Okay, so I’ve been failing at the whole blog thing lately, but not much has happened. I’m pretty poor, so my typical day involves waking up around noon, cleaning the house and then sitting around looking up college basketball stuff for a few hours before evening TV comes on. Because of this, I’ve decided to let you guys in on another side of Kerrville. The historically controversial side. Here are the first of a couple of things that have happened in the ‘Ville during my life.

Haji Hates America

Okay, so in Kerrville there is an amazing Mexican food restaurant named Mamacita’s. It’s good. As a side note, it appears even ‘Vill-ans (as I’ve decided to call them) are not immune to being snobbish. Mamacita’s has gotten so popular (and huge) that a lot of people don’t go because “the quality really went down when they remodeled” or it’s too “touristy.” But the original Mamacita’s controversy was much bigger. Following 9/11 and I think everyone wanted to show off their patriotism a little more than usual, especially in an old person town like this one. It’s this point that I feel like I should tell you that the giant Mexican food restaurant was started by an Iranian. Not that Iran was responsible for 9/11, but it’s the ‘Ville and in the minds of most of the people here the middle east is about the size of east Texas and everyone there is the same. Well somehow a rumor got started around town that the owner of Mamacita’s. A MEXICAN food restaurant in KERRVILLE, TEXAS was somehow anti-american because he didn’t fly an American flag outside the restaurant. Even more surprising, in an effort to prove how much he loved the U.S. (which is just stupid since he came here as a poor person and through hard work and good marketing has built a mini Mexican food empire) Haji payed a nearby store owner who’s building backed up the parking lot so that he could paint a giant mural across it celebrating America. I’ve been trying for a few days to get a picture of this thing, but there are always cars in the way. But basically imagine if the words that Toby Keith sings in “courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue” could paint. If you can imagine that, on a huge side of a building, then you’ve about got this thing pictured. Needless to say, nothing proves you love America like a giant painting so the controversy was soon over. (related news at the time included an Anthrax scare at the Kerrville Post Office, because as you know, if you want to strike fear into the heart of America, Kerrville is where you go after.)

Shades of Blue

How important are colors? Actually, how important are the proper shades of colors? Tivy High School’s colors are “blue and gold,” and always have been. However over time, fashion trended to darker colors. By around 2002 the Tivy football team was sporting navy blue jerseys. So what? Well apparently this offended some of the older alumni, and they complained. And… okay are you ready for this? Wanted to rewrite the school handbook/charter/whatever the hell it’s called to say that the official school colors were “Royal Blue and gold.” (there was also an issue involving gold vs yellow on the baseball jerseys, and the basketball team using black trim on their road jerseys, but those were lesser concerns. Well current students all liked the Navy jerseys, and the old people were writing in to the paper about how navy blue was pissing on the dreams that Capt Tivy had when he donated the land to found the school in the 1800’s (which some of them were probably there for.) Anyway, after weeks of debate, I kid you not, they had a city wide vote. Yes, a vote. Needless to say the 19,000 old people with nothing better to do than vote for official school colors outvoted the 1,200 students at the high school, and Tivy has looked like blueberries ever since. Coincidently, and yes it was a total coincidence, the halftime show that the band performed that year happened to be titled “Shades of Blue.”