You Can’t Go Home Again 

Family tragedy brings a newly minted Texan back to New York, where he finds a city moving on without him, even as it stays the same

by Jonathan Kerrs

I moved to Austin, Texas, about nine months ago. I’d lived in the Tri-State area my entire life, worked in Manhattan the last six of those years, and decided I was ready for something new. I never knew it before I moved, but Texas turns out to be a great social litmus test. You can gauge a person’s overall lean—on anything from income tax to land conservation—based on their reaction to the fact that yes, I moved from New York City to Texas. The conversation usually goes one of two ways:

Scenario 1:

Person: What are you up to now?

Me: I moved to Austin, Texas.

Person: Oh, Texas? That must be a big adjustment, huh?

Scenario 2:

Person: What are you up to now?

Me: I moved to Austin, Texas.

Person: Oh, Texas! I’ve been to Dallas on business, I loved it.

(Note, in both cases there’s a good chance the weather will come up, but it almost never has anything to do with the overall sentiment.)

The difference is subtle, but the two variations have wildly different implications. In the first, the person will typically go on to reveal themselves as liberal, left, blue. The second: conservative, right, red. In either case their initial reaction provides enough information to gauge where the conversation will likely go and how I should tailor my response. This is also exactly how every conversation at my grandmother’s wake started.

Want more? Read the rest of the story here.