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Saturday
March 20, 2010 Since 1922 |
Of winds and friends past
By Jane Howard Lee
Contributor Published September 10, 2009 Does it seem like a year has passed by since Ike roared into town?
Time flies when you're dealing with hurricane damage and repairs, I guess.
Despite that passage of time, there are still some people living in small trailers next to their damaged homes. There are people still struggling to get their insurance companies to pay off their claims and get enough repairs done to move back into their homes.
In my own neighborhood, where just about every home sported blue tarps after Ike, most of the roofs have been re-shingled now. Just last week I saw painters at our neighbors' home and figure that means they are finally finishing up repairing that part of their home where the water poured through. There are still a lot of backyard fences down out here, and I bet that means that people's insurance checks didn't provide enough money to take care of all their damage and the fences came in low on their lists of priorities.
I just turned in what I think will be one of our last, if not the last claim. We lost a desktop computer during Ike and I finally got around to replacing it. We've been using my little laptop since the storm. This new one is much better.
If you'd like to share in some of the Ike images photographed by your friends and neighbors, come by the Art Center of Baytown between now and the end of the month. The Art League is hosting a photo exhibit called "Images of Ike: A Retrospective." A call to share photos went out to the community and the community responded. We got some great photographs. The images freeze moments in a time when we in Ike's path shared experiences. Some of the photos show sad moments, some happy ones. Some are poignant and some are spectacular photos that turned the debris that the hurricane left behind into beautiful art.
One of my favorite photos is a shot by Nicki Evans. You know her as the Baytown Sun photographer. Nicki got a shot of a pile of wine bottles - different colors and covered with silt - that I think is stunning. Something amazing about those wine bottles is that they were all still full of wine despite what they had been through ... kind of like those of us who rode out the storm and dealt with the aftermath. We came through a bit battered, but we came through and so somehow did those wine bottles. Nicki said she took one home. She was told that the wine inside was probably drinkable. She hasn't tried it though. She prefers to keep it just the way she found it.
The Art League will host a reception beginning at 6:30 p.m. this Friday to celebrate the opening of the Ike photo exhibit. "Images of Ike" will be open during regular hours at the league's Art Center of Baytown, located at 110 W. Texas Avenue. Those regular hours are from Wednesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Now on to a different subject.
If you drove along North Main Street Tuesday morning you probably noticed a huge gathering of police cars at St. Marks Methodist Church. That was family and friends saying goodbye to a retired 38-year veteran of the Baytown Police Department. Phil Badillo had to be one of the most popular men with the BPD and he had plenty of friends in other law enforcement agencies so there were representatives from many of those at the funeral as well.
I first met him when he was a patrol sergeant and I was just starting out as a reporter and it didn't take long for me to figure out that Phil Badillo was a good, good man.
He always told me when I wrote something that he liked. He never griped at me for the ones that he didn't. He could, however, express himself quite well without a word and sometimes when one of my news stories displeased him or I made some dumb mistake in print, the next time he saw me he would say "I read your story about ...." and give me a brief look with one eyebrow raised and his mouth twisted just a bit that meant "what were you thinking, you dumb butt." But that look only lasted a millisecond and then he went on to treat me absolutely as usual, generally making me laugh and many times offering tips to good stories.
There was one time when I made a doozy of a mistake, a big one, a whopper, a life-altering, earth-shattering, how-can-I-face-the-world-after-this kind of mistake. Phil was the first person that I saw at the police station the next day (I used to start off every work day at the station) and I think he was waiting for me. He came and sat down with me and said "kid, everybody makes mistakes. It is how you handle it and what you learn from it that matters. Now learn from it, get past it and get on with your life." Then he went immediately onto another subject and never mentioned it again.
It made a big difference.
He made a big difference.
I think Phil made a difference in a lot of lives and he will be missed.
We'll miss that wry sense of humor and down-to-earth common sense. We'll miss his obvious devotion to his wife Carol, who I only met a couple of times but Phil talked about her so much that everybody who knew him in a work setting felt that they knew her as well.
And yes, I'll miss that look, that "what were you thinking, dumb butt" look that I know many of you who knew Phil remember well.
Phil Badillo was a rare one. There will never be another like him.
Jane Howard Lee is a reporter for The Baytown Sun.
Contributor Published September 10, 2009 Does it seem like a year has passed by since Ike roared into town?
Time flies when you're dealing with hurricane damage and repairs, I guess.
Despite that passage of time, there are still some people living in small trailers next to their damaged homes. There are people still struggling to get their insurance companies to pay off their claims and get enough repairs done to move back into their homes.
In my own neighborhood, where just about every home sported blue tarps after Ike, most of the roofs have been re-shingled now. Just last week I saw painters at our neighbors' home and figure that means they are finally finishing up repairing that part of their home where the water poured through. There are still a lot of backyard fences down out here, and I bet that means that people's insurance checks didn't provide enough money to take care of all their damage and the fences came in low on their lists of priorities.
I just turned in what I think will be one of our last, if not the last claim. We lost a desktop computer during Ike and I finally got around to replacing it. We've been using my little laptop since the storm. This new one is much better.
If you'd like to share in some of the Ike images photographed by your friends and neighbors, come by the Art Center of Baytown between now and the end of the month. The Art League is hosting a photo exhibit called "Images of Ike: A Retrospective." A call to share photos went out to the community and the community responded. We got some great photographs. The images freeze moments in a time when we in Ike's path shared experiences. Some of the photos show sad moments, some happy ones. Some are poignant and some are spectacular photos that turned the debris that the hurricane left behind into beautiful art.
One of my favorite photos is a shot by Nicki Evans. You know her as the Baytown Sun photographer. Nicki got a shot of a pile of wine bottles - different colors and covered with silt - that I think is stunning. Something amazing about those wine bottles is that they were all still full of wine despite what they had been through ... kind of like those of us who rode out the storm and dealt with the aftermath. We came through a bit battered, but we came through and so somehow did those wine bottles. Nicki said she took one home. She was told that the wine inside was probably drinkable. She hasn't tried it though. She prefers to keep it just the way she found it.
The Art League will host a reception beginning at 6:30 p.m. this Friday to celebrate the opening of the Ike photo exhibit. "Images of Ike" will be open during regular hours at the league's Art Center of Baytown, located at 110 W. Texas Avenue. Those regular hours are from Wednesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Now on to a different subject.
If you drove along North Main Street Tuesday morning you probably noticed a huge gathering of police cars at St. Marks Methodist Church. That was family and friends saying goodbye to a retired 38-year veteran of the Baytown Police Department. Phil Badillo had to be one of the most popular men with the BPD and he had plenty of friends in other law enforcement agencies so there were representatives from many of those at the funeral as well.
I first met him when he was a patrol sergeant and I was just starting out as a reporter and it didn't take long for me to figure out that Phil Badillo was a good, good man.
He always told me when I wrote something that he liked. He never griped at me for the ones that he didn't. He could, however, express himself quite well without a word and sometimes when one of my news stories displeased him or I made some dumb mistake in print, the next time he saw me he would say "I read your story about ...." and give me a brief look with one eyebrow raised and his mouth twisted just a bit that meant "what were you thinking, you dumb butt." But that look only lasted a millisecond and then he went on to treat me absolutely as usual, generally making me laugh and many times offering tips to good stories.
There was one time when I made a doozy of a mistake, a big one, a whopper, a life-altering, earth-shattering, how-can-I-face-the-world-after-this kind of mistake. Phil was the first person that I saw at the police station the next day (I used to start off every work day at the station) and I think he was waiting for me. He came and sat down with me and said "kid, everybody makes mistakes. It is how you handle it and what you learn from it that matters. Now learn from it, get past it and get on with your life." Then he went immediately onto another subject and never mentioned it again.
It made a big difference.
He made a big difference.
I think Phil made a difference in a lot of lives and he will be missed.
We'll miss that wry sense of humor and down-to-earth common sense. We'll miss his obvious devotion to his wife Carol, who I only met a couple of times but Phil talked about her so much that everybody who knew him in a work setting felt that they knew her as well.
And yes, I'll miss that look, that "what were you thinking, dumb butt" look that I know many of you who knew Phil remember well.
Phil Badillo was a rare one. There will never be another like him.
Jane Howard Lee is a reporter for The Baytown Sun.