So imagine my surprise to see so far not a single pair of boots here in Tyler. There are a few cowboy chapeaux, but they’re perched on the rear shelves of cars, not on heads. We’re about an hour’s drive east of Dallas, in East Texas, as different from the gritty hills of western Texas as is the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont from the tourist strips of Orvisland in Manchester. And in spite of the current grim news of global economic downturn, Tyler seems to be booming. The streets and roads are wide and smooth, and traffic is pretty heavy and aggressive (eight accidents in one area of the city yesterday, to the consternation of the local cops).

Mother and I are down here to visit our son, his wife, their two daughters, and their new dog, Phoebe. (Phoebe is an utter anomaly in Texas: clearly, to my eye, a mix of Siberian husky and Labrador Retriever; you can’t get much farther north than those two origins of species.) It’s been so long since we’ve had kids around the house ourselves that the experience has been a trip down memory lane – musical instruments, dances, and homework. But there’s something new – texting. These lovely girls can do it under the table, without looking!

Tyler is named in honor of an accidental president who was in office at the time of Texas’ annexation to the Union in 1845. It’s sometimes referred to as the Rose Capital of the World (far better than Harrisonburg, Virginia, where Mother and I were married, which called itself, without irony, the Turkey Capital of the World). Tyler ships out every year about half the rose bushes sold in the United States. I checked to see if it’s officially a Tree City, but couldn’t find that it is. It ought to be. Located on the northern edge of what’s called the Big Thicket, it’s actually lush: oak trees lining the streets, supporting a busy population of gray squirrels with brass-colored breasts; Confederate rose trees blooming like mad; an ornamental called crape myrtle; pecans; and, just over the backyard fence, a banana tree that actually produces bananas. Not a maple sugar in sight.

This is termite country, too, so the houses are almost universally of beige brick on a slab. New houses are in planned subdivisions, and pretty spectacular. The Roman villa is à la mode, with piazzas, tiled roofs, arched doorways, and boat docks down on the shores of impoundments. My unscientific count registers more German cars than Japanese.

My son and I both love sailing; so he borrowed a 26-footer, and we repaired to the Tyler Yacht Club. Not quite like Marblehead or Essex – another impoundment with limited possibilities – but very pleasant, and on a sunny November day, deserted. We wrestled with the unfamiliar quirks of the boat, recalling how difficult it is to handle two sheets and a tiller in a breeze while drinking a bottle of beer and eating a six-inch sandwich that dribbles bits of pickles and olives all over the deck. My next yacht will have cup holders, and peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches that stick wherever you put them, like Post-It notes.

It was very much like New England in September: the afternoon sun low in the sky, the kids in school, football teams practicing on green fields, temperatures in the low sixties – which the locals (I started as many conversations as I could) declared uncomfortably cold. An elderly couple eating breakfast next to us in a diner declared they had once driven all around Vermont and New Hampshire during leaf-peeping season, and had found them cold, too: “We felt like they didn’t much want us there.” I promised I’d mention that to the tourism bureau.

A man getting up from a coffee shop table scattered stuff all over the floor when his briefcase popped open. I helped him gather up the mess – nobody else moved – and congratulated him on what he hadn’t said when it happened. “Oh,” he said, “I used to talk like that, but then I received the Lord Jesus into my heart, and now I’m a changed man.” He was about to continue, but I already had more information than I needed – people here, I notice, do share personal information much more readily than up home – so I sidled away. My son told me, as we escaped, that I was about to be asked whether I had yet found a church home. It’s apparently a common opening here, where church membership is assumed, and there’s a locally printed Christian advertising magazine – sort of a yellow pages of businesses owned by the redeemed.

We capped our visit this morning with a pep rally at Robert E. Lee High School. Football is the other religion here, and there seems to be no intimation of irony in a team bearing this name made up of probably half African-Americans. Tomorrow they’re headed west a hundred miles or so for the first round of the playoffs, with a huge band, squads of incredibly athletic cheerleaders, and an accompanying armada of family cars and trucks. While they’re battling on the warm, green fields of Texas, Mother and I will be sitting cozily side by side in bulkhead seats, headed northeast and peering out the window to see where the snow line begins.