How I discovered Steely Dan

And other observations from my Houston youth

The other day, I became possessed by a strong urge to Google Maps the house I grew up in, but knew in advance that the task would be impossible: that house was torn down by the developers to whom my mom sold it, who bought the property behind us too and built three McMansions there. Our long dirt driveway—long enough that you couldn’t see the house from the road—was paved over and turned into a little mini-street with a name I can’t recall. I sometimes wonder if even those houses exist anymore. They were built in the 1980s, and there’s nothing Houston loves like tearing down a perfectly good structure and building something more newer and sparklier in its place.

Our house was Midcentury in design, and built in the 50s. It had lots of floor-to-ceiling windows and sliding glass doors that looked out over the wooded land surrounding us. It had no hallways, and the footprint of the first floor was quite different than the second floor’s, in a way that’s hard to describe; sort of like two boxy one-story houses stacked in top of each other, and going off in different directions. If it all sounds very Ice Storm, it was.

My parents’ bedroom was on the first floor, and my brothers and I lived upstairs, in rooms that were off the playroom, a place where nobody spent much time, and where my dad installed a billiards table one year, which we all enjoyed for about a month, after which time it primarily became a place for our cats to nap, and for my mom to lay clothes out while packing us up for summer camp.