Persimmon Alley Press
Persimmon Alley Press
  • About Persimmon Alley Press
  • Books
    • Close Encounters with the Cold War
    • Mother's Century: A Survivor, Her People and Her Times
    • Encounters: Ten Appointments with History
    • Killer Protocols
    • Clean Coal Killers
    • The Killer Trees
    • A Feast of Famine
    • Molly Malice in Alterland
    • Alligator In My Basement
    • Sudden Addiction
    • The Flesh of the Cedarwood
  • Smoke the Dottle
  • Richard's Rants
  • Contact

God willing and the creek don’t rise

8/9/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
​I mentioned previously that we had an impressive downpour a few weeks back here in Arlington, Virginia. Four and a half inches of rain in an hour is a lot of precipitation, and the result was flooded basements and a few washed away structures. Quick, heavy downpours have become rather more frequent here in recent years, whatever the reason.

Picture
​Flooding is something I grew up with in Houston, Texas. Everyone remembers Hurricane Harvey. What fewer folks are aware of is that for the last twenty years Houston has averaged five days of flooding a year, according to NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. I doubt this is some recent trend; look online and you can find this picture of downtown Houston inundated in 1935. More than fifty years back, I can remember walking out of my elementary school to find the street leading to my house under a couple feet of water, not from a hurricane or tropical storm, just the result of an afternoon thundershower. Those are common throughout the year in Houston because the place is hot and humid most of the time. You get accustomed to clouds forming slowly into big clouds and then impressive thunderheads that dump a torrential soaking around 4:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon. Doesn’t cool things off, either. Evenings after a thunderstorm are just as hot and even more humid.

Picture
Much of this is due to simple geography. Houston was founded at the confluence of two streams, White Oak Bayou and Buffalo Bayou. This is an area of town known today as Allen’s Landing, a perpetuation of the myth that Houston’s founders, John Kirby Allen and Augustus Chapman Allen, somehow arrived there in a canoe or something, disembarked and declared the area a lovely environment to settle. The Allen brothers indeed founded Houston, but not in such a picturesque fashion. The two land speculators managed to acquire some 6,600 acres of coastal prairie in 1837. Having been provisioners to Sam Houston’s army, they decided to found a city and call it Houston. John was a member of the Republic of Texas House of Representatives and even got the city declared the capital for a short time. You can read all about the Allen brothers on Wikipedia. John died of congestive fever in 1838, by the way. A synonym for “coastal prairie” could well be “swamp,” if my experience of Houston is indicative. People who live in swampy, mosquito-infested marshes tend to get fevers a lot. By the time I was growing up there, the mosquitoes weren’t as big a problem, though: the city had these trucks driving around spraying DDT.

Picture

In fact, Houston is one of the best examples of Man vs. Nature in the world. Houstonians have been persistent since the first settlers who decided to stick out the heat, humidity, and poisonous reptiles, even after the Republic of Texas came to its senses and relocated the capital to Austin, although at the time the place was known as Waterloo. I like to imagine an alternative history where the state kept that name rather than renaming the capital for Stephen F. Austin. Anyway, those Houstonians who stayed were determined to build something. In 1841, they declared the dock that had been built at that confluence of White Oak and Buffalo Bayous the “Port of Houston,” despite being roughly fifty miles from the Gulf of Mexico. Houston wasn’t much of a port until Buffalo Bayou was widened and deepened all the way to Galveston Bay after the 1900 hurricane pretty much leveled Galveston. Now it’s one of the biggest ports on the planet. Galveston still has better beaches,though.
​

Houston’s growth was also enabled by the development of air conditioning. Although that elementary school I occasionally had to wade to get out of didn’t have air conditioning, increasingly every other venue did. All the movies houses, including those I discuss in an earlier post, used to advertise “air conditioned comfort.” Kids in class didn’t need comfort, I guess. Hey, there was a big fan in every room to keep the hot air circulating, so who am I to complain? And eventually even the schools succumbed to Houston’s drive to make the place habitable.
​

Interesting thing about air conditioning, by the way. As anyone familiar with basic physics can attest, you don’t really “cool” air; you just move heat from one place to another, like from inside your cinema or domed stadium to just outside the building walls. This means that for every space being cooled, some other place is getting warmer. Add ever growing expanses of concrete reflecting more and more heat and you can see why Houstonians spend most of their time in those air-conditioned indoors.

Picture
Perhaps nothing symbolized the determination of Houstonians to spit in the eye of Mother Nature more than the Astrodome. City fathers would not allow torrential rain and stifling heat to prevent attracting a major league baseball expansion team; rather, they built the first domed stadium and dubbed it the “Eighth Wonder of the World.” Semi-transparent lucite tiles made up the roof to allow in sunlight to nourish the grass field. Unfortunately, the grass tended to give off moisture, creating occasional indoor “rain.” And the glare through those tiles made tracking fly balls almost impossible, so eventually large swaths were painted gray. This robbed the grass of sunlight, killing it. No problem. Astroturf was invented. And, of course, the entire thing was air-conditioned. Watching a game in the Astrodome was as comfortable as seeing a movie in one of those air-conditioned cinemas. The crowds were similar, too: people sat in respectful silence while the game progressed.
​

Despite this impressive edifice, there was actually one rain-out during the Astrodome’s tenure. In June 1976, massive flooding made it impossible for fans to get to the game. Did I mention that Houston floods a lot?

Picture
It’s not like Houstonians haven’t tried to solve the flooding issue. In the aftermath of that 1935 flood pictured above, the Army Corps of Engineers proposed and built the Addicks Dam and Addicks and Barker Reservoirs to help prevent downstream flooding of Buffalo Bayou. Sure, there were still floods in Houston, like the one that kept people away from the Astrodome that night, but apocalyptic ones inundating the entire downtown and surrounding areas were avoided. Until Harvey, that is. Nothing can prepare a city for that much rain. Controlled releases of water from Addicks Dam were required to keep the reservoirs from overflowing, and mostly that just affected the downstream flood plains. Too bad developers had built thousands of homes in parts of that flood plain, but, hey, omelettes and broken eggs, right?

​From what I read, people who study climate believe storms packing more water and dropping it with greater intensity will increase in the rainy parts of the planet. This is not good news for Houston (nor for my current residence in northern Virginia, I might add). An easy answer, one you find folks throwing out there a lot on the Internet, is that cities like Houston are untenable in the long run and the country should stop investing in keeping them dry. Humans don’t really think like that, though. If your home is in Houston, you just keep trying to cope with what life and nature throw at you. Barring another Harvey, the thinking goes, all will be okay.

God willing and the creek don’t rise . . .

By the way, years ago I wrote a song about often-drenched Houston. I even recorded it. I’ve attached it below for stout-hearted souls brave enough to endure my amateur musicianship and lousy voice. I’ve tried over the years to get real singers and musicians interested enough to produce a better version. Sadly, my efforts have been to no avail. So here is “Houston, The Last Wave.” If the waters don’t move you, maybe it will.

​David

0 Comments

Don’t point that gun at me

8/7/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
I’ve been around guns my whole life. Growing up in Texas, guns were items nearly every household had. I owned a gun when I was thirteen; my dad got me a bolt-action .22 rifle for Christmas, because he grew up knowing how to shoot and it was expected his sons would, too. I’m sure I fired well over a thousand rounds from that as a kid, usually on visits to what had been my grandfather’s four-acre farm. Tree stumps, tin cans and pop bottles were no doubt terrorized by me. This was not the only gun in our house, either. My brother possessed a 14-gauge bolt-action shotgun and, later in his life, a semi-automatic .22 rifle. My dad always hunted with the double-barrel 12-gauge he’d had as long as I could remember. I do not remember any of us successfully bringing down any game, with the sole exception of the feast of squirrels my dad cooked for us once to let us know what kind of food he’d grown up on as a kid in the depression. All I remember of this meal is that squirrel was tasty, if unsatisfying. There’s not a lot of meat on those little fellas.

I did shoot something once. Long before I had that rifle, I used to shoot at birds with the BB gun my brother had as a kid. When I was maybe five years old, I hit one. It died gushing blood. I was mortified. It’s the last time I aimed a weapon of any sort at a living creature.

Picture
My dad taught us to have great respect for guns. That meant making sure one wasn’t loaded unless you were actually planning to use it. To this day, if I see a gun, I have an itch to remove the magazine and then check to make sure there’s not a round in the chamber. Trying to let the hammer down on a rifle once, it slipped and I almost shot my brother. That’s a memory that’s etched in my brain. Guns are dangerous. Of course, reading that, somebody’s blood pressure just shot up thirty points as they shout at their smart phone, “Guns aren’t dangerous! Only in the wrong hands are they dangerous!”

You could quote Shane on this: “A gun is a tool, Marion, no better or no worse than any other tool, an axe, a shovel or anything. A gun is as good or as bad as the man using it. Remember that.” Never mind that Shane says this and then proceeds to kill three people and get shot himself in the process. He makes a valid point. A gun in Jack Palance’s hand is bad. To make things worse, Palance carried a two gun rig.

Picture
There’s nothing to fear from a good guy with a gun, the mantra goes. Certainly, trained professionals in the military, law enforcement, and other professions (I won’t elaborate) are necessary to protect us in dangerous times. I should know. I’ve received that training (again, use your imagination) and at one time qualified with a .38 revolver, 9mm Browning, and the M-16. Instructors at the time told us the standards they used for “qualification” were stricter than the most serious employed by any law enforcement agency in the U.S. That did not fill me with confidence about U.S. law enforcement, but I’ll leave that at, well, that.

For the M-16, by the way, qualifying meant firing ten rounds from a prone position at a 1 foot square target from a distance of 100 feet. When I examined my target, it had 19 holes in it. Turns out the trainee to my left got confused about which target was supposed to be his. The instructor qualified us both. I don’t know which one of us missed. Probably me. There’s a lesson there somewhere, I guess. Maybe something about making sure that qualified good guy with the gun knows where he’s supposed to be aiming.

Knowing where to aim is kinda important. I was in an environment once where pinheads like me were protected by security teams. These teams were made up of good guys who are highly skilled at making as sure as possible their charges don’t get killed. If you ever find yourself in such a situation, you’ll be glad to have these guys around. But, and it’s a big ‘but’, they’re still human. In this environment which will not be named, we set up a “relaxation” area at our camp. Somehow we found a couch and a couple of comfy chairs and even what passed as a coffee table. So one day I’m sitting in one of the comfy chairs when one of our security guys saunters in, unholsters his 9mm, sets it down on the table and plops onto the sofa.

I was staring right down the barrel of that gun. It bugged me. A lot. Years of hearing my father preach “never point a gun at someone unless you intend to shoot them” came back to me. I reached over and, with one finger, spun it so that it was pointing at the wall. Then, I said, calmly as I remember, “Don’t point your gun at me.”

The guy looked at me, smirked, and said nothing. The moment passed. Except the next day he did exactly the same thing. And I responded with exactly the same movement and words. But this time he had an answer. “The safety’s on.” And he managed to say these words in a manner that suggested I was not just an idiot, but a gutless one as well.

“I don’t care.” I will point out that when you’ve spent a few weeks in a place where people are shooting at each other a lot, you tend to go a little nuts. I added, for emphasis, “Don’t point your fucking gun at me.”

He glared. I glared back. This was the point where he was going to beat the crap out of me and I didn’t care because, well, I’d gone more than a little nuts and figured I could get in a few blows of my own. And then the security team chief came over and said, to my great relief, “He’s right. Don’t point your fucking gun at him. You’re supposed to know better.”

Picture
Yes, we’re supposed to know better. Guns are tools, not objects of worship. None of my father’s friends nor any of my grandfather’s rural neighbors “collected” guns. They had them to hunt and to protect their property, and that threat was primarily of the animal kind. My dad used to tell a story of killing a rattlesnake that bit his dog. He killed it, by the way, with a stick. Had anyone suggested to my father or grandfather that they should sling a rifle over their shoulder when going to town to buy supplies in order to “make a point,” they’d have thought the person crazy.

I’ve also spent a significant portion of my life writing about countries where the proliferation of military armaments led to utter devastation. It is an understandable human impulse when society around you seems to be collapsing to arm yourself. The result is an armed population and even more violence. It’s a downward spiral that is almost impossible to arrest. Towns in the American West, as a friend on Facebook recently noted, eventually realized this and passed ordinances against open carry. People felt safer when the only guy packing a six-shooter was the town Marshall.

I still know people who own guns. Some of them do so because they’ve had training in the military or elsewhere and believe their families are safer if they have the capability to defend their homes. Others have almost no firearms safety experience. I shudder to think these people are driving around armed. I would prefer to live someplace where the only folks who are packing heat are highly-trained professionals who have undergone some form of psychological screening, like those guys on those security teams I mentioned.

And, still, I don’t want them pointing their guns at me.

David


0 Comments

Popcorn, Milk Duds and a Cherry Cola

8/2/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
​Something got me thinking about the River Oaks Theater in Houston the other day. It’s one of the last surviving of a generation of theater houses built in the 1940s and 50s. These were not the movie palaces just about every city built in the 1930s with names like Majestic and Palace. The River Oaks and its sister cinemas were neighborhood venues. Sure, they sported big screens and impressive sound systems—even balconies—but they typically had fewer than 1,000 seats. Being in an upscale part of Houston, the River Oaks sported Art Deco stylings and decor.
​
I didn’t really discover the River Oaks until the latter half of the 1970s. By then its schedule was replete with foreign films, independent movies and Hollywood classics. That’s where I saw
The Third Man for the first time. I discovered Fellini at the River Oaks, including Fellini’s Satyricon. This film is so ground-breaking, I saw it at a University of Houston film festival in the late 70s and the three reels were shown in a different order than the first time I’d seen it. I wasn’t able to tell which of the two sequences was the intended one. Without the River Oaks, I would never have seen Jodorowksy’s El Topo. Nor would I have learned that Women in Love is not a film you want to see on a first date. And, finally, thanks to the River Oaks, I discovered Zardoz. I own a copy of this film. Admittedly, I have never known another human soul who found it entertaining. I guess people just can’t forgive Sean Connery for that loincloth.

Picture Courtesy Wikipedia
​Among the many pleasures of going to the River Oaks was that it was just like the local cinema I went to as a kid. The Santa Rosa had the same big screen and interior layout and some impressive murals along the walls. Parents thought nothing of dropping kids off to see a movie and then picking them up a couple hours later. A few bucks bought a ticket, popcorn and a soda. When I was ten years old I saw what was for me, at that time, one of the greatest films ever released, Robinson Crusoe on Mars. Eyes wide, munching popcorn and sucking down a cherry cola—this was long before Cherry Coke and just involved a squirt of cherry syrup into a fountain cola, much better than the canned concoction of today—I consumed this B-movie tale of survival, courage, and the victory of good over evil. More than anything else, it seemed like movies were finally capturing the pulp sci-fi I’d been reading since I learned how. Poul Anderson, Andre Norton, Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov, and of course Heinlein—at last it seemed their space operas and fantasies would be rolled out to the silver screen.

​Except it didn’t happen. Whatever else the late '60s were, they were not the years of epic science fiction cinema. Oh, sure, there were big-budget releases like
2001: A Space Odyssey and Planet of the Apes. I saw the film Marooned in that same Santa Rosa theater. None of these films featured heroes and heroines flying faster than light wielding blasters and laser pistols on exotic worlds. Most of the sci-fi film of the period seemed to verge on the horror genre or delve into some variant of existentialism. That’s not to say none of them were good science-fiction. They just weren’t the space operas I grew up reading.

Picture
George Lucas apparently felt the same way. I was 23 and in college when Star Wars was released. Flipping through a newspaper, I stumbled across an ad for the film. I won’t say I dropped everything and raced down to the theater to see it. I waited about a week and went on a weekday afternoon. Sitting in an almost empty cinema, I was so enthralled I stayed and watched it a second time—you could do that back in the seventies if there wasn’t much of a crowd.  And I stayed because the film captured just about everything I’d been hoping for since Robinson Crusoe on Mars. Fleets of star cruisers firing energy beams, travel through hyperspace, a universe filled with intelligent life of all shapes and sizes: heck, Han Solo even called his sidearm a “blaster.” The only disappointment was that I wasn’t watching it in the Santa Rosa. The first multi-screen cinemas attached to malls had begun their encroachment into American culture; it was showing at the Gulfgate Cinema I & 2, which lacked the character of the Santa Rosa but had a larger selection of snacks. I added Milk Duds to my movie-viewing fare.

The early eighties became, for me, the best of times where movies were concerned. Alien and Star Wars produced sequels, and then came the stream of Star Trek movies, satisfying the sci-fi fan in me. Meanwhile, the River Oaks continued to scour the planet for eclectic indie films while intermixing classics--Casablanca, the Thin Man films—with Tennessee Williams theme nights, oddities like Plan 9 from Outer Space and The Terror of Tiny Town, and  every Fellini film made.

Picture
Nothing lasts forever, it seems. The Santa Rosa of my early years became an adult video and book store, then was torn down. The River Oaks converted its balcony to two smaller theaters in an effort to compete with multi-cinemas and went back to showing first runs. I moved on as well, to a career in another city and even time in other countries. Now streaming services make trips to the theater a rarer event, while cinema houses offer full meals, draft beers and decent wines to draw customers.

Still, you can occasionally find a venue like the River Oaks showing some of the old classics on a big screen, usually at midnight. It’s worth it to go once in awhile and remember times long past.

And don’t forget to pick up a pack of Milk Duds on the way to your seat.

David


0 Comments
    Picture

    Persimmon
    Alley
    Press

    Carpe Diem

    Smoke the dottle

    Archives

    December 2021
    August 2019
    July 2019

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed