'Big Tex' Is Back

Regular readers of the blog will know that last year, the original 'Big Tex' was burnt to the ground in a tragic accident at the Texas State Fair ground, and that although the owners pledged to replace the giant mannequin
who had overlooked the state fairgrounds for decades, many of us feared that little bit of pure Americana had gone for ever.

Big Tex Is Back

Well I am happy to be able to report that his replacement is up and standing ... a tribute if nothing else, to Texican 'Sure Can Do' .... and I for one am happy. We are far to quick to abandon little bits of our culture and joint history, especially at a time when so much of our heritage is attacked by those who should know better.

New Big Tex

Old Big Tex

So here's to 'Big Tex' ......

... Icon of another more confident America .....

Big Tex Is A Gonna

Big Tex was a an icon of the Texan west (the part that's still not part of greater Mexico (texicana) .... at 52ft (16m) tall, this cowboy had stood overlooking the State fair grounds for 60 yrs, like a Midwestern 'Statue Of Liberty' .... "bring me your hot dogs, bring me your poor bored children, bring me your carnie folk!"

Big Tex at Texas State Fair

Sadly, like the white middle America of the 1940's and 1950's that he represented, he is no more, burnt down in an unexplained fire whose cause has not been determined. There are plans to rebuild him "bigger and better for the 21st Century" but one can't help feeling that it will be neither.

The days of a confident white America are seemingly gone ... enclaves and 'white flight' into gated ghettos (fleeing from their 'fellow Americans' who are seemingly not interested in the Protestant work ethic), are the long term future.

In the meantime, as it looks around it at the world, the country faces a less confident future than those oil cowboys of the 1950's. Its the end of an era the like of which we may never see again.