Houston, gulp.

I drove a long ways home from Houston in the rain today.

Houston was my home for almost fifty years.  Its where I raised four kids.  Its where I worked at a broad array of jobs, from KODA and KPRC in the Galleria, to KILT way back when it was in a downtown hotel, to the Astros in the Astrodome and then many years out there on 225 in Pasadena.

These last few weeks have seen me back in my "hometown" several times; concert, memorial service, opthalmalogy apointment and again last night for a great speech/performance by Neil deGrasse Tyson at Jones Hall.

What gets me most is what is the same and what is so different.  I had not been to Pam's Shane Media office in some years.  I knew exactly where I thought it was, Gessner just before Westheimer.  I had to call from around the corner!  So many new kinds of apartments, lofts and office buildings completely hid it from view.  "Oh sure, Pam, I can find it."  Ha

So two things occur, sometimes almost simultaneously, I turn a corner and nothing looks familiar, or I turn a corner and memories come flooding in.  Often its family memories, or friends, or great meals, or car wrecks, or old shopping spots, even old home places, mine and other peoples.

For instance, just a couple blocks from Shane Media and on our way to the Shane's house, we turned on Westerland.  Westerland is where Paul and I moved, were married and sustained a seven year life together.  Its where my kids made friends that some of them are still in contact with ... it was 1967.  Our house looks almost exactly the same, only the trees have gotten bigger.  A few more blocks down Westheimer was Rosewood Hospital.  You notice I said was, it was torn down many years ago.  Kathy can't drive by and show her children the building where she was born.

A few more blocks and we're in Briarcrest (I think that's the name) where the Shanes bought their lovely home many years ago.  When we parked I said to Pam, "how nice, this still looks like a great Houston neighborhood."  She was pleased to hear it.

And it is like that all the way around, can't see the Baxter House where Paul once lived, don't know if it is still there off of Hillcroft or not.  The restaurants the children worked at along that road, all gone.  In fact I don't believe there is anything familiar left.  It is very franchise-laden, very crowded and most of the apartment complexes are several stories tall and hulk out over where the sidewalks once were.

I can remember where the restaurant was on Westheimer, we had dinner with Roger and Dorothy Metting, who lived in our subdivision, had lived at the Baxter House and were in the radio and record business, close buddies.  Walking out to our cars after dinner Roger said, " get in my car I want you to hear a first record by a new artist, I think he's going to be huge."  Right again, Roger, it was Bruce Springsteen's first cut.  I kinda thought he was wrong.  He was not.

Last night I drove downtown to Jones Hall. The Southwest Freeway is quite familiar, until you get ready to get off and then it keeps going and you end up further down Louisiana Street.  So, its partly the same and partly different.

I know, its been fifty years.  People tire of me telling them that when I moved here in 1958 there were 400,000 people in Houston. Four hundred thousand then and over six million now, quite a change.  The other thing I always add (old people do that) is that when I got here the Gulf Freeway was under construction and so it has been and still is, even now.

Last note, I thought I'd drive out the 40 lane wide Katy Freeway to the new 99 Grand Parkway because I'd never been on it.  It currently starts out South at 59 (Richmond/Rosenberg) and now only goes as far as 290.  When completed,(and the part to I-45 right near Currie's house is scheduled to open by fall) it will be a third beltway around the city and cross through five counties!  I can only imagine what the toll bill will be to do a circumnavigation.

It is a city filled with memories, histories, confusing changes and all those temptations I can no longer afford to give in to.  I always make a list of things to do or buy "if I get to Houston."  I used to make a long list, now with no job, not so much.  This trip I skipped Phoenicia and Penzey's Spices, added Trader Joe's (whoooo eee!) and ducked into Ikea for a ninety nine cent breakfast and a jar of Swedish marmalade.  I remember hurricanes and floods and amonia trucks crashing off the 610 interchange.  I remember long trips to work and repeated trips hauling kids to their jobs before they drove.  Houston is a bundle of memories, sometimes I see them and remember and sometimes I don't recognize where I am at all.  Houston.  Gulp.