Y'all are my bandwidth.

Hey y’all.

My Daddy was a Texan.

So was I, but it didn’t take. The Air Force uprooted Daddy, Mother, Marthalyn, Marilyn, and me, from the dust of San Antonio round about 1954.

If you protest that San Antonio isn’t known for being dusty, I guess you’re not a three-year-old.

Mostly I remember heat, dust, horny toads, lots of open space, and a floor furnace that branded the soles of my feet with a checkerboard pattern that stayed with me for a couple of years.

I never knowingly put down roots until we reached Japan. Two and a half years in Japan naturalized me, you might say. I had found my natural home.

So, of course, the Air Force uprooted me again.

I have portable roots now. All the South gave me was a second-person plural pronoun—which nobody can truly function without, but everyone tries, with doubtful results.

My pronoun is “y’all.”

My more alert readers will be asking what this has to do with bandwidth.

In a word: everything.

“Bandwidth” is defined as “that which nobody has enough of to take on one more effing problem.”

Being fluent in Texan, I can say that y’all probably don’t have enough problems, so I’m going to spread the wealth. Just like anybody can do, if they have the gumption* to set up a Substack account.

My wealth is problems, and y’all are my bandwidth.

* gumption: To put it plainly for non-Texans (or anyone unfamiliar with the term): If you tackle problems head-on, show common sense, and don’t give up easily, you have gumption. Synonyms include initiative, spunk, moxie, grit, and get-up-and-go.