The Texas Tao:
The Wit & Wisdom of Texas Truckers
Introduction, Part I
by Hardy Metcalf, Ph.D.
1. Hardy Talk: How I Became America's First Traffic Shrink
If we grant, as surely we must by now, that all mothers are in their essence Jewish,
then it is high time that we recognize that all fathers are not merely Texan, they are
West Texan. Example: Imagine that in Giant instead of Mercedes McCambridge, it was
Rock Hudson who was thrown off a horse and killed, which means James Dean would have
married Elizabeth Taylor and had children. What kind of father do you think Jett Rink
would have been? You get the picture.
Suffice it to say that, were my present life as traffic shrink to become a television
series--which it will if the packet of scripts that has been circulating on both coasts
for some years now is ever recognized for the goldmine that it is--my formative
experiences could--and would--be comfortably reduced to three flashback episodes late in
the series. There, the very Texan role of my father will become clear.
Flashback One
The first, and most complex, of the three, might require a two-parter, with week one
devoted to my religious conversion at a Methodist camp at the age of 13 on the banks of
the Paluxy River near the dinosaur tracks outside of Blooming Grove, Texas. The episode
would end with me seated on the lap of the camp counselor, a statuesque, early middle-aged
woman with long, flaxen hair (Sally Kellerman was born to play this role).
She is seen asking me if I am circumcised (we're of course talking cable series) and we do
a fast fade as she moves perhaps to kiss me.
In real life, nothing much else happened. She did in fact kiss me (how do we communicate
the odor of Evening in Paris on TV? The moment is nothing without that odor). I went back
to my tent and that was the end of it. She never tried anything else.
On TV of course, as the second segment begins, we will have me squirming to break her
lascivious grasp after the kiss. Then I will run screaming into the night. The other boys
will come, but I will be too embarrassed to tell them what happened (in real life, some
years had to pass before I figured out that they had all received the same attention I
got, but that is another story). After the first commercial we will see me back home,
tearfully breaking the news to my rancher father that a horny older woman as good as
popped his little boy's cherry, which revelation then sets up the climactic conflict
between Dad and church, with the resolution laying bare certain deep-seated hypocrisies
endemic to the American way of life. In the last scene, we see me and Dad, who is holding
my hand, and the church elders as we all judgmentally watch the counselor being led off in
handcuffs. Dad hoists me up onto his arm (for purposes of television, I am eight years
old) and says to the elders, "All it takes is one rotten apple to spoil the whole
barrel." To which one elder responds, "I think we got this one just in
time."
Flashback Two
Another key episode will find the young Hardy Metcalf knocking about Europe, carousing
with the Reeperbahn prostitutes in Hamburg, joshing with the border guards in East Berlin,
and the like. Having got the audience's attention with good-natured sex and jovial
politics, we come to the meat of the segment--and granted, this would be difficult to pull
off without losing that very audience, for whom art appears to consist mainly of the
fifteen or so square inches which comprise the Mona Lisa's face--which must be tasteful
shots of the twenty-year-old American walking unwitting into the room in the Prado where
hangs Velazquez's sublime Las Meninas. How you convey entertainingly to that audience that
young Hardy is instantly not only smitten but removed from time is a problem I leave to
the endlessly creative writing talent available for television purposes nowadays.
Flashback Three
Then, when the end of the series is at last in sight, we can get really serious (a la
MASH) and slip in the real key to the main character's entire persona. The episode begins
with Hardy receiving his M.A. in mental health from Mule Shoe State University, followed
by a montage of young Dr. Metcalf making the round of job interviews. Again, we are
lulling our audience by showing Hardy as the ever-predictable reflection of their own
ever-predictable personalities. The montage ends and Hardy is seen returning to his modest
walk-up in Houston's Montrose. He checks his mail--we have of course established that the
year is 1968, perhaps with shots of Chicago riots or Detroit burning on a TV in the
background of one of the offices where he goes to interview--and there is his draft
notice. We quickly get him through basic training and to Vietnam where he spends his year
behind a desk, trading quips with American reporters, and developing a small black market
business in used Vespa's on the side. Then, after the first commercial break, we watch as
he falls in love with, impregnates, and eventually leaves behind a beautiful young
Vietnamese. The episode ends with Hardy's tear-streaked face filling the screen as the
MATS plane takes him away from the mysterious East, headed toward home. In the melancholy
stinger, we watch as Hardy begins a letter to his long-forgotten lover, not knowing if it
will ever reach her.
As the networks learned early, and as the church elders knew, ambiguity does not usually
play well in America. Yet, whether they got the "rotten apple" in time, I leave
it to the reader to decide.
Upon my return from Vietnam, I studied various forms of therapy on both coasts, finally
receiving my Ph.D. from an institution whose name my lawyers advise me not to use here. A
few years back there was disagreement between me and this institution about the
originality of certain passages in my dissertation. I am of the opinion that, rather like
the ability to ride a bicycle, a degree once acquired can never be really lost, no matter
what this or that board of regents may say or do.
Following an internship at a large state hospital (which also for reasons I don't need to
go into here must remain nameless) in the upper midwest, I started a private practice in
Houston. As word of my eclectic methods of therapy spread, I began to appear on local
talk-shows. One host in particular, an obese person given to venting his spleen on his
audience generally but especially on his automotive audience particularly, became a real
fan of mine. Guesting on those shows with him, as I tried to undo some of the
psychological damage he did daily to already harried drivers, I hatched the idea of making
automotive therapy my specialty, of becoming in other word's America's first traffic
shrink.
I approached a number of stations in the Houston area with my proposal. None responded
warmly. Finally, the manager of a 500-watt station in the small community of Splendora,
deep in the Piney Woods of East Texas, some 40 miles from the city, who was seeking an
entree to the lucrative Houston drive-time audience found an afternoon slot for me. The
rest, as they say, is history. It is, I admit without embarrassment, a point of
professional pride with me that the station has now grown to 5000 watts and is a going
concern almost entirely from the success of my drive-time show, called "Hardy
Talk."
As my level of regional renown rose, one thing led to another, and I wound up doing an
advice column for the traffic-troubled in Houston City Magazine. Some readers in less
car-centered areas may have difficulty imagining just what a "traffic shrink"
does. A few items from my column will allay that uncertainty
Dear Dr. Metcalf,
The gas bills for my Corvette are destroying my credit-rating, and worse yet, are making a
shambles of the rest of my lifestyle. Lately I've been eyeing a Mazda Miata as an
economizing replacement. Will I continue to make satisfactory pick-ups at Cooter's if I
change cars?
Bigger Is Better
Dear Bigger,
It distresses me that in this decade of resurgent nationalism you are contemplating buying
non-American. Perhaps what you really need is a sound budget analysis. Surely with a bit
of scrimping here and there (do you really have to drop by Neal's Ice Cream four times a
week) surely you can find the cash to support your Corvette habit, gas-guzzler tax and
all. And please, please think about this: when you finally make it into that select West
Side circle of Tony's habitués, how do you think the valet parking attendant is going to
treat you when you wheel up a piece of Japanese junk? It continues to amaze me how, while
we punished the Germans quite severely for the Second World War, the Japanese have, except
for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, gotten off scot-free.
Dear Dr. Metcalf,
I have a problem that is beyond the bounds of good taste, but it is driving me bonkers.
Please help. My route to work, from my Memorial Park condo to my office on Harwin,
requires some minutes on the West Loop and the Southwest Freeway. Two are three times a
month, at the 610 merge, I find myself beside this same noisome individual in a mauve
Cutlass. It has become clear, from watching this person out of the corner of my eye, that
he is doing something that is probably both illegal and obscene with his hands. Now, every
time I get on the freeway I start to blush. Help, please.
Distraught Yuppie
Dear Distraught,
It is extreme problems such as yours that cause me to occasionally wonder if life in Aspen
might not be preferable after all!
Joking aside, I compassion your distress and urge you to either 1) have your windows
tinted to that near-opaque level currently popular among Saab owners, 2) get this
barbarian's license number and report him to the police, or 3) enroll in a kundalini yoga
class.
Dear Dr. Metcalf,
What is proper behavior when caught behind a pick-up load of entry-level immigrant
workers? They invariably sit facing rearward and, in the most disconcerting third-world
manner, are forever trying to make eye-contact. Even sunglasses don't help--they seem to
somehow know if I am looking at them.
Hypersensitive Bimmer Driver
Dear Myopic,
You suffer from a lack of self-confidence which ill fits you for any successful activities
in a major city. The urbanite cultivates a certain cool demeanor which discourages even
the most uneducated stares. That you should allow yourself to be intimidated by persons
who spend their lives pruning trees and floating drywall speaks poorly for your chances in
the fiercely competitive Gulf Coast lifestyle. You should give serious consideration to a
job in Seattle.
Dear Dr. Metcalf,
The other afternoon the West Loop was moving along nicely when I was passed by a young
hard-hat in a shiny black Silverado bearing a Gilley's bumpersticker. I found myself
becoming sexually aroused by this vision of urban cowboy manhood. Am I abnormal?
Porsche 928 Virgin
Dear Virgin,
Yes.
Dear Dr. Metcalf,
Is it true that people who drive Subaru's tend to be politically quite liberal and
actually prefer Cinemax to The Movie Channel?
Aspiring Reaganaut
Dear Aspiring,
Since I have never had an acquaintance or a patient who drove a Subaru, I passed your
question on to a colleague of mine whose practice is located in a part of town which is
socio-econometrically more Subaru-oriented than mine is. He confirms your observation and
adds that Subaru drivers are also likely to suffer allergic reactions to BMW's and
Scirocco's. If you are considering a relationship with such a person you would obviously
be well-advised to look elsewhere.
Dear Dr. Metcalf,
Do you know a good traffic exorcist? I think there is a vengeful ghost living in my Volvo.
Every time I go through the 59-610 interchange I have an overpowering urge to swerve off
the bridge and plunge onto the teeming commuters below. Except for this I am a happy
30-year-old career woman. Please do not advise me to commute on surface streets. I had
enough trouble with the Great Unwashed in high school.
Gripped
Dear Gripped,
What do you expect in a car from the country that gave us grainy black-and-white Ingmar
Bergman movies about guilt and death? Forget exorcism and go buy a Fiat with plenty of
Sergio Valente cassettes. It's always springtime in Italy!
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