Houston, Texas

I have a love/hate relationship with Houston. The city is vibrant and alive with professional football, baseball, and basketball teams. The new light rail is efficient and beautiful. The huge Mexican minority along with the Asian minorities impart a cosmopolitan atmosphere punctuated with delicious food from all over the world.

My wife and I disagree on entertainment, I think the Rodeo is entertainment, she doesn't want to go to the Rodeo until she knows who the band playing will be. We both agree on the Symphony, we like the Pops.

There are such an abundance of places to go for entertainment or a gourmet meal that it is often difficult to make a decision. The downtown, at night, is at the same time, exciting and a bit humbling. The skyscrapers, built by oil money; make one feel a bit insignificant in the scheme of things.

Housing is relatively cheap in Houston, we sold a class home for about $200,000 on the inner beltway, a short drive for Jeanmarie to go to work in the downtown. We bought a condo in its place for about $100,000. and built a home in Brevard for about a million dollars. The home in Brevard is nicer but not that much nicer than what we had in Houston.

The hate part of the relationship that I feel for Houston has to do with 110 degree days, a total absence of seasons, and traffic that would make New Yorkers pine for the carefree driving in Manhattan.

Houston stretches for about 70 miles across at the widest point and is the poster child for urban sprawl. I am always impressed by the cities of Europe where so many people fit into such a tight land area. Because of the structure of European cities, you can function quite well without an automobile and the mass transit can be very efficient. With people spread out over so much land area in Houston you cannot function without an automobile and you must subject yourself to the tortuous traffic.

The downtown deals with the excessive heat by having a system of walking tunnels that connect virtually all of the downtown buildings to one another. The tunnels are cooled and there are restaurants and shopping areas in the tunnel system.

I like the people of Houston, there is a simplicity of life there that one doesn't find in New York. People are not as complicated, you can impress just about anyone who comes to dinner with a good BBQ beef brisket.

With oil and NASA firmly planted in the city, the future for Houston is more secure than cities of the Midwest that are dealing with declining manufacturing. There is no income tax in Texas and it is the fastest growing state in the union.

On balance, I feel more love for Houston than hate. I think it to be a very well run city and there isn't much that the city fathers can do about my complaints regarding the heat.

Chattanooga Tennessee

In the 1970's, Chattanooga won the dubious honor of being named the nations dirtiest city. The city fathers, being offended at the distinction, began the process of cleaning up their place in the world.

Today, Chattanooga boasts a vibrant downtown bordering a bend on the Tennessee River. The city itself sparkles with the old train station having gone through a major refurbishing. Many people stay in the hotels which are that old Chattanooga Choo Choo where they sleep in refurbished railway cars and can choose from a myriad of restaurants and other entertainment among those retired railroad cars and engines. Others choose the overnight accommodations on the river, the Old Delta Queen Riverboat is moored in Chattanooga and welcomes travelers and Riverboat enthusiasts alike. A tourist Riverboat, (The Southern Belle), cruises the Tennessee River at noon and in the evening, it features live music and good food.

The annual Riverbend Festival features world class performers and the areas largest fireworks display. There are rides for the children and shows for the adults. The festival also features some of the most unusual food offerings that I have seen at any such event.

With a Zoo, world class Aquarium, and 3D childrens theater, Chattanooga is an inviting place for young families. The Ruby Falls, a majestic waterfall in and underground cavern and the incline railway down Lookout Mountain make Chattanooga a favorite destination for families of all ages.

A Civil War city, Chattanooga has a national cemetery where many of the soldiers who died during the struggle rest among the precise lines of headstones. For those interested in the Civil War there are battlefield reenactments at Chickamauga, a place where the South lost a major battle and a supply route was achieved for General Shermans march on Atlanta.

Of all the places I have lived, I think Chattanooga is probably the most interesting. The Tennessee River and the Locks on the river give it such a unique character. Unfortunately, even with industry such as Volkswagen moving in, the area suffers from the recession that the rest of the country suffers from. Our business there is an insulation business and housing starts are a small fraction of what they were several years ago. Maybe it is for the best, perhaps the mix of old and new America is well served with a slowing of construction in the area.

Cobleskill, New York

My family was living in Winston Salem North Carolina in 1986. We owned a home on Baux Mountain Road at the time. My oldest sons school was raided and numerous drug arrests were made that year. He was in the eighth grade at the time.

I told my wife that he wouldn't spend another year in the school system there and we set out to find the perfect place to raise young children. After spending several months searching, we decided to re-locate our family to Cobleskill, New York.

At this stage of my life I probably wouldn't do that because Cobleskill is a very cold place. At that stage of my life it was perfect.

Located in Schoharie County New York between Albany and Oneonta, Cobleskill is small town America. There is minor league baseball in Oneonta, great Little League and girls softball in Cobleskill, skiing in easy driving distance, and Howe's Caverns nearby. There is a Summer Fair in Cobleskill that everyone in the County, it seems, attends and enjoys.

I liked the High School in Cobleskill, it was built during the Thirties and had wonderful plaster artwork on the magnificent walls. I understand that since we left a new school was built and the old Cobleskill High now houses Intermediate School classes.

My oldest son played football for the Cobleskill Blue Devils, they lost every game but still, I was their biggest fan. My daughter was the Majorette for the band and I thought, the most beautiful Majorette ever. My youngest son Matt was the catcher and MVP on his Little League team.

We made the move and opened a business in Cobleskill. I got three children raised in the best little town I could have imagined at the time. I sold the business that I had started there, Insul-Mart, an insulation distributing company and moved to Greensboro, North Carolina in 1993. My wife's mother was dying of cancer in Greensboro and Brenda, my wife, wanted to be near her mother during that time.

My son Bill had already moved to Greensboro. He was taking pilot lessons in Winston Salem, North Carolina before going to college at the University of New Orleans. My daughter Amanda ended up going in the Navy as a Corpsman and being disabled during her service in the Middle East. My youngest son Matt never really found himself but attended the University of Texas in El Paso for a time before deciding that he needed to see and save the world.

Matt died in Laos in 2006. He had been teaching English at a Catholic School in Thailand prior to his death.

I am forever grateful to the people of Cobleskill for welcoming our family of outsiders, for teaching my children academically and socially, for the experiences of our time there.

More on Brevard

Many of my friends wrote to say that I should be careful about the postings I place about Brevard, North Carolina. They say that if I am right about the corruption then I will pay some price. I am right and if need be, I am willing to pay the price whatever it may be.

The corruption is endemic and needs to be addressed by someone. We had an exchange student stay with us last year so we have been exposed to more truth than we wished for. We are told that the family of law enforcement people, including their children, carry cards that prevent them from being arrested by other police officials. Knowing that their family members and the family members of their friends are immune from the "system," the local police are free to be much harder on everyone than they would be if those they loved were subject to the same treatment.  There is a deep unfairness in only certain people in a community being held accountable for their actions.  Giving preferential treatment to some is, in my mind, simply un-American. When we recite the Pledge of Allegiance, no one says that they believe in "Liberty and Justice for Some."

In the County where I grew up, public officials served the public. When they went to work they were told not to park near the entrance of the building, that was for the public. In Brevard, 60 year old women report to jury duty having to walk, sometimes in bad weather, blocks to the Courthouse. Most of the near parking is reserved for the "public" officials. Can you imagine any private business reserving the best parking for the employees? Tellers at the banks and cashiers at the grocery stores are told to park away from the building to allow the public the best parking spots. Since when does "public service" allow perks that demean and inconvenience the public?

The culture of arrogance is so engrained in the system of Brevard that it has become an accepted practice to allow those elected to "serve" to think that they are entitled to view themselves as superior to the citizens that they are supposed to be serving. That became clear to me when we went to football games and found the best student parking spaces marked as "reserved" for the Senior Class President and for other elected student body representatives. It is no wonder that so many public service employees in Brevard thinks it a "right" to inconvenience the public that must go to the City or Court offices a couple of times each year so that the government employee can avoid walking in the rain.

There are things I find troubling about other places where we have or had homes but sometimes I am simply appalled at what happens in Brevard.

Why do we have property in Brevard? Partly because you cannot know these things about a place before you buy property. There are not many bloggers writing about local issues and the information we were able to gather about Brevard came mostly from local Realtors and promoters of the community. Brevard is a place of waterfalls and majestic mountains, the physical features were a huge attraction to us. Hopefully, those thinking about moving to the area in the future will find my blog or the local officials will find it and make needed change.

I hate to write negative things about any community, most often I write about the good side of life in the United States and that is what I enjoy writing about.  Brevard has much good to expose in these writings and in my next blog about the town I'll focus on those things that made us want to retire to Brevard in the first place.

Brevard, North Carolina

I have a couple of places to live with my wife, one in Houston, Texas where she works and one in Brevard, North Carolina where we hoped to retire someday.

In addition to these places, I have spent a lot of time in Chattanooga, Tennessee over the past several years as I have a business there. I lived in Cobleskill, New York for many years and grew up in South Hadley, Massachusetts. With this wealth of experience in actually having current and past homes in such diverse places, I decided to write about the differences in America, both good and bad.

One thing I know now that wasn't apparent when we were looking for somewhere to retire is that small towns can have big problems. Brevard North Carolina is such a town. In my opinion, there is so much corruption in law enforcement, including the Sheriff's Office in Brevard that the citizens are not safe from the people sworn to protect them. The City Manager had to resign because he was fondling young girls at the local bars and the police chief was fired for reasons that could not be made public.

In Houston or Chattanooga, there are about 3.1 law enforcement personnel for each 1000 citizens. You aren't going to get in trouble with the law unless you deserve it, they don't have time for petty things. In Brevard and Transylvania County North Carolina, there are about 8 law enforcement people for each 1,000 population. The excessive law enforcement presence puts a real burden on taxpayers and the police and sheriff's have entirely too much time to find things to simply harass the citizens about.

I recently went to a Jury Trial in Brevard relating to a black man who was stopped for driving while intoxicated. The policeman was angry because the subject didn't stop his car until he came upon a crowd. Turns out, that was the best thing the suspect could have done, the police officer argued that the man was drunk. Everyone in the crowd claimed that the suspect did everything the policeman asked and more, he walked the line, then he walked it backwards. His crime was that he made the policeman look stupid and ultimately, he was exonerated. To be exonerated, he had to pay a lawyer and waste a lot of time. The police officer got paid for going to Court. Justice wasn't served.

I had to wonder if they would have ever carried it so far if the “suspect” had been a white man. I have to wonder why District Attorney Jeff Hunt allowed that case to go to trial. In Hampshire County, where I grew up I knew the son of the DA, that DA took his responsibility very seriously, he told me that Lawyers were to defend both the guilty and the innocent but District Attorney's were bound to serve justice. The statements I find on the website of Jeff Hunt speak only of prosecuting for the state, no mention of serving justice. That difference can be seen in the Court as they prosecute people who should never have to stand trial.

I had occasion to be in the Sheriff's office in August of 2008 during the height of the political campaign. I was being arrested at the time for a charge that was so bogus that it was dismissed without there ever being a hearing on the matter. There is a certain Detective Brian Kriegsman who for some reason known only to himself and to God, seems to desire that I be punished for something.  Plastered on the walls of the Sheriff's Office were bumper stickers proclaiming” “I'll keep My Guns and My Freedom, You Keep The Change.” David Mahoney, the Republican Sheriff had the right to support John McCain, but it was patently illegal to allow this partisan political activity in the office where taxpayers money was being spent. The Sheriff or Deputy who posted it and all that allowed it to be are criminals in their own right and shouldn't today be drawing salaries from the taxpayers. In this small town, the standards for behavior by law enforcement personnel are far different than they would be in a larger community.   One example is that while larger communities may be plagued with drive by shootings, Brevard has drive by death investigations like the one described in this website:  http://southernjusticewanted.blogspot.com/2010/02/press-release-to-transylvania-times.html

More on Brevard and the other communities in the coming days. There are more good things than bad about each community but I do believe that Brevard does need to get its house in order with regard to the police state that exists for far too many residents there.