Clint Eastwood Ain’t No Cowboy

Posted on October 12, 2005 in The Orange Travel - Conferences

Orange County harbors a secret desire to be Texas. In a Rancho Santa Margarita shopping center, several life-sized bronzes celebrate cowboys and small children. If you’re not watching on a dark night, you might run into one of these, at the price of testicular comfort if you happen to be tall and male.

The attitude here is that if you can buy it, you can claim it as an original accomplishment. But the OC is dying to be Texas instead of California. All you have to do is visit the airport and see the larger than life idol of John Wayne standing where no one is allowed to loiter anymore in this age of airport insecurity. The statue exposes the county’s deepest desire and its shallowness.

I made the following observations while in Fort Worth:

• There was a distinct downtown.
• There were far fewer SUVs.
• While there were a few chains, most of the restaurants in downtown Fort Worth appeared to be original creations.
• It was cooler by nearly forty degrees. (This, I was told, was an aberration.)
• There weren’t any castrating statues standing in the street.
• Public buildings had character. The ones I saw weren’t made of glass and stucco.
• People walked.
• And there were a lot fewer Bush stickers than there were in the OC.

I have to conclude from this that Orange County is like Texas as much as Clint Eastwood is a cowboy.