Charm with Soul

There is a mighty hunger in my world for authenticity. The more we find online and media life blurred by AI into replicas we can’t trust, the more we want something real.

We want escape, too. Beginning with the pandemic, we have had the storms of change spinning around us, demanding our attention. They seem to come from all directions at once.

It should help to be living here. Round Top’s charm comes seasoned with staying power. The town has been here a long time. Its institutions, rooted in the values of the predominant German culture, have flourished.

I’m thinking of the Rifle Hall (Round Top Schützen Verein), the Round Top Brass Band, the DYD Club and Round Top Heritage Society, our redoubtable Fourth of July Parade and world-renowned Festival Hill.

And the Round Top Family Library is rapidly approaching institutional status.

The character and spirit of the town as embodied by these institutions is difficult to define in ways that make sense to numbers people.

Some of us call it Soul. Not in the religious sense (which many prefer to define as a divine spark within a human being). But in the sense of a presence perceived by the senses— like the feeling evoked by a vivid sunset or powerful waterfall.

Places can possess it as a central part of their character. And they can lose it. (Aspen lost its soul years ago. And I don’t think “the Hamptons” ever had it.)

Our urban culture, with its intense monetary measurement of worth and value, works against Soul on every front. We see the effect of property development wherever we go in our area; it causes many of the upsetting changes people grumble about.

One reason historic preservation has designations, markers and so on, is to draw attention to places of character before Soul-blindness can bring in the bulldozers.

With that in mind, does anybody else think this whole Round Top Courthouse thing has gotten out of hand?

So many questions. So little communication. My question is: What’s wrong with deed restrictions to protect the building from being torn down or mutilated?

I understand that the County’s proposed deed restrictions— rejected by the Town—also protected the historic roles of DYD on the grounds and the Rifle Hall as director of the July Fourth Parade.

The fact that two such integral organizations required codified protection suggests a larger problem with trust.

Round Top has always expressed pride in being one of the smallest incorporated towns in Texas. Its elected officials provide representative government. But who are they representing?

The Mayor, running unopposed in the most recent election, received 30 of 45 votes cast. The aldermen each received fewer. And on several of the Courthouse votes they have been splitting, with the Mayor casting the decisive vote.

This is not a thundering mandate for any controversial action. Forty-five people, many of them recent arrivals, make the electoral decisions that affect the livelihoods, well-being and indeed future of businesses, residences, farms, and institutions that happen to fall outside the mile square city limits (.97 mile).

When trust has been lost the prospects for success are greatly diminished for all parties.

If the Town of Round Top is determined in a court of law to be the owner of the Precinct Courthouse and it makes radical changes to the building and its operation with a majority of one vote, that seems a recipe for wide dissatisfaction.

Somebody needs to think about the building and its supporting institutions from a symbolic point of view. Symbols tend to endure longer than city governments. But maybe no less long than bad feelings.

“Easy Going” by Leon Hale is available in paper now through bookstores and online. “Narcissi” by Babette Hale can be preordered online. Readers can contact Babette Hale at bfhale2017@ gmail.com.