There was a time in North Texas when the "law" meant the sheriff rather than statutes or court decisions, and people were sometimes arrested for "looking suspicious." Many country doctors had minimal education, but they were hardworking and dedicated. Home remedies, patent medicine, and placebos bought at medicine shows were commonplace. Emotional revival meetings in open tabernacles spiced hot summer nights.
A little boy could grow up secure there, full of mischief, enjoying whittling, family trips, and crawfishing. He could see the pioneer homes of his forebears and view the birth of...

This is the story of how a myth began, with the Texas Revolution against Mexico, cattle drives, and "hyperactive" Texas Rangers, and became embodied in larger-than-life figures, from Sam Houston to "Speaker Sam" Rayburn, from the explorer La Salle to L. B. J. It is also the story of a state larger than its myth, a Confederate state that contained enclaves of pro-Union German-Americans, a football-loving state that produced musicians of the sensitivity of Scott Joplin and Van Cliburn, a western state that also is Southern, Mexican, and Spanish in its influences.