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Touching Texas Soil: Making Sure Your Baby is Born a Texan

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Tony Maples Photography

 

A very relatable article for Texpats was written by John Schwartz of the NY Times – a science writer who regularly contributes on topics related to the health of the planet. His focus for this particular story, however, wasn’t so much about Earth (in the planet sense) as it was earth…meaning dirt. Texas dirt, to be specific. Schwartz’s article focused on the fact that he presently has to live outside of Texas. Like many who have been born and raised in Texas but find that their life’s passion has taken them elsewhere, Schwartz wanted his child to be born in Texas, on Texas soil in fact. So, what’s a guy to do when both he and his wife, having been born Texans, are living in New York state? The results were humorous, albeit quite practical.

“When my wife, Jeanne, was pregnant with our first child, in 1987, we couldn’t fly to Texas for the delivery, but I did come up with a plan: Get some dirt to put under the delivery table. It might sound like a nutty idea, but it wasn’t a new one. I first heard of it during a study abroad program in Siena, Italy, in the 1970s,” Schwartz explained in his article. He began by expounding on the variety of staff that worked at the NY Times, the status of he and his wife’s situation during pregnancy number one, and the soil concept that he came up with based on a Sienese practice in Italy. He went about the process of obtaining dirt from a variety of locales in Texas, including his hometown of Galveston. Not only that, but friends helped along the way. The variety of Texas soil was enough to fit in a baggie, which he had planned on placing beneath the delivery table upon the arrival of he and his wife’s first born.

Touching Texas Soil: It Is Touching in Every Sense of the Word

Photo: Pexels

One thing led to another, as they often do, and unfortunately, Schwartz wasn’t able to use the baggie of Texas dirt due to emergency birthing procedures that were required. Did that stop him? No (He is a Texan after all). He found a workaround, which allowed for his daughter, Elizabeth, to be declared “a child of the Lone Star State.” You’ll have to read his article to see what that was, however.

In the meantime, he kept the bag of Texas soil, and it was there for the birth of the Schwartz’s second and third children, in 1990 and 1996, respectively. They too were afforded the same status as the first – not owing to the dirt, however, but the thought was there (and a worthy thought it was). Since then, the dirt has been present at the birth of the child of John’s friends (the father being from El Paso but living in New York City), and that of the child to a Times Metro reporter. One father wrapped the baggie of Texas soil in our state flag and touched the package to the child’s toes shortly after his birth, “…so that he would ‘step foot on Texas soil before any other.’” Finally, the bag went a long way toward “Texanizing” the birth of a child to a New York Times business reporter who hails from San Antonio!

Touching Texas Soil: It Is Touching in Every Sense of the Word

Photo: Pixnio

In closing of this very interesting piece, Schwartz indicated that “The dirt stands ready to serve any of my other Texpatriates,” and it remains in the flag cover which one of the subsequent births afforded it, lending it a touch of Texas class. The ritual, although it may seem trivial and irrelevant to some, allowed for these Texpats to start their child’s life out in a meaningful way to them, which can’t be a bad thing – no matter how you look at it.