The white-haired man and the young boy sat side by side warming themselves in front of the fireplace. The man turned to the boy. “Robert, did I ever tell you about the time I rustled cattle?”

The boy’s eyes grew wide. “Grandpa, You were a rustler? I thought rustling cattle was a bad thing.”

“Yep, usually is. But in this case it was a good thing and at the behest of General Robert E. Lee during the Civil War.”

“Robert E. Lee, he’s the general I was named for . . .”

“Right and a fine man he was.”

“What’s behest?”

The next time you’re tempted to complain about traffic, stop and think about traveling to Texas in the early to mid-1800s when the rush was on! Compared to today, travel was certainly slower and more difficult at best. Train travel wasn’t available yet on the routes to Texas. So, unless you were a single person coming on horseback, you needed a covered wagon.

Let’s talk about Fletchers’ corn dogs, fried butter, roller coasters, Big Tex, football and prize hogs. Have I conjured up the Texas State Fair for you?

Join me for a whirlwind trip through the 135 years of the Texas State Fair’s history—hitting just some of the high points. Then, I’d like to transport you back to the very first fair held in Dallas and the tiny log cabin village that started it all way back in 1859 — 27 years before the Fair’s official beginning.

Shhh. . .listen . . .can you hear it? The singing? It’s faint, but if you really concentrate you can hear it. It’s getting louder now. I think . . .Yes, I think I can make out the tune. dada da dada. . . Texas our Texas…It’s the state song!

Beginning as early as the 1830s, settlers coming into Texas from Illinois, Missouri, and the southern states most likely traveled along what was known as “The Trail of Tears.” The Trail of Tears was made up of over 5000 miles of land and water trails taken by native American tribes during the US government’s “Indian Removal” project. This massive undertaking starting with The Removal Act of 1830, forced the relocation of the Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole (among others) to a newly-declared Indian Territory just west of the Arkansas border in what is now Oklahoma. During this removal process, it is estimated that as many as 100,000 native Americans were relocated and that some 15,000 died along the trail, thus the name—“The Trail of Tears” or as the Cherokee called it, “the trail where they died.”

Have some fashion fun as Laurie describes step-by-step all the garments and paraphernalia a well-dressed city woman wore in the 1850s when stepping out for social calls and other daytime activities. For those in small Texas towns and the country, dress was a bit simpler.

BJ Mayo lives in West Texas on a working farm. He talks with Laurie about his new book, Alfie Carter. A story of contrasts, the novel’s two main characters live on two different continents. One is a young girl who has been caught up in the horrific tribal wars in Angola, Africa, but has maintained her sweet spirit. The other is a man whose grief has made him angry and mean. Mayo’s story brings them together and the result is both surprising and inspiring. This interview is the first in an occasional chat with a Texan who is making Texas history today.

One morning this week I sat with my coffee looking out a window into our backyard as two squirrels raced around and around and around the trunk of a big cedar elm tree. It reminded me of the time I ate squirrel stew. I can almost hear you. “Squirrel stew? Yuck!”

Here’s how my culinary adventure came about. As a child I spent lazy Sunday afternoons and some summer days visiting my grandparents in a small Texas town. They had a Sears and Roebuck arts and crafts bungalow, the makings of which had been delivered by train in the very early 1920s. The house came as a kit with a set of plans and several tons of precut boards—That century’s version of “Do it Yourself,” I suppose. My favorite place was the big front porch where I could usually be found in the wooden porch swing with a book in my hand.

Texans can claim an impressive list of things to brag about—what we call braggin’ rights. Things like the biggest, the first, the only, etc. . . Let’s take a look at six things for which Texans rightly brag.

• Brag #1

Texas is the first (and only) state to be an independent nation before becoming a state. From 1836 until 1846, when the actual transfer of governance took place, Texas was a Republic with Sam Houston as its president. Texas is also the only state to enter the United States by treaty instead of by territorial annexation. As part of the annexation agreement, Texas negotiated the right to fly its flag at the same height as the US Stars and Stripes. In addition, the 1845 joint congressional resolution admitting Texas to the US allows for the state to break itself up into a total of five states should it choose to do so. The actual language in the document says, “New states of convenient size—not exceeding four in number, in addition to said state of Texas—and having sufficient population, may hereafter by the consent of said state, be formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be entitled to admission under the provisions of the Federal Constitution.” In plain language this provision makes Texas the only state that can divide itself into a total of five new states without anyone’s permission and the US would have to accept the states as part of the US.

Listen my children and you shall hear of the late night ride of Sophia Suttenfield Auginbaugh Coffee Butt Porter—The woman known as Texas’ female Paul Revere!

Her story is a fascinating one, full of truths and lies. The only problem is—we don’t know which are which.

As Sophia told it, her father, Colonel William Suttenfield, fought in the War of 1812 and met her mother, after the war, while sailing on the Great Lakes. The two married and settled in Ft. Wayne. Indiana. Sophia says she eloped in 1833—when she was 17—with the headmaster of her school, Jesse Aughinbaugh. Three years later she claimed he abandoned her in Texas.

Historian Graham Landrum says, “Not so.” His version is that Sophia’s father was a laborer in Ft. Wayne and Sophia’s first husband was Myron Berbour a druggist and teacher in Ft. Wayne.