Rediscovery Read Free Page B

the house for nearly four times what they had paid for it. Within a week, the new owners had torn it down and started building one of the huge McMansions that now filled the lots almost completely. From there, he had taken Michael up Buffalo Speedway and shared the story of his sister, who as a child had always wanted to know where the buffalo were and why she never saw them speeding. Michael had laughed so hard at Lee’s recounting he could barely see. He’d driven by Buffalo Speedway hundreds of times without ever thinking twice about the name. Now he’d chuckle every time he passed by.
     
    That led them down to North Braeswood and one of the four big bayous that drained the swamp Houston had been built on. “They built on the banks of Buffalo Bayou, you see,” Lee explained, “and then as the city grew, it expanded into the swamp, so they had to create miniature bayous to drain into the existing ones so they could keep building.”
     
    Braes Bayou ran down to Fannin and the first light rail line in the city. Michael expected Lee to turn up Fannin to the Medical Center since the park was on Fannin, but Lee kept going straight. “That’s the part of the park everyone knows,” Lee said. “We’re going to start with the road less traveled.” He continued almost to 288 before turning onto a street Michael had never been on before. “There used to be a stable here where people could take riding lessons, but they moved farther out 288 past Beltway 8. You used to see them taking trail rides through the park.”
     
    Lee parked on a side street and got out. “Shall we walk?”
     
    Intrigued by all the discoveries about a city he’d thought he knew, Michael jumped out of the car, ready to follow Lee pretty much anywhere. Lee led Michael back toward the bayou. “This is a natural regrowth area,” Lee said as they walked along the edge of the brush and bushes that grew up between the huge live oak trees. “They’re actually studying it to watch the progression of natural species now that it’s a no-mow zone. The wildflowers came first, but those have mostly been pushed out now by the taller wild grasses and the next generation of live oaks. Then there are the crepe myrtles and the oleander too.” With each plant he named, Lee pointed them out to Michael, touching the leaves with a reverence Michael could not explain.
     
    “How do you know all this?” Michael asked.
     
    “I pay attention,” Lee said. “I don’t pay a lot of attention to what’s going on in the broader world—and don’t tell me how dangerous or stupid that is. My sister has already told me. That’s out there. I want to see what’s happening right here around me. I want to know the whys and hows of my home or of the place I’m in at that moment. I want to see and understand the changes around me. That has to happen first. If I understand that, then I can understand the world outside, but if I don’t know my here and now, how can I understand the rest?”
     
    “Some people would say that without an understanding of the wider context, you’re missing something,” Michael said.
     
    “That’s just it,” Lee said. “I travel quite a lot, and I learn so much from it because I do have my eyes open to the world around me. But when I travel, I look at my destination the same way I look at Houston. I want to see and understand on the most local level possible because that is how you understand on a larger level.”
     
    “I don’t follow,” Michael said. “Give me an example.”
     
    “I went to Créancey, France,” Lee said. “It’s a town of two hundred people. Maybe. In front of the church, there is a pillar, and on it are the inscriptions of all the men and boys from Créancey who were killed during World War I. There are forty names on that list. One fifth of the town’s population died in the Great War.”
     
    “Yes, and?”
     
    “And that explains history. People scoff at the French for the Maginot Line because it