You don’t look a day over 170, Houston

Lisa Gray has a question and a request.

How do you celebrate Houston’s 175th birthday?

It’s a surprisingly hard question. How do you salute the longevity and stability of a place that prides itself on change? How do you sum up a place that’s notoriously hard to define?

Houston 175, the official birthday organization, is doing its best. It’s rounding up high-profile backers (George and Barbara Bush have already signed on). There will be a birthday party on Aug. 30. And close to that date, there will be a film series, a history conference, and 10 exhibitions and booklets. There’s even a soundtrack: Leah White and the Magic Mirrors have recorded Our Roots Are Strong, a bluesy Houston album for kids.

But will all that celebrating salute everything that needs to be celebrated? Of course not.

So Houston 175 has a request: Would you please show the world your Houston — your own favorite piece of the city?

To play along, go to their website (www.houston175.org), download a “My Houston Is Here” sign, print it, and photograph yourself holding it in your favorite spot. Then upload the photo to the site.

You can see some of the submitted photos here, and you can listen to the Our Roots Are Strong music here. I’m not the kind of person that picks favorites, but I have an idea for a picture for this. I’ll need to coordinate with some other folks to do it. And just for the record, the word for “175th anniversary” is Dodransbicentennial, which I can just about guarantee will win you a bar bet.

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One Response to You don’t look a day over 170, Houston

  1. Trudi Smith says:

    Hi Charles-
    I work at Buffalo Bayou Partnership, and I put together a monthly e-newsletter. For August, I wanted to highlight Houston’s 175 birthday and the Houston 175 campaign and came across your article, You don’t look a day over 170, Houston

    Would it be possible to use this piece, giving you full credit, and a link to Off the Kuff if you like. Thanks so much, and if you don’t mind responding by Friday, July 29 as I am working on this now.
    Thank you.

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