By Bill Cherry

                                                             Dallas Broker-Realtor

                                                           www.billcherrybroker.com

It's been about 20 years ago now, but it happened during the time that I had a large residential brokerage firm with offices in Galveston and Houston,Texas. The phone rang and it was a call from Ubenisky.

He told me that he had been born in Germany, and had traveled his entire life. Now that he was ready to retire, he and his wife wanted to settle down and to own their first home ever.

They had never been to Galveston, but they knew that a major portion of the early settlers had been from Germany. They figured the Germans had influenced the architecture and fabric of the island, so it was likely to feel like home to them.

We set an appointment to meet the following Saturday at my Galveston office. I'd show them around. I was very proud of the East End Historical District's early but on going and vibrant revitalization, and I knew in my heart that the Ubeniskys would fall in love with it.

Instead that Saturday morning the phone rang, and it was Ubenisky. He said, "Bill, we've just driven into Galveston, but we're going to turn around and go back to Houston." I asked why.

He continued, "Well, when you can call and tell us why the main entrance to Galveston looks as bad as it does, we'll try to re-evaluate. But for now, we're not interested in living there because we think Broadway's look is indicative of the city's overall attitude. And that attitude is intolerable."

I immediately got in my car, drove across the causeway, turned around, and made the trip back into town, this time trying to see it through the eyes of the Ubeniskys. I learned a great deal about my hometown that day.

Perhaps it's time for each of you to make that same drive into your hometown.  And then if you don't like what you see, hold those responsible for how it looks to change it, and to change it now. And don't give them a moment's rest until they do.

Here's what I saw in mine.  Trash everywhere. Unpainted buildings. Property code violations by the hundreds. Cockeyed, peeling signs, grass growing on to sidewalks and over the curbs. So many tall weeds one could wonder if they are the city's designated plant rather than the oleander. 

Obviously I had been seeing that landscape for so long that I had no longer noticed it.