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Texans and others sometimes forget how much the way we talk is shaped by our rural roots. To hear us talk, you might sometimes get the impression that most of us live on ranches or farms, but that is no longer true.

The truth is lots of us live in cities and always have: Houston (fourth largest in the nation), the Dallas-Ft. Worth metro area, Austin, San Antonio, El Paso. Many of us, even in small towns, live in apartments. And for whatever reason, sometimes we need to find a new one.

Knowing how we Texans love our cars, and seeing how many, many apartment complexes there are lining the main streets in our urban areas, you might think that finding a new place to live would be easy: Just drive into a likely looking apartment complex and sign up.

But, of course, it is seldom that easy. Maybe you have moved to a new town to take a new job, or to start college or graduate school. For whatever reason, you may not have time to drive around till you find the right place. So, you can always use an apartment locator.

Usually using an apartment locator is just a pleasant experience that saves you lots of time, gasoline, and boredom. Sometimes, though, the apartment locator is a colorful character who talks Texan.

The first time I ever used an apartment locator, I was right out of college. My old college suitemate wanted to share an apartment to save money. Neither of us lived in Houston yet, so she found us an apartment locator to save time.

As style-conscious young women, we naturally wanted to live in a cool-looking complex with all the bells and whistles (or clubs, swimming pools, tennis courts, and beautifully wooded grounds, but our budget was pretty limited. The locator helped us focus on finding a good apartment in a good location. And he contributed a colorful expression that I never forgot.

“You don’t live in Trees,” was his way of saying that the landscaping, private club, and other amenities were not as important as the quality of the apartment itself. It was a colorful Texas-style reminder to focus on what is important instead of getting carried away with superficial glamour.

“You don’t live in trees,” was great advice then, and it still is.

So whenever you are in danger of losing focus on what is important and being overly swayed by superficial features of apartments, cars, jobs—or anything—just remember, “You don’t live in trees.” And besides giving you a smile, it may help you focus on what is important.

It works for me. And now, I hope it works for you.

Dogs are a big thing in Texas, especially in the country, where everybody tends to have at least one dog as a watchdog. And often there are two or three, because some are hunting dogs.

The first dog I ever had was a solid brown medium-size mutt with a black stripe down his back. I named him Tippy.

The name came from the first puppy I picked from his litter, a light brown and white spotted puppy with a white tip on his tail. The first Tippy got run over by a car before he was old enough to leave his mother, so Daddy picked another pup, but we still called him Tippy.

Tippy must have had a wide variety of ancestors. His mother appeared to be all or mostly leopard, a breed of hunting dog with gray fur and pale blue eyes. Sort of rare. 

None of the puppies looked like her, though, and none of them looked like any other particular breed. Daddy used to say that Tippy was “leopard and Heinz” (after the food brand Heinz, which used to claim to have “57 varieties”).

Tippy was a bold little pup. He did not like the boys who put the groceries in the car at the grocery store—or much of anyone else besides our family. When he grew up, he was a great watch dog.

Meanwhile, though, when he was little, he needed training. Although I was encouraged to play with him, Daddy had a saying that I used to hear a lot. “Don’t tease ‘im, you’ll make ‘im mean.”

Funny how these things stick with you. I use that expression now for dealing with certain people and organizations that you just can’t tease, or kid around with, or argue with. 

You have to be very careful with some people and groups about what you say and do—or they can turn on you like a snake. And they may have the power to make your life miserable in some way. They may be touchy relatives, or government bureaucrats, or….you fill in the blanks. I know you know what I mean.

But now maybe when you are dealing with one of these hard-to-deal-with types, you will remember what my Daddy used to say about raising puppies. It’s good advice, and nobody else will know why you’re smiling. It’ll be just between us, OK?

So whenever you are engaged in delicate negotiations with a person or group who seem like kind of an unpredictable force of nature, remember what Daddy used to say.

“Don’t tease ‘em, you’ll make ‘em mean.” And you’ll do just fine.

You probably never heard of the fig orchards of Galveston County. That’s because the Great Fig Bubble burst 100 years ago.

You see, people from up North, in places like New York, were persuaded to buy land down on the Gulf Coast of Texas back in the late 1800s to plant fig orchards and make their fortunes. (I guess figs were in big demand back then.) Figs do grow very well here.

Fashion changed, I guess. Apparently those Yankees lost interest in figs. Eventually much of that land was abandoned without even planting any fig trees.

Naturally the land got scarfed up by the locals. In Texas if you fence a piece of land and use it for 10 years, and nobody protests, you can claim it.

I learned all of this from Nana, my paternal grandmother, who inherited an old 1880s hotel with a little fig orchard, and then went on to plant more. 

Nana’s family already lived in Galveston County during the craze. They always did grow figs and preserve them in Mason jars to eat all year. My mama still does. 

Before I go, here’s another weird little factoid. In the Bible it says that a tax collector named Zacharias climbed up in a sycamore tree to get a glimpse of Jesus. As a kid, I pictured him climbing one of the tall, big-leafed shade trees called sycamores that surrounded my grandparents’ yard.

But Nana, a long-time Sunday school teacher, explained that there is actually a type of fig tree called a sycamore fig. That is most likely what Zacharias climbed.

So who cares? Well, I did.

Knowing that made it more bearable to be the one who had to climb those nasty little fig trees during the harvest season in June (hot, sticky) to pick the figs that the grownups could not reach from the ground.

You see, the juice from bruised fig leaves and stems makes some people’s skin itch, and I don’t even like figs. But, you know, it seemed kind of cool to be climbing a tree that was mentioned in the Bible.

It’s all in how you look at it, I guess. Like so many other things.