You’ve
invited some friends to visit Round Top over the holidays. They haven’t been
here in a while. Ten or twenty years, maybe. Well before anyone thought of the
word “Roundtopolis.” (How about that word? We’ve always needed a name, I think,
for the area that spreads out around the town. This word does so many things—evokes
Superman, drips with irony, fits nicely into hype of all kinds).
But
I digress.
Your
friends, arriving at the square—pausing at the surprising, but welcome stoplight—will
they recognize Round Top? Will they even be able to see it after dark in the
glare of a thousand tiny white lights wrapping every tree? (Again, I digress.)
The
bones of the town remain, of course. Fine, authentic bones. Von Minden Store,
for one. (Oh, you don’t remember that? You don’t remember when Betty Schatte
held court over beer drinkers meeting to tell stories and solve the problems of
the day? It’s now Popi Burger.)
And
Klumps—the small store where realtors now answer phones, and the larger restaurant,
once an area anchor with plate lunches and Saturday BBQ. (It's now Mandito’s.)
The
buildings—those bones I mention—have rarely looked better, I think.
The
Stone Cellar, named for its location in what is now Lulu’s, has been transformed
into wood and expanded under new ownership.
Henkel
Square, formerly a greensward with exceptional live oaks and the town’s
earliest buildings (rarely visited), now offers popular shops and gathering
places clustered around a parking lot. Plus, next door to the square’s bottle shop,
a relatively new Episcopal congregation brings life to the old Haw Creek Church.
Take your dog along (at least some of the time).
Your
friends will notice another change, too. The sprouting of spec houses and
subdivisions.
All
these changes sing to the tune of fashion and the desire of city folks to hang
onto urban conveniences when they come to the country. It’s the reason “farm
kitchens” in new upscale “ranch” houses have granite counters and dishwashers
and a toilet for every bed.
An
earlier generation of Houstonians coming here wanted contrast with urban life.
In cities, the wildest creature one encounters is often a flying roach or earth-bound
rat nosing around the garbage can.
Well,
we have squirrels and field mice around our country place, but we aren’t seeing
so many shy creatures we once glimpsed with awe. Many fewer rabbits, birds, coyotes,
deer, possums, bobcats. We once knew where the jackrabbit lived on our road,
and where we were likely to spot the roadrunner. And in the evening, choruses
of barred owls vied with the goblin sounds of coyotes, the wildest sound of all.
No
longer, though.
So
why do we keep coming when the activity of developers displaces much of the
reason for being here as fast as it can?
We
come to touch reality, I think. To appreciate the wonder of being alive, often
blurred by the distraction of cities. We come for what has been called “the
rhythm of the land.” The visible, tangible life of leaves. The slow coloring of
native grasses. The waves of distant sound and nearby rustling that signal migratory
birds. Many fewer of those, now, too.
Here,
on a porch in the woods, we feel ourselves at home in the slow, inexorable seasonal
roll of nature. We make friends with ourselves as human beings and we feel
grounded.
Whether
we know it or not, that’s what we long for. Not the Viking Range or Insinkerator.
Not the extended shopping mall that some of our pastures have become.
