He was going down to Texas
To check on all the things he’d heard,
No way that they could all be true
‘Cause they were all just too absurd.

That Rhode Island fits in Texas
Two hundred twenty times;
That to steal a horse in Texas
Is the very worst of crimes.

So he had to go to Texas
To see how big things were,
If mosquitoes crossed with turkeys
And Texas mice were trapped for fur.

He bought two sets of cowboy chaps
One set for evening wear.
Then he went to look at six guns
He’d need to buy a pair.

A set of boots with silver toes
A Texas size ten-gallon hat.
After that he practiced whooping,
To sound like someone’s stepped-on-cat.

He knew when he met Indians,
Trade beads would be a hit;
And he’d take along Rhode Island
To check how many times it fit.

When he left the plane in Dallas
It was one hundred nine degrees,
And he didn’t see no Indians
Hiding behind the potted trees.

It seemed that all the other men
Were wearing plain old baseball caps,
But he put his cowboy hat on
And his Sunday-go-to-meeting chaps.

He wore his pointy toed cowboy boots
That he had polished up so well
And then the Yankee shouted out
His loudest stepped-on-cat’s-tail yell.

And if he walked a little funny,
It very well might be perhaps
That he had found the reason why
The cowboys call the darn things chaps.

When he fired his silver six guns
While walking down the airport hall,
None of the airport guards
Was close to being six feet tall.

The biggest thing he’d seen thus far,
A shoot-your-gun-in-the-airport fine.
Later checking in at the Y,
He saw a Texas Steak House sign.

“All You Can Eat”, the worn sign said
And the word “All” was underlined.
The walls were covered with deer antlers,
In the window a broken blind.

When the waiter finally came,
The guy was really Texas big.
He had a Santa Claus belly
And the face of an ornery pig.

Then a barbeque stained menu
Proved cleanliness was not the law.
He saw steaks came in three choices,
They were rare, real rare or raw.

Things really were big in Texas,
He could certainly see why now.
‘Cause what they brought him was no steak;
It was more like a half a cow!

And a number two wash tub,
Maybe it was a number three!
Is what the monster waiter used
To serve the poor dumb Yankee tea.

“Son, you’re in Texas now,” he snarled,
“You eat and drink like one of us.”
No nerve to cross this waiter giant
‘Cause he was one mean ornery cuss.

Stuffed tighter than a Christmas turkey,
He left to go back to the Y.
He needed quick to find a rest room
If not, he was going to die.

When he walked across the lobby
He almost lost his Yankee cool
When the door he thought said “men’s room”,
Led instead to the swimming pool.

He’d quickly pushed in through the door,
And fallen in with quite a splash,
His whole life passed before him
It seemed in one quick blinding flash.

Throughout the Y, in room and hall,
They heard the screaming echoes ring,
“For goodness sakes”, his frantic shout,
“Don’t anybody flush this thing!”

A Yankee Goes To Texas is a poem about exaggeration. Of course, being a Texan, I like to exaggerate. A Japanese man once asked me where I was from and I told him, “Texas”. He wanted to know if America was in Texas. I told him, “Yes, in the northern part.”

When I started college, many years ago in 1953, some of the freshmen from New York were talking about how they had expected to find a Texas that was more the movie version and were somewhat relieved.

Our Yankee in this little story was disappointed to find a much tamer Texas then he was looking forward to and decided to act out his expectations. In doing so he got trapped in his own make-believe.

Maybe the old saying about doing as the Romans do was not such bad advice after all.