I saw this in the Houston Chronicle.
A Dozen Happy Thoughts About Houston
1. Indisputably good things about Houston: live oaks; the weather in February; the comfortable diversity; Discovery Green; Dixie Friend Gay’s bayou mosaic at Intercontinental Airport; the Knittas; Lightnin’ Hopkins; Lights in the Heights; Workshop Houston’s Chopper Shop; the Bellaire Chinatown, biggest in the U.S.; art cars in nighttime parades; the Ocean of Soul; buckyballs; the bats under the Waugh Street bridge.
2. Houston, one of my correspondents assures me, is a city where you can play golf year-round. He also notes that, “as the Aggies say,” you can bowl year-round here, too.
3. The bayous and air are cleaner than they used to be. Hermann Park keeps getting better. Lynn Wyatt and Stump the Sussex spaniel look fresher every day.
4. Stuff that makes us nostalgic: the Astrodome; the River Oaks Theatre; Leon Hale; the El Dorado Ballroom; AstroWorld; Michael DeBakey; the Buffs; Cactus Music; Gilley’s; the Axiom; the giant neon ****roach on U.S. 59; the Love Street Light Circus; Marvin Zindler; “Houston, the Eagle has landed.”
5. We Houstonians are a hardy breed with finely honed survival skills. “There is no such thing as a dangerous high-speed chase in Houston,” cracked one online reader. “We all drive like that.”
6. Hurricanes bring out the best in us.
7. Beautiful places: the Rice campus; the neighborhood surrounding the Menil Collection; North and South boulevards; and (in a strange way) the Beer Can House.
8. Free chips and salsa are a Houstonian’s birthright.
9. Stuff that makes us unique: our lack of zoning; the oil business; a medical center the size of other cities' downtowns; the Ship Channel boat tour for tourists.
10. In these dark times, our economy remains relatively healthy. “I have always been able to work here,” wrote one man, “whether I wanted to or not.”
11. We know how to pronounce difficult street names: “Bissonnet,” “San Jacinto,” “Kuykendahl.” That prowess shines brightest when compared to New Yorkers, who mangle the simplest word in the world. “How-ston” Street, they call it.
12. That irks us. It also irks us that New Yorkers don’t understand the vast gulf between Houston and Dallas. Sometimes it seems that the rest of the world doesn’t know we exist — or, worse, knows only the bad stuff. (Do we have to claim R. Allen Stanford? Can’t he belong to Antigua?) We desperately want the world to appreciate our city — but first they have to understand it. And for us to explain it, we have to understand it ourselves.
Excellent resturants and if you are into high end shopping that too. That said there are some yuck areas too, just like any city.
