two or three hundred times a day--leaves some victims exhausted. On top of this, an insidious
malaise sets in, making it hard to do anything but stare vacantly at the wall, while at the same time a nagging
little voice says, "Get up. It's just an allergy."
But cedar fever is not just any allergy. It's a scourge, a plague that smites the just and the
unjust who have the misfortune to live anywhere in a broad strip of Central Texas that stretches from the Red River
to the Rio Grande. The progenitor of all this misery is a medium-sized, frankly undistinguished tree with sinewy
limbs covered in shaggy bark that vaguely resembles orangutan fur. Despite its common name, the mountain cedar
is actually a juniper (Juniperus ashei). Every year around
December, we blunder into the midst of the cedar's mating ritual. It begins with the appearance of the male cones--embarrassingly
small, amber-colored structures no larger than a grain of rice. In good years (or bad, depending on your viewpoint)
they blanket the tops of the trees, turning them an aggressive tawny orange. When the wind rises, great gritty
clouds of the pollen drift aloft, making the woods look like they are aflame. This airborne mist can waft for miles
until it runs into something sticky, like the small green cone of the female tree or the inside of your nose.
Once cedar pollen gets into your system, its evil nature is revealed. Compared
with it, ragweed is a wimp. The key is the biochemical structure of cedar pollen's protein coat, which appears
to have properties that make it unusually noxious. Then there's the sheer quantity of the grains. In a rainy year
the trees produce tons, and the pollen count, the Richter scale of allergy, goes through the roof.
If mountain cedar causes so much trouble, some sufferers have raged (between sneezes), why not
clear it out? It's a health hazard, it robs grazing land of water, and unlike its cousin Juniperus
communis, you can't make gin out of the berries (too bad, because a mountain cedar martini
could be a surefire way to forget your allergy woes). The trouble with cutting down the cedars is that it would
be ecologically unwise, not to mention impossible. They cover many of the 24 million acres of the Edwards Plateau,
providing drought-tolerant, year-round greenery for erosion control, stock and wildlife shelter, and the raw materials
for the fence-post industry. Physically and philosophically, cedar defines Central Texas. You can no more think
of that terrain without cedar than without live oak or limestone. Sentimentalists would also insist that the resinous
aroma of cedar-wood campfire on a starry autumn night is one of the things that makes life worth living.
Sentimentalism scores no points with allergy sufferers, though. What they want is relief. Temporary
palliatives include the usual antihistamines and decongestants, plus a sodium cromolyn spray that has been used
with good effect in England. Truly wretched cases may qualify for cortisone, but the drug's side effects make it
a last resort. Nutritionists have a theory that any allergy fans the flames of stress, and they suggest taking
pantothenic acid (a B vitamin), zinc, or vitamin C. Omitting beef and yeast foods can ameliorate attacks in some
instances. But the one thing cedar fever victims can't do is escape their destiny. Those who are fated to develop
symptoms usually do so after a couple of seasons, but some have been smitten after ten, even twenty smug years.
Eventually most of the afflicted end up at an allergist's office for a series of shots that help
about 75 per cent of the time. Allergists can reassure you that you don't have a cold (it runs its course in a
week) or a fever (you just feel flushed). What they can't tell you is why you can build immunity by injecting the
irritant but not by breathing it. If all else fails, your only recourse may be to leave town for the duration;
that was the preferred treatment of writer J. Frank Dobie.
The obsession with nostrums and the wild talk about eradicating the mountain cedar miss a perverse
but essential point: cedar fever is part of being a Texan. Other places suffer the malady, to be sure, but none
of them have Juniperus ashei. It's our own personal poison,
part of Mother Nature's hazing ritual designed just for Texans, and those who have been initiated wear the affliction
like a red badge of courage. After all, we are in a war zone.
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