Channelview Texas and the Destruction of My Childhood Home

On the very very East side of Houston is a little town called Channelview. Not much of a town really. In fact I believe it is only considered a school district on paper.

Regardless, this is where I grew up.

When my Grandmother and Grandfather settled there 60 years ago they moved into a small house and with a growing family decided to make it bigger. They then built this tiny house into a 2 story, 4 bedroom home (with their own hands) and raised 5 kids in it. This is also where I grew up years later. Its on a little hill about 2 acres along the banks of the San Jacinto River. They also built a boathouse at the base of the hill where they spent many summers skiing and having fun on the water.

The San Jacinto River empties into the Port of Houston. Over the last 20 years or so this body of water has become one of the biggest industrial portals feeding the nations unending need for plastics, chemicals and trade of all kinds. Refineries choke the surrounding countryside now and if you drive over the 610 bridge you will see something that resembles Mad Max or some other post apocalyptic movie as far as you can see. I'm not joking. It reaches the horizon.

I heard its a big target should there be a nuclear war. It might be a rumor but one I wouldn't doubt.

As a teenager I used to crawl outside my window and get on the highest part of my roof and either talk with friends or just sit by myself and watch across the river as the sky glowed orange with who knows what spilling out of those metal towers. It was strangely beautiful looking but ugly in its harsh reality. Sometimes at night I would wake up to loud explosions traveling across the river. They were so powerful that you could feel them in your chest. I frequently heard the faint sounds of huge refinery alarms going off. Things were going wrong somewhere a few miles away.

The river grew dirtier as I got older. It corroded the engines of our boat. Eventually I refused to even put my feet in. Once I saw the whole river full of human shit. And again I am not joking.

As I grew older I noticed that sections of the river had parked barges along the banks. Giant reddish rusty boats that just sat there most of the time. Sometimes they would disappear, but they always came back. And they began to grow in numbers and inch closer to our house.

Despite all that I loved the house. I cant possibly describe the years of memories that house has given me. The little tragedies and triumphs, friends, family get-together's, the room above the boathouse, my grandmother saving up and buying the family a jet ski, my uncle throwing little ecstatic 8 year old me high into the air over the water, hundreds of times. Creating obstacle courses for my cousins in the huge almost kingdom-like back yard of our childhood. The pets, the crazy neighbors. the barber shop down the street. The church. The wind blowing across the river on a beautiful day as I twisted myself around and around my rope swing tied to an old dead tree. A new smaller tree was growing inside it. I had forgotten that until just this moment. And that scares me because there are probably a million things I will forget.

This week I learned that most of our neighbors have accepted offers to sell their property to commercial interests. People are moving out. They cant take living beside this bullshit creeping up around them. I don't blame them. These companies take the properties along the river and turn them into little narrow ports for these barges, reducing what was once a well kept back yard into a muddy ditch to store planks of wood and pipe.

Then they knock on the door of our neighbors and offer money to expand their stake on the river. And after years of this creeping industrial cancer, they have made it to my Grandmother's house. My house.

It's hard to go back and see whats become of Channelview. It's pretty much falling apart. Most of the little town is now full of toothless idiots and businesses with boards on the windows and overgrown bushes. The house has seen better days as well. It sags in certain parts and my grandma is too old to keep it up.

But still Channelview is her home. Her church is there. She goes to the bank and the store during the day. She has friends still alive that she talks on the phone with and visits every now and then. Out of all of my family I know she is the one who loves that house the most. But this week I learned that she is considering accepting an offer (like most of her neighbors have done) and selling the house to move into a smaller one somewhere in town, away from the river and the mess it has become.

And that house and boathouse will be bulldozed to the ground like all the rest, so they can park more of their rusty barges along the banks.

I know that my memories are what is important in all this. They cant take that away. I told my Grandma the other day as she was choking back tears that the house is just brick and wood and the important part is inside us. But still I am going to go home soon, take about 1000 pictures of every nook and cranny and then be far away as possible when its sold and destroyed.