Texas Standard » Stories From Texas

On Google Maps you can get navigator voices in English with either an American, British, Indian, or Canadian accent. Commentator W.F. Strong thinks they should offer a Texas navigator accent – one that also offers Texas expressions and colloquialisms. The post Texas Navigator App appeared first on KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts.

This is the time of year that Peregrine falcons make their incredible journey from Greenland to Argentina and Chile, a distance of over eight thousand miles. One of the most popular migration stopovers for Peregrines is Padre Island. There, they rest and eat for a few days. Texas Standard commentator WF Strong says it’s like […] The post Peregrine Falcons appeared first on KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts.

American history sometimes snuggles up close with what might be better termed American mythology. Take that story about a young George Washington chopping down a cherry tree. But other bits of history based quite a bit more in fact are less well known — though just as extraordinary. Texas Standard commentator WF Strong offers up […] The post The Young Lieutenant Who Crossed the Wild Horse Desert appeared first on KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts.

Yes, everything may be bigger in Texas. And Texans are used to being pegged as exaggerators — the tellers of tall tales like Pecos Bill who roped tornadoes and shot stars from the sky. But Texas Standard commentator W.F. Strong says a characteristic of Texas conversation that doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves is […] The post Texas And The Art Of Understatement appeared first on KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts.

I showed a friend of mine a picture of me sitting at the edge of a thin ridge jutting out, about 300 feet above the Pecos River. He said, “I can’t look at that, it gives me the willies.” Oh, yes, the willies, goosebumps and shiverings triggered by our phobias.  As an amateur linguist, I’m […] The post Words That Migrated appeared first on KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts.

The Olympics — as we were all just reminded — are a fantastic display of athleticism of all sorts. For many of us, watching the games is a reminder of just how we could never do that thing that we’re watching other people do. But watching got commentator W-F Strong thinking there’s quite a lot […] The post The Texas Olympics appeared first on KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts.

One way I know a book is special is if I keep thinking about it years after I first read it. Miles and Miles of Texas, 100 years of the Texas Highway Department, by Carol Dawson and Roger Allen Polson, is such a book. I first read it several years ago, and even recommended it […] The post Miles And Miles Of Texas appeared first on KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts.

One hundred years ago, Col. Sam Robertson stood on the same Boca Chica Beach in South Texas that Elon Musk owns today and dreamed a different dream. Instead of Musk’s spaceport, Robertson dreamed of seaports and an oceanside highway.   Robertson owned 800 acres at Boca Chica, about 20 miles northeast of Brownsville and it was […] The post Long Before Elon Musk, A Different Man Had A Plan To Develop Boca Chica appeared first on KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts.

Tex is an incredibly popular nickname. It is so fitting for some… that it pushes their given first name entirely out of use. I thought it would be interesting to look at a few famous folks known mostly as just Tex. Tex Ritter is probably the most famous person named Tex. I doubt more than […] The post There’s Something About A Person Named Tex appeared first on KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts.

It’s June. Watermelon season. All my life, June has meant watermelon season and I don’t mean it’s just the time of year to eat them. As a kid, it also meant a time to work, and work hard, from can’t-see-in-the-morning to can’t-see-at-night, for no more than a little over a dollar an hour to get […] The post Watermelon Season appeared first on KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts.

Carl Hilmar Guenther left Germany for America when he was 22. The year was 1846. He left without telling his parents he was going for fear they’d try to stop him. Young Guenther sailed for America because he thought his future was limited in Germany. He wrote that he “felt hemmed in,” that there was little […] The post The Story of C.H. Guenther appeared first on KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts.

My friend of many years, Tony Zavaleta, told me the following story: He said, “There was once a married couple who lived in Rio Grande City back in the late 1800s. They had tried for some time to have a baby, but had had no luck. They went to see doctors and followed their advice, […] The post Don Pedrito: Healer of Los Olmos appeared first on KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts.

Of the thousands of mourners who posted their goodbyes and gratitudes to Texas writer Larry McMurtry across last month, there was one stand-out theme. It was to thank McMurtry for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Lonesome Dove.” Most considered it his premiere gift to them personally, a gift that had immeasurably enriched their lives, as culturally […] The post Larry McMurtry and the Lonesome Dove Quadrilogy appeared first on KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts.

By W. F. Strong Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of neighborhood cultures in Texas: high security and low security. My wife is high security and I’m low security, by tradition. She was raised in Mexico, in a compound surrounded by the classic 12 foot walls with shards of glass embedded on top. I was […] The post High Security and Low Security Texas appeared first on KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts.

By W. F. Strong Could there be a better name for the world’s faster runner than Usain Bolt?  It’s a dead solid perfect aptronym, which is the formal word for a name that appropriately fits one’s occupation, sometimes humorously. A neurological scholar in England was knighted and became, I kid you not, Lord Brain. The […] The post What’s In A Name? For These Famous Texans, Everything. appeared first on KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts.

As Valentine’s Day is approaching, I thought I’d share a romantic story about one of Texas’s greatest artists, Tom Lea.  This is a love story, expressed in one painting, titled “Sarah in the Summertime.”  I’ll tell you the story of that painting and how it came to be. Tom Lea was a true renaissance artist in […] The post Artist Tom Lea’s ‘Sarah In The Summertime’ appeared first on KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts.

For me, Lyndon Johnson did more for Texas in his lifetime than any other politician, except for Sam Houston. And Houston’s greatest gift was given to Texas in the form of a resounding victory at San Jacinto, before he began his political years as president. Two of Johnson’s most enduring gifts to Texas are NASA, […] The post Lyndon Johnson’s Gifts To Texas appeared first on KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts.

I go for walks in the country often this time of year here in the Rio Grande Valley. This is our Goldilocks season. Not too hot. Not too cold. Just right. We have a perfectly warming sun in the crisp, cool air of winter mornings. I like to walk along a dirt road that has […] The post In Praise Of Vultures appeared first on KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts.

If you had walked into the Neiman-Marcus store during the Christmas season in Dallas in 1939, you would have found a beautiful little book for sale titled A Letter from Texas.  The 20-page book, by the Texas poet, Townsend Miller, was commissioned by Stanley Marcus himself. He had the gifted printer Carl Hertzog publish an […] The post A Letter from Texas appeared first on KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts.

Bridges are measured in three ways, for those who like to keep world records and such: longest, tallest and highest.  In Texas, the Fred Hartman Bridge is both the longest bridge at 2.6 miles, and the tallest, at 440 feet. But it is not the highest. That honor goes to the aptly named Pecos High […] The post The Texas Connection To Colorado’s Royal Gorge Bridge appeared first on KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts.