If Bick really loved her...
he would not have married her and taken her to live in Texas. Or he would have had to marry her and move to Maryland.
But then we would not have had this beautiful story and film.
And he wouldn't have had his beloved ranch.
"Did you make coffee? Make it!"--Cheyenne.
Yes, but how do you love a place like that? I think I could be born and raised there and indoctrinated to love it and even understand that it is the source of the family's wealth -- And STILL not love it.
I never understood why that barren, barren wasteland had any value. Why did it even work to raise cattle? What were they eating?
If I were Bick, I would have married Leslie and moved to Maryland. Let Luz run Reata.
If he had moved to Maryland for her, she would have spent the rest of their lives walking all over him. Texas is an attitude as much as a place.
shareInteresting point. But I don't think she would have spent their lives walking all over him. She wouldn't have had to. He would have had not adapt or go back home.
But he would not have been able to adapt and embrace Maryland the way that she was able to accept Texas, albeit as a place that needed a tremendous amount of change. (Though Maryland wasn't perfect either).
That's because you haven't lived there.
From our home outside of Phoenix I could walk or get on a horse and ride all the way to Canada without getting stuck. In Maryland, even though it is largely rural, I could not go in any direction in anything approximating a straight line for more than a few hundred yards without hitting private property that prohibited entry.
I always felt constrained, almost imprisoned and I think any westerner would feel the same way. Especially someone who owned one of the big ranches.
I knew a member of the Babbitt family (Bruce Babbitt was a governor of Arizona and Secretary of the Interior under President Clinton). He told me that he could ride on horseback from Winslow, Arizona to the Nevada state line without leaving family property. It's a very different feel from the closet sized states of the east.
Only one state east of the Mississippi River is larger than any of the states west of the Mississippi. That is Pennsylvania (if I remember correctly) and it is slightly larger Wyoming.
If you've lived in the 'wide open spaces' out here, it is impossible to adjust to those states back east that are smaller than counties.
The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank.
It is Michigan. Pennsylvania is not that big. I'm from Florida which ia actually the cattle capital of the US and I understand what you mean. We have wide open areas outside of Jacksonville and Sourh Florida and of course open seas on 3 of 4 sides. It really is something you can't shake -- the feeling of confinement and "smallness" that comes with small, densly populated states.
shareActually Florida is bigger than Iowa, Loiusiana, and Arkansas and about the size of Missouri which are all west of the Mississippi.
shareSo you don't like that you bump into private property, but Bruce Babbitt has so much private property that only he can ride from Winslow to Nevada?
I get what you are saying in a way. I don't like that it is almost solid city from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border. And the same sprawl in the S.F. Bay area.
Even in a quiet home, in a quiet neighborhood, you just know you are in the middle of a bee hive.