It's All Good

19th century slat back chair with cowhide seat. Lee County, Texas

An article on the CNN website for July 16, 2011, tells the story of the county seat of Lee County, Texas. It caught my eye because the story is about my home state, but also because I’ve spent lots of time around this part of Texas. I even stayed overnight there three years ago when I took part in a one-day show nearby devoted to antique Texas stoneware. How could I forget? It had snowed the night before—Friday, March 7, 2008. “What? Snow!” I thought in disbelief when I woke up in the morning to find the deck outside the second-story balcony doors covered in white. Funny how one thing leads to another—carrying us and our thoughts away to a collection of experiences and memories, reminding us of the connections that wait for us if we are paying attention.

“Welcome to ‘Little America’", reads the headline for the story about Giddings, Texas—a place that to me has always been about my passion for treasure hunting in the rural areas of Texas that were settled in the middle of the 19th century. In the case of Lee County, Wendish settlements—immigrants from east Germany who made some of the best furniture produced by early Texas artisans—and my own connection through my mother’s German heritage—a different wave of Germans that arrived in Galveston one year after the Civil War ended and settled closer to Houston.

For many years I have traveled around and through this part of Texas—usually on a treasure hunt or on my way to exhibit my finds at the antiques markets that have happened twice annually for close to 50 years. How can that be? Ah, but my part in this didn’t begin until the 1980s—20 years after those who rode the wave of growing interest in the decorative arts of 19th century Texas had already laid claim to much of the treasure of this part of the world. I was a day late and a dollar short, as the saying goes, but that’s another story. And in all of this traveling, I gave little thought to what really matters these days for folks in this rural part of central Texas.

Giddings, Texas is along the route from Houston to Austin to Houston—Hwy 290, which to some is recalled as the “death trap” for all of the accidents that occurred on the two-lane highway that over the many years people from the greater Houston area traveled to and from Austin, much of that travel relating to the seat of knowledge at the University of Texas, and of course, travel to the state capitol. The stories that highway could tell. Giddings has a history rich in agriculture and later in oil production. For many years it appeared little more than a dirty industrial stretch along the highway—oilfield-related service companies, local cafes, and a downtown that had just simply seen better days with empty storefronts dotting the landscape.

Now I read that Giddings is a microcosm of America. From the CNN feature story, “consider the numbers: The entire United States is 64% white, 12% African-American, 16% Hispanic and 5% Asian, 0.7% American Indian, 0.2% Hawaiian or Pacific Islander…In Lee County, 65% are white, 11% African-American, 22% Hispanic, 0.3% Asian. 0.3% American Indian, 0.1% are Hawaiian or Pacific Islander.” Huh, who would have thought—who would have noticed, frankly. What strikes me most about the story is the way things now look in Giddings, Texas, population 16,612. A place that surely was as closed to “outsiders” as any place in rural America could have been for most of its history. Today, Black and Hispanic sit on the local council, along with folks whose history can be traced back generations. Consider the irony that Black farmers/laborers/sharecroppers have a long and rich history in this county as well.

One story in particular that gives me pause is that of a woman, native of Taiwan, who with her husband followed his work to Giddings several years ago. Feeling like and being treated like an outsider at first, she’s made her place in the local community as the owner of the local Ramada Inn. And according to the story, now, “…watching Liu work the room at a Rotary Club meeting is like watching a Vegas lounge singer—cheery introductions, chatty conversation. Everybody wants her attention.” Well, this certainly gives new meaning to “there goes the neighborhood”. Granted, as the story bears out, not all is love and acceptance for the “outsiders” who have changed the landscape of this 140-year-old German community. Yet, change it has, and grow and thrive it is doing. “Liu began breaking the ice by forcing herself to meet strangers.” What courage, what trust, what affirmation.

For me, Liu’s story is the cherry on the dish of ice cream. We can be set in our ways, resistant to change, distrustful, resentful—you name the worst of our human character. But among us can come a stranger—someone who seems as different as different can be if we cling to our ignorance. And that stranger can find the courage to reach out to those who are standing back. It can be a person. It can be a person who looks just like us—or maybe a little different on the surface—one who through their presence causes, indeed forces, us to open our eyes. It can be an idea. It can be an idea that seems strange and threatening that causes, indeed forces, us to change our thinking, maybe even to open our arms. “It’s all good,” said someone I met recently. He actually said it before we met in person. I’ll probably never see him again, but what he said will stick with me—at least for a while, at least as long as I remember to remind myself that I am connected. I am connected as much as I allow myself to be. And so it is. Namaste.

It’s All Good—Albuquerque, New Mexico (July 16, 2011)

R. Harold Hollis