In Shreveport

I’m in Shreveport, Louisiana, tonight. Drove over because some cousins were flying in to see family. It’s only about 3.5 hours from Dallas.

I have a lot of family here. Our ancestral spawning ground is about 20 miles south in Mansfield.

Shreveport is the city where Frank Sutton, the actor who played Sergeant Carter on Gomer Pyle, died. I’ve been coming here since I was a child. The city seems like it struggles and apparently has a declining population. In recent years there has been a lot of violent crime. Still, I have a lot of good memories of Shreveport. I love my family here. Having lived in Dallas for most of my life it would be hard to live here in such a smaller city. I’m used to having all that Dallas has to offer at my disposal. I mean – we went to see Rush twice in the last week.

I wish my family all lived in the same place. I hate how geographically dispersed families are now. It seems like life was better when families were close and could really support each other. Simultaneously I am glad my parents left Louisiana and moved to Texas in 1969, when I was 5. Growing up in a more cosmopolitan and diverse place was a gift. I really appreciate it now.

Driving around Shreveport that are streets and buildings I remember for my childhood. I remember riding bikes with my cousin Stewart from his house to a hobby shop and other places. When I was over here with Stewart I had a freedom I didn’t have at home, mostly because he just went wherever he wanted. Like so many cities, those old familiar places have changed. A lot of them replaced by the same boring chain stores and restaurants as everywhere else in Commodified America.

Our hotel is is in Downtown Shreveport, near the river. There are a lot of cool old buildings. So many small cities in the United State have these great old downtowns that have fallen into disrepair and non-use. There’s great old architecture, cool bridges…here in Shreveport there were once streetcars. My mom and her family used to ride the bus from their town up here to Shreveport and they would take the streetcars around shopping.

Not sure where I’m going with all this. Just getting it on “paper.”

These small cities could be so much more, and they are all over the country. We could do so much better.