[dropcap]L[/dropcap]ike everyone else, Texans are well capable of whining and complaining, but the story doesn’t end there. Scratch that surface and there’s a dogged toughness in most people living here. Maybe it seeps up through the land; maybe it’s a contagious attitude carried along by frontier genes.
Most frontier hardships are behind us as we move into urban life. Those that remain – blasting heat, thorny mesquites, a random rattlesnake on the front porch, lots of work for little pay – are reminders that life wasn’t designed to be a piece of cake. Gut up and get going is the motto, and that’s what a Houston resident demonstrated last weekend.
Gloria Quintanilla has lived in Texas since she escaped El Salvador’s violence in 1982. At age 60, she holds a job washing sheets for a Houston hotel, and she wasn’t about to let a flood stop her. Wading through hip-deep water when a reporter approached to question her, she explained that it was her day to work, and it was her responsibility to get there.
