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| Fleeing south isn’t always an escape from winter’s chill |
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| Opinion | |||
| Written by Larry McGee | |||
| Wednesday, 27 January 2010 08:00 | |||
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Each year now, for seven straight years, we have spent the month of January in south Texas. Leaving Kansas this year on Christmas day allowed us to escape the frigid temperatures and avoid moving snow from our walks and driveway. Driving through Oklahoma provided us with reassurance that we were leaving at the correct time, even though the aftermath of their blizzard was everywhere, including the narrow one-lane traffic on I-35. I dislike having someone expound on their good fortune to escape from the frigid Midwest and enjoy the sunny climes of Arizona, Florida or Texas. If I had the opportunity to gloat, I wouldn’t make such a callous move. To be honest, the weather in south Texas is COLD! After driving a thousand miles straight south, we began to feel that we were arriving home when the slender swaying bodies of palm trees began to welcome us back. Normally, when you begin to see the palm trees, the weather fits the scene, but this year was an exception. We come to the Valley to play golf and enjoy outdoor activities, but we had been here a week and didn’t sit on our deck one time — let alone play golf. I had played golf three times in Kansas the week we left. Why aren’t these palm trees a beacon for warm weather as they are in other climates? It is interesting that McAllen, Texas, was known as the City of Palms in 1900. Palm trees were not native to Texas. As you drive toward the Valley, as it is known in Texas, the scenery is nothing but cactus, mesquite and bluebonnet fields. As you approach the Valley, palm trees become more prevalent. It is also interesting to learn that the Rio Grande Valley is not really a valley at all; but, rather a delta. The Rio Grande river provides the water necessary to grow vegetables, fruit, and palm trees. The palm trees were native to California and Arizona and were all transplanted to south Texas, prior to the turn of the twentieth century. They were brought to the region to make the Valley appear more exotic in an effort to attract settlers to the land in the early 1900s. And obviously they do attract us squatters looking for warmth. Today, palm trees line many of the boulevards in and around McAllen. They are not as plentiful as they used to be before many were lost to a couple of rare but deadly freezes that struck the valley several years ago. Many of the original imported trees were replaced with Mexican fan palms, which were able to survive the freezes. They have become an important part of the landscape and really are a welcome sight to winter Texans leaving the frigid north for sunny south Texas. McAllen is a city of 140,000, and its city limits are surrounded on all four sides by smaller cities: Pharr, Edinburg, Mission and Hildalgo. These smaller cities each are attached to other smaller cities that encompass the entire valley. Each of the cities are filled with RV parks, which become home to the winter Texans, who nearly double the population of the metroplex. The last major palm killing freeze occurred in 1989. All of the news media is currently warning residents that a major freeze is on the way. The media is making suggestions for how residents can easily survive the cold spell. To someone from the Midwest, this seems humorous, but many of the area’s residents live in homes with no doors, heat or indoor plumbing. For them, this cold weather is a frightening thing and nothing to joke about. The weather bureau assures us this is a temporary thing, and temperatures will be back to normal within a few days. We have scheduled tee times for next week. Hopefully, we can get the winter gloves off long enough to complete a round. A dip in the pool would be nice also, but that might be too much to ask for.
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