Astonish Me

"Cheeze" on Richmond Ave., by J.N. Lomax

John Nova Lomax and his traveling companion Beebe did another of their epic strolls for the Houston Press, this time down Richmond. It's great, as usual. This jumped out at me:

But Beebe and I have been astonished many times on these walks. Hong Kong City Mall on Bellaire, tucked away behind a nondescript parking lot; the hippy colony in Fifth Ward; a hip art gallery on Harrisburg and a sculptor’s studio a couple of blocks from Hobby Airport; the industrial ruins of Clinton Drive; the graveyard in a tire shop parking lot and the 150-year-old German church on Long Point; the folk art cobbled together by mechanic-artisans in front of many a muffler, tire and transmission shop all over town; the Vietnamese village apartment complex on Broadway; and hell, the vacant temple out near where Richmond Avenue begins on this very trip. It’s only when you take this 70 mile an hour city at our snail’s pace, only when you venture out of your village within the city, that you discover this stuff.

And that is as good an explanation as any for why I ride the streets with my Key Map and camera at the ready.