Ghosts of Brownwood

A recent visit to the Baytown Nature Center
(Unless otherwise noted, all photographs by Jerry Hamby)

Twenty-five years ago, one of my colleagues at Lee College, a journalism instructor named Susan, led me on a driving tour of the old Brownwood subdivision, located on a 500-acre peninsula that juts into the Houston Ship Channel, which, in turn, feeds into Galveston Bay. Surrounded by three bays—Burnet, Crystal, and Scott—Brownwood has a storied past, beginning with the stately homes of Humble Oil executives who lived there in the 1940s and ending in 1983 with the devastation of Hurricane Alicia (and her eleven-foot storm surge), after which all residents were forced to leave permanently when the City of Baytown prohibited reconstruction and cut off water and electricity.

Brownwood in 1989, six years after Alicia

My first visit to Brownwood took place eight years after Alicia, by which time most of the homes had been bought and leveled. This was the same year that Baytown residents approved a $300,000 bond initiative to create wetland restoration, a project that ultimately led to the establishment of the Baytown Nature Center. A comparison of two Google Earth satellite images tells the story of Brownwood more succinctly than the dozens of newspaper narratives recounted by residents who survived several major weather events, beginning with hurricane Carla in 1961. (I discovered the two photos on the blog site Google Earth Time Machine, maintained by my good friend Brian Schrock; I direct readers there to learn more about topics related to geology and geography.)

Brownwood in 1953

The 1953 image shows what the peninsula looked like before Brownwood experienced its most extensive subsidence (the ground dropped a total of ten feet between the early 1900s and the 1980s, eight and a half feet of which dropped in the final forty years). Note how the western and southern shores of the peninsula were protected by a land barrier known as Goat Island (so named because goats grazed there after the land bridge connected to the mainland disappeared). As a side note, Goat Island was partially restored (in two segments) in 2003-2004 when the Ship Channel was widened and deepened and the dredged soil (millions of cubic acres) was moved by the Port of Houston and the U.S. Corps of Engineers on top of the original land mass. 

The topic of subsidence is complicated and fascinating, but in short, during the twentieth century the greater Houston metropolitan area sank between four and ten feet due to unrestrained extraction of groundwater (as well as oil and gas), which is now regulated to limit further subsidence. For more information on the history of Brownwood and the events that led to its demise, I suggest checking out the extensive website Houston Wet: A Sprawl Ecology. Be forewarned: you will spend a good two to three hours reading the text and scrolling through dozens of photographs, at the end of which you will have a rich appreciation for this aspect of Houston history and the downside of human enterprise. The story of Brownwood is, at its heart, a story of hubris, of lessons ignored.

Tropical storm aftermath, circa 1976 (chron.com)

When I visited Brownwood in 1991, more than 350 houses had been razed and the rubble removed. The driving tour I took with Susan was limited to "Perimeter Road," what used to be Bayshore Drive and Mapleton Avenue. In the aftermath of Carla and repeated episodes of flooding, city officials had raised the road seven feet, creating a combination dike and escape route, but the engineers based their measurements on pre-subsidence benchmarks, so the road was more than a foot too low, and it failed at keeping the water out. 

When Susan and I explored the area on foot in 1991, what I could see peeking through the overgrown vegetation were a few dozen houses, in some instances only the rooftops, that dotted a blighted landscape. I learned many years later that these structures belonged to the holdouts, the roughly three percent of residents who refused to sell their property. The Baytown Nature Center has existed since 1994 when work on the Brownwood Marsh Restoration project began. To this day there are pockets in the Nature Center that belong to former residents who refused to sell their property. Some people did not believe they were being offered fair market value for their homes while others held out on principle, fighting to the very end all attempts to dislodge them from their property. 

Boardwalk on the Golden Bloom Pond Trail, crossing a former street (July 2016)

Today there are no elevated structures, but you can still find footprints of human development—house foundations, boat docks, bulkheads, and swimming pools. Most of the streets are still visible, if overgrown, as trails take you through a variety of landscapes. If you explore the shoreline at low tide, you will find broken bricks, sections of brick walls, and shards of crockery among the riprap and oyster shells.

Crockery among oyster shells on the beach

On a recent trip to the Nature Center, I discovered the last utility pole in Brownwood, cut off at the ground and left on one of those overgrown roads. The electrical cable disappears into the overgrowth, and the pole lies on the ground, reminders of that tentative connection between civilization and wilderness.

The last utility pole—Crow Road

One of my greatest regrets about that first trip to Brownwood is the fact that I didn't take a camera. In those pre-digital days, I reserved 35-mm film for vacations and family gatherings. These days I might take hundreds of photos in a single day, so I have done a more thorough job of documenting return trips to Brownwood. In my next post I will share my most recent discoveries, including a pair of swimming pools, two of the many ghosts of Brownwood.

Looking south onto Scott Bay and the Fred Hartman Bridge

Talking Trash

Twice a week blue Republic Services trucks sweep through my neighborhood to collect garbage.  Even though I live within the city limits of Houston, my homeowners association decided years ago to contract this service through a private company.  The thinking was that the city's curbside containers were large and unsightly, so our trash has to be bagged.  There are a lot of problems with this arrangement, not the least of which is the fact that my neighbors and I miss out on curbside recycling.

A typical bag of trash we generate in one week

I have issues with this "wasteful" practice, but rather than dwell on those complaints, I want instead to focus on what I do to compensate.  Because everyone's trash bags are in plain sight, I can easily tell how much waste my neighbors generate.  Most households put out one or two bags twice a week.  In contrast, my wife Susan and I put out, at most, one bag per week.  So what do we throw away?  I  recently emptied the contents onto a blue tarp, and the photo below tells the story.

A peek inside the bag

Most of our trash consists of plastic that cannot be recycled—unlabeled bags and packages and the occasional polystyrene foam or other item that our local recycling center does not accept.  We also throw away cotton swabs and balls, and on the rare occasion that we eat meat, we toss out the scraps.  In the photo above there is a small packet of fish skin.  What you will rarely see are napkins or facial tissues.  Some time ago we stopped using both, opting for cloth napkins and handkerchiefs instead, and the few paper towels we use find their way to the compost heap (more about that later).  If you look closely, you will also see a blue bag of cat waste.  The litter we use is made from bio-degradable wheat, and we scoop to minimize how much goes into the landfill. 

A month's worth of plastic, waiting to be recycled

The key to limiting our garbage is separating items for recycling.  We sort plastic, metal, glass, paper, and cardboard into bins that are stored in our garage, and once a month we take those items to a recycling center a few miles from our house.

A month's worth of recycling

On the second Saturday of every month, a company is on-site to collect e-cycling materials: electrical wire, batteries, printers, and other electronics.  We also used to collect old motor oil and take it to an area service station, but because we now have a manually-operated reel mower, there is no oil to dispose of.

The recycling center at Ellington Field

We find ways to repurpose some objects that might normally be recycled.  A few years ago, for instance, we took empty wine bottles and created borders for two vegetable garden beds in our backyard.

Wine bottle edging—that's Swiss chard
growing in the background.

Another way we minimize our waste is through composting.  Fruit and vegetable peels and cores, teabags, coffee grounds, and table scraps—all get tossed into a compost bucket that sits on the kitchen counter, and every few days I pour the contents in one of our three compost bins.

A bucketful of vegetable scraps and egg shells

Composting takes the notion of recycling to whole new level.  All of that discarded plant material (along with egg shells, paper towels, and our neighbors' bags of raked leaves) finds its way back into the life cycle in the form of nutrient-rich organic soil or "black gold."

One of three compost bins, brimming
with nutrient-rich organic matter

"Home-cooked" compost enriches our vegetable garden much more effectively than anything we can buy—and it doesn't cost a dime.  Our heirloom tomatoes especially appreciate this extra boost of nutrients.

Cone flowers and homegrown
heirloom tomatoes

I am not naive enough to think that the little bit of recycling Susan and I do will save the planet, but I am well past the point of thinking in those terms.  All I can do is maintain my own tiny part of the universe and encourage others to do the same.

Hand to Mouth

In Mrs. Matney's sixth grade science class, my schoolmates and I pressed seeds half an inch into potting soil ... and waited.  A few days later the bean plants sprouted, and within a week our little seedlings were spilling over the top of the Dixie cups.  It showed me just how strong the life force is, and it instilled a reverence for gardening.  Even now in the spring, I still thrill to see our tiny suburban garden come to life, and my wife Susan and I always reserve a spot for more exotic fare than those simple beans I nurtured years ago—Purple-Podded Pole Beans and Dragon's Tongue Bush Beans, among others.

Spring seedlings, mostly heirloom tomatoes, waiting to be planted

These days we plant an expanding variety of herbs, greens, and vegetables—parsley, cilantro, sage, arugula, Swiss chard, kale, peppers, cucumbers, watermelons, and tomatoes (to name a few).  Glorious tomatoes, heirlooms, take up the greatest section of our tiny yard.  Earlier this year we planted twenty-four such plants, filling every available inch in the backyard and (in pots) on our deck.  And they yielded a bountiful harvest.  From May through late July, we had a steady supply of tomatoes and prepared more than a dozen different dishes, sauces, and condiments, including puttanesca (a spicy entrée named in honor of prostitutes), homemade pizza sauce, and salsa.  We never got tired of adding tomatoes to our meals.

Pasta salad primavera with pine nuts

There's something reassuring about walking into the garden to harvest a few herbs for dinner, and because the weather in Houston is so mild, Susan and I can keep all kinds of plants thriving year round.

Herbs, greens, and (edible) flowers from the garden

There are few activities more soothing, more relaxing, than working in the garden, even if it's just deadheading blooms or pulling weeds.  The garden gives back so much more than it demands. 

Deadheading a butterfly bush

One of Susan's great ambitions is to build a garden that is big enough to meet most of our produce needs.  Part of the appeal is to limit the number of people who come between us and our food sources.  One way we do that now is through a subscription to Wood Duck Farm, a local CSA (community supported agriculture).  Every two weeks we pick up a box of produce from a delivery location near our house.  The offerings vary from season to season, but the quality of the produce is consistently good, and the quantities of fruits and veggies we receive are generous.

A summer share from our CSA

Between CSA seasons Susan and I also frequent the Urban Harvest Farmers Market in Houston.  It's a good place to buy produce, much of it organic, and a good way to support area farmers and ranchers.

Susan at the farmers market

One of our favorite springtime activities is picking strawberries at Froberg's Farm in Alvin.  On more than one occasion we have filled our buckets with more than ten pounds of berries.  Last spring we visited Froberg's four times.  It is also a great place to buy dried beans; because they are fresher than those you find at a supermarket, Froberg's beans cook more quickly and have a better texture.

Picking strawberries at Froberg's Farm

Susan loves to bake strawberry shortcake—not the sweet, spongy cup-shaped things I mistakenly called shortcake for years but, rather, a lightly sweetened biscuit-like pastry.  To celebrate the arrival of strawberry season this year, Susan baked a gorgeous upside-down cake, the recipe for which she found online.

Strawberry upside-down cake

We have a friend who has a decades-old fig tree that produces beautiful fruit that we are invited to pick every summer.  On numerous occasions we have endured 100-degree heat and swarms of mosquitoes to harvest sweet, sticky golden figs.

Picking figs in July

We have baked figs in muffins and on top of pizzas, and every summer we put up jars of preserves to get us through the rest of the year.

Homemade fig preserves

A final way Susan and I maintain close proximity to our food sources is through foraging.  There is a park near our house that has undeveloped tracts of forested land, and when the spring rains are plentiful, we can expect a bumper crop of wild dewberries.  They are plump and tart, nothing like the tamer varieties found at the grocery store, and you really have to work to pick them.  They grow on thorny canes, and you can expect to give a little blood (and walk away with scraped hands and arms), but they are worth the time and trouble.  (For more on foraging, check out the Foraging Texas website.)

A gallon of foraged dewberries

Even in bad years Susan and I can always find Muscadine grapes in the remote sections of the park.  They look like concord grapes but pack a much stronger flavor.  I've never developed a taste for them fresh off the vine; their high acidity burns your fingers, so you can imagine what they can do to your lips.  Susan, on the other hand, has learned to suck out the pulp without touching the skin to her lips.  Mustang Grapes make for a tasty jelly, and their tartness effectively contrasts the sweetness of the added sugar.

Susan eating Muscadine grapes

There is something rewarding in knowing that a stretch of wilderness is a mere stone's throw—or a bayou's crossing—from our home.  Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, yet wild fruits manage to thrive in isolated pockets; you just have to be receptive to them.  They are a testament to that powerful life force I learned about years ago in Mrs. Matney's science class.

The Flexitarian Shuffle

When most people hear the word diet, they think of sacrifice and self-denial that still may not yield the results they desire.  I went on such a journey many years ago.  During a routine exam during which I learned that my cholesterol and triglyceride levels had spiked, my doctor gave me an ultimatum—begin exercising and lose weight, or he would "pill" me.  I took his advice to visit a dietitian, who put me on a strict diet of 1,700 calories a day.  I accomplished my initial goal—losing ten pounds—in a mere two weeks, so I stuck with the diet for another seven months.  At the end of that time, I had lost a total of forty-five pounds, or one fourth of my body weight.  

It was time to rethink the concept of diet.  I couldn't continue to watch every calorie, count every slice of cheese, and weigh every cut of meat.  I needed to adopt a sustainable diet that was more than a weight loss program.  The word diet comes from the Greek diaita, which means "a way of life."  It was time to redefine the way I lived.  

Pear, pecan, and arugula salad with apricot white balsamic vinaigrette

I have come a long way in the twelve years since I stopped obsessing over calories, and my palate is much more sophisticated than ever.  I eat much more varied and adventurous fare than I ever imagined, while cutting way back on my intake of meat.  I'm not sure where I first read that "your plate should look like a crayon box," but it is a notion I learned to appreciate.  All those bright colors signify antioxidants, which are essential to maintaining good health.

Broccoli pine nut pasta salad—a "crayon box" entrée

Another dictum I live by is Michael Pollan's famous seven words of advice from his book In Defense of Food: "Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants."  This might be a good time to mention that I did not make these monumental changes by myself.  My wife Susan has guided the process every step of the way—buying and reading dozens of cookbooks, planning weekly menus, and encouraging us to be adventurous in our eating choices.  Initially, that meant weaning ourselves off red meat.  This was not just a conscious decision but, rather, a natural extension of what we had been already been doing.

Tacos prepared with black beans and tofu meat substitute

All but eliminating red meat might seem like a strange thing to do for a woman who grew up on a cattle ranch, as Susan did, and our early forays into meat-free entrées often resembled their traditional counterparts, as is the case with the meatless tacos pictured above.  Not that there's anything wrong with those tacos—they are delicious—but there are endless ways to prepare a meal around vegetables.

Roasted ratatouille tart with goat cheese and mint

And there are so many foods that are more more satisfying than meat, which often tastes dry and flavorless to me now.  The sandwiches Susan and I eat are much more interesting and varied than the predictable cold cuts with mustard and mayo we knew so well.  Take, for instance, the sandwich pictured below: avocado with sliced tomato, Swiss cheese, arugula, and basil on seeded bread.  Finished off with black cherry balsamic vinegar and cracked pepper, this light lunch is tart and spicy.

A sandwich like no other

What makes the sandwich even better is the fact that the tomatoes, arugula, and basil were harvested from our own garden.  Early last spring we started twenty-four plants from seeds, and as a result we had homegrown heirloom tomatoes from May through July.  Moonglows (like those pictured above), Black from Tula, Cherokee Purple, and Green Zebra are a few of the varieties we grew.

Heirloom tomatoes—an early summer harvest from the garden

In addition, Susan and I receive produce most of the year from a Houston-area CSA (Community-Supported Agriculture).  Every two weeks we pick up a box of produce grown by a local farmer; we pay a subscription fee up front and in exchange receive our "shares."  We are providing financial support for local agriculture, and we are closer to the source of the food we eat.  It's a great trade-off.

A typical summer share from our CSA

The challenge has been to find creative and varied ways to prepare meals from the fruits and vegetables.  After being part of the CSA for a year and a half, Susan and I feel committed to the program.

After all this talk about vegetables, I feel it's only fair to mention that we still eat eggs, fish, and (oh-so-rarely) even meat.  We're not strict vegetarians but like to think of ourselves as flexitarians, which means we eat mostly fruits, vegetables, and grains.  And, of course, we still enjoy desserts.

Tres leches—rich but surprisingly low-fat

Susan made this amazing tres leches cake for friends, and while it is decadently sweet, it is a fairly low calorie dessert, having only 300 calories per serving.  

Shortly after I had lost weight, my mother asked me, "Don't you miss food?"  Her question struck me as strangely funny at the time, but I knew that her attitude was not uncommon.  Many people still subscribe to the notion that maintaining one's weight has to involve struggle and sacrifice.  In a way, I guess that's true.  I can't eat just anything, and I have to be aware of portion size, but I never feel as though I'm missing anything.  What I used to struggle with was what to prepare for my next meal, but I now enjoy the process of planning, cooking, and eating.  My diet—yes, diet—is richer than ever, and as a result I am healthier and happier.

"Green Is Good, Baby"

Other than playing an occasional round of Putt-Putt, I have never been interested in golf, but shortly after Hurricane Ike hit Houston in 2008, my wife Susan and I began spending time on an abandoned course, the old Clear Lake City Golf Club. which is a few miles from our home.  The course opened in 1963 and closed in 2001; from 2005 to 2011, it was tied up in litigation, as competing interests vied for ownership.  The company that bought the property in 2001, Renaissance Golf Group, planned to resell it for commercial development, but local citizens and the Clear Lake City Water Authority (CLCWA) were working to preserve the space as a park and (once the CLCWA came on board) a water detention facility, something the flood-prone Bayou City badly needed.

Which brings me back to Ike.  In the aftermath of the storm, Susan and I took up bicycling as a reliable way to run errands (since gasoline was not readily available for several days), and we began riding on the old golf cart trails as an alternate route to the grocery store.  Long after the hurricane and its aftermath, however, we continued riding bikes for pleasure and following legal developments surrounding the fate of the course.  More about that litigation later, but first, let me describe the 200-acre space.

The photo above shows how the course looked when we began riding on it in 2008.  The cart trails were showing signs of neglect, but they still provided a stable riding surface. Tee markers, ball washers, trash cans, and (non-functioning) restroom facilities were still visible along the fairways.  (Once final ownership was established, all of those features would eventually be removed.)

And, of course, there was the clubhouse.  The building had been boarded up for seven years and vandals had nearly destroyed it, and in April 2011 it burned to the ground.  The photo below shows what the clubhouse looked like three years earlier.

Even in its undeveloped state, the green space attracted hundreds of people to its ponds and dense woods, unexpected discoveries in a city of more than two million people.  

And then there was the wildlife.  The park provided habitat for egrets, herons, hawks, woodpeckers, and turtles.

Some people spotted alligators in the old water features.  The space was beautiful year-round, rich with crimson and yellow leaves in the fall.  But looks can be deceptive. While Chinese tallow trees (like the one pictured below) produce vibrant fall foliage, they are an invasive species that needs to be eradicated.

The park was even more alive in the spring as bees and wildflowers took over.  The sand traps were overgrown, and when the fairways were not mowed for a month or more, they exploded into robust urban meadows.

Of course, things couldn't stay this way.  In addition to the owners of the property, who were growing impatient to sell the land, the CLCWA was pushing to acquire it—initially through purchase and, failing that, through condemnation proceedings—and area citizens were trying to save their beloved green space.  None were more active or vocal than the homeowners along the fairways.  Signs proclaiming "Keep Green Space Green" began sprouting up in front lawns, and one industrious homeowner put up a giant banner that declared, "Green is Good ... Baby!" 

Indeed it is, but what exactly to do with the old golf course remained unsettled.  Some citizens wanted to keep the space as it was, to let it thrive as a mostly undeveloped park, while others desired more active civic involvement and investment, as was eventually provided by the CLCWA.

After failing in a bid to purchase the property outright and later losing its case to acquire the land by condemnation, the water authority won its suit in appeal in May 2011.  Shortly thereafter, the CLCWA authority took over maintenance of the green space and began investigating options for development.

One controversial move involved clearing trees around the ponds.  While dozens of citizens volunteered to thin trees and brush along the banks, some property owners asserted that indiscriminate clearing would actually make the ground more susceptible to flooding since the natural growth, particularly the tall willows, absorbed much of the run-off.  As it turns out, hydrologists and landscape architects have devised long-range plans that will create a much better detention system for run-off water than the current water features can hold.

External factors soon impacted trees in the park, none more than the severe drought that plagued the Gulf coast in 2011 and 2012.  Beautiful oaks and pines began dying at an unprecedented rate.

As a result, the CLCWA contracted to cut and remove more than one hundred trees, like this twenty-foot-tall magnolia.

As competing visions for what to do with the green space continued, the CLCWA pushed ahead with plans to develop a water detention facility, and in early 2013, a landscape architecture firm, SWA Group, unveiled its master plan during a community meeting.  The first phase of the plan has already been implemented, and the fifty-year-old golf course is now being transformed into a space that provides hike-and-bike trails, natural wetlands, and a major detention facility capable of diverting flood waters.  When the park—tentatively called Exploration Green—and detention facility are completed over the next twelve to fifteen years, the original waterways that run through the park and feed into Horespen Bayou will be cut much deeper than the one pictured below.  These new waterways will require additional tree removal, but the tree canopy on the outer banks will be preserved and expanded, and native grasses and wildflowers will be introduced to create a habitat requiring less maintenance than the fairway turf.

While the CLCWA plan has its detractors, most notably a group calling itself Save the Old Golf Course, most Clear Lake citizens support the work of the water authority and are pleased that its efforts will preserve and enhance 200 acres of green space in the Clear Lake City area.  In these times of increasing urban sprawl, any victory for natural habitat is a major accomplishment.