat. The other is a colleague. The former was even invited to speak about Memorial Day at a church over the weekend.

After digging through the democratic wellspring of information called the Internet I found an article by David W. Blight, a Yale history professor who is one of the nation’s foremost experts on the Civil War.

Blight writes “thousands of black Charlestonians, most former slaves, remained in the city and conducted a series of commemorations to declare their sense of the meaning of the war. The largest of these events, and unknown until some extraordinary luck in my recent research, took place on May 1, 1865.”

Funnily enough, my Funk & Wagnalls omitted the dark origins of the most somber of American holidays.

“The holiday, originally called Decoration Day, is traditionally marked by parades, memorial speeches and ceremonies and the decoration of graves with flowers and flags, hence the original name. Memorial Day was first observed on May 30, 1868, on the order of Gen. John Alexander Logan for the purpose of decorating the graves of the American Civil War dead.”

It’s possible, even probable; this information was not available in 19 years ago. Or maybe the omission was as honest as the 19^th century argument among Southerners that the war was about state’s rights.

This weekend once again reaffirmed my belief that “he who wins writes the history, whether it’s true or not.” Perhaps its best that line of thinking becomes outdated.

Laughs and liveliness,

-Wb

What happens when you step out the way?

Not too long ago I was messing around on Twitter when I read a message that immediately grabbed my attention.

“Often we expect God to come to us like thunder, when He's actually being quietly persistent.”

Roy S. Johnson, a former editor at Sports Illustrated and a well-known sports journalist, shared the knowledge with me, and his 2,600 followers.

The message came at the same time I was thanking God for removing me from a toxic situation a year ago. Because the Lord, and anyone else who listened to me, knew I was miserable last April.

My frustration was so apparent my mom reminded me, without prompting, to never lose my gratitude. The next day, my dad implored me not to lose my temper at the office, even if it appeared warranted.

I dreaded going to work, money was tight, I didn’t have a permanent living situation and I wrecked the front end of my car trying to be two places at once for an employer that wanted to get rid of me — and eventually did.

During that dark period, I asked God for a few things, things that will remain between us.

Nearly a year later each one of those prayers was answered. Just like Johnson preached, of course in fewer than 140 characters, it was not a single thunderous action that led me to write a testimonial essay.

Not too many people can say they found another job by the time they figured out how to apply for unemployment. Through His grace, I am one.

Last month The Wall Street Journal reported the average unemployed American has been out of work for 40 weeks. Within 40 days of my layoff I had already accepted another job, a position that included a pay raise.

My steps have been ordered and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

When I announced my layoff to my family and friends in the middle of a sunny Friday morning last year there was a paragraph I wrote in more hope than anything else.

“Each and every one of my friends who used to work at the Democrat has found themselves happier after they have left that office. That is not at all a coincidence and I am confident I will be the next to join in that procession.”

At the time I wrote it, hope was all I had. Now, I have thanksgiving that the statement was indeed true.

Laughs and liveliness,

-Wb

What do tennis and Dr. Suess have in common?

I recently wore a white Florida A&M T-shirt and basketball shorts to work. Incredulously enough, I also played tennis for two hours on the clock in such casual attire.

There is a story, and the pursuit of another, behind the outfit.

Journalism may not make me a monetarily rich man, but I certainly provides for a wealth of experiences. Money might provide for flexibility. However, even that runs out, no matter how fortunate and flexible we are.

My fiancé suggests leaving newspapers for magazine writing and other longer forms of journalism. Other family members have suggested that I switch to broadcasting where there is more money, and relatively more job security. However, I just can’t get rid of the sense of pride at seeing my name in the newspaper most days.

I still hold onto the ideal William A. White expressed nearly a century ago when discussion the fate of rural newspapers, “…Yet we who read them read in their lines the sweet, intimate story of life."

That story White notes is why I took to the tennis court.

There is a 90-year old gentleman in town that is quite the tennis player. He recently won a four-hour-ten-minute match to win a competition in his age group.

Rather than just talk to him and write a story for the newspaper, we played a set. The gentleman retired before I was born so of course it was not a fair contest, but he certainly made it compelling with the placement of his drop shots and other ground strokes.

Virtually all my friends with undergraduate degrees make more money than me. Then again, none of them have the luxury of waking up at 10 a.m., get paid to go to sporting events and remain in a profession they truly enjoy?

That’s part of the reason I bought Dr. Suess’ book Oh, the Places You’ll Go last year.

It was a Friday afternoon and I was a bit homesick.I remember it was a Friday because I was in no rush to get to work that day, and that only occurred on nights I was covering a high school football game in the capital of the sport—Texas.

In the half decade since college I have sometimes forgotten that I have brains in my head and feet in my shoes. I had the ability to steer myself in any direction that I choose. I’m on my own “and you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go.”

They have included dark corners of municipal buildings, the dining room tables of family members and the front seat of my reliable Kia. The night Barack Obama won the presidency I sat in a suite at Doak Campbell Stadium writing the finishing touches on student reaction to the historic election.

It was proof that “out there things can happen and frequently do to people as brainy and footsy as you.”

The lobby of a police station served as an office. So did a tiny library in Carrabelle, Florida on my 24^th birthday. Between morsels of fried chicken that was not nearly as good as the conversation I ran into the mother, uncle and cousins of someone I interviewed an hour earlier.

“Except when you don’t. Because, sometimes, you won’t.” Certainly it is true, the bang-ups and hang-ups can happen to you.

They happened to me. And it forced me to chase my dream in a town foreign to me.

But, the only things friendlier than the Texas strangers are their restaurants.

Whataburger locations throughout South Texas opened their doors so I could write somewhere besides under a dim car light.  One even took the time to share the history of the stores and how the original Whataburger was just a 25 minute drive south in Corpus Christi.

Then there was the time I wrote a story from a bed and breakfast in Johannesburg just so I could have an international date line on a story. The story was reported stateside, but I waited until I landed in South Africa to send it just because I could.

That experience, just like being a professional tennis player, even for just two hours is proof that I just might succeed. Even if my success rate is only 98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.

Is it wrong to be nostalgic on occasion?

The first time I heard the song I was staying up late for no particular reason.

It was well past 1 a.m. and I was beginning to nod off as the television continued to play music videos that appeared to have little point. I told myself I would endure one more song before calling it a night.

Then I heard the song that made so much sense. John Mayer’s “No Such Thing” was a song that made me eagerly anticipate my 10 year high school reunion even though I was still months away from graduating high school.

In a perfect world, I would have returned to Rockledge High School with a beautiful girl. I would possess a decent job, one that took me to a seemingly exotic place beyond the borders of Brevard County, Florida as well as a red car that would put people on notice that in the decade since graduation I was more than the dork I appeared to be in high school.

Admittedly, the song motivated me, all the while stroking my ego.

(As fate, and the good Lord, would have it, I am marrying a beautiful girl in December, live in South Texas and drive a red car that suits my lifestyle as a sportswriter perfectly.)

The first five lines and the chorus always spoke to me. Surely the pricked the consciousness of others, otherwise, Mayer, the former gas station attendant, wouldn’t have been given a record deal.

"Welcome to the real world", she said to me
Condescendingly
Take a seat
Take your life
Plot it out in black and white

That’s what I do. My life is literally written in black and white. Every day it begins on computer screens, before moving to sheets of paper that few my age bother to read.

I wanna run through the halls of my high school
I wanna scream at the
Top of my lungs
I just found out there's no such thing as the real world
Just a lie you've got to rise above

When the single was released in February 2002, I was the last person off the bench for the Rockledge High soccer team.

On those cool nights across Central Florida I would usually sit there and watch my friends win, while carrying on a conversation with a friend who was a student manager. We talked about a host of things, some of which were what we were going to do when we left Rockledge for college that fall.

I always got the sense from those conversations on the bench that we would not let the perceptions of others, define us, shape who we would become. To us high school was a journey with a lesson at every corner if we stopped to pay attention.

Of course our conversations were rarely that deep on the sidelines. I think she was grabbing water and keeping stats, while I was hoping we would blowout another hapless opponent so I could play.

They read all the books but they can't find the answers
And all of our parents
They're getting older
I wonder if they've wished for anything better
While in their memories
Tiny tragedies

Some classmates became larger tragedies than others. One sadly committed suicide. A few others wound up in jail. And, it’s not a stretch to say there are more that are 180 degrees away from the dreams they had as idealistic seniors in a quaint Central Florida town.

On the other hand, there are so many that have become spouses, parents, doctors, lawyers, teachers, nurses, soldiers, models and overall successes. As we all approach 30, some of us faster than others, Mayer’s final stanza applies to all of us.

I just can't wait til my 10 year reunion
I'm gonna bust down the double doors
And when I stand on these tables before you
You will know what all this time was for

 Laughs and liveliness,

-Wb

Do you count?

My neighborhood is such a quiet place that the radiance from the moon, reflecting off the carports in the dry Texas evenings might be the loudest stimuli around. Maybe the intermittent trains rustling down the tracks a mile away are a close second.

Minimal artificial lighting means that the stars and the moon illuminate he walkway to my mailbox as much as porch lights beside each apartment.

This is the path I take every evening when I return from work, checking a mailbox that is almost always empty. So imagine my surprise when I thick envelope from the U.S. Department of Commerce arrived addressed to me.

In bold, black, block letters I was told my response to the American Communities Survey was required by law. This 28-page booklet provides more timely data about communities, municipalities, cities and even rural America more frequently than the decennial census. Apparently, my address — not specifically me, as they reassured a handful of times — was simply because I represent a crosssection of my community.

I don’t know who rented my apartment before July, but I can only presume that the government was more interested in knowing about them then a Floridian becoming a reluctant Texan.

There I was spending a cool, Sunday evening telling the government about myself, my residence, my education, my career — and the period this year where I didn’t have a job. This information, sans my name supposedly, will be used by the public and private sector to make decisions about developing my community, and what facilities and necessities an isolated man in South Texas might need in the coming months and years.

The number of average Americans who log onto www.census.gov for information about the percentage of people in their community who speak German as a second language is minimal. Then again, how many people pull up the American Communities Survey on their smartphone to find out just how few minorities live in New Hampshire and Vermont while attending a family wedding on a scenic summer afternoon?

If nothing else, I now know why so many people quizzically stare at me as I amble through town in my fire-engine red “Floridamobile.” Less than eight percent of the population here is black, and just 17. 6 percent of the populace has a college degree. Throw in the fact that I am 26, and you have a perfect concoction for piquing curiosity in a small community.

Are you occupied?

A three-hour Friday night class for a minor in political science may be one of the least likely places to be introduced to a weighty topic such as assimilation. But that is the beauty of college, there are always learning opportunities if one is willing to explore them.

Our professor asked whether it was more desirable to subtly blend, or assimilate, into the American political culture like an A. Philip Randolph, or fight against it like Marcus Garvey did.

Six years after that “Blacks in the Political Process” course, I still lack a concrete answer for either position.

This was not one of those rhetorical questions that thrown out there to keep people from walking out of class to enjoy their weekend. We were expected to provide nuanced answers that added historical and current perspective with our position.

It’s been something I have masticated on for the past two months after reading up on Texas history.

Apparently it’s worth celebrating that a band of people who were invited to live on land, with minimal or no taxes, and thought they were morally superior to the state could revolt and start their own republic. Despite running up huge debts, they wanted to be bailed out — or annexed, if we are going to be historically accurate — by an emerging superpower, whose beliefs and morality were in closer proximity to theirs. (Keep in mind all that startling history occurred in just 25 years.)

Texas is not unique. American anthropologist W.W. Newcomb argued:

“The same sequence of events has occurred repeatedly in man’s history; in invader with superior cultural equipment supplants and replaces a technologically inferior group. If the inferior culture survives it frequently does so in marginal areas not coveted by the invader.”

The “superior cultural equipment” of this century is money, and more specifically access to it. Thousands of people protesting the actions and perceived greed of banks over the past month is proof that point.

There have always “haves” and “have-nots.” In the past it was easier to blame -isms and phobias for the segregation. Racism, sexism, xenophobia and homophobia still exist but the moneyed class is smart enough not to spew venom toward those groups publically, or in a forum that might become public.

For generations people have come to America seeking new opportunities because their easel was empty, so to speak, and they could color it anyway they chose.

But as we become a country that looks down on those with less money than us — and let’s be honest, as individuals, our words whisper compassion while our actions scream self-absorbed—we are segregating ourselves from those who simply want to take in the complexities of a culture, understand it and eventually succeed in it.

I made the connection between that conversation about Randolph and Garvey and today’s greed because both Randolph and Garvey had considered self-sustainment a foundation their political theory. That 2005 discussion also led me to ask: are people trying to emulate and assimilate into the corporate culture, or is there a genuine want to fight the greed that has been inherent for centuries?

It’s my belief that too many in the moneyed class want to curb access to education, so people cannot create successful businesses, no matter how small, to compete with them.

If we really want to occupy Wall Street and the corporate culture, we have to look at our consumption habits. Or as one Facebook friend put it: “If you really want to occupy Wall Street do your holiday shopping at a small independent merchant.”

Bank of America and Wells Fargo are likely apathetic to picketers. However, if those same protestors switched their banking to credit unions and smaller, more localized banks, the corporate offices in Charlotte and San Francisco might not be as dismissive.

The same rings true for retailers. Yes, it is likely more convenient to purchase a product online, or at a mega retailer. Yet, statistics have proven that when money is spent at local and independent retailers it circulates throughout the local economy, and stimulates local or regional growth, as opposed to New York stock prices.

Considering the banks and business lobbies pay billions to advocate in Congress and Legislatures across the country, it’s not a stretch to believe that if people spoke with their wallets instead of their mouths, things might be different.

Or as Mandela would say: “rhetoric is not important. Actions are.” The question now, is which actions will we take?

Laughs and liveliness,

-Wb

Where is home?

My brothers believe home is where you lay your head. But they are far more gregarious than I am. When they enter a room their peers instantly take note. Me, I am more inclined to slip in and observe my surroundings before being the fulcrum of attention.

This week a handful of people have asked where I’m from. The obvious answer is Florida. But, unless I am pressed I never provide a city. No one has yet to inquire further, but the idea of how to answer that question was one that led me to ask “where is home?”

Is it the ritzy city of money and retirees that hardly acknowledges it has a black population? Or is it the small town where nostalgia for it trumps all other memories? Perhaps the city that educated me and went from the bane of my existence to a begrudging enclave of peace.

My two outgoing brothers — one who is five years younger and the other who is 15 years older — would quip something about Victoria, Texas being my new home and I better get used to it. There would also be an unrepeatable joke from both that would make me laugh with politically incorrect delight.

As large as Texas is, it feels so quiet when I come home from work. Unlike Florida there is not a foundation of friends to lean upon in person here. I think it was mother who said it was a chance to reinvent myself as a journalist and become a better person since the only thing people out here knew about me is what I told them.

Outside of a summer in Shreveport and my two weeks in South Africa, I have lived in the most unique of the 50 states.

People have asked whether I am homesick or miss my Whitney. Honestly, I have not been away long enough to truly miss either. But I do know I will be reunited with both again.

#LifeinTexas, as I am fond of tweeting, is a learning experience. Not all of us are fortunate enough to have a chance to sink or swim, become a man or a mouse. It is a chance to figure out if I am going to be person or the pork.

I was a closeted emo kid for high school and early college, spending countless hours writing about feelings, emotions and other things interconnected with the eagerness and angst of leaving home. After A Decade Under the Influence of amateur then full-blown adulthood I realized Coming Home, wherever that may be, is not selling out.


Laughs and liveliness,

-Wb