A walk in the land of milk, honey and angst
As I took a long walk yesterday in Bellaire, my hometown, everything I saw was striking.
This six-mile walk always takes me back into a generally happy childhood — the elementary school I attended, the baseball and football fields where I swung a bat for the first time and made my first tackle, the neighborhoods where we played, the trees we climbed, the metal risers at good old Feld Park built by a young man in 1965 who, some months later, was killed in Vietnam, and the two houses I lived in with several roommates — all good friends — while working my way through the University of Houston.
The walk starts on Mulberry Lane, a tranquil north-south street a short walk from railroad tracks separating Bellaire from West University, incorporated cities about eight miles west of Houston’s Medical Center. It runs pass Basswood Lane, a short, weaving road that connects Mulberry and Newcastle, which we knew as Avenue A back in the day. I take Elm from Avenue A to Avenue B, facing the entrance to the old school.
