Warm Thoughts on a Cold Winter Day

Blog 3729 – 01.26.2026

Below freezing nights and days are rare in Houston, Texas. I have said and written many times that the heat and humidity of Houston would have kept it a small town, but for the invention of air conditioning. AC, the dredging of a ship channel after the Great Hurricane wiped out the port city of Galveston in 1900, and the discovery of oil near Beaumont, Texas in 1901 turned Houston into a major player.

The bust and boom economy of Houston for many years was tied almost exclusively to the price of crude oil, yet today Houston has a far more diversified economy so much so that a dip in oil prices no longer registered the pain and suffering it once did. Jobs and housing continue to grow as does the population.

In the nineteen seventies when I first moved to Houston it was touted that Houston might one day be the largest city in the world far surpassing the former title holders of London, New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, etc.

Though still not a great fan of the heat and humidity nor of the traffic, I must confess that Houston holds a warm place in my heart. Someday in the not too distant future I plan to reside full time in a much quieter part of the ever growing state of Texas. My wise son reminded me recently that property and homesteads are not our true legacy but family. My dream of restoring a nice little horse ranch in East, Texas is so that one day my true legacy, a little girl who was born in Houston and lives with her parents in a north Houston suburb will have a place to keep and ride her horse someday, on Poppa’s ranch.