“Texas, Our Texas, All Hail the Mighty State…”
Ah yes, how I remember singing the Texas State Anthem when I was eight or nine years old and studying the Blue Book. Do Texas kids still study the Blue Book, or is that an antique of the 1950’s? “Remember the Alamo, remember San Jacinto!”
Since life in Texas, I migrated to Washington DC, and Germany, and Seattle, before finally settling in Colorado.
But after learning about the national HOA movement, I began thinking that Texans were wimpy little pea-brains who’d passively turned their life savings over to the trial lawyers by moving into covenant-protected neighborhoods. Texas homeowners were being raped by the tort system and weren’t even fighting back.
Then I started hearing names like Beany Adolph and Michael Clauer, Harvella Jones, Frank Larison and Becky Oliver. It seems some Texans do have guts after all. They’ve even marched on the State Legislature to demand some changes in the law to prevent gestapo-run HOAs from getting their hands into every cookie jar that wasn’t cemented down.
Yes, the Legislature did pass some OK legislation in the last session. Admittedly, it was a little weak, a little weasel-worded. But still, Texas is now ahead of all other states in trying to protect at least a few of the Constitutional rights Americans have always thought they possessed. At least Texas HOAs can no longer toss out Jews, or Christians, or patriots who want to fly the flag.
God bless Texas.
Ward Lucas
Author of
Neighbors At War: The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association
