FEE, FIE, FO, FUM - SAM SMELLS THE AIR OF A TRAVELING ONE

While driving to and from Houston last week - a trip that offers ample time
for reflection - I reflected that I might go down there more often were the
drive not so painfully dull.

Sadly, we are separated from our coastal brethren by 275 of the least
captivating miles on the Texas map. Travelers must endure lengthy stretches
with nothing to look at but the occasional truck stop, nothing on the radio
but backwoods preachers shouting about Jesus.

After a couple of hours on Interstate 45, you start wishing for a snake
farm or a UFO landing or anything at all that might break the monotony.

Which is why my hat is doffed to Huntsville, which actually offers a couple
of attractions that are readily handy to the road-weary traveler. You don't
need a map or a brochure from the chamber of commerce to find them. They're
right on the freeway. Other cities might want to follow their lead.

The first of these visible to the northbound traveler is the startlingly
huge statue of Sam Houston, which has been astounding and possibly
frightening passers-by since 1994.

No joke, this is a really big statue, a Texas-sized tribute to the
peripatetic statesman, soldier and politician. At 67 feet tall plus a
10-foot granite base, it's the biggest statue of a person in the state,
according to the city of Huntsville. (The tallest statue in the state is
the 67 1/2 -foot giraffe in front of the Dallas Zoo.)

I had seen Sam before, of course, but only as most travelers have seen it,
swiveling my head in astonishment as I drove past on the interstate, over
which it towers.

Maybe it's the proximity to the freeway that makes it slightly reminiscent
of those oversized roadside advertising icons, like a giant doughnut or
that enormous man cradling a muffler. I decided that this time, I would
stop and give Sam the thorough examination a 67-foot statue deserves.

To get there, you have to exit the freeway and drive around behind the
statue on a lumpy two-lane road winding through the pines - it's just past
the Little Thicket Mobile Home Park and the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

There's a visitor center there, with clean restrooms and a gift shop, where
I purchased a wooden ruler with "fun facts about Sam": "nose - 1 foot 9
inches," "ears - 2 feet 1 inch."

Surprisingly, though, you can't really get a very good view of the mighty
statue. It's squeezed up so close to the interstate that the pedestrian
view from the sidewalk below is directly up Sam's mighty nostrils.

A very nice lady in the visitors center explained that the site was chosen
for its visibility from the highway rather than for pedestrian convenience,
which I suppose says something about our rushed and motorized culture.

"Coming from the south, you can see it for seven miles from the highway,"
she said.

But there's an added bonus for visitors who take the time to stop: an extra
Sam Houston head, as big as the one atop the statue, but resting at ground
level. It's a 7-foot head, from Sam's chin to his receding hairline.

There's a little amphitheater built into a berm, where you can sit and
contemplate the head beneath a shady canopy of trees.

"People like to have their picture taken with it," the visitor center lady
told me.

All in all, it was a refreshing break from the road. But I still had one
more stop to make: the Texas Prison Museum, a historical showcase for
Huntsville's leading industry.

Operated by a private, nonprofit corporation founded by two retired prison
wardens, the museum is comprehensive, straightforward and carefully
apolitical (policies are made by legislators, we're reminded, not by system
employees).

And it's extremely interesting with artifacts going back more than a
century. Our state, after all, operates the third-largest prison system on
Earth. Currently, more than half a million people are either incarcerated
by or under the supervision of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

There are exhibits about celebrity prisoners, riots and lawsuits, as well
as about daily prison life, inmate art and letters.

The museum also houses the electric chair used for executions between 1924
and 1964 (no, you can't sit in it), as well as more mundane artifacts, such
as elaborate dolls that were once handmade by women inmates and sold to the
public as "Little Parole Pals."

The item that really got my attention, though, was buried in the lower
corner of an exhibit case: a handwritten, decades-old last meal request
scrawled on a yellowed piece of lined paper by a long-forgotten death row
inmate named J.W. Morrow Jr.

Mr. Morrow asked for steak, French fries, butter beans, biscuits, gravy,
salad, sliced bananas with ice cream and a piece of coconut pie.

And across the bottom, he wrote a final, special request:

"This is my last meal, and damn it, I want it served hot on however many
plates and bowls it takes to keep from mixing any of it up together, and I
want it served at 1 o'clock."

I imagined Mr. Morrow as having left his earthly sins and sorrows for a
kind of divine Automat, where all the meals arrive on time and each serving
comes in its own individual dish.

On the way out, I purchased a T-shirt ("Prison City USA"), took a last look
around and headed back to the car. I still had a lot of miles to cover.