Houston

I rode into Houston on the firm haunch of a 727, landing in weather that prompted the first in a series of loyalty pacts with God. The weather was a combination of fog and clouds and mist, ideal for ferns.

"Get me down," I said.

The man next to me said he was trying.

God, Who does much of His work at airports, said through a stewardess, "We have just landed at Houston Intercontinental."

Those arriving on this flight had received a complimentary sauna, just another service of America's sixth largest city, third most proficient port, home of 1,430,000 just plain folks who make Houston a healthy valve deep in the heart of Texas.

I found a folk at the airport who rented (continued on page 158)Houston(continued from page 105) cars. I said I was here for my compact, and she said it was the red station wagon, and I said I didn't bring friends, and she said that if you can drive a compact, you can drive a station wagon, honey. She gave me a half-moon smile and I swayed off in search of Greater Houston, which has an incorporated area of 501 square miles, nearly half the size of Greater Rhode Island.

I drove 25 miles, not because I wanted to but because I took an exit ramp that was actually a spawning freeway, and getting off a Houston freeway can be similar to crawling up out of the gutter if you are drunk or a bowling ball. A crimson light on the dashboard flashed, meaning we were thirsty, and I stopped in front of Little Caesar's.

Rosebud, or Rose Bud, said come in. Another bathing beauty, pink from pinches and pats, presented her slightly bikinied posterior as an hors d'oeuvre, so I popped her elastic and was led to a very nice table by the jukebox, where Fats Domino, you remember him, had a clear shot at my inner ear.

It was dark, the way Little Caesar would have wanted it. Hanging over the bar were imitation machine guns, and hanging over my table was a friend of Rosebud's, who called me baby. My peripheral vision included both of her breasts, casually supported by material you hardly even noticed.

I said, "Beer, Pearl."

She said Pearl didn't work at this here establishment.

If you have ever ordered peach Melba on the turnpike, you know how things like this can happen.

I said, "You Texans have some kind of sense of humor."

She said, "I am not a Texan."

I said, "What are you?"

She said, "I am a go-go dancer and a fine waitress."

I said, "Beer, any."

Nor does Annie work here. She maybe used to work here.

I said to myself, there is no use in trying to break the ice in Houston, which lies at 29 degrees, 45 feet, 26 inches latitude, roughly the same as Rampur, Cairo and Midway Island.

Sitting in clusters were men who were men. One man, wearing a napkin tied over his head, stood next to the stage, lunging at a dancer, who was doing her Johnny Bench imitation. She was signaling for other than the knuckler.

I asked my waitress if this were a Shriners' convention. She said the only Shriner she knew was Herb. She said these people were surgeons and physicians, part of a convention of 1200 that would be in Houston one week.

In 1974, 277 conventions and 426,455 delegates visited Houston, and it was estimated that $65,000,000 was spent in the pursuit of professional and individual self-betterment, which includes lodging, food and some light ass grabbing.

A surgeon at the next table introduced himself, and I said, "Jay Cronley, Tulsa, Oklahoma."

He said, "Hey, boys, we got a goddamn Okie. Goddamn Okie can't even find California." I asked when was the seminar concerning malpractice. He said you can't sue for malpractice if you are dead, and he went off to practice what he had learned chasing nurses. I made a note on a book of matches to do what I could to stay healthy.

I talked some more with my waitress.

I go, "Some weather," and she goes, "Seen it worse in the East," and I go, "Long drive in from the airport, about twenty miles," and she goes, "Not as far as in Dallas," and I go, "The traffic," and she goes, "Easier here than Los Angeles."

I go, "Why do you and so many others live here?"

She goes, "Because it is not bad."

I go to the toilet.

The check was for $1.65. That is one beer, any. I said that I was not a surgeon.

I went outside. The fog had lifted into what could have been a halo, and the sun was applying midmorning make-up to the buildings that sit up straight as good tulips to form downtown Houston. I stared at the United Gas Building, which I identified in section P-11 of my map, and the United Gas Building stared back, because builder Kenneth Schnitzer wrapped its guts in glass that reflects what the sun says.

As I stood blinking at One Shell Plaza (50 stories), and Allen Center, and Two Shell Plaza, and Dresser Tower, and the Exxon Building, and other monuments to man's reach, one of Caesar's girls tapped me on the shoulder.

"You forgot your billfold."

Whereas many go-go dancers look so fine under Fantasia lights, this one did not age noticeably in natural light.

"You know," I said, "go-go dancer-wise, you are all right."

"Yes," she said, "I am not bad."

• • •

Houston has a personality. It is rich. If it were a person, the swelling to the extremities would be diagnosed as gout.

Brothers John and Augustus Allen bought and named Houston in 1836. They purchased 6642 acres for $9428. It was a good buy. It was their ambition, and the ambition of others, that Houston should become an ocean port, which can be difficult if you are not on an ocean. But Houston brought the ocean inland, creating a navigation system that extends 50 miles.

In 1876, the Clinton floated up Buffalo Bayou, the ship channel, and carved its way into Houston, carrying freight. The Daily Telegraph said, "An ocean steamer comes through the ship channel loaded down with freight, Galveston's cuttlefish--its wharf company flanked and checkmated."

Houston was in competition with Galveston, which, being an island, had more natural talent. After visiting Houston's early mock-up port, a resident of Galveston said, "If you people could turn the channel into a pipeline and suck as hard as you blow, you'd have deep water at Houston."

Galveston figured that Houston would become a port over its dead body, which happened in 1900, when a storm carrying a six-foot tidal wave destroyed most of the island. Contrary to rumor, the storm had not come from the north. Six thousand people were killed. In the next decade, Galveston's population decreased slightly while Houston's doubled; and ever since, Galveston has served as Houston's finger bowl.

Galveston launched a comeback in 1974, advertising nationally, "Galveston? It's a port. Galveston is south of Houston, in the Gulf of Mexico, not just near it. No, we are not as big as Houston, but being big doesn't necessarily mean being best."

But when somebody says, in effect, screw Houston, there are not always tornadoes.

Houston considers Dallas its country cousin, where you can get a great deal on Western wear. Dallas is West. Houston feels more flexible, very cosmopolitan. It is not that there is anything exactly wrong with Dallas, but whereas Dallas had ample opportunity to become a Superstar, all it could come up with was a money-changer at its airport that gives 95 cents on the dollar. And if there is anything Houston hates, it is a good idea.

Houston does not smell only of success. Another thing it smells of is shit. This is because of what is sometimes dumped into the ship channel and connecting bayous. Which is shit, or its synthetic counterpart, garbage.

The material dumped into the channel was noticed soon after Houston became a port, because it caused unpleasantries such as plague.

In 1893, a spokesman for the Houston Cotton Exchange said that Buffalo Bayou, named for buffalo fish, was "an immense cesspool, reeking with filth and emitting stench of vilest character."

In 1967, Dr. Joseph L. Melnick of the Baylor Medical School discovered in Buffalo Bayou viruses that could cause "colds, rash, diarrhea, encephalitis and meningitis."

Time does not always heal open wounds.

On April 14, 1974, Professor Eleanor J. Macdonald, chief epidemiologist for the M. D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute, reported that deaths from lung cancer were highest in sections near the channel and the central city, where air pollution was most concentrated.

Generally, the wind blows toward Galveston, although clouds created by Houston's factories have been reported as far away as Dallas; and when there is nothing man-made to call fog, you can smell Houston's natural by-product, which is money.

Money can also smell like people and fumes.

But if many of the people are employed construction workers (about 1.07 billion dollars in nonresidential and $713,000,000 in residential construction reported in Houston in 1974); if the banks in your county have resources of 11.8 billion dollars; if salaries and wages paid are roughly 9.8 billion dollars; if you have a space center that contributes $150,000,000 yearly to your economy; if your port handled 84,000,000 tons of cargo in 1974, it smells like Houston.

Nobody seems to worry about inhaling too much gold dust.

• • •

Houston is good to its groupies, the tourists who come to be photographed next to a big-name building or a monument to a champion.

I had my picture taken in the center field of the Astrodome, where Mickey Mantle stood in the first baseball game played there, in 1965. Mantle hit a home run, but Houston won, 2--1, establishing a one-game winning streak that is still thought of as pretty good.

The Astrodome--a creation of Judge Roy Hofheinz, who borrowed the design from the Romans, then leased the facility to several teams that play like the Christians--is part of a complex including Astroworld (a Disneyland spin-off), astroshops and various hotels that form Astrodomain; and when the sun hits it just so, it looks like the earth has coughed up previously buried cities of gold.

There is only one Eighth Wonder of the World. Residents of Houston dismiss eyewitness sightings of the New Orleans Superdome as swamp gas. Being Eighth Wonder of the World is 121,000,000 times better than being Ninth Wonder of the World. This formula is computed by subtracting the cost of the Astrodome, about $42,000,000, from the revised, projected cost of the Superdome, $163,000,000.

The Astrodome is ten years old this year. Buildings seem to age faster than people.

I also had my picture taken with the San Jacinto Monument, because the man from San Antonio said it was truly one of the great pure-D tributes to American history.

"I heard the Washington Monument is more spectacular," I said.

"That is pure-D shit," he said.

His wife and children said nothing.

He said it was like this: Santa Anna, a pure-D asshole in anybody's book, had annexed the Alamo in 1836. Santa Anna had momentum. He followed General Sam Houston all the way to the San Jacinto River, where a colonel of the general's said, "Remember the Alamo," which nobody could forget; then it happened.

"The Battle of San Jacinto," I said.

"You got it," he said.

"General Sam Houston and his men, outnumbered twelve hundred to nine hundred and ten, made a fight of it."

"Know how long the battle lasted?" he asked.

"Two days."

"Wrong. You should read up on your history, podner. It lasted eighteen minutes. Guess how many Mexicans got killed?"

"All but six."

"Wrong. There were six hundred and thirty killed, two hundred and eight wounded, the rest captured. Guess how many Texans were lost?"

"I have no idea."

"Wrong. Only nine. Nine is not six hundred and thirty."

"We want," said a child, "to go," said his brother, "to Disneyland," said their brother.

"This," the father said, "is why you have undoubtedly heard of the famous Texas Mystique, which says that it is impossible for one or more Texans to be outnumbered."

I said I had heard that Sam Houston was a sissy.

"Son," he said, "you are full of natural gas."

I stood next to the pure-D monument and smiled at the camera, gently cursing Santa Anna, who helped make all of this possible.

• • •

It is easy to feel right at home in Houston if you are in a dark lounge with a group of people who are also from out of town.

A man from Mobile says it is a scientific fact that he gets drunk quicker when he is away on business. Somebody said it was the 87 percent humidity. Somebody said it was the salt in the air. Somebody said it was the beer. The man from Mobile said it was because he wasn't allowed to drink at home. Somebody said all four of those were funny ones.

You must have rules. You must be a tourist. It is rule one, page one, paragraph one, written right here on the napkin.

Rule two specifies that the winner gets a free drink from each of the losers. Those are the rules. The unwritten rule is that cheaters never win.

"I," she said, "skated around Galleria at Post Oak shopping center. I am from Shreveport. The Galleria contains one hundred and twenty merchants and was designed and built by Gerald D. Hines of Gerald D. Hines Interests, which is responsible for more than one hundred and forty diversified projects. Hines created One and Two Shell Plazas and Pennzoil Place. Within the confines of the Galleria, I also bought two straw hats for sixty-four dollars."

"Thank you very much."

The floor was open for questions.

"What exactly is it you weigh, my good woman?"

"One-ninety-two."

I asked if there was an ice-skating rink at the Galleria and, if there was, did she skate around it on skates? The answers were yes.

"Is it true you have skated before?"

"That is a damn lie."

A gentleman with a mustache rose and said, "I rode up the glass elevator at the Hyatt Regency Hotel twenty-five times. I was asked to leave because I was creating a hazard."

"Was this the elevator that President Nixon rode when he visited Houston early in 1974?"

"It was."

"Did you also ride the elevator down twenty-five times?"

"Absolutely."

"Can you spell rhinoceros backward?"

"S-o-r-e-k-i-n-o."

"Were you a guest at the Hyatt Regency at the time of this scenario?"

"No. I was a guest of the Sheraton-Lincoln across the street."

The next contestant said, "I walked through the Texas Medical Center, which is two hundred acres of twenty-five buildings, representing an investment of two hundred and eighty million dollars, and approximately seventeen thousand people work there."

He sat down.

"Do you have a son named Hay-soos?"

"No."

"What made your tour so meaningful?"

"I had a hundred-and-two fever at the time."

The next woman had toured the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center.

She did not know when the Space Center was built (1962), the number of acres involved (1640), how many Brazilian astronauts had died in outer space (none) or how far the Space Center was from downtown.

We shouted 22 miles at her.

I rose and explained that between the hours of nine A.M. and two P.M., I had had my picture taken in front of 21 impressive buildings, including Texas Eastern Transmission's downtown project, which will double the size of Houston's central business area. The 74-acre project will alter 33 city blocks. It will require about 15 years to complete.

"How many times bigger than Rockefeller Center in New York City will it be?"

"Two. Twice."

A man wearing a hand-lettered press sticker in his touring cap read from a brochure that the project would be three times bigger than Rockefeller Center.

I appealed.

By a hand vote, it was determined that the woman who had skated around Galleria was Tourist of the Day, for she had sprained both ankles.

• • •

Houston is not as kind to its season-ticket holders. There is professional football, basketball, baseball and hockey, but with the exception of the hockey Aeros, Houston's pro teams are best known for possessing the characteristics that come from repeatedly turning the other cheek.

Fortunately, the scoreboard at the Astrodome is a family scoreboard.

The Aeros, winners of their World Hockey Association division, have provided a temporary rallying point. A goal may not be as exhilarating as a picturesque one-foot sneak by a by-God all-American or a double by a by-God rawboned country boy, but ice hockey will do, since finishing first is American heritage enough.

It helps if the hero is Gordie Howe. Sometimes a combination of vowels and hyphens can confuse a Southern accent. Skate Jacques? Bust-his-ass Gordo is much better.

Two of Howe's sons are also regulars for the Aeros. It was suggested that Howe, 47, should wear a helmet to protect his skull and the Houston franchise.

"Helmets are the greatest thing in the world," he said, "for kids, not me."

A nice suntan should never be covered by a helmet.

The Houston Astros joined the old National League in 1961, and in 1962, the first year they played, finished eighth, which is not bad, since finishing eighth is much better than not having a team. This logic was to be debated at later dates, 1963 through 1974.

Since 1962, the Astros have finished ninth, ninth, ninth, eighth, ninth, tenth, fifth, fourth, fourth, second, fourth and fourth. The division of the National League into halves was responsible for the fourths and the fifth.

After combing the archive, the Baseball Record Book, you will notice that Houston individuals have, at one time or another, hit. Rusty Staub hit .333 in 1967. Jim Wynn had 37 home runs in 1967, which is impressive, since the only wind that blows out in the Astrodome is caused by shouts.

Staub and Wynn were traded.

Although it takes time to get your feet on the ground and it takes time to rebuild if this process is frequently interrupted by rebuilding, the Astros' public-relations people do not slump. The 1974 ticket campaign was, "Winning in '74. It's in the stars." There you have astrology.

A loyal season-ticket subscriber, when asked his opinion of the Astros, said, "It's comfortable."

There are always the Texas Rangers of the American League up the road in Dallas. They are also comfortable.

Houston's National Football League team is, if anything, more spectacular, since 11 people per team play football, two more than baseball.

Houston won its game in 1973, defeating Baltimore, 31-27. The winning touch-thing was scored with 32 seconds remaining on the clock, thereby proving that on a given day, any N.F.L. team is capable of defeating another N.F.L. team, if it does not mind losing 18 in a row first, which Houston did.

From 1970 through the 1973-1974 season, the Oilers had four head coaches, four defensive-line coaches, three defensive-back coaches, four offensive-line coaches, three linebacker coaches, three trainers, three general managers, three team physicians and several players. The Oilers made up for finishing 7-7 in 1974, their best record since 1968, by hiring another coach, O. A. Phillips. His nickname is "Bum."

Many people in Houston fish.

There are always the University of Houston Cougars.

About the only pros who play well in the Astrodome are George Foreman, Billie Jean King, Elvis Presley and Billy Graham.

Houston had an entry in the World Football League.

Houston has never been accused of not having enough balls.

• • •

All cities are not created equal. Some are born to riches. Spindletop, a major oil field near Beaumont, came in in 1901, creating a network of pipelines with Houston as distribution center.

Time flies, and you could easily conclude that the lack of zoning in Houston was nothing more than an oversight.

Houston has always been preoccupied with luring corporations, such as Shell, which moved 1200 workers from New York in 1970. The best way to attract a chairman of the board is to give him a shovel and a city map, and unless he has poor aim, he will likely build on a freeway, of which there are 193 miles in Houston and 198 more in various stages of development.

Chances are you would like Houston, unless you were prone to heat prostration, and even then, chances are you could build within range of one of the 56 hospitals in Harris County.

Houston got around to zoning most recently in 1962, and residents of Harris County mainly decided to go with what they already had; therefore, about all the zoning you will find is in incorporated communities within Houston's city limits.

There are "office parks" and "industrial parks" that come equipped with appropriate facilities, but the sound of turning soil on a vacant lot could be enough to make a property owner plow his split-level into a parking lot in self-defense.

Many believe a lack of zoning (actually, it is not a lack of zoning, it is just no zoning) has contributed to Houston's balanced growth--balanced between downtown and suburbs and balanced sectionally.

Gerald D. Hines, who fought for zoning in 1962, has said he would likely fight the other way if it came to another vote. Kenneth Schnitzer, of Century Development, said projects such as his Greenway Plaza, a 127-acre development on Houston's west side, would not have been possible in a city with zoning.

Others believe that no zoning is actually hardening of the arteries, a condition identifiable by roads pointing everywhere.

Whatever it is, it is Houston's business, and in 1974, 34 major businesses moved to town.

• • •

It is man who is created equal. It is the law of God, the theory of man, the decision of the Internal Revenue Service that a life beginning in the ghetto is worth exactly the same deduction as a life beginning in splendid areas of town, such as Memorial and River Oaks. Too bad some people cannot read the Bill of Rights or the Bible.

River Oaks is west of downtown, in a pocket of prospering branches and Bermuda grass.

It is the South restored, great bulks of brick and board that sit well back into landscapes. Whereas some houses are deserving of numbered identification and Zip Codes, the manors of River Oaks suggest more subtle recognition, in honor of prevailing terrain, mood, or proper name of the merger that made it all possible.

Nobody would put a skyscraper near River Oaks, for fear of devaluing the property.

• • •

Go south on McGowan from downtown, past Ennis.

Mention parts of town such as this to the chamber of commerce and you get coughed on. If you do not wish to call it a ghetto, call it terminally poor.

A ghetto factor is proportionate to a city's net worth, because there has got to be somebodyto deftly handle the horse-shit jobs, and the wealthier a city becomes, the more horseshit jobs there are, so you have an ever-expanding society of tops of bottoms.

There are poor white parts of town and poor black parts of town and poor chicano and Mexican parts of town. Houston's population is about 20 percent black, ten percent Mexican and chicano. That is a lot of labor.

Houston's poor areas are fortunate in that many of them border downtown, and from where I stood, I could clearly see the buildings that are frequently photographed from the air for brochures. The pictures are generally cropped before you get to where my red station wagon was parked.

• • •

I drove into a driveway in River Oaks, put the station wagon in park and walked across a yard. Somebody turned on the underground sprinkling system, and if you are from an area where moisture comes from the northwest, the sudden expulsion of water from beneath your feet can be startling, when you expected oil.

There is something about a yard connected to a mansion, fronted by aristocratic columns of white, framed by plants breathed on only by wind, that makes you want to explore. I found a dry spot and felt. The yard smelled like mint.

Houston is a greenhouse. Most anything will grow, and if you have an acre, you may choreograph a backdrop of magnolias, willows, mimosas and ivy that virtually feeds on compliments.

A boy came by.

"Hi, kid."

He is attractive. He should talk more.

"You live here, kid?"

"A kid is a goat."

"You live here, goat?"

He lives around here.

"You know how to kick a field goal? This yard should be in the N.F.L. Where I come from, the ground gets so hard you cannot make a place to tee up the ball unless you bring a glass of water."

I showed him how to dig your heel into the ground. He said his father was in insurance, which I would need if I kept plowing up yards in the neighborhood. He played soccer.

"You here for the yard?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"You're white."

"So was Johnny Appleseed."

"You don't look like a yardman."

"Horticultural supervisor."

"Let me see your card."

"What card? Look at these hands."

"They're white."

"I wear gloves."

"Pull a weed. Pull a weed or I'll call my mother."

If you cannot beat around the bush, you surround the weed. You then run your thumb and first finger down the stem, loosening the whole arrangement. If the vibes are good, you remove the weed by a vertical movement of the arm.

"That's a holly fern."

"What's a holly fern?"

"What you pulled."

"I know it's a holly fern."

"Why'd you pull it?"

"Holly ferns cause hay fever."

"You're full of crap."

"We in the trade refer to it as manure."

Before leaving River Oaks, I paused in a vacant lot to transplant the holly fern. I found a quarter in the dirt.

• • •

It gets dark early just off McGowan, about the 25th of the month, when you get out of money.

A boy wants a half. He does not want to borrow a half. Chances are, if nobody will give it to him, he will still get it, so I make it a lot easier. Sick relative? Sick of being poor.

I walked around the block. There were three young black men sitting in lawn chairs, propped against a building.

"Man is a got-damn detective of police," said the one on the end.

"Be nice," said the one in the middle.

"I'm nice," said the one on the other end.

I figured I was dead. It may be minutes, perhaps even a half hour. It was not that I wanted to die. Far from it. You do not always get what you want here.

"Detective of police," said the one who had spoken first, "I want to report the theft of a 1974 Cadillac convertible."

"Factory air."

"Tape deck."

If I am a detective of police, I must keep my hands in the open, since I am obviously armed to the teeth. One thing I could do is make a dash for my station wagon. Another thing I could do is tell them I am not a detective of police, but if I am, my partner would be lying on the floorboard, since we work in pairs.

"Man looks like Columbo."

"Sergeant Friday."

"Ain't Shaft."

I began to think of myself as a detective of police, and Houston-area policemen are not regarded as all that brilliant. The crime rate, particularly the number of murders, generally puts Houston in the first division of deadly cities. Police received much criticism for not solving any of the mass murders of the Heights area, discovered in 1973, until Wayne Henley shot Dean Corll, then told police where to find the 27 bodies, and the police took it from there. People are all the time demanding more officers, more protection. It is difficult for us to anticipate the times and locations of murders. We mostly catch the crooks. Talk to the parents.

"Police brutality."

"I'm hurt."

"Me, too."

A man looked up from across the street. An attractive woman walked by, wearing tight pants and not too much shirt, and the three young men began talking to her, proving that there is a contrary reaction to every action, as Newton said.

I got into the station wagon and drove away.

It seems that not many strangers visit the poorer areas of town. Except maybe detectives of police.

Some days, it can be difficult to establish an identity in a large city.

• • •

Sam Houston Park is downtown. Houston has more than 250 parks; Sam Houston is part of the 5450 acres that do not hold up water. In the park are reconstructed dwellings representing various periods of lifestyles and architecture.

There is a log cabin, below where freeways and parkways and ramps synchronize as if directed by Busby Berkeley, and the before-and-after illusion seems to imply that Houston is capable of defending itself against bullies, such as time.

As I looked at the log cabin, a Lincoln nearly ran through me, since I was in the street, and in Houston, pedestrians have all the rights of claim jumpers.

I sat on a park bench, next to the log cabin, where one may temporarily exempt himself from all but the fringe benefits of reality.

Houston has always been unlikely.

When the roads were dirt, they were described: "They were impassable; not even jackassable."

In 1954, the city traffic engineer, who was on Houston's side, said, "There is absolutely nothing more that can be done to speed up downtown traffic, except to further curtail curb parking or push the buildings back."

French journalist Pierre Voisin came directly to the point in 1962:

"There is no plan. I am horrified. Everyone is doing just as he pleases, building here and building there. Houston is spreading like a spilled bucket of water. If something isn't done about it quickly, it will be horrible, horrible."

Others complain about a lack of adequate mass transportation.

Houston dismisses such material as so much libel. There are 1,006,986 cars and 222,513 trucks in Harris County, which create plenty of mass.

Texas is politically conservative. When President Nixon visited Houston in 1974, he was asked news-conference questions such as, "How's your dog?" or "What do you think of cattle?" or "Is it true you ended the war, and would you care to elaborate?"

In 1973, however, Houston elected a liberal mayor, Fred Hofheinz, 37, son of Judge Hofheinz.

It will not sit still for analysis.

Houston's beauty is as much created as natural: Some 15 major, modern architects have been imitated in developments, and, therefore, the city's charm is in its almost flaunted individuality, which often requires a loved one to fully appreciate.

It has shrugged off as inconveniences a reduced space program, an energy crisis, whatever the hell that was, more than the usual office-space vacancies and shock waves from prevailing economic trauma, as if Houston has been assured that its greatness is permanent.

An airplane passed over me and the log cabin. It lolled contemptuously before banking to the left. It is one of ours. Go get 'em, boys. Give 'em hell in Acapulco.

Despite repeated assaults at a person's health, possessions, relatives and subconscious, you can almost feel indestructible in Houston.