The Houston Kid
“I pray that the benevolent God from whom I draw strength brings, with ever increasing speed, the peace, comfort, healing and resource so badly needed by our brothers and sisters whose lives have been so drastically altered by Hurricane Harvey. Since Friday, in my mind’s eye and heart, the streets, houses, alleys, bayous, gulleys (sic), plant life (elephant ears, and chinaberry trees) and people of my youth have been vividly alive. These are the souls and images I’ve mined in search of song for forty-plus years. In childhood I knew floods, Audrey’s and Carla’s, intimately. Today, their memory seems tame compared to the images on my current living room screen. If there’s a silver lining—and I believe there will be—may it find us fast. We are all in this together.”
Yours as ever,
Rodney
It’s National Day of Prayer.
This prayer was posted on Facebook by my friend Rodney Crowell the other day. Well, he is not really my friend, I like him on Facebook. I mean I don’t only just like him on Facebook, I like him. Actually I don’t really know him so I don’t really know if I would like him or not. I guess I like his music.
If you don’t know who Rodney Crowell is, he is an American musician, singer, and songwriter mostly known for country music but you may recognize one of his more successful popular songs “Shame on the Moon” which was recorded on the 1982 album “The Distance” by Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band.
In September of 1961 Hurricane Carla, mentioned in Rodney’s prayer, hit the Texas coast. Harvey is said to be the worst storm to hit Texas since Carla. In his memoir, Chinaberry Sidewalks, Crowell remembers Hurricane Carla and how it affected his family. The $6,000 “cracker-box palace…essentially a tarpaper shack,” steadily became a wreck when Hurricane Carla thundered through in 1961. This home was located in Jacinto City a town a few miles east of Houston.
Also in his song Telephone Road from the album The Houston Kid:
Rain came down in endless sheets of thunder
Lightnin’ bolts split pine trees down to the roots
In the shadow of the Astrodome with a hurricane comin’ on strong
We used to hit the streets and go swimming in our birthday suits
NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim September 3, 2017, as a National Day of Prayer for the Victims of Hurricane Harvey and for our National Response and Recovery Efforts. We give thanks for the generosity and goodness of all those who have responded to the needs of their fellow Americans. I urge Americans of all faiths and religious traditions and backgrounds to offer prayers today for all those harmed by Hurricane Harvey, including people who have lost family members or been injured, those who have lost homes or other property, and our first responders, law enforcement officers, military personnel, and medical professionals leading the response and recovery efforts.
(From the President’s Proclamation to make September 3, 2017 National Day of Prayer as a result of Hurricane Harvey)
I am not President Donald Trump’s friend. I don’t like him on Facebook. But I don’t know President Donald Trump either, so I don’t know if I would like him or not.
But I do know, those folks in Texas need some prayers.
Barbecue and beer on ice
A salty watermelon slice at the Little Taste of Paradise
On Telephone Road (from Telephone Road, The Houston Kid).
Better days in Houston, let’s pray for that.