Good things about Corpus, numbers 1-8 in a list

Currently, I'm reading Nine Ways to Cross a River and loving it. But that's not really what I want to think about now.

Check this bit about when the author met Pete Seger.

He asked me where I lived. "Near LaGrange," I told him... At this his eyes shones and a beatific look came across his face, and he said, "Yes, I was there once, twenty or thirty years ago..." He spoke of it with nostalgia and longing, as though the town I lived in was some distant province of pleasure that he had once been blessed to visit....And I realized that this is the way it is with Pete. He has an innate respect for place, and his true wonderment of the Hudson Valley in particular, and of all sea-to-shining-sea America in general, maybe really any place at all, is intact and undiminished. His allegiance to the Hudson Valley is legendary, but he's got a broader attentiveness to place, and he believes my little overdeveloped town whose farms have long given way to development, strip malls, video shacks, and pizza huts is worth loving.

I won't lie: I've been hating Corpus lately. The new year rolled around and the thought of eight more months here depressed me.

So when I read this passage, I wondered: Is it possible for me to choose to love Corpus? Frequently, when I call my mother bitching about this or that (generally my love life), she orders me not to be negative. She claims, swears, that positivity is a habit, a choice you can make. If that's true (and I'm not sure it is), I'd like to like Corpus, for whatever it has to offer.

(In the first Pete Seger high I felt after this paragraph, I envisioned interviewing people and somehow generating a photo essay, ala Houston: It's Worth It, but I've moderated my expectations to suit my laziness and lack of photo skills.)

So I'm asking people what they like and compiling a list. The first answers I got were uninspiring, as they're basically corollaries to Corpus' failure to be a real city: no traffic, easy parking, low rent. And I won't accept things that amuse in that ironic love of badness way, like my daily laugh at the local newspaper or my constant ability to mock the NPR affiliate. But I have to admit that I love a sea breeze, the #1 fan of the local hockey team, and the ready availability of good bbq, seafood and Mexican. So it's a start.

I'll keep you updated.