We read this with much amusement earlier in the week in the Daily Mail the lamentations of one Brett Alder, a California sales exec who moved his family to Austin apparently in haste and with minimal to non-existent prior research on his new home, who repented at leisure after a brief year and afterwards (upon moving back to California) expanded on woes and the general shortcomings of Texas in an editorial in Business Insider. The original column is behind a paywall, so unavailable to me, but the Daily Mail posted the list of his lamentations. This brought about considerable hilarity in the comments on the various articles which repeated the story, among Texans. The Daughter Unit and I found the article most particularly amusing especially me; California born and bred, lived there without interruption (save two trips to Europe) until I joined the military, where for twenty years I moved frequently to new communities and wasted little time or heartburn on making a new home. I’ve lived in Texas since 1995 now, with occasional trips to the formerly-Golden State, the last one in 2010 when Dad passed away and I spent a couple of weeks helping Mom sort out things.
To continue with a fisking of Brett-the-male-Karen’s lamentations on life in Austin:
- The weather is ‘oppressive‘. No, it isn’t, Brett it’s hot. In the summer, and varied with hot and humid, hot and dry, and hot with the chance of hurricane action in the coastal regions. Get over it and adjust. Seriously. The winters in the southern part of Texas are mild, and relatively summery. People in the northern half of the US are still shoveling out their driveways, while we are putting out tomato starts and watching the fruit trees put out blooms.
- ‘No public land’ Er … what? Two state parks, respectively twenty minutes and forty minutes’ drive from Austin, and metropolitan Austin is stiff with parks, green belts, nature preserves and recreation. Bee Cave itself has three parks, including one adorned with monumental art, and another which offers bike and hiking trails. Seriously, I wonder if Brett and the family ever left the house.
- ‘No snowy mountains, no raging rivers, and no soaring arches’ So noted. This is Texas. There are darned few mountains, they’re all in the desert, and if you want f**king snow, try the Panhandle. Our rivers don’t rage, commonly; they are well-behaved and polite Texas rivers, as their mamas taught them better manners. Unless they flood in a torrential rainstorm, and then all bets are off. This does happen on rare occasion, so pay attention to local weather reports.
- People from home sellers to repair men are ‘dishonest’. OFFS, Brett, are you allowed out without a keeper? You don’t have the native wit to have an independent inspection of the house before committing to purchase, or to ask neighbors, co-workers and church members for recommendations on providers of services which left them happy and content?
- Yelp reviews can’t be ‘trusted’ to recommend good food. OFFS you depended on Yelp? Umm … what about came of you know talking to neighbors? (Oh, I forgot, they’re all oppressively monoculture in Bee Cave) What about just taking a chance on something that looks interesting and almost always has a full parking lot. Or just making small talk with a local clerk, cashier, store manager, Uber driver, or patrolman about where to go for a nice lunch close by. A hint such people usually know very well where to get a good, tasty bite to eat close by.
- ‘Austinites are rude’. Well, a lot of them are recent migrants from California and other lefty enclaves, so … what did you expect? (Bless your heart…)
- There’s only public schools, there’s water restrictions and people pay $600 a month for heating. Umm … welcome to Texas. People with enormous houses pay that much and more for heating and air conditioning. People with small, energy efficient, and well-insulated houses pay less, especially when those temperate months kick in and it’s OK to open the windows and turn off the AC. The water restrictions are for landscape watering in drought months, when the level in the Edwards Aquifer drops too low. Water-thirsty landscaping has not been a good idea for decades, Brett in California, as well as Texas.
- No diversity or different cultures. (Boggle) Me, I live in San Antonio which on last report is roughly half Hispanic. Plenty of diversity there more than in Bee Cave, apparently, if my neighborhood is anything to go on. A hop-skip-anda-jump from Austin is the Texas Hill Country, which was solidly German in culture, even to this day. Then there’s Castroville, which is French-Alsatian, and the Polish community in places like Pana Marie. Again, I do wonder if Brett and the family ever went very far from the upper-class and largely white-bread and mayonnaise enclave in Bee Cave.
- Militaristic schools. Frankly, Brett militaristic schools are a good thing, when it comes to socializing our underage spawn, who otherwise would have no manners and education in anything save how to bully their peers undetected and unpunished. A school dress code or uniform, an insistence on manners, orderly conduct, and courtesy yes, ma’am and no, sir timeliness, indoor voices, prompt attention to completing assignments, frank confession of errors and misdeeds. I paid good money to a local Catholic girls’ school for nearly for years for just this sort of militaristic education, and it was worth every penny.
- Being exposed to a new set of pathogens means new allergies. Yeah, cedar fever is a thing. Oak pollen allergies are a thing. Allergies all over are a thing. Welcome to the real world.
- People are obsessed with big luxury homes. Dude, you bought a big-ass home on what looks like 3/4th to a full acre with an in-ground pool, in the wealthiest outlaying suburb of Austin. Seriously? Again they let y’all out without a keeper?
Frankly, if Brett-The-Male-Karen’s dire warning prevents any number of pig-ignorant, temporarily-wealthy and oh-so-superior California lefty douche-bags from moving to any otherwise sane Texas city, I’m all for that. YMMV.
That was rich. By the way, I learned that a male karen is often referred to as a kyle.
He forgot people with guns, fire ants, scorpions, ticks, cactus, spiders, poisonous snakes, alligators, feral pigs, misquitos and big ass pickup trucks crushing the Prius driving lefties. Go west young man until your feet get wet.
Death6
My younger son traveled around looking at colleges with his daughter last summer,. He thought Austin was a dump but likes Texas. It might be all the lefties that infest Austin. His daughter has decided on U of Alabama. They are Californians looking to emigrate. Conservative, including the kids. His son, my only grandson, plays football and baseball and is, at age 15, taller than his 6-3 father. He is interested in Arkansas. The pediatrician guesses he will be 6-5 when done growing but he missed the season for both sports this year.
This guy probably accuses people who live in small towns of being “provincial” with no sense of irony whatsoever.
‘Austin is hot. It’s not California hot; it’s Texas hot. California heat is weak by comparison. In much of California the temperature cools down at night
Yes,that’s the way it is in Central and South Texas. Gotta get used to it. Stay in the shade. There was one day when it was 89 degrees at midnight- though that is an outlier. West Texas and North Texas- and Oklahoma- are cooler at night.
….high energy costs which he said can set a family back $1,000 a month to stay comfortable in the weather
By virtue of being shaded in the south and being a number of units from the west wall, my 1200 sq/ft condo downstairs is fairly comfortable even during the summer. No AC and downstairs is 80-82 nearly all the time during the summer. (Yes, upstairs is hotter.) Energy cost around $30-$35 a month. If I had my druthers, I’d live in a basement in Texas.
Alder said he drove 40 minutes for ‘good Southern Indian food at a four-and-a-half-star rated establishment’.
That shows he didn’t know the area, nor did he make a concerted effort to do so. Anyone who lives in Austin and says he needs to drive 40 minutes to find a good restaurant is a bloomin’ idjit.
Alder said that though they had ‘a huge yard and our own half basketball court, we really only felt like going outside about three to four months of the year’ because of the ‘oppressive’ weather.
WHAT A WUSS! April is oppressive? October is oppressive? Ditto May and September. Give me a break! One thing I learned from growing up in the NE, is that the more time you spend outside, the more accustomed you get to it, and the less “oppressive” such weather is. That goes for cold winters and for hot summers.
‘monoculture that doesn’t seem to be aware of it’s own blandness’
Monoculture? He didn’t get out much, that’s all I can say. I suppose if you decide to live in a wealthy- may we also say whitebread- suburb, you might be living in the monoculture of the wealthy. Perhaps he shouldn’t have decided to live in a wealthy enclave. Plenty of variety where I live.
I suspect that from a “progressive” California POV, “monoculture” means the existence of viewpoints that a “progressive” Californian finds “offensive.”
The follow up piece on the Daily Mail was that after moving back to San Jose, he was eyeballing a relocation to Reno Nevada
Ruralbob
This guy probably accuses people who live in small towns of being “provincial” with no sense of irony whatsoever.
Yup. You betcha.
During my adolescence, I considered my rural hometown to be very provincial, the very model of a “hick town.” Decades later, I came to realize that my hometown was, due to the variety within its boundaries, rather like a microcosm of the US.
We moved to Tucson four years ago from CA. In midsummer, Tucson can get to 125 degrees. Summer before last, I think we had 2 weeks over 120 during the day. My summer electric bill has not been over $400 a month and we have a 20 year old AC.
I don’t think Austin is as hot. The Bay Area of CA has a nice mild climate if you don’t mind crap on the sidewalk. If CA had not gotten so crazy, I would still be there. Texas was an option but more than a day drive to CA and grand children.
Tucson, like Austin, is deep blue with a university and the attached crazies but it is still Arizona. Plus, we are outside the city.
Much of TX is unlivable, climate wise. Without AC no one could live there. Austin was cool in the 90s but like most of TX has changed so much since then, it’s apparently a dump now. Personally I don’t much care for strip malls and subdivisions, so TX isn’t my thing.
TX has far less racial problems than CA, mostly because people can afford to live there so don’t have the same resentments and frustrations. But again apparently some of that has changed in the past few decades.
If we have any chance at all of saving the country, TX has to lead the way.
‘Austin is hot. It’s not California hot; it’s Texas hot. California heat is weak by comparison. In much of California the temperature cools down at night
Young Brett is an idiot. He’s thinking of coastal California, where the enlightened people live. Midday temperatures in the Central Valley, on the other hand, are easily in triple digits all summer long.
A friend of mine – a lifelong resident of the East Bay – visiting relatives, complained that SoCal was too hot for him. He too is/was an idiot. He was comparing the coastal Oakland Hills with inland SoCal, where his relatives lived. I told him that SoCal was moderate, whereas the Bay Area was way too hot.
He thought I was nuts, but I was making a point: coastal SoCal is moderate, too, whereas inland Bay Area – a trip through the Caldecott Tunnel to, e.g., Livermore will suffice – is hotter than hell.
Apparently liberals are too stupid to realize that proximity to the ocean moderates climate, whereas distance from the ocean leads to a continental climate, with much greater swings in temperature.
And we let them vote. Explains a lot, doesn’t it?
Tucson, like Austin, is deep blue with a university and the attached crazies but it is still Arizona.
Universities are the primary tumor that leads to metastatic leftism elsewhere in the state. Universities, as presently constituted, must die.
I glanced at the article briefly when I came across it, just enough to say good riddance and move on. I see now that I missed an opportunity for real amusement.
The real irony is that Austin is so blue you almost need a welding shield to protect your eyes. They have a true case of California envy. They have embraced such innovations as unrestricted homeless encampments. Their problem is that they share the city with the governor and municipalities in Texas have to operate within restrictions set by the state.
Austin also has Califoriaesque traffic, a 40 minute drive at the wrong time of day on the wrong road might not be longer than five miles. Beats 100+ mile commutes to be able to afford something better than an RV to live in.
Can’t argue too much about the weather. Wait, isn’t there some unpleasantness about wild fires several months out of the year with rolling blackouts in California? Maybe hot and humid has it’s compensations.
> interested in Arkansas
*Definitely* not Arkansas. Racist, sexist, homophobic, full of Klansmen, even the Klintons got out as soon as they could. Not to mention heat, humidity, allergens, schools of carnivorous walking catfish, suicidal assault deer, and angry opossums with their eyes reflecting red hate at you in your headlights.
Don’t even stop in Arkansas. Make sure you gas up and empty your bladder so you can make it to Tennessee or Mississippi.
Really. Trust me, I’m sumdood on the internet…
TRX, (does the “T” stand for Tyrannosaurus ?) thanks for the endorsement of Ark. I assume you live there. I say the same about Arizona to lefties. These kids are all conservative church going. The youngest is a swimmer and in 7th grade nearing 6 feet tall. Great kids. My grandson would like a military academy but I fear they are going the way of the rest of universities.
Given the contents of this letter, I think an enlistment in the Marine Corps might be better for him and save his folks money. Grow up and go to college on the GI Bill. I worry about boys in college right now.
Anyway, not my choice. It’s a shame he is missing out on a season of high school football and baseball right now.
When we were in Austin (the 70’s), it was leftish (Lloyd Doggett is in the House now – I don’t know how long he’s been there but he was already active in Austin at that time). It was also immensely fun – the RTF majors screened movies several times a week for their classes and everyone could go – these would be for the classes and were many of the greats and cost nothing or 50 cents (even in the 70’s that was cheap). Willy Nelson had just moved back to Texas and he was often performing on campus and around town. But there were already street people (left over from the Yippees that had come to protest LBJ in the mid 60’s and found the climate attractive).
Austin was better when it wasn’t trying to be cutting edge and California and was pretty proud to be itself. A couple of years ago we were talking to a civil engineer who had been working with the local roads; he said that someone told him that the rumors were really true, that they had not tried to make the roads navigable because some of the planning people in the 80’s or so wanted to keep Austin weird and apparently log jammed. As one of our friend’s sons said, a good many people wake up each morning and the first thing they do is figure how they can get everything done that day without ever getting on 35.
The college kids and the kickers and the locals met at the honky tonks; one of my favorite memories is of Marcia Ball when she was heading Freda and Her Firedogs playing the piano and singing great oldies – and the crowd included a gay birthday party, which requested “You Ain’t Woman Enough to take My Man” and she belted it out with a pure and beautiful voice. Garner and Smith was a bookstore on the Drag that had a reputation across the country. Yes, good times. But by the time my daughters were going to school there, expensive shopping centers were all around and the campus, especially west campus, was just plain tacky. The two older ones went there, one met her husband and the other drew hers from Germany there (they’d met in Lyon in her soph year abroad). But, then, they were more than ready to leave. It was depressing. Willy Nelson and the HRC – with its unopened boxes of great manuscripts – and all, well, the seventies had turned into the nineties and the drag had lost that energy from the seventies and was often just ugly and the street people profoundly pitiful. And this guy probably doesn’t even know about its treasures and also how it has fallen as it has grown, and how that’s in part from the less open, less generous, less intellectually curious Californians that have arrived with the silicon business.
I’ve spent a few summers in Texas. And I agree with wossname, the terminal whinger: Your climate; your landscape; suck hard vacuum.
Of course *my* idea of perfection is a temperate rainforest, full of soft rainy days where grey mist from the river meets grey-white skies overlaying million-shades-of-green hills.
But the people and culture of Texas rock.
I am positive that among Texans hearing a Californian lament that he’d like to return doesn’t bother them in the least.
I have thought on and off about moving to a coastal area there – thought Galveston at first – fascinated with its history after reading Erik Larson’s book, but too many big houses on the Gulf side. I’d like a small house near a beech relatively isolated.
A good friend whose relatives go back to Sam Houston (I told her she is Texas royalty) mentioned a smaller town south of Galveston.
I think the main complaint Texans have (and others in the West) is that Californians move to get away from the political climate they helped to create, then vote to make (pick your state) the same way.
Had a wonderful drive down state Hwy 90 – stopped at Marfa, and Big Bend (you think Texas has no mountains – an unbelievable place), on to San Antonio where a lot of misconceptions about the Alamo were cleared up – saw a wonderful hotel recommended again my my friend where Teddy Roosevelt recruited the Rough Riders at the bar (the Menger), then drove up to the Hill Country (surprisingly a short drive!), toured the LBJ ranch, then Fredrichsburg and saw the Pacific War Museum – you could spend a couple of days there – such displays! – (BTW though of your trilogy when at Fredericksburg – and, don’t forget Luckenback. Was surprised at how close that was to Fredrichsburg).
I really enjoyed Texas and the Texans I met. As a general rule around the world (even Paris) if you are polite and respectful to people, they generally return the favor.
If you want to whine about how much better things are “back home”, well, expect an indifferent (at best) reception.
Time for bed – I could go on about my trip…
@Jez- He’s now thinking about trying Reno? If you thought the Austin writeup was funny just wait…
He is correct. Texas is horrible. All recent Californian immigrants must immediately return! Never look back. Explain far and wide how wonderful California is. Stay put.
Brett could have moved 100 odd miles east to CA’s San
Joaquin/Imperial Valleys to experience many of the same conditions.
Austin is hot. It’s not California hot; it’s Texas hot. California heat is weak by comparison. In much of California the temperature cools down at night
Liar. I’ve been in Palm Springs when it was 120°. It’s over 115° east of LA frequently.
Coastal California weather really is nice and is the main reason Californians tolerate bad government most of the time. Having said that this guy sounds like he was paid by Gavin Nelson to push that exact point to stop the outflow before there is no one left to tax.
Thank God for Texas weather! Keeps out the riffraff.
“No snowy mountains”
A saying I learned when I lived in the Panhandle…
If God wanted Texans to ski, He would have made bullshit white.
I’m an OH transplant to South Carolina – going on 16 years, now. I moved first, for a job. Located in the Low Country, in the boonies.
I liked it fine – made some very dear friends, who I still correspond with.
My husband joined me 1-1/2 years later; he stayed for 1 semester, before lobbying me to move to a bigger city. His reasons were mixed, but mostly valid. The medical care wasn’t adequate to our aging bodies – we’d have to be transported over an hour away, should we have a major problem.
And, it was either an hour and a half flight, or 12 hours driving to visit family in Cleveland, OH. Just not what we wanted to handle.
So, we moved again, to where we are now – Rock Hill, SC. Half an hour away from Charlotte, NC. Far enough away to escape the nuttiness of a major Democratic stronghold, but close enough to use the hospitals and other amenities, when desired.
He is constantly fussing about the culture, the lack of appreciation for education (HIS kind of education – academic), and the differences in the restaurants, the paucity of bars to hang out in, and a whole lot of other things.
The thing is, like those CA to TX immigrants, he wants to have the locals recognize him as a superior being, and give him the status and respect that he feels is his due. He feels like a nobody here.
Me?
I’m good. The population may not all be highly educated in academic ways, but they’re smart, funny, and good people. They remind me of my WV relatives. So, I get along fine, and have found many friends.
He can’t be bothered to volunteer in the local church, or in community activities. I am known through my catechism volunteering, my membership in the local ham radio club, and by hanging around and chatting with people.
When he does interact with others, he often ends up picking a fight, as he is compelled to “set them straight” on politics and other volatile subjects.
So, yeah. A lot of the transplants shoot themselves in the foot, by jockeying for status, openly looking down on those ‘rubes’, and complaining non-stop.
“bland culture” — in his year of internal exile, Brett couldn’t muster up the time or effort to wheel down to the annual Texas Folklife Festival in San Antonio? Dozens of cultures, from Czechs to Polynesians swapping music, stories, dances and recipes? I tell Yankees that in San Antonio, there’s no such thing as a “Texas accent,” ’cause darn near everyone has a different one, from Jersey to Jamaica.
“no snowy mountains” — to which I say Amen, Brother! After living in the Sierras, Alaska, and Nebraska, and savoring the delights of digging cars and cabins out the snow, or sliding on my butt down an icy driveway, I heartly don’t miss seasonal snow. The wife and I do take annual ski vacations, or as we like to say “visit winter,” just to remind ourselves of what it’s like.
“it’s Texas hot.” — darn tootin’ it is. Long time South Texas residents know there are four seasons: too cold to open the windows (January, part of February), just right (late Feb to late April), too hot (late April to mid-September), and back to just right again (my Mom LOVES Texas Xmas, takes coffee by the pool every morning). Heating and AC, like fruit and seafood, should be enjoyed in season.
Overall, I’m happy to hear that Brett has returned to the Left Coast. Texas is starting to accumulate Whiny Little B*tches like him, and it’s annoying.
‘No snowy mountains, no raging rivers, and no soaring arches’
Oh yes, there are. But you gotta ‘drive a spell’ to see them. In Texas that might mean a whole day. :)
Having said that, my paternal grandmother (upstate NY) was a bit anxious when she and my grandfather arrived in NE Texas the first time, stating, “I can’t see anything to hold up the sky.” (Not a hick, not a dumb woman, she understood it was irrational, but also knew it was some subconscious truth to her.)
Oh, and Texas had to give up a bunch of the mountains when it became a state. They got left in New Mexico. So, blame the Yankees for that. ;)
‘No public land’
What he really means is “no land that is someone else’s responsibility.
Yelp reviews can’t be ‘trusted’ to recommend good food.
I think the important part to him is that he disagrees with locals about how “good food” is defined. He is looking for all of this foreign texture in his food (“South Indian” – by which I will assume he means Tamil food, the racist) and wants “authentic” Mexican (I’m sure – I’ve heard it from lots of Californians) and all of that. Austin isn’t “diverse” enough for him.
All of this goes back to having a really bad set of principles and priorities, fed to him by his beloved California.
There’s only public schools
WTH?! He’s flamingly ignorant or lying.
solidly German … French-Alsatian … Polish community
Ah, but you see, those aren’t ‘DIVERSE‘ as they’re all White and stuff. He wants to feel properly virtuous with 10 types of Asians and 4 types of Africans and some muslims who annoy the neighborhood with their chants. There weren’t enough of the right kinds of beans for him to count.
Being exposed to a new set of pathogens means new allergies.
He calls tree pollen a pathogen? Really? Not gonna make the comparison I want to make, since there might be children around.
People are obsessed with big luxury homes.
Just like in California……..
Yes, I sincerely hope his literary hissy-fit prevents lots of Californians from moving to Texas (or anywhere for that matter). “We don’t want your kind ’round here!”
Well, he confirms my accusation of more than three decades that when people complain about diversity (they used to say multicultural) they mean restaurants, and ethnics in interesting clothes. To look at, not really interact with. I originally applied it to New Yorkers who came up to NH to complain, but have learned that it applies in many places in the country.
So it’s restaurants, which usually just means learning new territory or making an effort to learn the regional cuisine, and it’s too hot. Also, as Sgt Mom points out, he did not apply the elementary skills one should in a new area where you have no network to provide local information to you. That’s pretty much the article right there. So I suppose he should get credit for expanding that scant information into a publishable article that confirms some people’s prejudices.
Mike K Says:
It might be all the lefties that infest Austin.
Need a stronger word than “might” in there.
Gringo Says:
Anyone who lives in Austin and says he needs to drive 40 minutes to find a good restaurant is a bloomin’ idjit.
Well, he didn’t say he was looking for a “good restaurant”. He said he was looking for a Tamil restaurant. Those might be further between around Austin than “the Bay”.
Jez Says:
The follow up piece on the Daily Mail was that after moving back to San Jose, he was eyeballing a relocation to Reno Nevada
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Jay Guevara Says:
And we let them vote. Explains a lot, doesn’t it?
Oh yes, it does. This. So very much THIS.
Anonymous Says:
Austin was better when it wasn’t trying to be cutting edge and California and was pretty proud to be itself.
Ain’t that true of everywhere?
Mike Anderson Says:
there are four seasons … too hot (late April to mid-September)
Technically, there’s a fifth that falls in the middle of that one: “too damn hot by a good sight” (August).
:)
When I lived in Tx I made a point of going out when it was hottest – ran, golfed, played tennis at about 110.
Same in Colorado for when it was cold running or skiing at -25.
That’s the fun of it.
I live about 30 miles down the road from Bee Cave in a 2225 sf home and the highest electricity bill I’ve ever paid was about $220. If he’s paying $600 it’s because he can’t get any of those seven crotch fruits to close a door when they come in or out.
I’m a California native living in one of the hotter-than-hell cities away from the coast. Based on the business trip I took to College Station in the summertime, I have to say that Texas, or at least that part of Texas, is even hotter. As the saying goes, it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity. While it’s hot where I live, it usually cools down at night. Yes, I realize that Texas is a big state and surely there are other locations with different weather, but it’s hard to beat the weather where I am now.
Like the author, I like the mountains in California, though not necessarily the snow. I missed the mountains when I lived in Chicago.
But unlike the author, I don’t plan to move to Texas and complain about it. Maybe he should think about why he’s moving out of California and accept the compromises.
I left Austin five years ago. Been in San Jose since, but am mulling a move to Reno, NV.
I drove from Denver to San Francisco back 15 years ago or so. Stayed overnight in Reno and woke up to a foot and a half of snow and it took me six hours to drive to SF with a chained-up AWD. Yesterday Reno got socked with the same amount. This guy will be disappointed.
This is a guy who thinks that Austin is like SXSW all year round.
Of course its more expensive for him, he moved from a 2000 sq ft house to a 4000 sq ft house…more area to heat and cool, and he has 7 kids( I don’t know if someone pointed this out to him but kids are expensive…7 kids, really expensive).
Mr. Adler should maybe try and figure out what is causing him to be unhappy with himself, rather then inflicting costly moves on his family to different states chasing what he thinks will make him happy. He won’t find what he is looking for in Nevada, he certainly hasn’t found it in California or Texas
I think the main complaint Texans have (and others in the West) is that Californians move to get away from the political climate they helped to create, then vote to make (pick your state) the same way.
As I suspect Mike K will bear me out, 50 years ago that was the complaint we native Californians had about all the liberals who began infesting the state after fleeing liberal hellholes the Northeast (MA, CT, NY, NJ) and upper Midwest (MN and IL in particular).
At that time California was far more conservative than Texas is now. Reagan was governor, Orange County was the home of the John Birch Society, and the state had only had (IIRC) two Democrat governors since statehood (in 1850). (And one of them, Pat Brown, albeit a Democrat, was more conservative in his policies than 90% of the GOP today.)
California had the premier public university system in the world – going away – and first-class infrastructure. (Hat tip to Pat Brown, btw.) It had been called the Science State because of the critical role of the universities (UC, Stanford, Caltech), and the aerospace industry in the state’s economy, in additin to the petroleum and agriculture industries. Crime was low, gangs, drugs, and vagrants were essentially unknown, and miscreants were dealt with firmly (as Caryl Chessman could testify).
California was happy and prosperous, and of course had the spectacular geography and the perfect weather (along the coast). In short, it was Paradise.
Unfortunately, Eastern liberals took that as a challenge. One that they more than met.
Now, however, their work here done, they look to move on to other happy, prosperous states. A liberal’s work is never done …
Sorry, the above comment was mine.
Being exposed to a new set of pathogens means new allergies.
When in fact Texas is being exposed to a new set of pathogens that mean new (idiotic) policies. Austin is already heavily infected.
When my daughter started at U of Arizona, the first week I got her car reregistered with AZ plates. The cops around here used to zero in on CA plates and would ticket a license plate light that was out. Now, I think they have given up, which is too bad. That was ten years ago.
It’s probably too late for Austin but I remember that jerk of a DA named Ronnie something who went after Republicans.
When I moved to Los Angeles in 1956 to go to college, it was paradise. What a shame.
Gringo:
Anyone who lives in Austin and says he needs to drive 40 minutes to find a good restaurant is a bloomin’ idjit.
GWB in reply:
Well, he didn’t say he was looking for a “good restaurant”. He said he was looking for a Tamil restaurant. Those might be further between around Austin than “the Bay.”
Actually, there are a fair number of Indian -and South Indian- restaurants in Austin. DDGo: austin southern indian restaurant. Also:
DDGo:best indian food in austin.
One point about his complaining about driving 40 minutes to get to a restaurant is that he lived in Bee Caves, which is a 30 minute drive to downtown Austin. There are good restaurants of whatever ethnicity all over Austin, but if you locate yourself out in the affluent boonies of Bee Caves, you are going to have to drive a fair amount of time to get practically any of them.
Considering the thumb-in-your-nose attitude you have about your former place of residence, the “Don’t move to Austin” T-shirt seems quite justified.
His complaints about Austin drivers? In what little experience I had in driving on a freeway in LA, I concluded that California drivers were the most courteous I had ever seen. He is probably right that Austin drivers are worse than California drivers. But to state that Austin has the worst drivers he’s experienced merely indicates how provincial he is, in spite of his claim he has driven “all over the country.” The Boston area inside Route 128 has, hands-down, the worst drivers I have experienced. Much worse than anywhere in Texas. Te lo juro.
Search engine results: About 100 charter schools in Austin. AISD has lost 16,000 students (~16%) to charter schools. If he wanted a charter school, perhaps he shouldn’t have chosen an affluent suburb – population all of 4,000- out in the boonies.
What anonymous said about California in years past was spot on. Remember when Los Angeles mayors were Republican. When California public schools were the envy of the nation.
I have a good friend, a native San Diegan. When I lived in San Diego for a couple of years I thought it was pretty much paradise in the early 80s. Near perfect weather year-round. The Navy used to put a ship at the Broadway pier every weekend and invite the public to tour it.
The smell of eucalyptus trees.
I had to move and relocate to Wichita and it was a very unhappy moment
I bowed that if I could I would return to live there
Well the last time I was there stuck in traffic for an hour trying to go 3 miles to Ocean Beach I had an epiphany
I suddenly realized I don’t want to come back here anymore
The whole city is becoming gentrified. Terrible traffic. Are used to love to stay at a small family run motel right across the street from point Loma Harbor. That was torn down and some expensive hotel built.
As to my friend whose famous saying was “if we want snow we just drive to it“., He just moved to Reno Nevada.
AVI
Well, he confirms my accusation of more than three decades that when people complain about diversity (they used to say multicultural) they mean restaurants, and ethnics in interesting clothes.
For about the same amount of time, I have said that the best foreign policy advice Democrats can give us is to tell us what ethnic restaurant to eat at. (Joe Biden- foreign policy expert? John Kerry- dead wrong on the Sandinistas, dead wrong on Gulf War I, dead wrong on moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem…..)
I live right down the road from SA. Where can I get a gun thatcshoots fire ants, scorpions, and ticks?
The thread at Althouse about this topic suggests that “Bretts” are now well on their way to being the male version of Karens. That seems just.
Dude should’ve went down to Mcallen, TX. Talk about hot. I’m from the upstate of SC and we commonly have heat indexes of 105 degree days in the middle of summer. When I was in McAllen, TX, the heat at midnight was stifling, can barely breath hot. Maybe it was the slight humidity from the Rio Grande River, I don’t know, but it was the worst week I’ve ever suffered in my travels for work.
What anonymous said about California in years past was spot on. Remember when Los Angeles mayors were Republican. When California public schools were the envy of the nation.
That was me.
I have a good friend, a native San Diegan. When I lived in San Diego for a couple of years I thought it was pretty much paradise in the early 80s. Near perfect weather year-round. The Navy used to put a ship at the Broadway pier every weekend and invite the public to tour it.
…
Well the last time I was there stuck in traffic for an hour trying to go 3 miles to Ocean Beach I had an epiphany
San Diego has done a swan dive into a sewage treatment plant. Democrats have taken over many of the city and county offices. The current mayor is a leftist shirtlifter of indeterminate origin.
We live north of the city, and while it’s still OK, it’s definitely on the turn. I’d hoped to live out my days here, but they’re making it more difficult by the day.
The thing that torments me about moving to, say, Texas? I’d hate to lose the beautiful weather, the spectacular geography, and my friends here to move to someplace with lousy weather and boring geography that may itself become equally liberal-infested shortly. We previously considered Arizona, but it’s lurching leftward, and I’m alarmed by the state of affairs in Texas. Austin is just how it begins. In California, the rot began in Berkeley, spread to SF (“Summer of Love,” and all that), thence to LA and now SD, which together outvote the sane remainder of the state.
When I lived in San Diego for a couple of years I thought it was pretty much paradise in the early 80s. Near perfect weather year-round. The Navy used to put a ship at the Broadway pier every weekend and invite the public to tour it.
Bill, in the 70s I lived in south Orange County and used to fly out of SD airport because there was no traffic. It was much faster to get to than LAX although they were the same distance.
Ha !
Gringo Says:
Considering the thumb-in-your-nose attitude you have about your former place of residence, the “Don’t move to Austin” T-shirt seems quite justified.
Yeah, he seems (like many) to lack self-awareness on any scale.
And, ok, I see your point about the restaurants.
Te lo juro.
Hampton Roads area. Absolute worst.
home schooling
While Texas is not as good about homeschooling as I would like it to be, it’s better than California. And, as a note to the complainer, you don’t need anything near you to homeschool. Sheesh. *smh*
I am reminded of a visit my cousin, a member of the NYC artist community, made to Texas. An art museum invited her to Fort Worth for a talk. She decided that Fort Worth wasn’t a good place to live because there wasn’t a Whole Foods Market in Fort Worth. (That was some years ago. Apparently there is currently a Whole Foods Market in Fort Worth.)
Skipping all of the above comments, I found myself thinking: ah, if only Alaska had TX and FL tax laws* I’d move in a NY minute.
Snow! Forest air! a place my knitting skills would be appreciated.
*My 2nd thought: …and public transportation
Tatyana,
You’d find Alaska a very expensive place to live before taxes. Ground shipping takes three weeks if you happen to live where it’s available more than a few months a year or places where you’re limited to air and a couple of barges a year or just air. Not a lot produced locally. Eating local might be a lot of seal and wild berries and salmon in a very short season. Not the cities but civilization ends pretty close to the city limits.
If you want forest air, there’s still plenty in the lower 48 with amenities a short drive rather than a flight away.
MCS: you’ve just ruined another dream.
OK, what about NH? Climate sounds ideal, less socialists/per population than average, no state taxes…What about work? And public transportation?
}}} Jay: Apparently liberals are too stupid
You could have stopped it right there.
Jus’ Sayin’…
:-P