February 3, 2017 (Friday)
All eyes are on Houston this weekend. My old home town will host the Super Bowl in its NRG Stadium, not far from my sister’s home, where she and her siblings were raised. The stadium is a big place; its roof is 260 feet high (as high as a 24-story building, right)? At half time, Lady Gaga has hinted that she will appear up there during her performance.
My old home town ain’t what it used to be. Population there when I was born was about 250,000. That’s a pretty good sized town, but does not compare to the six and one half million in the greater Houston area today. The town I was raised in had many unpaved streets, and the two tallest skyscrapers did not rise much higher than about 34 stories. They are dwarfed by much taller ones today. Still it was a busy, growing city, dynamic and making a big name for itself. This is my old home town today:
Houston has a history of tearing down the old and building something new in its place, so there are very few landmarks left that remind me of my childhood. One exception is the statue of Sam Houston in Hermann Park. I have photographs of my mother and her friends at that memorial. The pics are older than I. The statue was erected in 1925.
Oh, yes..there will be a football game, Falcons vs Patriots. If you tune in to a broadcast of Super Bowl LI in Houston this weekend, you will be one of up to 117 million who will watch the game in the Bayou City, my old home town.