My, how we’ve changed
September 3, 2009 (Thursday)
Houston now has the distinction of being the home of the most congested stretch of road in the state, the stretch of I45 from Loop 610 to Beltway 8.
Prepare yourself, I’m about to say it: “When I was a boy….” O.K. that’s out of the way. Now, when I was a boy in 1943, my grandfather died and was buried in Resthaven Cemetery, now on I45 just north of the Beltway. I distinctly recall being in the back seat of our 1938 Chevrolet sedan when my father drove through the cemetery gate out onto the highway, which was not I45 at that time. It was U.S. 75. He stopped at the gate, looked both ways and, believe it or not, no cars were coming from either direction. Then he slowly eased out onto the two-lane highway, which had unpaved shoulders, making a left turn and heading south. Sounds absolutely unbelievable today, when the location of that turn is at the north end of the most congested stretch of road, with too many lanes and shoulders to count (creative hyperbole), in the state.
I got to thinking. That was 66 years ago. If I had met a person that day who remembered what that part of the county looked like 66 years before, what would he/she have told me? The year would have been 1877, and you can believe things were much different back then. So, today, when I try to tell a young person about what was happening 66 years ago, no wonder he/she looks at me like I’m from another planet.
I think about the two fishermen in South Louisiana who tied up their little boat for the night and went to sleep. During the night, the rope fell away from the bush to which it had been tied, and the boat drifted with the current to a spot miles away. When one of them woke up the next morning and looked around, he shook the shoulder of his sleeping companion and shouted, “Hey, wake up! We ain’t here no more.” When I think about how the world has changed, those words express my sentiments.