The Wit, Wisdom of Tex Parker

I think Paul ‘Tex’ Parker would be tickled to know he was featured on this Opinion Page one last time.

Tex, 83, who wrote occasional columns in this newspaper off and on for over a decade, died last week at his home in La Grange.

That’s the way he wanted it– to be at home until the end.

Part handyman, part singing cowboy in his younger days, Tex often wrote in the pages of this newspaper about his health battles (which were numerous), and his battles to stay independent (which had him pedaling around town on his three-wheel bicycle when he couldn’t drive anymore).

He once wrote: “Many of the medical types around here will tell you I am a walking dead man; that the best for all would be for me to be immediately carried to a far away nursing home, shown too my new digs, fed a plate of gruel with a rainbow of horse tranquilizers, lights off for a good nights rest and assured that tomorrow will be about the same. One doctor I was seeing would ask, over and over, ‘You about ready to go?’ Finally, I said, ‘Looky here, Doc, I come here to stay out of these places; not to have you drive me into one.’” Crutches and all, he want to the ZZ Top concert at the fair in 2015 and wrote about the nightmare of getting out of the grounds that night. “Pushing and shoving matches prevailed. I hit, with crutches, several transgressors of my personal space. Hey, they hollered, turning, surprised by a long haired old dude holding a crutch as a club. Come along Henry, wives said, pulling by his arm her beer soaked spouse, he is obviously a deranged local.”

Once a family member convinced him to move out to California.

What followed was a months-long odyssey of his efforts to return to Texas.

In a 2018 column he wrote: “I’ve been in California for two and a half months. So far, I’ve been hospitalized, institutionalized, homogenized, compromised, radicalized, stabbed in the eyes with a sharp stick, and lived in the woods behind a Walmart for a bit .. most of my first months here were wasted away in local hospitals, some of which were not my own choosing.”

Later I got a phone call from him at a train station he was sleeping at in Sacramento, and then a call from a police officer and a shelter worker in Arizona worried about him as he worked his way back east.

Turns out Tex was telling everyone he met that he was just working on a column for the newspaper and giving out my phone number if they wanted to verify it.

Eventually Tex made it back to his home in La Grange, but in these last few years of his life, the health struggles continued to mount.

Most notably Tex struggled to talk very well.

But that didn’t stop him from running for Mayor of La Grange back in 2021.

He wrote: “Been busy trying to lay low, keep head down and avoid trouble, keeping mouth shut. But; opportunity and inspiration; mixed with anger and confusion, has roared into the driveway, ran into the house, slapped me all about the face, yelling, “Hey, you get up, stand up, say something, do something, write something.”

He got seven votes. I think he was proud of that. Even until the end he remained a man about town.

A trio of broken down vehicles remained unmovable in his yard, so he’d ride his threewheel bike over here to the Record office (not minding a bit if he caused a traffic jam on Highway 77 on his way over), knock on the glass front door and buy several dozen eggs and chat a little.

As his health got worse, Tex kept a positive outlook.

He wrote in a column last year: “One of two things will happen; I get well or die. Either way, it’s gonna be a Heck of an Adventure; and I hope you stay with me, until the end.”

Last Thanksgiving was one of his last columns for the paper. In it he found himself complaining too much and said: “But this is a Thanksgiving column; not a whine and moan piece. And Boy Howdy; do I have a bunch of things to be thankful for. Mostly that I have not died.”

But now he has died, and it makes me really sad – but also really glad that I got to know him.

I’m also really glad that we were able to share a little of Tex with thousands of people through the pages of this newspaper.

The battles he wrote about, of health and independence and growing old, are ones we can all empathize with. May we all face our struggles with the spirit he did.

Rest in Peace, Tex.