A little ironic that a guy from Michigan purports to tell us which novelists capture the essence of West Texas, but Mr. Hynes does a pretty fair, if superficial, job.

But he could have done us native Texans a real favor by not playing up the stereotypes about Texans quite so much. I was born in the Great State of Texas, but I have been known to wear Birkenstocks (when I take off my boots), listen to NPR as well as carry a gun, and I proudly wear my "Ray Wylie Hubbard Screw You We're From Texas Tour" t-shirt, even though I'm not homeless.

There is a definite, although difficult-to-quantify Texas character, but we have all kinds here, even Yankees, and you might as well accept that.

Besides the Alamo, you should remember that the Texas motto is "Friendship," y'all.

Thanks to James Hynes for bringing up the subject of West Texas. I was born and raised mostly in southeastern New Mexico, a suburb of West Texas. But, I did some growing up in West Texas and there's some things a Wolverine oughta know about the place . . .

First and foremost, George Bush (neither one) is from West Texas. They only lived there awhile. W vacations there. My parents, grandparents, and great grandparents all lived there and died there . . . and vacationed there. Thanks to W, there's lots of West Texas boys who won't get the chance to do any of these. For pretty much all my life I was a staunch Republican like most West Texans, but I'm with the Dixie Chicks on this one.

Second, the influence of West Texas on music and musicals is considerable. The former: Buddy Holly and Waylon Jennings, Roy Orbison, Joe Ely, Bob Wills, the Gatlins, Butch Hancock, Dale Evans, Jimmie Dean (and sausage, too!); the latter: Mary Martin, Cyd Charrise, Tommy Tune, Betty Buckley.

(And I bet you didn't know that Star Trek came from West Texas, El Paso to be exact, where Gene Roddenberry came to earth.)

Third, there is most certainly serious scenery in Texas . . . Big Bend wilderness tucked in between Mexico and New Mexico . . . El Capitan Peak at the pass (El Paso) . . . the Marfa lights . . . the Pecos River gorge and high bridge just outside of lovely Langtry . . . Amistad, the only dam (but certainly not the only damn) between Texas and Mexico . . . US Vice President John Nance ("Cactus Jack") Garner's residence in Uvalde from which he told LBJ that the vice presidency was "not worth a warm pitcher of spit" . . . the set for the original Alamo movie in Bracketville . . . the praire dog town in the center of Andrews (home of Buddy's Drive In and the world's best steak fingers with white cream gravy) . . . the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame in Hereford . . . Moochakooago Peak near Gail where the West Texas wind blew all of the plains away except for this 2,000+ foot fence post hole . . . Cadillac Ranch between exits 60 and 62 on I-40 near Amarillo . . . the wall of fame inside the Big Texan Steakhouse in Amarillo where, if you can eat the whole 4 pound steak, baked potato, and salad, you get it for free . . . Palo Duro Canyon in the panhandle . . . there's even anti-scenery: more miles of highway stretching out in front of you with nothing anywhere to see than any other place in America.

Fourth, West Texas isn'e really everything in West Texas. The western region of Texas contains three overlapping regions. There's the Panhandle which is everything north of Post which is at the south edge of the cap rock. Then there's West Texas which is everything south of Lubbock to north of San Angelo. Third, there's that wonderful border with Mexico from Laredo all the way up to El Paso that W is trying to make into a fence (I wonder if all those pieces of the Berlin Wall are still available?). This region of West Texas has contributed a cuisine, a dialect, an attitude, and a culture found nowhere else in Texas, much less America. It's Tex-Mex.

Thank God for West Texas . . . and that we're not in Ann Arbor.

I've lived my entire life in Texas, thirty years of it in Lubbock (five in Big Spring and four in Greenville, in case anyone cares). I have two issues with the article:

I have never heard the term "spang dab." I have often heard Texans say, "smack dab." Are you sure you're not just confused by the accent?

The Bushes ARE NOT Texans. None of them have even lived in this state for significant periods. And as far as I'm concerned, they embarrass themselves every damn time they come down here.

Lots of folks DO own guns, but they don't usually shoot each other in the face. That activity seems to be reserved for other Yankee imports...

Frankly, I find Garth Ennis' "Preacher" series has a super feel for this state (except for too few appearances of "y'all" and "fixin' to" in the dialogue. Oh, and making the Panhandle look too much like Big Bend, but everybody does that). And Ennis ain't even from the U.S.

Of course, as a lefty lib, I think most Republicans embarrass themselves anyway. But that's another letter.