Sometimes being from the fine city of Houston is uncomfortable.
One of my good friends, Marie, and I have an ongoing conversation that we started ten years ago when we were roommates. We realized that we shared the same anxious experience. Everytime we heard something horrible on the national news, we would wait (sometimes with eyes closed as though making a wish) in the hope that we would not hear that it had happened in Texas. It was amazing how often we were disappointed.
Perhaps it's self-centered of us (and no one accuses Texas of being a humble state), but it just seemed that we got more than our fair share (of the pecan pie?) of horrifying news: the Luby's Cafeteria shooting in Kileen, the Waco Siege, The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom, and so on. My mind goes back to the nightmarish story of the UT Tower shootings in 1966 and the lush Texan lawn evident in the background of the Zupruder film as JFK is murdered. And don't forget that the Texas Chainsaw Massacre is based on a true story. These are the stories we grew up with and there are some I can't even bear to type. Sure, everything's bigger in Texas. But every time we heard more absurdly bad news about Texas -- the man who flew his plane into the IRS building in Austin most recently -- one of us would mention it to the other as though adding to the long list of evidence against ourselves.
Sometimes we tried to defend ourselves. We tried to tell ourselves, at least initially, was that all this mortality and absurdity happened somewhere else. Dallas (our arch rival) or Austin (our cooler, wilder sibling). But distancing ourselves from these stories never seemed to work.
Guess where infamous astronaut Lisa Nowak lived?
Houston.
Where did Michael Jackson's shady-sounding doctor practice?
Well, that would be Houston, Texas, Ma'am.
What home to Haliburton was also the headquarters of Enron before its embarrassing, disasterous decline.
Yes, ok. Houston.
And I can't diminish the misery of these incidents. All I can reiterate is that Texas is a big place, and Houston is the biggest place in it. So, a lot of good and bad is going to happen here.
When Lousiana evacuees fled to Houston after Katrina, Houston showed a generosity of which I was genuinely proud - extending time and money and compassion. Nevermind the news stories. I was there. I saw it. One of the stories I've chosen to embrace is of Louisianans who heard that the travellers who had landed in their Louisiana bar were from Houston instructed them, "Your money is no good here" and bought them more drinks than they wanted all night long.
After growing up in the shadow of these stories, it's nice to know folks are sometimes happy to see us coming. We may be the state famous for its longstanding criminalization of sodomy, but Houston was also the first city with over a million people to elect a gay mayor. We're a cowboy city of shocking ethnic and cultural diversity. Our fabulous Art Car Parade is the biggest in the world. (So take that, Austin!) Our rodeo is also the biggest in the world. (And take that, Dallas!) And don't get me started about the food here or I really will start crying.
Many of my fellow Houstonians seem to share my deep but troubled love for our hometown. Houston. It's Worth it. is a beautiful illustration of what I'm talking about. Despite the enormous flying cockroaches (you'll notice everytime you see one you think it's the biggest you've ever seen), the hundred year long summers,the regular threat of hurricanes apocolypse and a bad reputation all around... we discover that we love it here.
To change the tone in our ten year long dialog, Marie, let me suggest this: Let's just quit flinching during the news. Come on. Where else would you going to get your Chicken Fried Steak? Only here, where the stars at night are big and bright.
I'd like to add that it still irks me that we were blown up by our own government as a "test" in Independence Day. Pssh.
ReplyDeleteRight after Katrina an online knitting magazine published a pattern by a local called Astrodome. It was a striped hat with colors evocative of the brightly colored seats that used to be in the stadium. I was on a LiveJournal knitting group and someone was bashing the pattern and the publication, saying that it was "too soon" and "tasteless" for it to have been published with all the suffering and the crime going on there. I balked. And wrote a long comment explaining that the evacuation was just a small part of the amazing history of that place, and how many Houstonians and Texans have cherished memories of events they attended at the Astrodome. Not to mention the fact that we were doing something to help. It may have been flawed, but it was help for these people who lost everything. I am pleased to say that after that she shut the hell up. Don't mess with Texas indeed.
You are right McMeowthiest. I am even going to stop being really surprised when people moved here and decided to stay. Remember how much we wanted to leave here? And even though it is killer hot with it 98 degrees and the humidity makes it feel like 110, there are several days during the fall, winter, and spring that make it worth it. It also means more pool time! Other "things that makes me proud to live in Houston (or Texas).... JFK's famous speech was made right here at Rice Stadium AND we've won more Miss America contest than any other state.
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