Two lonely landscapes
. . . A desolate marsh off the San Jacinto River in southeast Texas, filled only
with the sounds of seagulls and whooping cranes come to nest and the brush of
Gulf breezes against thick strands of vermillion cordgrass
. . . And the absolute quiet of the moon's barren, dusty surface.
Each holds only a few remnants of human occupation.
Long after the actors have gone, these sets are what is left: curious harbingers of mankind's uncertain future -- and mementoes of a troubled past.
How Brownwood Subdivision Disappeared, and How the American Flag Got to the Moon: each is one way to tell the story of Houston.
They are very different tales.
One demonstrates mankind's haplessness in the face of nature's insistent patterns.
The other portrays our heroic but systematic efforts to transcend the limits of
our environment; to live
. . . just about anywhere.
In literature, the contradictory ideas these two stories embody are common, but usually distinct themes.
In Houston, the themes combine, often in a funny way. Their apposition is, to my mind, the clearest way to present ideas at the heart of a confusing, contradictory, uncongealed, almost indefinable place:
America's least distinctive metropolis.
Though much of the action takes place outside the city's legal limits, both of the stories I tell are about Houston -- an idea, perhaps, without borders.
I begin them both in the winter of 1969.
Next:
Brownwood subdivision, 1994. Photo by Eric R. Shamp. Used with permission.
Earth rise, taken from Apollo 12 in lunar orbit, 1969. Photo courtesy of NASA.
Brownwood subdivision, 1994. Photo by Eric R. Shamp. Used with permission.
Apollo 17 Lunar Roving Vehicle in its final parking space, Cochise Crater, the moon, 1972. Photo courtesy of NASA.
Footprint in lunar soil, 1969. Photo courtesy of NASA.
Animal tracks, Brownwood subdivision, 1994. Photo by Eric R. Shamp. Used with permission.
Lightning strikes prior to launch of Apollo 15, 1971. Photo courtesy of NASA.
Lot for sale, Houston Heights, 1996. Photo by the author.
Houston street corner, 1994. Photo by the author.