Texas is a long way across.

On a sunny spring day, we arrived in El Paso, which is about as far west as you can go in Texas. Dry and hot, El Paso sits in the middle of a desert with the sun shining almost every day. In the paper each morning was a “Sun Day” count, tallying the number of days since the last gray day, which are few indeed and far between.

“El Paso del Norte,” the Pass of the North, was what the first Spanish explorers, approaching from the south, called the cut formed by the Rio Grande River through the Franklin Mountains, the southernmost branch of the Rocky Mountains. It was an easy way to get through the hills, and it provided a welcome and refreshing respite from the desert heat for those weary travelers. Under the shade of a real tree, they could take off their boots and dangle their feet in the flowing waters of the Rio Grande.

Trees and green are prized in the environs of El Paso. Most front lawns are decorated with colored rocks and cactus. On the roofs, the air conditioners are “swamp coolers” blowing air through falling, evaporating water. In a desert with little humidity, a little cooled air was all we needed for conditioning.

Each morning, I’d drive from the east side of the Franklin Mountains through the Pass of the North on my way to downtown and work. On my right out the passenger window, I could see where the Rio Grande River marked the border with Mexico. Most mornings, the river was sand with no water showing, not the flowing, bubbling stream which was such a welcome site to those early Spanish adventurers. Dams and irrigation upstream have put the water to good use. Today, little flows to separate the modern-day cities of El Paso in the United States and Ciudad Juarez in Mexico. It would be an easy walk across, except for the fences.

To me, El Paso will always be a cowboy town.

Marty Robbins, the country and western singer, wrote a song about El Paso and cowboys that I still listen to as I drive through Texas. It is a sad song that starts out with these happy lines, “Out in the West Texas town of El Paso, I fell in love with a Mexican girl.” Then “a wild young cowboy came in, Wild as the West Texas wind.” “Wild as the West Texas wind’ are some of my favorite words because they are just like that. The two cowboys draw their guns in a real cowboy gun fight and when the smoke clears, “The handsome young stranger lay dead on the floor.” Our hero has broken the law, he  knows it and he rides for the “bad-lands of New Mexico,” but he can’t stay away. His love and his fate draw him back. “On the hill overlooking El Paso,” he prods his mount and rides down. The posse is waiting and this time the bullets find their mark. Somehow, our cowboy reaches the door of his “Mexican maiden,” where “cradled by two loving arms” he bids her “good-bye.”

On an early spring morning, I bid “good-bye” to El Paso and started to drive. Almost 800 miles later, I arrived in Houston and the start of a new life. The rich greens of Houston were a welcome change. Still, I missed the colors and tones of El Paso. There is a special beauty in that city in the desert and a shared warmth in those who live there. No place is without its troubles but some hold them well with a bright optimism that their sun days reflect.

“Out in the West Texas town of El Paso” is a song and a city that will always be in my heart.

May the sun find you today and lighten yours,

Grandpa Jim