The Astrodome Still Stands

Posted on July 23, 2015 by admin

When I was small, maybe six or seven, I saw the Astrodome. Even better, I went inside the Astrodome on a tour. We were visiting Houston in the late ’60s and in those days the domed stadium was a wonder of the world, or so it was called. Arguably so, since represented a modern innovation on an ancient structure.

I was especially impressed by how high the highest seats seemed to be. The stadium was empty during our tour, and I imagined that the people in the highest seats would need to hold on to their arm rests or they’d tumble out toward the field below. That’s the kind of thing a six-year-old might imagine, but my brother Jay, who was in his teens at the time, says the sheer size of the place was impressive even if you weren’t small.

For the record: The Astrodome stands 18 stories tall, covering 9.5 acres. The dome is 710 feet in diameter and the ceiling is 208 feet above the playing surface, which itself sits 25 feet below street level.

Flying into Houston’s Hobby Airport earlier this month, I looked down and saw NRG Stadium. I knew it was NRG Stadium because those three letters, which belong to a three-initial energy company, are emblazoned on the structure in a very visible way. It has a blocky shape. Then I noticed another, rounded stadium not far away.

Could it be — ? Yes, it was the Astrodome. Not used for anything now, but still standing after 50 years. Wankers may yet destroy it, as wankers are known to do (e.g., Penn Station), but I hope it’ll be repurposed here in the 21st century.

The East End Historic District, Galveston

Posted on July 22, 2015 by admin

The East End Historic District covers over 50 city blocks in Galveston. In July the time to take a stroll in such a place is early in the morning — not something we did — or late in the afternoon, which we did. It’s a delightful mix of housing styles, or as the East End Historic District Association puts it, offers views of “a towering pillar, shadowed silhouettes of ornate carvings, a splash of stained glass in a window, welcoming porches or a bit of wrought iron fencing.”

It also has trees large enough to move the sidewalks from underneath with their roots. Ann asked about the malformed sidewalks, and I explained that the roots did it slowly over the years.

The Julius Ruhl Residence, at the corner of Sealy and 15th and dating from the 1870s, has a widow’s walk. That’s just not something you see in suburban Chicago.
Many houses sport fine porches. A good thing to have in pre-air conditioned times. Or even after air conditioning was invented.
This is the J.C. Trube Castle.
It dates from the 1890s. Its web site — the place is a commercial enterprise now, available for weddings and other events — says the building is “constructed of bricks covered by stucco mixed with Belgium cement creating a rusticated stone effect. The mansard slate roof with seven gables and the battlement tower give the historic home a castle distinction. The observation deck on the top of the tower offers a view of both the gulf and the harbor.”

The building is also one of the few remaining designs of architect Alfred Muller. Nicholas J. Clayton didn’t design everything in 19th-century Galveston. The Prussian-born Muller also had the relative good fortune to die a few years before the 1900 hurricane.

More pretty houses.
Note the plaques to the left of the door on this house.
The upper one’s a little hard to read, but it says 1900 Storm Survivor. Hurricanes are serious business around here. Lest we forget, Ike slapped Galveston as furiously as Katrina hit New Orleans.

The Strand, Galveston

Posted on July 21, 2015 by admin

I can’t pin down the last time I went to Galveston. It was sometime in the early 1970s, probably as an appendix to a visit to Houston from San Antonio. Little memory remains, and for whatever reason we didn’t return when I was older. My brothers remember visits in the 1950s, during the time when my parents lived in Houston, but that’s before my time.

I suspect we never went to the Strand on any family visits to the city, because the area, which is a part of the city near Galveston Bay, didn’t begin its revival until the 1970s. The always-informative Handbook of Texas Online tells me that the Strand — formally called Avenue B in Galveston — was included in the original plat of the city in the late 1830s, with the origins of Avenue B’s nickname unknown.

“While the avenue extends throughout Galveston, the Strand has usually referred to the five-block business district situated between Twentieth and Twenty-fifth streets,” it says. “Throughout the nineteenth century, the area was known as the ‘Wall Street of the Southwest,’ serving as a major commercial center for the region.”

Some of the 19th-century buildings still stand on Avenue B, the Strand. With a 20th-century tower to the south.
Naturally, the Hurricane of 1900 put the kibosh on the Strand’s career as the Wall Street of the Southwest. I’ll bet after the storm a common enough sentiment among businessmen was, To hell with this, we’re going to Houston. Galveston didn’t have the space to grow into a megalopolis anyway.

“In the rebuilding process, businesses moved off the Strand and away from the wharfs,” the Handbook continues. “The area became a warehouse district. In the 1960s amidst widespread deterioration of the Strand, the Junior League of Galveston County restored two buildings sparking interest in the area. In 1973 the Galveston Historical Foundation initiated the Strand Revolving Fund, a catalyst in subsequent years for dramatic restoration and adaptive use in the Strand Historic District.”

These days, the Strand is a Galveston tourist zone, populated by ordinary visitors, and when a cruise ship’s docked near the zone, probably even more people, though I didn’t see any ships nearby when we were there. As a tourist zone, it has two distinct advantages. One, the sidewalks are covered, so that strolling along in mid-summer doesn’t mean walking under a hot and copper sky. Also, the clothiers, geegaw shops and other venues are universally air conditioned.

Ann and I did our share of ducking in and out of shops, eventually buying a single key ring and a few postcards. I can report as a matter of historical interest — that is, for future historians of 21st-century minutiae — that Confederate battle flag-themed merchandise hasn’t died out in the souvenir shops of Galveston as of the summer of 2015, though I can’t say its presence was overpowering.

Sad to say, the eccentric Col. Bubbie’s Strand Surplus Senter has closed. The sign is still there.
“Col. Bubbie’s was the longest-running, single-owner business on the Strand,” the Houston Chronicle reported last December after the shop closed. “Since 1972, it sold military equipment — gas masks, camouflage pants, canteens, mess kits, medals and insignias, you name it — encompassing 60 countries and conflicts from the Civil War to Iraq.

“The shop helped outfit the TV show MASH and war films as diverse as Saving Private Ryan and 1941, among others. Until a few months ago it was the go-to spot for local theater productions to get period uniforms, but that stock has dwindled.”

We also stopped in at La King’s Confectionery on Avenue B. We were glad we did. The place makes excellent ice cream. Ann’s pistachio was particularly good. Ice cream jockeys and soda jerks in white were on hand to serve whatever you wanted.

A neon sign says Purity Ice Cream, and I thought that meant a product of Tennessee’s Purity Dairies, but no. According to the Austin Chronicle, “Ice cream on an industrial scale arrived in Texas in 1889 when the Purity Ice Cream Company opened in Galveston.” The ice cream that La King’s serves is a direct culinary descendant of that ice cream, and La King’s is the only place it’s served.

In the back, you can watch a fellow making taffy, which the store also sells.

One other thing I spied on the Strand: a public chess set.
It was a little too hot to play, but still. That’s what parks need more of, public chess sets.

The Bishop’s Palace, Galveston

Posted on July 20, 2015 by admin

Late last year, Congress passed a joint resolution along these lines: “Whereas the United States has conferred honorary citizenship on 7 other occasions during its history, and honorary citizenship is and should remain an extraordinary honor not lightly conferred nor frequently granted;

[In case you’re wondering, I’ll save you a trip to Wiki. The others are Winston Churchill, Raoul Wallenberg, William and Hannah Penn, Mother Teresa, Casimir Pulaski and Lafayette.]

“Whereas Bernardo de Gaalvez y Madrid, Viscount of Galveston and Count of Gaalvez, was a hero of the Revolutionary War who risked his life for the freedom of the United States people and provided supplies, intelligence, and strong military support to the war effort…

“Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That Bernardo de Gaalvez y Madrid, Viscount of Galveston and Count of Gaalvez, is proclaimed posthumously to be an honorary citizen of the United States.”

I didn’t know about that resolution until after Ann and I went to Galveston earlier this month, and I looked up Bernardo de Gaalvez y Madrid, Viceroy of New Spain, to add to my vague knowledge of the man for whom Galveston is named.

To my way of thinking, the first place to go in Galveston (after lunch, if you happen to arrive at lunchtime), is the Bishop’s Palace. That’s just what we did.

The name is a spot of Texas hyperbole. Palace, it isn’t. But it is a excellent example of a large (19,000 SF) Victorian mansion, built in the 1890s for a successful attorney and his wife, Walter and Josephine Gresham, who tapped local architect Nicholas J. Clayton to design it. (Clayton seems to have been very busy in the pre-1900 heyday of Galveston, but things were never the same after that.)
The Handbook of Texas Online describes Clayton’s work as “exuberant in shape, color, texture, and detail. He excelled at decorative brick and iron work… What made Clayton’s architecture so distinctive in late nineteenth-century Texas was the underlying compositional and proportional order with which he structured the display of picturesque shapes and rich ornament.”

That’s a fitting description for the Bishop’s Palace, which was a sturdy mansion too. It survived the Hurricane of 1900, one of the few structures in the area to do so, and sheltered a lot of survivors. The bishop in the name is Bishop Christopher E. Byrne, who lived there in 20th century, after the Roman Catholic Diocese of Galveston bought the mansion in 1923. Only in 2013 did the Church sell the structure to the Galveston Historical Foundation.

The interior has more stained glass than most Victorian mansions I’ve seen. Many of those were added by the bishop, who insisted that one of the rooms be converted into a chapel, which it remains. For instance, a stained-glass St. Peter’s there to greet you.

As usual, a house like this has some interesting period detail, such as the fact that the lights were built for gas as well as for that new light source, electricity, in case it worked out. Or the bathtub in the main second-floor bathroom.
Note the three faucets. Our guide, an informative woman whose main job is teaching Texas History — everyone in the state takes it in 7th grade, or at least used to — told us that one was for hot water, one for cold, and one for rainwater from a cistern. It was thought to be good for one’s hair.

The Greshams had the means to be international travelers in the days before Europe on $5 a Day, and that meant steamer trunks. I don’t think I’d ever seen trunks of the time plastered with luggage labels, but Bishop’s Palace had some on display.
Next door to the Bishop’s Palace is Sacred Heart Catholic Church. This building dates from the early 1900s, because the 1900 hurricane knocked down the original.

The church wasn’t open for a look inside. But the next-door location must have been convenient for the bishop. You know, in case he ever needed to tune up his crosier or something.

Texas Summer ’15

Posted on July 19, 2015 by admin

July isn’t really the best time to visit South Texas, or the Texas Gulf coast for that matter, but no matter — off we went on July 9, returning earlier today. It was a two-pronged trip: first for a few days to Galveston and slices of the vastness that’s Houston, then San Antonio for the balance of the time.

I don’t know anyone in Galveston, or Houston, unless you count people I long ago lost touch with. Even so, I wanted to go. Earlier this year, I read Isaac’s Storm, a fine book about the 1900 hurricane that laid waste to bustling, prosperous Galveston. After that, most of the local bustle went to Houston. But it also occurred to me that I hadn’t been to Galveston in more than 40 years. As the Wolf Brand chili man says, that’s too long.

Ann came with me for the trip, arriving on Thursday the 9th and repairing to lodging near Hobby Airport. We spent most of the next day in Galveston, seeing things and dodging the heat, then returning to our motel in the evening. On Saturday the 11th, we drove from Houston to San Antonio, but not the most direct and least interesting way, which would have been I-10.

First, we plowed our way into Houston to see the Menil Collection, a mid-sized museum near the University of St. Thomas that sports (among other things), a sizable surrealist collection. Nearby is the Rothko Chapel, as well as the Byzantine Fresco Chapel. Unfortunately, the Byzantine fresco went back to Cyprus a few years ago, but the building does now house a work called the Infinity Machine — rotating array of suspended antique mirrors, which is more effective than it sounds.

Leaving Houston, we followed I-69 and then U.S. 59, through such towns as Sugar Land, Wharton, El Campo, Ganado, Edna and the outskits of Victoria, which would be worth a look at some point. Southwest of Victoria is Fannin, and near that small town is the Fannin Battleground State Historic Site, which we visited.

Down the road a little further is Goliad, where you can see the Mission Espiritu Santo and Presidio La Bahia. We arrived after closing time, but the exteriors were impressive. So was Goliad County’s courthouse; Texas has a lot of fine courthouses.

Ann pointed out to me after a visit to an HEB, which is a major regional grocery chain, that Texas, as a name and a concept, is involved in a lot of marketing in Texas. I probably knew that, but never gave it much thought. For one thing, she’d noticed a selection of cookie cutters in the shape of Texas. Other products available in the store, such as Texas Dipper brand corn chips and many, many others, carried on the theme, as do other ads and products in other places.

At the motel, you could make yourself waffles in the shape of Texas.

Ann noted that we probably wouldn’t be able to make an Illinois-shaped waffled at an Illinois motel. I’ll go along with that.

July Back Yard Flowers &c.

Posted on July 8, 2015 by admin

Time for a summer interlude. Back to posting around July 19.

What this country needs is another summer holiday, sometime between Independence Day and Labor Day, and I nominate July 20, to honor the Moon landing. Or the fourth Monday in July, since the 20th is a little close to July 4 — a Monday holiday to honor the astronauts’ return on July 24, recalling the bit about “returning safely to the Earth,” since the lunar mission wouldn’t have been complete without that.

To keep the accounting snits happy (we can’t afford another holiday!), Columbus Day can be de-holidayed. It’s truly the most insignificant of federal holidays anyway, whatever you think of the Admiral of the Ocean Sea.

New Horizons will fly by Pluto during my interlude. This week’s “glitch” was alarming, but the craft seems to have recovered. (I like the Wired caption: “Among with gobs of planetary science, New Horizons is capturing pictures of Pluto that are increasingly less crappy.”) I will be watching the news closely. Yesterday I came across theses proposed names for geographic features on the Ninth Planet and its moons. Interesting lists. The IAU might not be so keen on fictional explorers and their vessels, however.

Chanced recently across another musical act that I’d pay money to see (and there aren’t that many), namely the Ukulele Band of Great Britain. Pretty much on the strength of their version of the theme from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Too bad the closest they’ll be to me this year is Muncie, Ind., and that isn’t close enough.

Here’s some speculation: Treasury Secretary Jack Lew’s playing a deep game with the $10 and $20 bills. He proposed making Alexander Hamilton second banana on his note to elicit a wave of support for the first Treasury secretary — at the expense of Andrew Jackson. A common notion now seems to be, “Go ahead, get rid of Jackson, but not Hamilton!” Previously, the idea of tossing Jackson in favor of a woman wasn’t so warmly received. But now…

This is a recent headline that amused me: Google Self-Driving Cars Head to Austin, from PC Magazine, which further says that “the company has selected the city to be the next testing location for its autonomous Lexus SUVs…” Austin’s a very safe choice, I figure, especially if you turn the vehicle loose on I-35, where it won’t move very fast, if at all.

Just ahead of rain earlier this week, I went out to take some pictures of flowers. I went no further than my back yard.
O Summer,
Oft pitched’st here thy goldent tent, and oft
Beneath our oaks hast slept, while we beheld
With joy thy ruddy limbs and flourishing hair.

Minor Postcard Mystery

Posted on July 7, 2015 by admin

When at Half Price Books on Friday, the girls each picked up a book and I came across a box of 10 postcards. Not just any cards, but 9½ x 3¾-inch color glossy shots depicting New York City. The printing’s high quality, though the image selections are standard: the skyline from various vantages, the Empire State Building, Times Square, the Brooklyn Bridge, and of course the Statue of Liberty.

“Of course” because the set was originally sold by the Statue of Liberty Gift Center. The box says so. All in all, not best cards I’ve ever bought, but certainly worth the modest price that Half Price Books wanted. I didn’t open the box until I got home. Until last night, in fact.

Then I discovered that the cards were a lot more interesting than I thought. Four out of the 10 cards were already addressed and stamped, with messages written. One was addressed and stamped, but with no message. Five were blank. What a find.

For some reason, the person who (presumably) bought the cards at the Statue of Liberty took the trouble to compose the messages and prepare to mail the cards — and then didn’t, either through forgetfulness, or a change of heart, wanting to keep them after all. That was at least 10 years ago. The writer didn’t date any of them, but cards like this demand first-class postage, and she put 37¢ stamps on them. That was the rate from June 2002 to January 2006.

The signature name is a woman’s name, but the writing implies a young woman, maybe even a teenager. She seems to have been visiting a relative in New York — there’s mention of a cousin — and she also relates on more than one card that, “I went up to our room, and the bed broke! It was really funny…” Besides that, she saw the Statue of Liberty, a beach somewhere, and Boston.

Four of the cards are addressed to a western suburb of Chicago, one to Pennsylvania. In the fullness of time, I plan to add the necessary 12¢ to each card, and send them from neither metro Chicago nor New York. Even if none of the people on cards are there any more — and it’s entirely likely that some are — someone will get each card. It will add another layer to the mystery of why there were never sent, and why, if kept as souvenirs, they were at Half Price Books.

July Idles

Posted on July 6, 2015 by admin

This year was a stay-close-to-home Fourth of July. That is, metro Chicago. Some are, some aren’t. We returned to our old haunts in the western suburbs on Saturday night to see the Westmont fireworks, from the vantage of Ty Warner Park. It’s always a good show.

That was a high point of the weekend. So was taking my daughters to Half Price Books, at their request, on the evening of the 3rd.

The low point of the weekend was walking the dog on the 4th, not long before we left for the fireworks show. Late afternoon, that is. Part of our usual route takes us along a path between a dense row of bushes and a small patch of land sporting enough trees to block the sky, when they have leaves. Pretty soon I re-discovered its mid-summer nature as Mosquito Alley. The mossies were especially forceful when I was cleaning up after the dog.

Complaining about mosquitoes, though, is just carping. I’d rather look out of my back door and see this (an early July shot).

Than this (an early January shot).

Bugs aside, I spent a fair amount of time over the weekend on the deck reading The H.L. Hunley by Tom Chaffin (2008), a fine book about the submarine of that name, along with its predecessor vessels (the Pioneer and the American Diver). Or, as I learned reading the book, the “submarine boat,” which is a 19th-century usage. The Confederates gave underwater warfare a shot, but it turned out Age of Steam technology — as inventive as it clearly was — wasn’t quite up to the task. Not without killing more submarine boat crew than Union sailors.

Also, it’s another reason to visit Charleston, to see the vessel, now an artifact on display at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center. Not that I’d need any more reasons for a visit.

To the Smokies and Back ’08

Posted on July 5, 2015 by admin

Our trip to the Great Smoky Mountains NP and other places in 2008 was a late June, early July event. Has it really been seven years ago? The world seems like a different place now.

At Mammoth Cave NP, there was the famed cave, but you could also rent fun vehicles to tool around in.

It’s good to show your family places you know, but which they don’t, such as the Nashville Parthenon.
That’s what this country needs, more public-private partnerships to re-create the wonders of Antiquity. The Hanging Gardens of Omaha. A new Lighthouse of Alexandria in Alexandria, Va. The Statue of Zeus at Olympia, Wash. A new Temple of Artemis in Tucumcari, NM. That kind of thing. (Or city walls around Dallas, as my brother Jay has suggested.)

Next, the Mingus Mill, which is part of the Great Smoky Mountains NP. I liked it just for the name. Water was flowing in the trough, and the girls liked it because they could float things in the trough.
As the NPS says, “A half-mile north of the Oconaluftee Visitor Center is Mingus Mill. Built in 1886, this historic grist mill uses a water-powered turbine instead of a water wheel to power all of the machinery in the building. Located at its original site, Mingus Mill stands as a tribute to the test of time.” Yep.

In the Indian town of Cherokee, NC, you could pose for a small fee with this fellow. Chief Syd, he called himself.
It wouldn’t have been a good trip without dropping in on a dead president. Andrew Johnson, in this case. President Johnson reposes in his hometown of Greeneville, Tenn. As it happened, we saw his memorial on July 4. (I did. Family stayed in car.)
It’s also good to happen across little-known historic sites, such as Liberty Hall in Frankfort, Ky. Little-known, at least, outside of the immediate area.
“This Georgian mansion was begun in 1796 by John Brown and named for [the] Lexington, Va. academy he attended,” says the landmark sign. “His wife Margaretta and Elizabeth Love began [the] first Sunday School west of [the] Alleghenies in [the] garden. Guests have included James Monroe, Zachary Taylor, Andrew Jackson and Gen. Lafayette…” The plaque maker must have charged by the letter, what with all of the definite articles left out.

A lovely garden it was, too.

One more thing. As I’ve said, it’s good to be open to sampling new things on the road.
I don’t remember, but it was probably tasty. Things often taste better on the road.

Intangible Souvenirs

Posted on July 2, 2015 by admin

Aside from physical souvenirs, Lilly also brought home some intangibles from her visit to Latin America. As you should from any trip. They’re easy to carry, might last a long time (see my discussion about geoducks. I’ll never forget them), and there’s no risk that a third-world customs agent, or member of the TSA, will take them away from you.

As I once saw written on a hostel wall (in London, or maybe Vienna): “No one can take your travel memories away from you.” Written under that, in a different hand: “Unless they hit you really hard on the head.”

Speaking of customs, she learned about the customers-officer glare first hand in a number of places and some other petty annoyances of airports. No parents around this time to shield her from those things.

Also, she discovered that in any small group with whom you travel, there will always be at least one — and maybe more — whiner who should have stayed home, and given his or her place to someone who could appreciate the experience. Luckily, I don’t believe she’s that person.

She tells me about the dangers of being a pedestrian in Ecuador and Panama. I’m glad she survived. The danger is real. Traffic’s more dangerous than most boogeymen — terrorists, random violent psychopaths, street crime, even bad water — in most places. I told her that. Now she understands viscerally.

Finally, Lilly talks with relish about some of the foods she tried. Especially guinea pig, a favored meat in Ecuador. Attagirl. Go places, eat things. Food snobbery not required, nor adventure, just a slight willingness to venture away from your habits.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling