Christmas lends elegance to parties – the lights, the trees, the sparkling ladies in evening gowns. The neighborhood progressive dinner promised to be full of goodwill and champagne. The entire group of 40 couples gathered for cocktails at the clubhouse, redolent with pine garlands and glossy magnolia leaves. For the sit-down portion of the progress, we would dine in private homes in groups of five couples, and my husband and I were pleased to see we knew some of the couples in our group, but not others. Perfect. Old friends and new. A toast, a blessing, and we dispersed. The holiday season of 1985 in Atlanta, Georgia, was off to an auspicious start.

By the time we re-assembled at the clubhouse for dessert my reputation as a trouble-maker, which I had managed to out-run several times, would be solidified forever, and all because of Texas City, my home town.

What could go wrong in such a cinnamon-scented evening? If it can, it will, and it did. At the home where dinner was to be served, one of the women I hadn’t met – I’ll call her Tipsy – singled me out for scorn as soon as we were introduced. Habitual drinkers rarely stagger or slur, but the deep flush around her collar caused me to suspect she had too much to drink at the cocktail party. Her belligerent attitude wasn’t personal; if it hadn’t been me in her line of fire, it would have been someone else.

She began to grill me. Did I work outside the home? And I had kids? What about them? I eased away to another conversational group. With ten at the dinner table, however, I couldn’t out-flank her. She sat down directly in front of me.

We were served a shallow bowl of New England clam chowder. “Mmmm. This is tasty,” I said. “I like it better than Manhattan style.”

“Why would you have a preference?” said Tipsy. “Where are you from, anyway?”

“We’ve moved around a good bit, but I grew up in Texas.”

“I might have known,” she said. “Where in Texas? I lived in Houston for two years. Why don’t you just tell me where you’re from?”

The other guests sensed trouble, and it grew quiet enough for me to hear my inner voice. This is a social occasion. Behave yourself. Have a sip of wine. Calm down. “On the coast. Texas City, actually.”

“Ah,” she said. “The town with the redundant name. I’ve been there.”

Keep it light, I thought. “Well, did you know, it’s even possible to live on Texas Avenue, in Texas City, Texas.”

With that, the hostess brightly excused herself, explaining that the main dish must be about ready.

Tipsy took a long sip from her wine glass and looked at me with evil little eyes. If there was a note on the scale called sneer, she would have sung her next words. “Texas City is just plain tacky. Nothing special about that nasty place. Bad smells. Hicks. Cowboys. And cowgirls.”

“Uh huh. One more remark like that about my home town, and this cowgirl’s gonna put you face down in your chowder.”

No one thought I was kidding, and I wasn’t. At that precise moment the hostess came back to the dining room. My threat made her stop too abruptly, but the chicken didn’t. The beautiful golden brown bird slipped off the platter and onto the Oriental rug. Our hostess breathed “On no” as the huge thing settled onto the carpet with a pleasant little plop. Joy to the world.

No one knew what to do. The hostess retreated to the kitchen. Tipsy’s champagne-induced flush crept higher, until her ears couldn’t be distinguished from the red ribbon of her Christmas headband. She was watchful, though. She had the good sense to think I still might be coming for her face.

The primary emotion around the table, I imagine, was how the hell do we get this over with and out of here? A plate of vegetables was passed around with some dinner rolls, while the hostess, on her hands and knees, scrubbed at the gravy on the carpet. This sight did not promote polite conversation, so Tipsy remained silent, and so did I. As soon as possible, the group decamped.

If only I could have kept my mouth shut. If only the damn chicken had stayed put. I waited until the others had gone and made my apologies, but I felt terrible, not about Tipsy, but for our hostess. It’s a brave and generous thing to entertain eight people for dinner, and she didn’t deserve to have her party spoiled. She was as gracious as possible under the circumstances.

I wanted to skip dessert at the clubhouse, but I made myself go. From the time I stabbed Sherry with a seam ripper in Home Economics, to the thing in Munich with the gingerbread heart, if I make a mess, I face the consequences. Tipsy, however, didn’t show, and in spite of my remorse, I hoped I scared the crap out of her.

But here’s the thing. By the time we arrived at the clubhouse, the Battle of the Texas City Chicken was known to everyone, just as it would have been back home, when no matter how small the infraction, someone would call your mother. The neighborhood was just another small town. So was Texas City just another small town, too? Exactly like Tipsy said?

If it was no different than other towns, why did I feel such a deep affection for it? Why did I miss it, even though I hadn’t lived there in 20 years?

Why did I love to talk about Texas City, even though the place requires a surprising amount of explanation? First I have to explain that I didn’t say “a city in Texas.” I said Texas City, Texas, like New York City, New York. Most people north of the Mason-Dixon Line have never heard of it, so I explain where it is. Then there’s the Stingaree. The name of high school mascots doesn’t come up often, but it comes up now and then.

“Did you say stingray?” is the usual come-back.

“Stingaree. It’s mythical, like a unicorn. It’s sort of an orange stingray, with teeth, and it stands up, and sometimes it has blazing six-shooters. Does that help?”

“Orange? Is it a real animal?”

“Do you think the Cubs will win the World Series this year?” I say.

On the subject of nomenclature, as dinner table conversation I’ve been guilty of telling tall tales, such as only two middle names are legal in Texas City, Jo for girls (Becky Jo) and Wayne for boys (Dennis Wayne). I’ve explained (more or less) why Rita was called Rati and Terry Fales was called Ferry Tales. There’s also Armelia (not Amelia), and Danise (not Denise). There’s Archibald called A-Ball and Dorothy Lee called D-Lee. We had Weymond (not Raymond) and Emken Linton, the student, and Emken-Linton, the funeral home. People love this stuff.

I’ve explained Texas City football and Tackle Time, and that the two have nothing to do with each other. When people see pictures from my class reunions, I explain that, no, it wasn’t Halloween. Then there’s the Texas City Dike. Texas Citians over the age of 13 rarely think about the double meaning, but others do. The funniest remark to date came from an openly gay colleague at work.

“The Texas City Dyke? Is that an elected position? I’ve always wanted to run for office!”

This is quirky small-town-in-Texas stuff, and fun, but none of it explains the loyalty many of us feel for TC, and after the Battle of the Texas City Chicken, I pondered: What made Texas City different?

It came to me at the Pentagon in 2003, in the Humanitarian Relief Corridor in the A Ring, which depicts places around the world where the U.S. Military has assisted the civilian population. Right up there with the Berlin Airlift, as a part of the permanent exhibit, was a black-and-white photograph of Texas City in flames. And there it was. That’s what’s different about Texas City.

Before 9/11, no other American city experienced a One Day War. On April 16, 1947, the port of Texas City suffered the greatest loss of life in an industrial accident that ever happened in the U.S., before or since. The SS Grandcamp exploded, followed by the SS High Flyer. The cargo: some five million pounds of ammonium nitrate, the combustible material in bombs. This became known as the Texas City Disaster.

The impact of 9/11 compares to nothing else, and yet, comparisons are interesting. The population of Manhattan on that day was 1.6 million, and 2,606 people died at the World Trade Center. That’s .16 percent (point 16 percent). The population of Texas City in 1947 was 15,000, and 600 people died. That’s four percent. For the percentage of people who died in Manhattan to equal the percentage of people who died in the Disaster, the number would have to be 64,000 citizens.

On 9/11, 343 firemen lost their lives when the towers fell. In TC, the number was much smaller (27), but the entire volunteer fire department ceased to exist. NYC had a hero mayor in Rudy Giuliani. TC had a hero mayor in Curtis Trahan.

In a town the size of Texas City, the injured and dead were loved ones, friends, neighbors, and the paperboy who biked to the docks to see what was happening. The Class of ’64 thought of the Disaster as history, yet to the survivors – our parents – it would have seemed like yesterday. Consider that 9/11 happened 14 years ago, and there are young people born after 2005 (give or take) who don’t remember that singular day in 2001 in New York, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania.

And it was a One Day War, with the full arc of that most awful of human disasters. The day was perfect, sunny and mild, but something was going on down at the docks. At 9:00 am Officer Bell of the Texas City police department said that as far as he knew – as far as anyone knew – everything was under control. Fire fighters were on the scene, and no one expected an explosion. At 9:12 the world according to Texas City blew to bits.

Over 600 people died. Thousands were injured. The streets looked like news footage of European refuges wandering through rubble, like something from the front lines of World War II. Veterans of Pearl Harbor said it was like December 7, 1941, when warships buckled trying to ride out the chaos. It was worse than the buzz bombs at the Battle of the Bulge.

Our classmate, Carolyn, lost her father in the Disaster. She became a nurse because the men who knew her dad created a fund for her education. Our classmate, Ricky, also lost his dad.

What follows is a first-person account of that day from my cousin, Ray Morris, who was in third grade at Danforth Elementary.

I remember seeing a huge, black cloud of smoke with flames at the base. I thought the Japanese had bombed us again. We were taking a spelling test when we heard a loud explosion. We looked at the windows where the sound had come from, and then the glass shattered, cutting all of my fellow students to some degree. The students close to the windows were cut the worst. I had a little cut on my ear and on my eyebrow.  

We filed out like we were having a fire drill, the teacher saying “don’t run.” I still had my pencil in my hand, and I thought, I don’t need this. I dropped it. We ended up in the playground, in a daze and sobbing. Mom found me and gave me a big hug in relief. She said “if we find your dad alive, we are getting out of this crazy town and never coming back.” I remember the large amount of debris on Sixth Street as we headed home. We were living in Snug Harbor. Yet, even that far from the explosion all of the nail heads were exposed in the walls. We headed for the little airport to spend the night.

There was shock, death, injuries, and destruction, followed by uncertainty. Who was alive? What friends and neighbors were gone without warning? And then human beings did the best they could to cope with the aftermath. All in one day.

My cousin’s home five miles away was unsafe, so his family stayed with the Donahues, owners of a municipal airport, not much more than a couple of dirt runways. The next day my Uncle Raymond, an ordinary citizen, became an air traffic controller. He stood in the middle of a muddy field directing airplane traffic as the National Guard and Red Cross all tried to land at the same time.

The people of TC experienced extremes of grief, post traumatic stress, and then the process of healing. Even the fact that there was no way to tell black body parts from white body parts had an impact. Amid the overwhelming tragedy, people wondered what difference it could possibly make, and they were all buried together. The memorial service for the dead was open to all races, and this was remarkable in Texas in 1947.

Social change is a lengthy process, but once people allow themselves to think even for a minute that skin color might not matter, the hard resistance becomes softer, more penetrable, and in 1963, when African Americans integrated Texas City High School, there was barely a shrug.

The Disaster had an incalculable effect on the citizens of Texas City. Our parents survived a war, and they were never the same. Friends noticed something about Mayor Trahan after the WW II, and I think it applies to TC after the Disaster.

It was the same thing that they had seen in other men who had come back after surviving something immensely cruel, elemental, and furious. His sense of ease was now almost wholesale. His volcanic tendencies were gone. Curtis Trahan was a steady man. He had the glow of a good man who really had denied death its dominion. (From “City on Fire.”)

Texas City didn’t become paradise. It had its share of pettiness, nosiness, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, but the One Day War changed the temperament of the town. Europeans in the 20th century understand war. When it’s all over, they will say folks become gentler, more patient. They know life is fragile. They hold tight to what matters and let unimportant things go. They love their children better. I don’t know how long it takes for the memory to become abstract and the post-war effect to dribble away. Maybe only a generation, but long enough for the children of the survivors to grow up in an environment of kindness that engenders loyalty to their home town.

Now, when I’m asked where I grew up, I go directly to the Texas City Disaster. People are astonished to learn that in 1947 in a small Texas town 600 people were killed, and 2,000 were injured. Neighborhoods were flattened, and school children wandered among the body parts on Sixth Street. A major industrial plant nearly vanished. Just as 9/11 changed everything, April 16, 1947, changed everything in Texas City.

I think that’s why, at a dinner party in 1985, I ignored personal insults and a snotty attitude about Texas, yet I couldn’t let Texas City go undefended. I know why I would do it again. I owe that much to the generation who cared enough to call our mothers when we stepped out of line, the generation who survived the One Day War, the generation who understood what matters, and understood how quickly what matters can be lost.

NEXT: Dating, Butterfly Style

Author’s Note: Certain information in Bill Minutaglio’s book, City on Fire, was helpful in writing this piece. For any of you who might be interested, it’s available at Amazon.