»Photographs by Paul G Ryan
I now have bicycle in Texas. A simple fixie - no gears. The land around Houston is flat.
From my Med Center apartment I walked across two wide Houston Boulevards, past more of the innumerable high rise medical buildings, one for every imaginable ailment.
The entrance to the Rice University campus was not marked, but I knew I was in the College world. The building placement, building design, student made signs - spontaneous and not meant to remain … all immediately transported me back to my college days.
I rented the bike at the University bike shop, a small place run by some very efficient students. Renee, the overworked manager was very helpful and bent a few rules to rent to a non-student.
The campus is, like most everything in Texas, spacious, but there seem to be few students around.
It may be that it was MLK weekend. Ironically I notice a little paper announcement tacked onto the shop bulletin board about an effort to have the statue of William Marsh Rice, founder of the college in 1862, moved from prominence in the main quadrangle to someplace more obscure ..
“Well” Renee said, “he was somewhat of a racist”. An understatement.
Like many Texans of that era, he was a slave owner, but, I discovered, Rice also mandated in his will that the university that was to bear his name would be solely for "the white men and women of Houston." And it did not admit a single black student until 1964
I had never thought of Texas as a major part of the Confederacy, but of course it was. In fact Texas was the last Confederate state to free their slaves. Most Texans I have known are proud of their state as a rebellious individual entity, geographically and culturally. They don’t talk about that part of their history. At one point, a large number of Texans who refused to join the Confederacy were executed.
As I wandered this part of town, one by one, icons emerged. Statues memorializing individuals who were perhaps heroic, albeit for a not so admirable cause. George Hermann who donated land for the huge and wonderful park that bears his name, also saw fit to join Robert E Lee’s army. A segment of the Texas Rangers, Terry’s Rangers, signed on as a regiment in the Confederate forces.
Of course ’61 – ’65 refer to 1861 - 1865
I’ve always thought that to be indiscriminately accusational of all individuals who held slaves in the early colonial years is perhaps not grasping the cultural standards of the day. But when it came into clarity with the advent of the Civil war, there was certainly a right and wrong choice to be made. A morally right and wrong choice.
In Germany there are no statues of tribute to the Third Reich leaders, even the brilliant and rebellious Erwin Rommel. His choice was to join the evil empire. And his grave site now has a small statue of a leg amputee child, in honor of those children who were forced by the Nazis to walk through minefields in advance of the German troops.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/C. Schmidt
Across Hermann Park, vast and meandering, ponds, boats, a small railroad, and a zoo which I didn’t have time to visit, a golf course, a driving range which evoked my ambitions to try..
I thought of Central Park, but this was, in contrast to New York, more open and less populated.
I don’t see many Cowboy Hats here. I have a prejudice against people in urban environments wearing Cowboy Hats. As they say here, “All Hat and No Cattle”
I love wandering the Fine Art Museum Houston. Like Texas, it’s sprawling and horizontal. An eerie and spatially disorienting-
James Turrell light sculpture tunnel
-connecting two buildings crosses under Bissonnet street.
Another chapter in the Robert Frank story. It turns out another photographer, Todd Webb, crossed the country in the same period trying to capture America. For whatever reason, he did not get the same acclaim. Probably as he was a successful commercial photographer whereas Frank was singularly obsessive in his documenting the American culture. The museum put up a display of their images, a side by side comparison.
Forever young as you roll through the landscape mosaic of active wounds from Civil war remnants to inspirational forms of art- the spectrum you span shines a brilliant light~
Paul, There were multiple waves of German immigrants drawn to Texas beginning in the 1820s. Like other Europeans, the early arrivals looking for cheap land. I've tried to imagine those pushing the "Come to Texas" message, truthfully pushing the large areas of unfarmed land, but neglecting to mention the Comanches who migrated through on hunting trips. Of interest to me was social aspect of these developments. The earliest immigrants were conservative and ambitious -- not opposed to slaves, if they could afford them. Even as late as 1846 there were Germans coming in and naming a town Fredericksburg after the Prussian prince. After the civil wars of 1848 things changed. Germans with far different political and religious views came to Texas. Hence, the lads in Comfort.
San Antonio was filled with Germans, by mid-century outnumbering the Mexican Americans. if you ever have cause to head this way again you should check out San Antonio. It is my favorite Texas city, quite varied architecturally. Also to the west of San Antonio is Uvalde. see the murals documented by Evan L'Roy: https://www.evanlroy.com/uvalde/v6a2nmffgrnl1lix1uu7gmcarpe3v8
TK
"I need ammunition. Not a ride