Baytown: Pros or Cons? Nope; just Pros!

Lately I’ve had my ear to the ground and I must tell you good Baytown folks, I find the entire pro and con talk about our area to be stimulating. Some claim real living is somewhere other than here. The reason for this is many of us see life from the inside of our car as we rush to work and then back to our couch. Throw in all the extra activities we are involved in and we can effectively steal the enjoyment out of our lives. We haven’t learned what Europeans learned years ago and that is to truly live, you must savor the moment.

Home is that place where you hang your hat and for some, where you hang your head. Home, that place you go to relax, where family is, where friends congregate, where you raise or welcome your children. My home is in Baytown and it is by choice.

There is so much history in this area, but most do not recognize it. My bride of 29 years great grandmother was Amanda Barber and I remember years ago seeing the “Barber House” on the far side of Barber's Hill or as we now know it, Mont Belvieu. My bride’s grandmother’s sister, whom I met, was known by all as “Rab”, but her maiden name was Dimple Dee Darlin’ Barrow and was of “relations” to Clyde Barrow.

My bride’s mother’s first husband, Leroy Russell was killed in the Texas City explosion and with the little dab of insurance money; she built a home on Bowie Street in Pelly and raised beautiful daughters. She later married Willard Reneau who became famous (in amateur fiddling circles) and won many State Fiddlin’ contests. When Willard “Reno” wasn’t fiddlin’, gardenin’ or barberin’, he often rode his bike or walked up and down SH146 and picked up odd things he always ‘found’; a piece of wire, a button, an old knife or a spoon. He knew how to live and it wasn’t going 85 mph over the Fred Hartman Bridge so he could park his bottom on his living room couch.

Many of us have family, church, neighbors and memories that make living here what it is for us. The thought of living in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, may sound like the paradise some seek, but if it means leaving all our friends and everything behind, it wouldn’t be much of a paradise, now would it?

Baytown is not the Utopian end-all, never will be and never can be. It is however, what we, who love it, make it. I start each day at work telling everyone that it is a beautiful day. I rarely hear a positive reply. Usually it is invectives and derogatory dialogue and sometimes, they don’t bother to reply.

This doesn’t stop me from enjoying my life, any more than my city of choice drags me down because it doesn’t have the white crystal beach of Pensacola, Florida. If a person has no vested interest in this city, then they may choose to bash it rather than make it better. That’s fine, but please don’t try to drag us, that love this town, down with you. We know what we love and it is deeper than appearances.

It’s a community built on blue-collar sweating workers, who travel to far away countries and build giant complexes. It’s a city on the move that will add 150,000 people inside its borders in the next 15 years. It is Lee College brains and white-collar people with a vision, who return to Baytown to help the city of their childhood.

It’s Pelly, Goose Creek, Brownwood, Baytown, Lynchburg, Highlands, Wooster, Cedar Bayou, Barber’s Hill, Beach City and McNair and we call it home. It’s Hog Island and the South Main Cafe. It’s the Interurban and Jack’s Hardware on Defee Street. It’s Humble Oil Company and Mobay and Gulf. It’s Brown and Root and Wilkenfield Furniture. It’s “The Tunnel” and “The Loop” and scary stories about Evergreen Road.

It’s being born in the San Jacinto Hospital on Decker Drive or Gulf Coast Hospital on Garth Road. It’s skinny-dippin’ in Slap-Out Gully or kiddos eating popcorn at the Bronson Theater on Texas Avenue. It’s 12 hour rotating shifts in chemical plants; hard work, sweat and late night call-outs to fix a malfunctioning instrument… and drag racing on Texas Avenue before “the Snake” was installed and it is two high schools that battle it out every year in “the Game” to see who is King of Baytown Football and let’s not forget the famous REL Marching Band!

Nope, I can’t take the tuck-head when I talk about my city; there’s just too much I’m proud of.