State Notes T

Texas

"You keep calling me a cowboy, New York, and you say it like you're calling me a nasty name. But I am a cowboy. Why do you think that calling me one is an insult?"

Human Name: Clay Thompson
Age as of 2010: 165
Admission to the Union: December 29, 1845
Description: He has fair hair and blue eyes, wears a white button-down shirt, blue jeans, a black cowboy hat with three silver circles on the front band, and black boots. He is as tall as America, and doesn’t take kindly to fools. (By fools, mostly Philippe Santa Anna, otherwise known as Mexico.)
Trivia: For almost nine years after it first won independence from Mexico, Texas was an independent state, with no ties to America. (Presumably the reason for “Lone Star State.”) Texas is the 28th state.
Story Notes: He lives in a large ranch house and has a housekeeper named Mrs. Baker. He also some farmhands who help him raise his cattle, though they would probably never appear in a story. It’s more than entirely possible that he can speak Spanish but chooses not too. Unlike most of the other states, Alfred is only his stepfather.
Characterization: He doesn’t take economic damages as easily as his stepfather or siblings, due to people running Texas apparently having an above-average level of common sense. For the most part, he likes to be left alone and doesn’t like to get involved with squabbles between his siblings, though he’ll help them if they need help.

Author's Notebook - You know, it's odd that he calls Alfred his stepfather when Alfred and Mexico were never married. I think the stepfather term is to illustrate that he has a different relationship with Alfred than the other states do. Stepfather is the term for a replacment father, and that's what Alfred is for Clay. But enough about that. Texas had be in the story because Texas is awesome. I love the state of Texas.

*Please see disclaimers in State Notes A.