Tex Smiths To Take On Bill Grabowskis

January 28, 1993|By Mike Royko.

"Tex." Anyone who has been in the military has known someone who goes by that nickname. I met at least two dozen of them.

That's one of the fringe benefits of being from Texas. You can tell people, "Jus' call me Tex." And many of them will be instantly impressed.

"Tex." It has an aura. Cowpokes, wide-open spaces, straight talking, straight shooting, stud poker-playing, drink the beer straight from the long-neck bottles, remember-the-Alamo kind of guys.

I can't think of another state that provides this kind of instant perk. Why, if you are known as "Tex," you can get away with calling a female "Darlin' " and not be accused of sexual fiendishness.

Compare that to being from Illinois. Nobody has ever said to me, "Howdy, Ill." How'd you want to be called Ill? Or you wouldn't say to guys from Mississippi, "How's it going, Miss," or "Nice day, Mississ." Not unless you wanted to exchange beer bottle scars.

But if you're from Texas and call yourself "Tex," you can be a short, scrawny accountant, terrified of spiders, horses and guns, but you still have that mystique. Be honest, if Ross Perot was from Iowa, people would have giggled.

I thought about that in trying to decide which team to cheer for in Sunday's Super Bowl.

Since I'm not from Dallas or Buffalo, and don't have a bet on the game, there's no reason for me to favor either team.

But it's not as much fun if you don't take sides and find an excuse to make a stupid three-hour emotional investment in one team or another. That's the American way.

So I've done what I do when I have to pick a World Series favorite. Since Chicago teams are never in it, I base my choice on personal prejudice, malice and which city's residents I believe are most deserving of an opportunity to hail a champion and get blotto drunk.

So let us consider the comparative merits of Dallas, Texas, and Buffalo, N.Y.

Dallas, of course, was the setting for one of the most popular shows in the history of television. Before that, there were scores of western movies set in or near Dallas. There have been movies and books about Dallas oil tycoons, real-life and fictional. In the postwar era, Dallas became one of the great real estate boomtowns of the Southwest, with ego-bloated millionaires trying to outdo each other in putting up eyesore skyscrapers.

Actually, if you go to Dallas, you don't even know you're in Texas. In the business district, you see more Brooks Brothers suits than in Philadelphia or Chicago. And outside of the business district, you think you died and for your sins have been condemned to spend eternity wandering through shopping centers.

In fact, the best reason to visit Dallas is to immediately drive to nearby Ft. Worth, where there are old buildings instead of glass towers, saloons instead of cocktail lounges, crinkly-eyed guys who look and drawl like Texans instead of Bostonians and tall, lanky women who drink beer instead of chardonnay.

Nevertheless, Dallas is a glamor city. Even more so because of the many years when the Dallas Cowboys arrogantly called themselves "America's Team," a title they earned because they fielded the greatest All-Star lineup of Hall-of-Fame jiggly-wiggly, hootchy-cootchy, semi-nude, erotic cheerleaders in the history of football.

Now let us consider Buffalo, N.Y. Have you ever seen any movies or hit TV shows about Buffalo? Of course not. The only time you see Buffalo on TV is when it is buried under some of the 92.3 inches of snow it gets every winter.

If you are from Buffalo, you don't introduce yourself by saying, "Howdy, my friends call me Buff."

Even worse, if someone asks a Buffalonian (or is it Buffaloite?) where he is from and he says, "New York," people are repelled because they assume he is from New York City and is an obnoxious person. So the Buffalonian, to dodge disgust and contempt, must quickly explain, "I am from Buffalo, so I am really a normal, decent human being."

Do you ever hear a Buffalonian brag the way Texans do? Almost never, except about their world-famous snow-shoveling prowess.

About the only thing the two cities have in common, sad to say, is presidential assassinations. And even in that area, everybody remembers JFK and Dallas. But did it ever occur to Oliver Stone to do an exploitative, crackpot movie about William McKinley being shot in Buffalo?

So for me, the choice is clear. As Ray McGurn, the deputy mayor of Buffalo, said: "Buffalo is a bit like Chicago. We've got Polish neighborhoods, Irish neighborhoods, Italian neighborhoods and Germans everywhere. The best Polish restaurant is called Polonia, and I love their pirogi. In the Italian neighborhood, one of the best places to eat is Ditondo's. The Germans have a place called the Wurzburger Hof. And the Irish love McGrath's, a fine neighborhood pub."

That's it. I've got to cheer for a town that has an Irish deputy mayor who not only eats pirogi, but can pronounce it.

But out of a sense of fairness, before making my decision I asked a Texas acquaintance if he had ever eaten a pirogi.

He said: "Nope, never ate a poor doggie, but I guess I'd take a chomp if it was barbecued."