A Few Things That I Hat...er...Sort of Dislike About Temple

I'm not a naturalist by any strech but I am starting to think that there are certian limiting effects that certian environments, such as my hometown of Temple, can have on the people who know nothing but that environment.

Of course, I do "like" my hometown ("hometown in this case is a general reference to the Temple/Killeen/Bell County Area in which I spent almost all of my childhood)...however, there are certian things about the atmosphere here that, in light of my own experiences in other places...tend to frustrate me. Spending the winter break here has reminded me of the reasons that I should appreciate the fact that I now live elsewhere. This is not to say that I do not have strong connections here and additionally not to say that there are not things here that I miss, but I have been doing a lot of thinking about those things that I know dislike that I never really even noticed before I left.

I am first amazed that moreso than in any other place that I have visited, you really do need access to a car to survive. I am only recognizing this because my car's engine threw a rod and I currently do not have a working vehicle as a result. It's a spread out place, a very spread out place. No place it's size or larger that I have ever visited is more spread out with a more dispersed population and infrustructure. Temple has around 60,000 people but it's limits strech as far as 7 miles south of the city "center"...6 miles north, and an astounding (in relation to population) 13 miles to the west (everyone wants to live near the lake I guess). My friend Dan's family lives 11 miles from downtown but still in the city limits. Housing developments are placed almost indescriminantly in a widely-spaced patchwork fashion across a wide, flat, and mostly boring landscape. Driving around town you can see new KB Home or Centex housing developments surrounded on all sides by fields with short brown grass, brush, some cows and the occasional lonely tree. This isin't so bad I guess, if your car works. Otherwise you had better have friends, which I fortunetly do.

The atmosphere here is static. People are generally nice I guess. Heartland American values thrive in one of the reddest parts of "red America". However, there is also a stifiling sense of a lack of change, or a willingness to change. People welcome a new resturant by flooding into it and placing it on the front page of the local paper. Development and new residents are welcomed as well. But other changes, idealogoical ones, will likely not take place here in my lifetime. It seems like a lot (but not all) of people here do not really determine their own values, but are content to let others do so. The area is staunchly conservative...I don't think that in itself is a problem...the problem is in the sort of "yellow-dog" conservativism that exists here. I once thought of myself as a conservative because I was raised here and that is from birth pretty much what you are taught is absolutely right and anyone that is branded a liberal is excommunicated from any credibility or any chance to be right about anything. That sort of, what I will come out and say is closed-mindedness, creates a very shallow dynamic for discussing anything of any sort of importiance. I'm not a "left-wing nut" or a "liberal-extremist" but if I were to share the polictical views that I have fairly independently arrived upon (at least they are far more independent than many held here) I would quickly be branded as one and most people would not give any sort of creedence to anything I said beyond that.

This is not to say that everyone here is this way...or that all conservatives are this way (there are certianly a lot of open minded conservatives...they just happen to be more often found in other parts of the country)...but a good number are and the general atmosphere leans in the direction of shallowness and superficial beliefs that are not deeply held. Many people here are deeply religious, but the rest are shallowly so because you don't really want to stand out that much. The social norm is that you go to church, or at least appear as if you do so. Some grow up here and leave with a strong idealogical and worldview footing, but many others flounder when they leave (or if they stay). It's hard to defend your beliefs when you don't know why you believe what you do. Many young people here, even some friends of mine, struggle because they were never thought to think independently or to question things in order to have some understanding of what they say, do, think and claim to believe. I know that this happens to some degree everywhere, but it is an especially prevelent problem here.