I am a native Texan ---- with an ancestor who died at the Alamo and another who died in the Goliad Massacre. I grew up on a blackland cotton farm in North Central Texas.
To me, the best thing about Texas are Texans themselves, particularly the farm people. The older I get, the more I am nostalgic for the "old days" before the small towns began dying as people moved from their farms to take city jobs.