Size Matters: One Texan in the Global Village

There is an unusual map of the world that was once a popular poster. You can still see it around because it is a map that makes you see the world in a new way. This map reduces the world's 7.3 billion people to a village of just 100 residents. It keeps all the proportions the same, allowing us to look at the world on a miniature scale.

On this map, you will see that there are 60 Asians in the world—including China, Japan, India, and eastern Russia. More than half the world lives in Asia.

Europe has 11 people. Africa has slightly more—16—but much more space. If you add up all of the Americas, from the North Pole all the way down to Tierra del Fuego in Argentina, you get 14 people.

The United States represents only five people. And Texas? Texas has one person in this village. Imagine that. Out of the entire population of this enormous planet, only one gets the honor, the rare pleasure, of being a Texan.

It reminds me of another observation about the map by Bob Wheeler, author of Forged of a Hotter Fire. I like to mention Wheeler's book whenever possible because his work circulates on the internet without being associated with his name. He gets no credit. The quote below is often attributed to Bum Phillips—who was certainly a great lover of Texas, but he did not write Forged of a Hotter Fire; Bob Wheeler did.

Here is what Wheeler says in his wonderful little book about Texas:

"Look at Texas for me for just a second. That picture with the Panhandle and the Gulf Coast and the Red River and the Rio Grande is as much a part of you as anything ever will be. As soon as anyone anywhere in the world looks at it they know what it is. It's Texas. Take any kid off the street in Japan and draw him a picture of Texas in the dirt and he'll know what it is."

(Look at Texas for just a moment. That picture with the Panhandle and the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and the Red River and the Rio Grande is as much a part of you as anything else. As soon as anyone anywhere in the world looks at it, they know what it is. It's Texas. Take any child off the street in Japan and draw them a picture of Texas in the dirt, and they will know what it is.)

Wheeler said he thought that "most everyone everywhere would like, just once, to be a real Texan - to ride a horse or drive a pickup." (Almost everyone everywhere would like, at least once, to try being a real Texan—to ride a horse or drive a pickup.) Perhaps they long to set out toward the freedom of vast blue skies and unknown horizons. Wheeler believed that everyone, deep down, has a longing for something that could be called Texas. Perhaps that is true.