Lawns are a laugh where I live in the Texas Hill Country between Austin and San Antonio. My home is in the unincorporated area of Hays County and my only one of my neighborhood yards has out-of-place St. Augustine grass [it more properly belongs in Houston where it rains and the humidity is high]. The grass was laid down, turf-square-by-turf-square several years ago and promptly died of some disease before the drought finished any hope of its recovery. Since our water comes from a small aquifer that sits on top of the famed Edwards Aquifer, drawing out ground water to sprinkle a foreign grass species is folly.

A county-wide Rainwater Capture symposium, held in a VFW hall, drew more than 200 people several years ago. One big state agency even has an online guide to rainwater collection as well as estimates of the amount of water available per-square-foot of roof.

My abode is surrounded with cedar trees, some died in last year’s drought, and even if I did cut down everything living or dead, fire would spread into the uncivilized cedar forest all around me.

Surviving the Coming Warm Spell would be a good cultural issue. In my world, retired from an outdoor career in conservation [Texas Parks & Wildlife Department], water, wildlife, wildflowers and the urbanization of Texas have been hot topics for years.

The reason Governor Perry did not hit the immigration issue when he was on the campaign trail for presidential nominee, is because Texas government has been aware of Hispanic demographics for eons. My Director of Communication, a Hispanic Woman from San Antonio, used to laugh about it, “We’re gaining on you!” was her mantra. In Texas, Republican or Democrat, everyone knows the truth of the matter. Instead of getting our panties in a wad, we just translate publications into Spanish.

So, another cultural topic could be the Spanish-Anglo historic relations. For example, Cabeza de Vaca washed up on Galveston Island in about November, 1528 and spent eight years traversing southern Texas and northern Mexico. The Anglos settled the East, but the Spanish settled the Southwest and California. So get over it Iowa!