August 24, 2020 (Monday)
I worked as an usher in the old Majestic Theater in Houston in 1946. I returned to that area in 2017 for the wedding of my grandson, Alex Hamm and his bride, Sarah Portman. The bank next door to the theater had become a Marriott Hotel, the theater replaced with a parking garage, and above it were many floors of an extension of the hotel next door. The Majestic had been a movie palace that originally featured live performances as well as movies. It was beautiful inside with a Mediterranean ambience. It had three stories of waiting areas and rest rooms. It featured a large mezannine and a huge balcony. Loge boxes were situated on either side of the theater’ interior. The ceiling was oval, blue, and dotted with stars. It’s gone now; the hotel and its parking garage has taken its place.
At the wedding, I found myself being served food many floors above the original theater’s location, in one of those big areas surrounded by windows in an upper floor, looking down and around at the buildings around that area, the corner of Rusk and Travis 
Streets. Across Rusk was the Gulf Building, now renovated and renamed, and across Travis was the Esperson Building. Both were beautiful examples of architecture that provided more than just space. From 1966 to 1973, a huge rotating illuminated sign, 56 feet in diameter, at at price of $250,000, topped the Gulf Building. The Esperson Building has a spire reminiscent for me of the Baylor University Administration Building, Pat Neff Hall. Those two buildings represented the skyline of Houston as I was growing up, but today they are dwarfed by many modern buildings that hide the horizon as they reach for the sky. That area is still called, “Downtown,” but “Uptown” is just a short drive from there. It has its own skyline.
Catty-corner from the bulding we were in as we gazed through the big windows was a huge building under construction. Piers were in place, supporting a partial skeletal phase of construction. I said to Sue Hinze, mother of my son-in-law, Mark, and retired foreign missionary, “I wonder what that building will become.” She replied, “If this were Thailand, people would be living in that building under construction.” I tried to imagine people living under those circumstances. Suddenly I felt sad.
As I thought of the Majestic having been demolished and replaced, my mind brought up the subject of other downtown theaters now gone–the Metropolitan and the Lowe’s State, which showed MGM movies only, both of which were also palaces for movies. The Kirby across Main Street in the next block was also a huge theater, not quite as fancy. Then I recalled the other theaters downtown, all gone now, not to mention the many neighborhood theaters either demolished or remodeled into something else. Times are always changing, but Houston seems to be intent on leaving almost no historical structures. ‘”Progress” is the word.
Newspapers, radio stations, television stations have all changed their locations and moved into more spacious and updated surroundings. Some of them have disappeared; others have changed owners, but the whole business has changed and is changing. The Houston Chronicle is about the only printed newspaper left and they have recently cleared their entire block of buildings in order to build new ones and keep up with the times.
I hardly ever go to Houston anymore. I don’t recognize much of anything; it’s changing all the time. Besides, once I get on the freeway, about all I see is the rear bumper of the car ahead and I devote all my attention to stay as far behind that car as possible, which is an almost impossible feat. Leaving a few feet between my vehicle and the one ahead of me is an invitation for someone to take up the space. Whenever I go to Houston these days, I always try my best to get someone else to drive. If that’s not possible, I can’t help thinking of Kevin Kline’s line from the movie, “The Princess Bride,” “Prepare to die.”
The Lord says in the Bible, “Behold I make all things new.” That’s Heaven. So we should feel right at home there after living in Houston, where they are always replacing the old with the new.