Words and Works

Fresh Air!!!!

By Marisol R., 15, Jesse Jones High School, Houston, Texas, USA.

I never really understood how people always came to Houston and immediately started talking about how bad and nasty our air quality is. It might be because I've lived here all my life, but the air doesn't really bother me as people claim it bothers them every time they visit.

I remember a few years back there was a group from Missouri that came to our church during the summer. They loved Houston as soon as they got here but every time we'd go outside they were almost ready to die. They couldn't believe that people actually lived here. Here, the city where a summer day can bring in temperatures between 98 and 104 degrees, not to mention the year round 99 or 100% humidity levels. "How do you do it?" they asked me one day. "Do what?" I asked. "Put up with this weather." They said as if it were obvious. "I don't know," I said "I guess I'm just used to it."

It's true, Houston gets very hot, Houston is very humid, blah, blah, blah, but it's just something you live with. I mean no one has ever died of too much heat. Oh wait, yes they have. Well anyway, that's not the point. The point is that I never realized the unpleasantness of our environment until a whole year later.

The next summer I went on a mission trip to Wisconsin with a group of youth from my church. "You might want to take a sweater," warned the youth leader. "A sweater?" we all asked. Those sorts of things were unheard of in Houston this time of year. We didn't really think we'd have a need for them once we got there but we took them anyway. Wisconsin was beautiful. We got the chance to hike and climb up a mountain which a real cool experience for me. In Houston, the only time I get to go climbing is at one of those indoor rock-climbing places. While we were in Wisconsin there was always a fresh, cool breeze blowing. Summer temperature in Wisconsin was like late fall temperature in Houston, minus the humidity. I never wanted to leave!

Days later though the time had come for us to return and that's when Houston air began to seem bad to me. I remember stepping out of the air-conditioned vans we had been traveling in and immediately feeling the damp heat as it touched my face. That's when it hit me, we have awful air. No wonder we were the smog capital of the country.

The whole rest of that day I just wished I were in Wisconsin where there is always a nice draft. I got over it though. By the next day I had once again grown accustomed to the climate. Now I understand why people put down our weather but I don't know why they wouldn't want to live here. Wisconsin might have breezes and Seattle might have cleaner air, but even with its not so good air, Houston rocks!

Back to Words and Works