Talkin’ Texan

Texan – English

Hew stun – Houston

    Houston is named after General Sam Houston, who defeated the Mexican army at the battle of San Jacinto. If Mister Houston were to visit his namesake today I kinda wonder how he would feel about this honor. The good thing is that several schools and a University are named after Sam Houston and the University happens to be right here in town.

    I suppose they could have named the town Samsville or Samsburg but they decided that Houston was much more dignified. The town was originally called "The Holler" because people would holler across the bayous at each other. Now they just holler out their car windows at each other. Some things really don’t change much over the years.

    Houston has a population of over 4 million people and if you happen to be driving thru town, you’ll think that they are all on your same street. This is another "White Flag" city, so I hope that you kept your "White Flag" from Dallas. If you don’t know what I’m referring to, then don’t proceed any further until you have read about Dallas. I hope that you kept your flag white instead of letting it turn to gray or black, because those colors on a flag have a totally different meaning. A "gray flag" means that you are elderly and probably a member of "gray power", quite possibly senile and that’s why your left turn signal has been on for the last 43 miles. A "black flag" signifies that you are staying in the cheap motels on your tour of Texas and need some roach spray.

    Houston is probably most famous for "The" Astrodome, the very first domed baseball park. Since grass doesn’t grow without sunlight they developed Astroturf, which is a light layer of carpet covering over hardened concrete. The brown spots on the carpet are from the chewing tobacco used by the ball players. When the Astrodome was completed it was billed as the "Eighth Wonder of The World". It still is, except now they’re wondering what they are gonna do with it. It’s way too big for a Taco Bell franchise or a theme restaurant. The Houston Astros moved to a beautiful new ballpark called Enron Field, but they had to change the name because of all the shenanigans at the Enron corporation, which once was but now isn’t. Then they changed the name to Astro’s field, but had to change the name again, because folks thought that this is where the astronauts were located.

    The ballpark is now called Minute Maid field. For those of you from New England, these are not the Minute Men’s girl friends. Minute Maid is actually a brand of fruit juices and the new mascot for the baseball team is a lady all dressed up in a maid outfit, who gives out free samples of Minute Maid fruit juices. The Houston baseball fans are rapidly becoming some of the healthiest fans in all of baseball, because there are no beer sales at the ballpark. All of the beer outlets were converted to juice bars, and smoothie bars.

    This conversion has worked out very well at Minute Maid Field, because folks can now enjoy a ballgame without being annoyed by loud mouth drunks. Plus, now when someone is juiced-up, they’re not falling out of their seats and onto the playing field. The new "juice policy" has also reduced many of the beer related accidents while fans are leaving the ballpark. DUI’s have been drastically reduced. This has allowed the local police officers to give more time to their other duties, like preventing robberies, and burglaries at the city’s many doughnut shops.

T    he Houston Astros were originally called the Colt 45’s, but the other teams in the league felt intimidated by the pistols on the Colt 45 jerseys, so they changed the name to the Houston Astronauts. Astronauts was difficult for the fans to pronounce, so they changed the name to the Astros and now the fans call them the "Stros", which is actually a beer brewed up north somewhere, even though NASA still calls the men who fly spaceships astronauts.

    Houston is a very pretty town with lots of great restaurants. My favorite is on the west side of Wayside Avenue just a few miles north of the Interstate. It’s a cozy little place with some of the best in Tex-Mex food -tacos-enchiladas-, tamales etc. The Tacos Carbon is delicious.

    Houston also has some very fancy hotels and motels, however I do have a word of caution. If you happen upon a motel or two that have the desk clerk behind bars and bullet proof glass then perhaps you have wandered into a rough part of town.

    There is something just a little disconcerting about a motel with bullet proof glass and signs in the parking lot that instead of the normal "Not responsible for articles left in cars", reads "Not responsible for cars". I suppose its O.K. to stay in one of these motels if you have a "death wish" or something, because the rates are normally real cheap. But if you do have a "death wish" why would you care about money? It’s like my Grandpa always said;

"Sunny", (He said he called me Sunny, because I was so bright) "You can’t take it with you, I’ve never seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul." So go on ahead and stay in a real nice hotel or motel, after all you are on vacation.

    There are numerous gas and oil refineries in and around the Houston area; therefore gasoline is quite plentiful and cheap. Houston is the home of Texaco, one of my favorite gasoline’s. My car just seems to run better on Texaco gasolines. Exxon is also situated in Houston, however they changed their name after the Exxon-Valdez incident and now I don’t know what they are called. If you happen to see a gas station that just says "Gas", I think that’s them.

    Garfish make their habitat in and around the numerous bayous and rivers in the area and these fish are sometimes called "alligator gar" because nearly half of this fish happens to be a triple row of razor sharp teeth. At times you may see some of the local women wearing these garfish teeth as necklaces and earrings. You can purchase some of these necklaces and earrings at any of the local stores and gift shops in town. I’ve seen Garfish 3, 4, and 5 feet long just swimming and floating on top of the waters. Seems to me that you don’t even need fishing equipment at all; you could just use a pellet gun or a bow and arrow and pick off one or two. They say that Garfish aren’t good eating, but then again they say the same thing about pigeons.

    Fact is, people eat pigeons all the time, and they just don’t realize that they are eating pigeon because the restaurants call them "squab" on their menus. If they called them pigeons, then no one would eat them. The same pigeon that someone was feeding in the park this morning and was seen pooping on a famous statue this afternoon may be the "squab" on your dinner plate this evening.

    Another example would be "escargot", if restaurants called them snails, then very few of us would eat them. Since "escargot" sounds very exotic and continental, we go ahead and order them. Plus escargot comes in a really unique and cool-looking container, with each snail in its own little slot. We tell our children not to "play with their food", yet someone’s kids may have been playing with your "escargot" this morning in their backyard. If the restaurants were to call Gar fish "alligator fish" or "bayou fish or "tasty fish" and use a specially shaped plate with some kind of unusual garnish, or perhaps honey mustard or "gray poupon", then gar fish could become a very popular entrée.