Gone But Not Forgotten in San Antonio! - Part II (El Paso: cheaper, climate)

[SATX56]

Originally Posted by John911

How about the monthly Civil Defense air raid siren test? Select San Antonio Fire Stations had air raid sirens located on elevated towers and I recall the test was conducted one day out of the month, like the first Wednesday or Friday of the month at 10:00 am. I recall it being monthly and looking forward to it, just not the date/time. These tests seemed to completely cease sometime between 1986-1988. A quick visual of some of the SAFD station reveals that the air raid sirens have been removed.

I was just looking up the old Conelrad program earlier this evening. Funny how I remember the Fire drills at school but not "Duck and Cover" drills. I simply have no recollection of them. I recall the wailing of the local siren on Fridays. The eerie and haunting, fluctuating volume and pitch as the horn made it's full revolution. Our Fire Station still had it's warning siren up until the last few years. I realized it was gone recently.



The big yellow box sat on the ground at the corner (far right side in pic). A tall yellow pipe went up the wall just above it and extended to at least roof height. Gone now....maybe donated to areas that need tornado alert systems.

[Paka]

OMG!!! You are right about the badge colors....I am starting to think I am the ONLY girl that grew up here and stuck around (ok...truth be told came back after living everywhere else in the world for 24 yrs!!!) such WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL memories...thanks all.

PS...WHY am I up sneezing and dying with M Cedar allergies at this age???!?!?! We NEVER had allergies like this as kids here!!!

That is ok...a nice, 2 week cruise in the SE Caribbean will have this resolved as M Cedar time will be DONE by the time we return home! LOL

[huckster]

Thankyou, I remember Leon's Ice House and Smitty's too, oh yea. I remember a lot of beer joints
and ice houses from all over back then. People sat and drank in open store fronts or underneath trees
in the shade at some. Progress has changed us.
San Antonio is huge now, downtown has been cleaned up and polished for the tourist trade .
The Riverwalk used to be nothing but that, sidewalks and a River, not much down there at all. During the week
in the daytime I remember it would be empty of people.
Yet , the city is almost identical to what it was in some areas to fifty years ago, many tiny businesses still
populate the south side and it still retains that same cluttery look southside urban look. Only more crowded.
It is a far more dangerous area than it used to be when the worse there was- were a switchblade knife, a few beers.
Out of Focus , I agree with you, today it seems movies area are about computer generated images.
Graphics.
SO many movies have been made out of cartoon superheroes, soon there won't even be any of those left even.
I did go to the new -Lincoln- movie with Sally Field and Daniel Day Lewis. I thought it
very good. Lewis is a great actor and I thoroughly enjoyed "There Will be Blood" also.
I thought- The life of Pi- recently released, was good also, even with the CGI scenes , was good
I thought and with a very good plot better than most.

Originally Posted by albert soliz

Hey Huck how goes it.Yes I do recall a barrel on top right in the middle.Then around the corner on W.W.White Rd.was my dads hang out ,LEON'S ICE HOUSE,then further up was SMITTY'S Bar and grill do you recall those two.I can still hear my mom calling to speak to my dad,but of course they would all say "HE'S NOT HERE",mom hanging up saying "WAIT till yourFather get's home I have his dinner waiting in this frying pan,for sure he's gonna get it".Anybody know of HI-SLOPE ICE house?At the end of CLARK st was a baseball diamond where I fisrt signed up for LITTLE LEAGUE and would play for C&S SPORTING GOODS,but we moved to the North side and played for Joe Strauss where the pond is now at USAA.Oh,and I still have the handbook on those drills they handed out in 5th grade in case of a NUCLEAR attackHide under your desk,YEA RIGHT !They had no idea of what it would do.

[Paka]

OK...speaking of the riverwalk back in the day, I KNOW you remember "Bongo Joe" down at the corner near Joskes on the Riverwalk.

I remember going to see concerts at the Hemisphere Arena (Janis Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix, Three Dog Night, James Taylor, Moody Blues, Jethro Tull, White Bird, It's a beautiful Day, Santana) and then we would all go and hang out watching Joe afterwards...and then wander around (without ANY money I might add!) just watching the street life before heading home again....GREAT memories!

[huckster]

Yes , the guy that played 55 gallon drums with his hands. I too, saw the Moody Blues in concert downtown
alright. I still listen to them to this day.
I made a mistake once...back when, and went to listen to the famed hard rock band Led Zeppelin, their performance was so loud as not be believed.
Really, my ears hurt like hell. I kept my fingers in my ears. It was an entirely stupid experience. The group I was with agreed and all left early of course. Even outside the building the noise was still very loud. It was in the Hemisfair arena alright. Way overkill on the electronic amplification there.
I was very disappointed in the music. Outside of a studio recording they merely sounded like any other rock band. Nothing remarkable about them, anyway. This was 1973 ? The music sounded good off of a record, sure
but it was a letdown of a live performance. The live performance did not sound the same at all.
The lead singer of Led Zeppelin made some pretty rude comments before the performance started, smirking, about San Antonio through the microphone to the audience. I was sitting in the cheap seats but saw everything that happened from above next and recall it today.
Members of the audience standing right down in front near center reacted negatively to the comments and next began to hurl all sorts of objects at the singer , tin cans, necklaces, anything,(named, Mark something or other?) and so... the entire band immediately began to play as quickly and as immediately as the stuff that was being thrown at them.
The crowd quieted down and stopped throwing stuff at the famous band.
I was glad to exit the place.QUOTE=Paka;27964297]OK...speaking of the riverwalk back in the day, I KNOW you remember "Bongo Joe" down at the corner near Joskes on the Riverwalk.

I remember going to see concerts at the Hemisphere Arena (Janis Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix, Three Dog Night, James Taylor, Moody Blues, Jethro Tull, White Bird, It's a beautiful Day, Santana) and then we would all go and hang out watching Joe afterwards...and then wander around (without ANY money I might add!) just watching the street life before heading home again....GREAT memories! [/quote]

[SATX56]

Agreed Hollywood is dying. Today's actors for the most part have shown their dark sides. All the "My life" is worth more than "Your life" bunch. Hollywood and it's anything goes liberal attitude is it's downfall. You're correct Outafocus in that they're now dependent on animation and computer graphics to carry there product (movies). The public at large is turned off of their agendas and lack of vision. It's a pitifully poor product coming from Hollywood today. Maybe SA should crank up the old Star Film Ranch again and make the good times roll again. When just a few older stars die off Hollywood will be left with the dregs. So will we. I've weaned off of TV for the most part years ago. Weaning off movies is more difficult ....but with a nice library of DVD's I can hold out a while. Maybe China can take over and fill Hollywood's shoes. ~shaking my head~

[John911]

Originally Posted by outafocus

The private's badges were silver, the segeant's were green, the lietenant's were red, and the Captain was blue. You beat me, Paka. I just made it to lieutenant.

Back in 1964, RC Cola had a contest with their bottle caps. Under the cork gasket on the cap was a picture of a president. If you got all 36 presidents, you got a case of RC or Nehi. My friends and I went to RC machines all over the area, and fished caps out with a magnet. All of the preidents were easy to find EXCEPT current president Lyndon Johnson. We had a million of most of them, but the LBJ caps were elusive. We found only three, but that got us 3 cases (24 bottles) of RC and Nehi.

Speaking of 1960s sodas, does anyone remember Pommac? It was bottled by Dr. Pepper, and was nasty. When the Handy Andy at West Ave. and Basse opened, we went to the grand opening, and they had a Dr. Pepper machine. They had Pommac in the machine. I blew my only dime on that drink, took one swallow, and put the bottle in the rack. My mom was mad at me for wasting a dime, and wasting the drink.

Gone but not forgotten..... anyone remember Pic-A-Pop? It was like a gourmet (?) multi-flavor soda retail place. The one my family went to was in the 1800 blk of SW Military. They would have rows and rows of plastic cases of all sorts of flavored carbonated beverages. Return of the bottles was mandatory and they frequently gave away samples of new flavors.

[John911]

Originally Posted by SATX56

I was just looking up the old Conelrad program earlier this evening. Funny how I remember the Fire drills at school but not "Duck and Cover" drills. I simply have no recollection of them. I recall the wailing of the local siren on Fridays. The eerie and haunting, fluctuating volume and pitch as the horn made it's full revolution. Our Fire Station still had it's warning siren up until the last few years. I realized it was gone recently.



The big yellow box sat on the ground at the corner (far right side in pic). A tall yellow pipe went up the wall just above it and extended to at least roof height. Gone now....maybe donated to areas that need tornado alert systems.

Ahhh, Station 21. Yes, that was one of the stations I drove by, then looked at google maps for any clue of the air raid siren infrastructure. Also gone from a lot of these stations are the rohn 25 towers that the VHF radio antennas were supported on. These towers were no longer necessary when the city went to a trunked 800 mhz radio system in 1985, but they remained for many many many years. The old station 1 still has theirs, but it is currently being transformed into the San Antonio Fire Museum.

[outafocus]

On an episode of "American Restoration", Rick Dale refurbished one of those air raid sirens for a museum. It was amazing how big that thing was when seen on the ground! It is now a piece of 1950s/60s Americana.

[SATX56]

Originally Posted by John911

Ahhh, Station 21. Yes, that was one of the stations I drove by, then looked at google maps for any clue of the air raid siren infrastructure. Also gone from a lot of these stations are the rohn 25 towers that the VHF radio antennas were supported on. These towers were no longer necessary when the city went to a trunked 800 mhz radio system in 1985, but they remained for many many many years. The old station 1 still has theirs, but it is currently being transformed into the San Antonio Fire Museum.

Ah! Yeah I keep forgetting we have Radio Reference in common. I've been through many old and many of the new Fire Stations back in the early 90's. It's a shame more of the old ones haven't been saved. I've been in the headquarters building too. Glad it's being turned into the Museum.