Due to special offers in air fare, I managed to find myself with more than three weeks to visit two daughters, one in San Diego and the other in Chicago, during last week's trip to attend a symposium outside Metro Houston.
I bought a 12-segment 30-day rail pass from Amtrak that will allow me to tour America on rails from Houston to the City of Angels, then to the Bay Area and onwards to Portland where many of our Chamorro friends have resettled. From there, traverse the prairies to the windy city of Chicago, proceeding to Boston and NYC, and then hightail it back to Houston for the NWA trip back to Saipan at the end of the month.
Members of a Christian-oriented covenant of people concerned with contemporary spirit realization and effective social engagement brought me to six days of bold and spirited collegial wrestling at the home of a former oil industry executive in Sugarland, Texas, who is also a colleague of MIT's Norm Choamsky.
Home to ex-U.S. congressman Tom who delayed many federal government outreach to excesses and “un-American” practices of the garment industry outlets in the CNMI, Sugarland was also home to Ken of Enron whose machinations led to drastic reduction of value of many investments, particularly retirement funds.
Sugarland is a manicured neighborhood of gated communities whose consumption shows a benign neglect of the economic downturn in the nation. Not severely affected by the housing crisis, and being undergirded by the demand-driven oil industry of which Houston is not only a leading supplier but also a hub of the industry's management expertise, Sugarland flourishes as the community of the well-heeled and properly connected.
Of the derma-color seen in the neighborhood, dark gets to pick up the trash and the brown mows the lawn, with the yellow tints often seen in take out counters. One of my favorite stories is told of the golf pro Lee Trevino of Dallas when one day he was mowing his lawn and someone inquired how much the lady of the house was paying him. He sidled up to the inquirer and whispered: “The pay is not much but the lady of the house let me sleep with her.
What happened to one of the symposium members who hails from Alaska was, however, not funny. A Teacher's Union officer of slave descent, he was taking his luggage to his parked rental car when he was seen jiggling the trunk handle. He forgot that pulling the lever on the driver's side on rentals do not open the trunk; the use of the ignition key was necessary.
The Alaskan finally figured his way out of his quandary when he noticed one of Sugarland's finest parked across the street roundabout opposite his car. (A neighbor called, we accurately deduced.) It was only after his Caucasian traveling partner came out bidding their Caucasian host adieu in the perfunctory manner of hugs and kisses did the patrol car revved up and moved out. A sigh of relief was heard. A Louis Gates Jr. déjà vu was averted.
When I got to the downtown train station, the terminal reflected the country's low priority for rail travel as a means of people transport. There is hardly a street sign pointing to the place, and the walkway that leads to the Post Office under the highway ramp was neither well lit nor tidy. Though my train did not embark new passengers until 9pm, and I had the time to explore the theatre district of the downtown area, I hurried back before sundown still smarting from the fear/rage morning incident in Sugarland.
I have traveled enough to know that the cream of the well-off take to the airways so much so that, not just nationally but globally, airports have become alike in the servicing of the elite Duty Free Shop crowds. Taking the rails would involve another sub-class of people whose income for travel is considerably less than those who take planes. Discount for man'amko and Armed Services personnel, active and vets, along with students and a generous rail pass for anyone pretty much define the nature of the clientele.
Five hours into the mid-early morn, the Sunset Limited from New Orleans to Los Angeles hit San Antonio of the Alamo fame. I wanted to walk their well-known River pathway but the earliness of the hour precluded any tramping of the morning dew. Besides, the caboose from the Texas flyer originating in Chicago for people heading west that has been sitting on the rails a good three hours before our arrival was hitched to our line and no one was allowed off the train. So we slept through the morning parked in the railroad before we started barreling away from the sunrise.
Del Rio was our first stop that was close to the Rio Grande, the dividing line between Mexico and the United States. Many Latinos who swim across the river to avail of the seasonal need for farmhands in the mid-West to Maryland's outer bank poultry and swine farms, and Georgia's fruit orchards, are referred to as “wetbacks.” They were once tolerated; now they are tolerated no more. The river and the desert has since become a scourge on the descendants of the previous owners of this land!
Judge Roy Bean's museum sign reminded me of Joe Race's novel, The Hawaiian Paniolo, where one of the lead characters battled bandidos this side of the Rio Grande. The dry riverbeds and sand/gravel roads reminded me of the Kannat Tabla road when I was a down creek neighbor to the Bishop. The dry creek bed is a road when the weather is dry and a raging creek during the monsoon.
There were 51 consecutive days reported to have been 100 F in south Texas until a week ago and the Longhorns of UT Austin have been quick to claim that their physical conditioning leaves them on top of their game to perform the weekly rituals of brute force, agility, and guile in the Sabbath gridiron this Fall.
The lake past Del Rio did show a low waterline. But the stacked stone bricks from the surrounding environment were displayed in little outposts along the railroad, indicating an attempt to utilize local resources. Lone structures also are symbols of the wild, wild West's rugged individualism. The bricks were reminiscent of the Mactan stones we developed earlier in the Philippines, with some tiles finding their way as façade material on Saipan in the '80s.
Real cowboys and cowgirls finally showed up in Sanderson, Texas, though before then, there were no signs of bovine, swine, or the fruit of the vine. West of Del Rio was an Air Force base stuck in the middle of nowhere but nut fruit orchards finally showed up before and after El Paso.
It is my intent to listen to the heartbeat of America, and so far, the passengers are a motley crew of the elderly and the marginalized. More on them as we seek once more the post 9/11 soul of America.
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