State recognition
In 1979, a Houston elementary school proposed granting the armadillo the title of official state mammal, a measure put forth by a Houston state representative. The children lobbied legislators with an armadillo cake, armadillo costumes and a stuffed armadillo named Ernie they’d borrowed from a rancher. The bill sailed through the Texas House. Then it hit the Senate — and the public consciousness.
“It’s a timid little creature that can’t even stick up for itself,” one caller complained to the newspaper. “THIS is the sort of creature that should be chosen as the state animal of Texas, the land of the rugged individual?”
Another man wrote in, aghast: “The nerve of beer drinking, johnny-come latelies attempting to set up that lowly, decrepit, squirming thing called the armadillo as our state animal is just too much.” He began a campaign for the longhorn to be crowned instead, hoping it would “drive that lowly, worm-eating ground burrowing armadillo back across the border where it belongs.”
The Senate pushed the resolution off into a quiet death by committee. It would be resurrected a decade and a half later in what a legislator called “The Great Compromise of 1995”: While the longhorn took the title as the state large mammal, the armadillo got its due as the official Texas small mammal.
The national conference for transportation and logistics professionals where Speed Bump and Quesadillo were set to go head-to-head was one of many events that have kept Sparky Sparks’ armadillos crisscrossing Texas highways. Sparks’ traveling races are part of an old tradition: Just about as long as there have been armadillos on this side of the river, there have been armadillo contests in Texas.
A 1930 showdown of 20 armadillos across a 200foot track in Junction claimed to be the “first marathon of its kind.” The sport was popularized several decades later by a man out of West Texas named Sam Lewis, who encouraged racers to blow into the armadillos’ ears to get them to go and took great offense to any criticism of the armadillo as a potential state mammal. Sparks, like many current armadillo aficionados, met Lewis back on the events circuit.
“I really enjoyed it,” Sparks said. “I was the guy drinking a beer and making fun of Yankees. We were doing our thing, and we just had a big old time with it, and it just sort of morphed over time.”
If Sam Lewis is the father of armadillo racing, Sparky Sparks considers himself the king. He has somewhere around 10 armadillos, including Speed Bump and Quesadillo. Once upon a time, he had to go trap them. Nowadays, people know to bring them to him.
Armadillo Jim, who grew up in Schulenberg, got his start in the world of armadillos as a kid, when the local Lions Club offered $2 per nabbed armadillo. (They used the critters for races.) He thrived in the racing world until he had a spiritual awakening that told him to use armadillos to teach kids to “put on your armor” against drugs.
“They’re like teenagers,” he said of his armadillos. “They won’t come when you call, but if food’s around, there they are. They’re up all night so you need to get them a room far away from you.”
His friend Suzanne McPhee, who has kept armadillos for 37 years (she will not reveal how many but said they are all properly permitted), is an armadillo rehabber and the author of several scientific papers on the creatures. She does not like the headlines warning that armadillos easily transmit leprosy. Scientists say it is possible, but usually in rare circumstances.
Her armadillos enjoy hard-boiled eggs and avocados and a dip in a kiddie pool filled with 4 inches of water. They star in annual Christmas cards: Armadillos pulling a sleigh, armadillos stealing a sleigh, armadillos with their tongues out. (Armadillo Jim is waiting eagerly for this year’s mailing.) Once, she and her husband took an armful of armadillos to the mall to sit on Santa’s lap.
(McPhee did want me to emphasize: Outside of her “very unique” circumstances, armadillos as a rule make lousy pets.)
Not too long ago, McPhee’s husband went out to buy a mattress. When the salesperson asked what he was looking for, he said it needed to be low enough so the armadillos could hop on and off but high enough so they could play underneath.
The sales associate didn’t quite know what to say. He was at a store in California.
Deeper meaning
The first recorded musing in Texas over what, exactly, the nine-banded armadillo could mean came in the fall of 1891, after an unnamed Texan admirer sent President Benjamin Harrison what turned out to be a “very dead” armadillo in a box ($2.50, collect). Harrison, as the account goes, exhibited the carcass in the lobby of the White House. Various dignitaries came to examine what one reporter called a “strange gift.”
“What does this signify?” the Fort Worth Gazette mulled. “The sooth-sayers, diviners and oracles for the administration will have their wits exercised to interpret the meaning of it.”
As I’ve spent time with armadillos and their enthusiasts, I think it comes down to this: The armadillo is less a mirror for the truth of Texas than a reflection of what we want to see about ourselves at any given time — and what parts of ourselves we might not want to look at.
Depending on the particular kaleidoscope through which you see the world, they can be fascinating mammals or garden pests best used as baskets; cowards or tough Texans; peaceniks or, as one columnist decided in 1985, “good times and rednecks and longnecks and country music and chili.” Or — if you’re into nuance — all of the above. But whether you like them or not, if you’re a Texan, you’ll have to live with them. No matter how many times people have tried to push them away, out of their gardens or out of the running as a Texas mascot, sarmadillo have managed to burrow their way into our identity.
I thought about all this as I sat on the wooden bleachers at the back of that bar patio, watching Swift Sparks pick volunteers out of a crowd from all over the country to jockey Speed Bump and Quesadillo down the track. He laid out the rules: Blow on them, and clap behind them, but no touching allowed. (“If you guys can make the sound of a Mack truck, that really gets them going,” he advised.)
The jockeys gripped the armadillos by the holding them firmly at the starting line.
“Armadillos, get set! Racers, on your mark! And they’re off!”
The crowd went wild. The jockeys clapped. The armadillos didn’t so much sprint as scurry. Speed Bump emerged victorious. (The man with the black cowboy boots triumphed over the woman in open-toed heels.) Swift Sparks scooped Speed Bump up by the tail, offering it up for selfies (“It’s a great way to update your Tinder profile.”) The animal wriggled in his arms as people leaned in to get their pictures. (“Armadillos are cute,” one attendee decided. “I’ll say it.”)
After he completed a circumnavigation of the track, Sparks brought Speed Bump over my way. I felt the bands of the shell (carapace). It had the firm, leathery consistency of a saddle and the ridgelike texture of beef jerky.
I leaned in for a selfie.
After a few more pictures, Sparks lowered the armadillo into the pen. Speed Bump fled back into the crate with more enthusiasm than it had shown for the actual competition.
A man in a zip-up fleece vest took one last look at the racetrack and said, “That’s going to be a taco later.” tail,