Houston Hodgepodge... a random post.
The hodgepodge of Houston - a wrong turn, gringo encounters Sinaloan, dark beauties and unaccompanied minor children.
This post is 98-100% true. It is also 100% random. Like Houston.
Houston is a largely unplanned metropolis without zoning. There are beautiful places and people but the city at large is not known for its beauty. There’s a massage parlor next to a house down the street from a strip club by the billboard rightly proclaiming Jesus as the healer of hearts. Did I note that the strip club is called… oops, I don’t want to expose anyone or suggest a temptation.
At day’s end, I found myself in the lobby of a small shop, getting my car inspected for state approval. I thought, how charmingly ugly. So I took a photo.
This led to a brief drive where I captured more beauty. Look below. See the image on the right? I can’t show the opposite side of the street. What happened was I exited my vehicle and was about to photograph a large patch of battleship grey paint atop dark grey exterior walls that had obviously been sprayed with graffiti. The building looked sort of hell hole-ish but I liked the lines.
I was about to shoot when suddenly the door opened and three guys were standing with scowls. I honestly wasn’t sure if it was an operating business or abandoned. The lead guy, a balding unfriendly dude who could pass for many things, waved me off. I said, “Photographer. Just taking picture.” The slits in his eyes were unchanged. He shook his head sideways and waved me off with one arm. I’m pretty confident he didn’t speak English. I simply said, “ok!” I got into the car quickly contemplating Houston’s growing third-world vibe (once you get off your main routes).
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Then 50 yards down the street, I saw the scene below… dilapidated retail spaces and political posters. On the spot, it occurred to me that what I saw was dilapidation and four signs - Democrat, Democrat, Danger and Democrat.
I drove a few more blocks and saw a pickup truck parked about halfway in a parking spot, the rest of the truck was sticking out amongst a small nest of other vehicles. I like to photograph old trucks and I wondered, “Who in the heck parks like that?”
I pulled up close and took this image.
And sure enough a dude walks up to that red Chevy truck as my camera was sticking out of the window. He looked at me. I explained myself - photographer, I like old truck, etc. In very, very sparse English, he welcomed me to “take more picture.”
I jumped out of my vehicle. (These moments can happen routinely when I’m prowling for pics.) I walked to the front of his and snapped one shot1. I should have moved more towards the fender and captured a better angle but as I squatted I saw the Sinaloa license plate; my quest to take a “just right” image, along my questions and comments, were, uh, snuffed out.
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A Sinaloa plate! It was too ironic that my little adventure began as an effort to update my own license plate. Well, see here, the dude moved his truck back into the parking spot and asked me if I wanted to take more pictures. I thanked him by saying “Got it!” Or something like that. He then fetched a brown bag and brought it with him back into the business. Law-abiding, hard-working immigrant? Cartel member who was delivering something and happened to be proud of his truck?
You just don’t know so you stay in your lane. And I could give a crap where someone is from - actually, I find foreigners interesting and beautiful. Married one. Used to work with many foreigners. I regularly am one of the few gringos in a nearby Fiesta grocery store that predominately serves hard-working, blue-collar Hispanics. Hispanics are my friends and fellow citizens. A pastor at my church. My neighbors next to me and across from me. But sometimes with strangers, you just never know…
Gee, I hope I don’t sound like Trump right now. Regardless, a rising influx of Cartel-managed “migrants” abounds in Houston. When I moved back, I listened carefully to a law enforcement officer explain that many illegal migrants don’t have the money to fully pay the Cartel entrance/exit fee so they are often housed and managed by the cartels until their debts are paid. Free labor, theft and prostitution are common. Thus, more crime, more despair, more people used and abused, and more ignorance towards a growing problem.
It’s called human trafficking, of course. I apologize that these images don’t really underscore the issue - though if you click on that underpass image, there were 15 or so men standing around a Shell station waiting for what comes next. I have hardly seen the local TV news touch this topic and when national media does, it’s politicized… pretty much, Texas Governor Abbot’s fault or the Republican Congress or Trump. I saw a pretty good NBC Channel 2 (Houston) story on human trafficking/sex trafficking early in 2023 but it was only about a local white woman abused when she was a child 30 years earlier. A few weeks ago, NBC Channel 2 did another story on the subject. Except the victims were local black women and the soundbite centered around how local churches need to be taking action. And yet something like 250,000 unaccompanied minors have come into the US in the past two-three years. I did a G… search, and most stories were about how Donald Trump separated 1,000 migrant children from their families. High in search rankings, the New York Times story underscored how President Biden had reunited 600 or so of the families. Kind of strange.
I did further digging and the Tyler (Texas) Morning Telegraph reported that a group of 22 state attorney generals yesterday said that more than 85,000 migrant children could be lost based on a Department of Health and Human Services report.
![overpass.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe7301b9d-2291-4395-ade1-f29881797a05_2621x3494.jpeg)
![overpass.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fea6e8366-348a-4f3c-b5ac-e7df98467683_3494x2621.jpeg)
Well, anyway, I stopped by my favorite film camera repair shop and visited Syed. No, the broken Canon AE-1 was not ready but he promised to call me the next week. (He did not.) Next to his business is yet another abandoned commercial center that is getting spruced up. (This continues throughout Houston - rotting retail centers or ones getting a make-over.) Honestly, the facade is already cracking. Just look.
I drove just a little and saw a few more things. Typical Houston - wealth and lower incomes pressed upon themselves. No problemo.
Click on the image below… in the window on the second floor is a banner hanging upside down with the words “New York, London, Shanghai.” Upside down. Right on at least two counts.
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I pulled over at a working-class Mexican joint and managed a mediocre enchilada dinner. (Based on experience, I was expecting better. Lunch leftovers? It was an early dinner.) Then I meandered over to Houston Heights. Random. I saw these things. Common stuff. Go slow…
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Darkness arrived and I thought how I had only intended to get my car inspected. I decided to return home but I took the wrong freeway entrance and decided to go with the flow, so to speak. Here are a few images of downtown Houston. Random dark beauties.
Yes, there is beauty but Houston is such a hodgepodge. Still, I was thankful for the wrong turn and the images weren’t bad for free-hand shots (no tripod). Somewhat timeless, in fact. Then I drove home.
Huh, more than 85,000 migrant children could be lost… Imagine such a thing just three years ago. But let’s say they’re 98% wrong versus my 98% truthfulness way up above. After all, they are Republicans approaching an election year. So that would be about 1,700 lost migrant children versus the 1,000 known migrant children separated from their families by the dastardly orange villain.
Crickets…
One square mile. Easily understood. You walk a mile, turn left, walk a mile and turn left, walk a mile and turn left, and then walk another mile right back to where you began.
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Images taken with a #Fujifilm GFX100S.
All images © Scott Edwards, 2024.
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This is where it might be 98% true… I may have snapped two shots of the front. I don’t want to take the time to double check.