My Hometown  

A Strange Little Town in Texas

by Larry J. Sechrest

Welcome to Alpine, where cowboys are poets, burglars don't have a chance, and football is rivaled only by beer, sex and church. And, by the way, if you move there, drop your auto club membership.

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Texas has millions of gun owners, thousands of fundamentalist churches, hundreds of wacko socialists, and one goofy president who is far more dangerous than he looks. It has forests, lakes, beaches, mountains, and regions in which the flat, arid land seems to go on forever. It has 257 counties, including Calhoun, Crockett, Deaf Smith, Jeff Davis, Liberty, and Loving County, home to 91 souls. It has big cities like Houston and Dallas, and small cities like Best, Big Lake, Dime Box, Old Dime Box, Paris, Palestine, and Iraan. Best is one of the worst little "a traffic light and a post office" blips on the highway you'll ever see. Old Dime Box is newer than Dime Box; Big Lake has a stock pond with pretensions of grandeur; no one who lives in Paris, Texas speaks French; and there are no Muslims in either Palestine or Iraan. Iraan is not far from where I live, and you'll be tempted to pronounce its name just like that of a well-known and volatile nation in the Middle East. Resist the temptation. Ever since the days of the Ayatollah Khomeini, the good people of Iraan have insisted that the proper pronunciation is "Ira-Ann." It's the West Texas version of political correctness.

Many Texans think the state should secede from the Union and return to its glory days as an independent republic. A few years ago there was an armed standoff between independent’stas and the state. They were put on trial in the Brewster County Courthouse about a mile from where I live. Some of my West Texas neighbors have doubts about their fellow citizens who live in other parts of the same state. Their thinking seems to be that, since the Blessed live in West Texas, then those other Texans must be foolish at best. As for people who live in states like New York or California, they cannot be merely effete and dissipated; they must be guilty of some abomination. Why else would God condemn them to such unholy regions? When it comes to South Texas, I tend to share the skepticism of native West Texans (I was born in Michigan, but I've lived in Texas for more than 40 years). The extreme southern area of the state is more nearly part of Mexico than part of Texas. I say let Mexico have it back.

Most of the sovereign nation known as West Texas looks like a scene from a John Wayne movie, which should not be surprising. Over the years many movies have been filmed in this area. Tucked away in the far southern portion lies Brewster County, the largest county in Texas, encompassing 6,200 square miles, an area larger than that of the entire state of Connecticut. And yet there are only 8,900 people in the county, with two-thirds of them in one town: Alpine. It is there that I have lived since 1990.

Obviously, overcrowding is not a problem. Economic stagnation, ignorance, and drug abuse may be problems, but no one here complains about a lack of space. Moreover, the town is not misnamed. It sits some 4,500 feet above sea level in a bowl with mountains rising above. Alpine does not look like the stereotypical Texas town. Big Bend National Park borders the Rio Grande 100 miles south of Alpine and attracts tourists from all over. The proximity and popularity of the park have led to the whole area being referred to by local residents as "the Big Bend."

Originally, I was attracted to Alpine for "survivalist" reasons. In the 1970s and into the '80s my wife Donna and I were interested in a lot of the topics one could find in, say, The Whole Earth Catalog, Mother Earth News, books by Bradford Angier, or the writings of pistol expert Jeff Cooper. In our pantry we had foods with a shelf life of 10Ð20 years. Donna learned about wild plants that were edible. I reloaded my own ammunition and customized my own guns. We discussed designs for a rammed-earth house. We lived in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. It wasn't intolerable, but we hoped to find a better place and Alpine looked very promising. Donna's father was a petroleum geologist who was familiar with the town and had spoken of retiring there.

In 1981 I read "Survival Havens in America: Small Cities, Towns & Rural Communities," a book that seemed to support her father's positive evaluation. It described Alpine in glowing terms: devoid of nuclear target sites, a mild climate both summer and winter, abundant water supplies, rarely experiencing tornadoes and never hurricanes, air so clean that it offered relief for people with respiratory problems, a very low crime rate, a radio station that played classical music as well as the obligatory country-western, two libraries, a university whose students eschewed radical or disruptive behavior, postcard-like vistas to please the eye, a strong economy based on ranching, the university, and tourism, and people who "are among the friendliest in Texas, which is saying something." The only drawback mentioned was that housing was rather scarce and thus more expensive than is usual in rural areas. I was on the verge of completing my Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Arlington. I sent a letter to Sul Ross expressing my interest in a faculty position. They made me an offer, I accepted, and we moved.

In the 13 years since, I have learned a lot more about this town and its people. The good news is that much of what Alpine was praised for is in fact true. The bad news is that there are problems here that no one was willing to warn me about. Or perhaps they were unable to warn me because they could not identify them as problems. Which is one of the problems. You'll see what I mean.

First of all, let me verify what is true and good about Alpine. The climate is quite pleasant. The nights are almost always cool in Alpine, and the afternoons tend to be warm. In summer the daily low temperature is about 60¡ and the high 90¡Ð95¡. In winter the range is usually from about 25¡ to a high of perhaps 60¡. During either season, if the sky is heavily overcast the high will be at least 10¡ lower. It is not unusual to see people wearing jackets in the morning and shorts in the afternoon. But abundant sunshine is the norm year round. There are very few days in which an avid golfer would not find appropriate weather for at least nine holes. And this is far from impossible: there are two decent, though not spectacular, golf courses, one in Alpine and one 26 miles away in the even smaller town of Marfa.

Natural disasters are rare. Hurricanes can't reach this far inland, and although tornadoes do periodically form over the outlying ranchlands, none has been seen in town in the 13 years I've been here. There are hailstorms a couple of times each year, but they do little damage. In recent years, the only damage of note was from an earthquake of magnitude 5.7 that hit the town in April 1995, and even that was relatively minor. For instance, in my house the only impact the earthquake had was to dislodge one of the ceiling fans from its mounting. That seems to have been the only recorded earthquake in more than 100 years of town history.

Alpine also prides itself on having one of the lowest crime rates in the southwestern United States. For example, there have been only three murders in the last 13 years. And in each of those cases, the crime was a manifestation of a personal vendetta of some kind. Strangers don't kill strangers in Alpine, if that's comforting. By the way, Alpine's murder rate in recent years is almost identical to that of Iceland during its medieval anarchistic period, a fact I enjoy citing for the benefit of my painfully convention-bound students.

Most of the time, the police here have little real work to do other than breaking up bar fights and intervening in domestic quarrels. There is the occasional act of vandalism, but burglaries and robberies occur so seldom that many townspeople literally don't bother to lock their vehicles or their homes. The local law enforcement personnel — city police and county sheriff — are so laid back that they seldom stop adult drivers for minor traffic violations. For example, I never use my seat belt, but I've never been ticketed. I just wave at them, and they wave back. I was stopped for speeding once, but let off with a warning. Maybe it helps that both the chief of police and his deputy are former students of mine and that the last two sheriffs used to work here at the university. Of course, they do ride hard on the teenagers, as I guess police do everywhere.

I must not overlook the primary source of entertainment for the area's law enforcement personnel: drug busts. There are DEA and Border Patrol offices right in town, and their assigned people seem "blessed" with an endless stream of Mexican drug smugglers along the highways. This credits the arresting officers with lots of "interdictions," exposes them to relatively little risk of bodily harm, and never fails to get their photos in the local newspaper. Of course, it also raises the prices of the drugs, thus inducing ever more individuals to try their hand at making a quick profit. On the other hand, the far more dangerous and invasive procedure of ferreting out illicit drugs by breaking into homes in the middle of the night is rarely undertaken in these parts.

Most of the residents are gun owners. To burglarize a home here is mighty close to committing suicide. On the two or three occasions when an inmate has escaped from the local jail, one almost — almost — has felt sorry for the poor devil. An escapee faces a trek of at least 26 miles to get to the next town, there is nothing but open grazing land otherwise, the police put roadblocks on the highways and helicopters in the air, and hiding in this town must be akin to being a rabbit that is tossed into a pen full of bad-tempered dogs.

The first time I drove down Highway 67 into the town, I was taken aback by the number of oncoming drivers who waved at me. I was sure that none of them knew me, and I certainly did not recognize any of them, so I was baffled. Soon afterward I asked the dean who interviewed me about the waving. She told me it was a common practice which had surprised her at first too. Truck drivers and bus drivers who traverse the area seem particularly fond of the custom. I am sure there is some good sociological explanation for it, but whatever the cause, you will find that those driving pickup trucks are more likely to wave than those driving passenger cars. A further, and very valuable, manifestation of the benevolence to be found here appears whenever someone has car trouble on the highways leading to and from town. If you pull onto the shoulder, stop the car, and raise the hood, I guarantee you that within ten minutes at least one other driver will stop and ask if you need help. I have seen as many as three vehicles stop to assist one motorist. And, no, it's not just young, pretty women who garner such attention. Furthermore, if those who offer assistance are unable to solve whatever mechanical problem your car has, they will willingly drive you almost any distance to find someone who can. And they will refuse monetary compensation for their efforts.

There still is a bit of the Old West out here, both the spirit and the trappings thereof. Self-reliance is highly prized and more or less expected, but everyone gets in a jam on occasion, so the people are usually quick to help. That may seem paradoxical, but it is typical of frontiers of all kinds. In March of 1993 a large brushfire started some miles to the east of town, the result, I recall, of sparks from a passing train. Hundreds of people immediately volunteered to help fight the blaze, which burned for a number of days and blackened thousands of acres. Women at the site provided food and drink, while men worked in shifts combating the fire. (Get some antacid for the radical feminists!)

Furthermore, if you want to see what real cowboys look like, come here for a visit. I'm not talking about John Travolta prancing around in Western-style boots and hat. I'm talking about working cowboys, men who ride horses and move cattle on a daily basis. Of course, these days they all also drive pickup trucks — big pickup trucks with engines that sound like fishing boats. And behind nearly every pickup is a horse trailer. Even on the university's parking lot, at least half of all the vehicles are pickup trucks. It is not too uncommon to see people on horseback within the city limits. The town is surrounded by large ranches, and a good saddle is a highly prized possession. As befits a university town in ranching country, each year Alpine hosts the Cowboy Poetry Gathering. Cowboys come from all over the nation, in authentic garb, with chuck wagons, mules and all, to read their poetry, tell stories, play western music, and cook trail food for several days. The outfits are fun to see, the food is good, the stories can be entertaining, but the poetry is mostly stuff about being close to God while making a meager but honest living. Around here that passes for high culture.

Alpine seems to be in little danger of nuclear attack. The closest military targets of any consequence are in El Paso and San Antonio, cities 240 miles to the west and 400 miles to the east, respectively. Furthermore, the prevailing southwesterly winds would be likely to drive nuclear fallout away from Alpine. Such considerations may be less critical than they were 20 years ago, but people like me still think this a definite plus for the town. Come what may — war, revolution, bio-terrorism — Alpine is so far off the beaten path that it is likely to be a pretty safe place to be.

And there's clean air, great scenery, proximity to Big Bend National Park, the presence of some educated and accomplished senior citizens, and the general peacefulness of both the university and the town. There is a slowly growing problem of minor air pollution stemming from manufacturing facilities across the border in northern Mexico, but the air is still so clear and clean that astronomy buffs relish the crystalline night skies and the University of Texas' McDonald Observatory operates 40 miles north of Alpine. Hunters and photographers find antelope, whitetail deer, mule deer, javelinas, and and an occasional mountain lion or black bear. Big Bend National Park lies a couple hours away, with great camping, backpacking, and river rafting. The scenery in the park is renowned nationally, but the sights around Alpine, Fort Davis, Marfa, and other area towns are also memorable.

Not surprisingly, Alpine has attracted a significant number of retired persons from all over the nation. These residents tend to be well-educated with above-average incomes. I personally know of a chemist, a mathematician, an astronomer, a theologian, an engineer, and career military and naval personnel who have settled here. For a while popular writer Robert James Waller ("Bridges of Madison County") lived here.

About twilight every evening the streets are nearly deserted — almost everyone is home for dinner — and a gentle breeze will be building after the warmth of the afternoon. After dinner, folks sit on their porches and water their lawns. An occasional jogger goes by, huffing and puffing. It's like you're living in a Frank Capra movie. For those who are more familiar with TV than movies or art, Alpine is a distillation of two old shows, "The Andy Griffith Show" and "Northern Exposure," but without the Southern drawls and meddlesome neighbors of the former or the omnipresent snow of the latter.

And that tranquility will not be disturbed by activist students from Sul Ross engaging in noisy demonstrations. You will see no student protests in opposition to the "War on Terrorism," the WTO, "corporate greed," the laboratory use of animals — or any other issue for that matter. About the only boisterous public events are those commemorating the Fourth of July and Cinco de Mayo. Two decades ago, "Survival Havens" noted that the students were more interested in rodeo events than political activism. That is still the case. This brings me to the biggest single problem on the Sul Ross campus and in the area generally. It is the dark, ugly secret virtually no one will talk about except me. And doing so has made me something of a pariah. A handful of people in town will, privately, acknowledge that it exists, but rarely will anyone speak out in any public forum.

The secret problem is that the students at Sul Ross, and more generally the long-term residents of the entire area, are appallingly ignorant, irrational, anti-intellectual, and, well . . . just plain stupid. The reason these kids are not politically active is that the concepts involved in such controversies are too complex for them to grasp. They understand the artificial insemination of a goat, but they do not understand why the Ninth Amendment is part of the Constitution. Those who move here after reaching retirement age, as well as some of my fellow Sul Ross faculty members, are usually exceptions to this generalization. On the other hand, 80% or so of the college's students come from high schools within 100 miles of Alpine, and 95% from high schools within 200 miles.

Such distances may sound substantial to readers from other states, but the square mileage represented by a circle with a radius of 100 miles constitutes a very small percentage of the state of Texas. Within this relatively small area the people are inbred to a disturbingly high degree. Most who grow up in the Big Bend region never leave it, not even to attend college. They are born here, marry someone who was also born here, work here, and die here. I have encountered few "natives" who are sufficiently driven by ambition to seek education or employment elsewhere. Even some of those who do go away return later. For example, 19 of the current faculty members at Sul Ross grew up here, went away to gain an advanced degree (Sul Ross offers no Ph.D. programs), and then returned. Many universities are very reluctant to employ "home-grown" faculty, but this one seems actively to encourage it. I suspect that I know why.

My reference to inbreeding should not be taken to mean that there is only one ethnic group here. There are in fact two large groups, in about equal proportions: Caucasian (or Anglo, as they say here) and Mexican. Together they represent 95% or more of the total population, there being minute percentages of blacks and Asians. Caucasians and Mexicans have coexisted here for a century or more, most of the time peacefully. Indeed, interracial marriages between the two are now both common and seemingly uncontroversial. Normally, one would expect the confluence of different genetic strains and different cultures to invigorate, to stimulate progress. But not here. Here, to put it crudely but accurately, one has poor white trash and poor Mexican trash socializing with, even marrying, each other. Here the lowest common denominators get together to procreate.

To what result? The sad fact is that most of those who graduate with bachelor's degrees from Sul Ross should still be in high school, because they are still operating at about a tenth-grade level. Those with master's degrees have what, properly understood, are the skills of no more than college freshmen. Moreover, our own university president admits that only about one-sixth of each year's incoming freshmen ever actually manage to graduate. This should not be surprising, since their math and verbal skills are exceeded by any fully conscious eighth-grader.

In the fall of 2002, 42 percent of our freshmen had to take remedial classes in reading, writing, or math just to meet the state's ridiculously low standard of "competence." Think about that. The taxpayers of Texas have already paid for these kids to learn English and math in middle school, then again in high school, much of which is a review of what they were supposed to have absorbed in previous years. Many of Sul Ross's students then have to be taught essentially the same subjects a third time before they are allowed to take "college" classes. And many still fail those classes one or more times. The chairman of the math department once told me that at least half of all students here get an "F" in College Algebra the first time they take it. The commissars of political correctness have decreed that America no longer has any retarded students, just students who are in "special education" classes. Baloney! Many of the kids in the Big Bend area are only a notch above retardation. Some are below that.

One of the two key college entrance exams used in this country is the ACT. The national average on the ACT is about 21. Here at Sul Ross, the average ACT score fluctuates around 17. Most of them are in the bottom third of the distribution. High school graduates here function several years below their grade level, and Sul Ross conspires to perpetuate the fraud. A master's degree from Sul Ross today is about the intellectual equivalent of a diploma from a reputable high school 30 years ago.

This is a familiar story in academia today. Many of my friends and colleagues around the nation have told me of their own frustrations. Affirmative action, education-as-entertainment, grade inflation, and a broad cultural decay have joined forces in bringing about an undeniable decline in the typical college student's abilities. Even so, I insist that the students here are among the worst to be found anywhere. I am prepared to defend to the death the proposition that Sul Ross, and this area of Texas more generally, is the proud home of some of the dumbest clods on the planet.

You may thirst for non-statistical details — and I could inundate you with examples — but let me give just a few. How about college juniors who are sincerely baffled by a certain biology professor's assertion that 0.75, 75%, and three-fourths are all equivalent expressions? Or a senior, in his last semester before graduation, who is unable, even with calculator in hand, to solve the problem, 0.55X = 2,233, what is X? Then there was the student who, having graduated, wanted to express her appreciation to a favorite professor. She typed "thank you for all your patients." "Spell check" can't save the truly illiterate ones. One of the worst examples of these students' brain-dead status occurred in one of my own classes. Once I handed out an exam and then suddenly realized that the multiple-choice section contained a crucial typographical error. Since the fault was mine, I brought the typo to the students' attention, and then just told them what the correct answer was, saying it twice to be sure they heard me. Two of the students still got the question wrong!

How can such airheads ever manage to graduate? Mostly they do it via the malfeasance of professors and administrators. One Marxist psychology professor here allows his students to grade themselves on one part of the course. Several of the radical feminists in the English department have the students grade one another's essays. A common practice in a lot of classes is to give the students a list of, say, 50 multiple choice or true-false questions, let them go home and look up the answers, and then give a "test" that consists entirely of 20 questions chosen verbatim from the list. This latter practice produces three things: 1) a very high percentage of passing grades, 2) students utterly incapable of writing a coherent sentence about anything, and 3) people with college degrees who actually know only a tiny fraction of what the published curriculum claims that they have been taught.

In this Big Bend region, none of what I've just said is considered to be a problem. It's just business as usual, and business is "fine." The university's website proudly quotes Dan Rather, CBS TV's principal newshack, saying that Sul Ross is "possibly the most underrated little university west of the Mississippi." It would be more accurate to describe it as one of the best high schools in West Texas. Also on the website one will discover that Hispanic Outlook Magazine has repeatedly recommended Sul Ross as a good choice for Hispanic students. Well, I suppose it is if one wants Hispanics permanently to remain part of what Charles Murray calls the "cognitive underclass."

At every graduation ceremony, University President Vic Morgan refers happily to the recipients of bachelor's and master's degrees as "educated persons" and "scholars." The proud parents of the graduates weep silently and applaud loudly. But anyone who knows the facts should be outraged by such a spectacle. Don't get me wrong; to an extent I sympathize with the families of those graduating. Many no doubt really believe their kids have accomplished something notable. After all, some of the students here are the first in their family to attend college at all. Neither the kids nor their parents have any inkling of the fact that these new graduates cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be called educated. With a very few exceptions, they have received a modicum of vocational training, that is all. Actually, regardless of their field of study, the primary thing that most learn is how to use a personal computer. Logic? Analysis? Hypothesis testing? The nuances of great literature? The dilemmas of ethics? Forget it. At best, these kids are just entry-level computer operators.

But in the name of "education," the taxpayers of Texas are forking over some $20 million or more every year, and to what end? So that these kids can take their college degrees and work as assistant manager at the local True Value Hardware store?

There's an even worse aspect to this whole ugly process. The largest number of graduates is always the education majors. Sul Ross began as a teachers' college, and it often boasts of what a large percentage of the region's public school teachers and administrators it produces. In other words, one generation of illiterates comes out of the public schools, attends Sul Ross but learns nothing except the current educationalist jargon, and then proceeds to teach the next generation of illiterates, all the while praising themselves for successes they never achieve.

And just in case you assumed that these mental deficiencies I speak of only appear in some rarefied academic environment, guess again. I have had retailers in town tell me they have a hard time finding employees who can make change when customers pay in cash. One recent Friday at my physician's office, I asked the receptionist for an appointment "one week from today." Her bubbly response was, "That's not available, but we could see you next Friday." I hired a local firm to install new gutters on my house. When the job was finished, I discovered that there was a gap of an inch or two between the inner edge of the gutters and the edge of the roof. When asked why it had been done that way, the supervisor of the crew looked puzzled and asked me in return, "Did you want them to catch the rain from the roof?" I guess he thought I wanted them purely for decorative purposes. There's a reason why the labor here is cheap, and now you know what that reason is.

I referred earlier to the spirit of the Old West being alive and (pretty) well here. Frontiers tend to encourage tolerance of those who are different, and that too is something you'll see in the Big Bend area. There are five easily identifiable groups that one can observe in the town. There are the Anglos whom I think of as "deeply-rooted." Their families have lived here since before there was dirt, they positively love being here, and they usually find employment in ranching, law enforcement, and the public schools. In parallel fashion, there are the long-time Mexican residents who gravitate toward the same types of jobs. The only difference is that many of the Mexicans live on the south side of the railroad tracks, while most Anglos live on the north side.

Then there is the university community, by which I mean the faculty and their families. The members of the faculty, at least those who stay any length of time, often get involved in local politics, frequently live in the same neighborhood, and almost invariably send their own children to some college other than Sul Ross. The most amazing thing about most of them is their complete lack of intellectual activity. For instance, I am one of the very few professors on campus who regularly publishes work in scholarly journals. Most do no research or writing at all. And, on a personal level, most are deadly boring to talk to.

People who retire here stay pretty much to themselves. For some perverse reason, the university treats them with mild hostility, and they really don't have much in common with anyone else here. As a group, they are certainly the most intelligent and knowledgeable people in town.

The fifth and final category is composed of a scattering of over-the-hill hippies whose only remaining talent appears to be repeating the slogans of the Green Party. They are easily recognized by their tattoos, their body piercings, and an aura of vacant friendliness.

Okay, if matters intellectual are beyond the capacities of the natives and don't even interest very many of the university's professors, what on earth does stir the hearts of Alpine's citizens? The answer for the great majority is sports. The only things that rival sports in overall importance are beer, sex, and church, in that order. Football is king, both in person and insofar as TV viewing is concerned. However, when it comes to attending events, anything will suffice: baseball, basketball, volleyball, golf, rodeo. Yes, rodeo is a major sport here. And since there are middle school, high school, and college teams and, in most categories, both girls' and boys' competitions, the permutations are almost endless. For nine months out of the year, there are multiple games being played every week. And even in summer there is Little League baseball.

The university faculty members seem as obsessed by sports as the other residents. It is about all they talk about, or seem capable of talking about. In all my years here I cannot recall a single in-depth conversation, other than ones I have initiated, that was concerned with historical, philosophical, scientific, or political issues. Superficial, brief comments about "headline" news, sure. The Simpson trial, the Oklahoma City bombing, the World Trade Center attack. But the professors here are far more intent upon the prospects for the Alpine High School football team than the prospects for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

Even so, Alpine is more cosmopolitan than most outsiders would ever suspect. There are, for example, a number of artists and craftspeople in the area: painters, potters, sculptors, jewelry makers, and so forth. Twice each year a segment of the local merchants stays open late into the night, offering refreshments to their customers, all for the purpose of exhibiting and selling the products of this local talent. There is an active community theater group in addition to the plays offered several times annually by the university's theater department. For years, the latter presented Shakespearean works "under the stars" every summer in an outdoor amphitheater. Having attended a number of these, I can attest to the fact that the quality was surprisingly high. On occasion, Alpine has even been visited by national Shakespearean touring groups.

Alpine is not a mecca for libertarians, but it does have potential. Most of the local residents are strongly religious and patriotic, like many rural Americans. The War on Iraq was very popular here, and the War on Drugs runs a close second. Moreover, despite the First Amendment, the local schools do not hesitate to use religious partisans and religious sentiments to try to squelch any unwanted student behavior. Republicans are in the minority, but the Democrats here sound and vote more like Bush's "compassionate conservatives" than Ted Kennedy liberals. But the pervasive tolerance I've already referred to also extends to the altar and the ballot box. Other than personal vendettas, I have seen very few clashes that involved persons' religious or political views in any way. There are even some gay and lesbian couples. They no doubt find few who share their sexual orientation, but I have never heard of any attacks upon them. Not even verbal abuse.

So am I happy that I chose Alpine as my home? Considering the grave scarcity of intellect in the area that I recounted earlier, among other problems, why haven't I moved on? First of all, the university has rewarded me rather well. I advanced to full professor, with tenure, very quickly. And I am paid rather well, despite my open criticism of some of the university's policies and my inciting other faculty members to do likewise.

Ironically, the general absence of intellectual activity on campus has actually worked in my favor in one very significant way. My students may drive me to distraction and my fellow professors are mostly a waste of space, but my research and writing are entirely of my own choosing. Many of my friends on the faculties of other, more prestigious schools have told me that they are pressured to publish only in certain journals and sometimes even to investigate only certain topics. Most find such constraints irritating if not stifling. I face no such constraints. I have had essays published on such heterodox subjects as the Objectivism of Ayn Rand, praxeology as applied to legal theory, anarcho-capitalism, the Austrian theory of business cycles, and the role of privateering in naval warfare. The only reaction I get here on campus is praise, most likely because no one has any idea what I'm writing about.

And there's something else: the seductiveness of these wide, open spaces. Some people would find nothing appealing about the mountains and the vast stretches of rolling ranch land that lie between. The land is dotted with grasses, cactuses, and bonsai-like trees and in itself is none too impressive. But to travel through the area is to experience something rather special. I have seen mountain lions, a golden eagle, and a herd of pronghorn antelope. At certain points along highway, the road literally shrinks to nothing as it dives into the horizon, impossibly far in the distance. The mountains will always await you, still farther away.

I may yet leave this place. If I do, I may not miss the people much, but I certainly will miss this place.

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