Gone But Not Forgotten in San Antonio! - Part II (Victoria: purchases, taxes)

[SAFREAK]

Originally Posted by Paka

Oh, me too!!! My big toe us to split on the bottom of both because of going barefoot on the hot asphalt all the time...and what about drinking water out of your garden hose, cause you did not DARE ask to go inside or you would be forced to take a nap!!! LOL

Skating all summer with your metal skates with the skate key to tighten it on your shoes (about the ONLY time I would put on shoes) and walking to the Pool on Kelly AFB to swim...we walked to and from to spend our days there "hanging out" with everyone. If it was not free, you did not even THINK of asking to get to go....or you had "earned" the money if it was something you got to do.

I do remember our folks ALWAYS had the 15 cents it would cost for our to go to the movies on base, but again, you walked there and back...guess it gave them some "free time" to enjoy with the kids out of their hair from 7-9:30.

Can you even IMAGINE letting our grandbabies "ride the bus downtown" to shop these days???? HECK no, but my girlfriends and I would do that at age 12 and go to SoloServe and the old Manhattan to get their 3pm just out of the oven Nepoloen pasteries!!! We thought we were the IT because we could buy 4 pr of 2nd stockings at Solo Serve for $1!!!! LOL That and fishnet stockings....CRAZY.

Summer nights were magical...laughing, singing, hanging out on the corner, playing all kinds of games until what seemed like forever.

Remember the old TV news..."It's 10pm, do you know where your children are?" questions??? We were like , "What EVER do they ask that for".....WHO is not home, showered, in their PJ's and waiting for the weather with Jim Dawson where he would have his little hand drawn cartoon to see and then wait for "Project Terror" to come on???? LOL Funny how many of us that grew up here mirror each others childhood memories...regardless of the side of town you grew up on, we were all so very innocent and happy without a care in the world. I NEVER remember, not even once, having been scared or worried about anything. Life WAS magical!!! What I would give for our grandbabies to be enjoying such a beautiful, wonderful carefree life these days....

Paka, I rememer walking with my sister to the skating rink on S. St. Mary's St. to skate on Saturday,...all day too. Just cant remember the name of the place. That was a magical time, no doubt, and I loved every day of it. Broke, (but we didnt know it), didnt care either ! Then Hemisfair came to town and turned our worlds upside down,......

[outafocus]

Originally Posted by SAFREAK

I was in the fifth grade,....Sister Mary Magdaline walked into our room and told us that President Kennedy was shot and killed......they sent us all home that day. I remember it like it was yesterday. Sad !

SAFREAK, were you going to St Gregorys? Mother Mary Magdalene was the principal there in 1963. I left St Gregorys after 4th grade and went to Dellview. I was in 5th grade then, too. Maybe we were classmates in K-4.

[*mud*]

Originally Posted by SAFREAK

I know this comment has nothing to do with Witherspoon,


but, as I was looking through the old phone book listings I came across a gravel business owner that I am related to and would like to know what year the phone book was from 30 or 36. What a great find.

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I did note the year in that posting freak - 1930.

just looked for gravel in the 36 book.

nine businesses with only three that were in the 1930 book.
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//www.city-data.com/forum/27690593-post2887.html
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[SATX56]

Originally Posted by SAFREAK

Don't remember Farrell's but what about Capt'n Jim's out on (I think) the old Corpus Christi Hwy that ran off of SW Military ?

Capt'n Jim's was where Bill Millers is at Roosevelt and S.E. Military Dr. The Flame was at S.E. Military and C C Hwy. St. Mary's skating Rink was a great place in the 60's. Many great times spent there. Then Hemisfair came and down it went.

[Boss Rider]

Originally Posted by SATX56

The Flame was at S.E. Military and C C Hwy.

That one was the second Flame. The original was near Military and Goliad (actually Lasses and Goliad) until '58 when Jim's bought him out and changed it to Jim's Frontier. The original owner opened the Old CC Highway location a while later, but most of us old Flame guys decided we liked the Frontier better and stayed there. Last time I was in SA (2010) it was a Chinese takeout place. The other big hangout was Running Bear, a several miles further east on Military, but it's gone too.

[Boss Rider]

Originally Posted by outafocus

SAFREAK, were you going to St Gregorys? Mother Mary Magdalene was the principal there in 1963.

We had a Mother Mary Magdalene at Mt. Sacred Heart, too. Might have been her. She was OK, but I remember to this day a math teacher named Sister Louise. She was the bane of my existence for 5th and 6th grades. The sisters were strict and put up with absolutely no BS, but I was so far ahead of my public school friends by the time I got to Highschool it wasn't even funny.

[Retiree2003]

I lived in Dellview, graduated from Robert E. Lee in 1961, attended St. Gregory's Catholic Church 1958 - 1961.

Remember Playland Park? Earl Abel's, which I think is still open? Christie's on Broadway? Walking along the river in the daytime before Hemisfair? The Happy Jazz Band in the basement of the Nix Building on the river? It's now in another location on the river - commercialized, moneyized, etc. We went there when there were a few tables, a long bar, plenty of popcorn and song sheets. You sang along with the band, drank and got smashed. That's all you could do there. Lots of folks fell into the shallow river right outside of the place while trying to negotiate the stairwell to the street.

You didn't walk along the river at night then. You visited Happy Jazz Band or the restaurant on the river and quickly went back up to the street to your parked car. Hemisfair changed all that, obliterated Victoria Courts. I know it was for the good of San Antonio but how I miss the old.

Is Eastwood Country Club still in existence? Fabulous music, good, good times for the young San Antonioan.

I remember the streets of downtown San Antonio late at night after a rain, the reflections of the lights on the streets, the shine on the hard asphalt, the quietness at 3:00 a.m., the street cleaner on the streets in residential neighborhoods around North St. Mary's in the middle of the night - its orange light along the curbs. I had an apartment there on the second floor of an old house and watched the street cleaner out of the window from my bed late at night.

That house no longer exists.

[John911]

The Eastwood County Club burned to the ground at least 20 years ago ( I surmise sometime between 1980 and 1984.) I remember the Gardendale Fire Chief mentioning Eastwood among big fires that he worked during his career. Now that you mention Eastwood, I wish I could have asked him more about it. We buried the Chief last Saturday, not to far from Eastwood at Meadownlawn cemetery on St. Hedwig Rd.

[outafocus]

Originally Posted by Boss Rider

We had a Mother Mary Magdalene at Mt. Sacred Heart, too. Might have been her. She was OK, but I remember to this day a math teacher named Sister Louise. She was the bane of my existence for 5th and 6th grades. The sisters were strict and put up with absolutely no BS, but I was so far ahead of my public school friends by the time I got to Highschool it wasn't even funny.

I left Catholic school, and went to public school for 5th grade in the 1963-64 school year. I had to take a test before entering Dellview to see if I was up to NEISD standards. BOY WAS I! I was way far ahead of my classmates. I regret now that I talked my mom into letting me quit St. Gregorys. The reason I wanted to get out so badly was that some of the nuns there were not only strict, but mean! My 4th grade teacher was one of the toughest.

I went to Kindergarten at Our Lady's Kindergarten in the 1958-59 school year. It was located at the convent on Kenney (now Callaghan) Road. My teacher was a WONDERFUL nun, Sister Angela who brought me out of moderate shyness, and taught me a lot. I loved her. In 1982, I sent my six year old daughter to St Gregory's for CCD classes. When my daughter walked in the room the first day, the nun behind the desk immediately asked her I was her father. My daughter (who looks like me, but is actually pretty) said yes she was. The nun (Sister Angela) told her that she taught me kindergarten in the 50s, and she wanted me to come see her the next week. I went to see her, and she surprised me by not only remembering me, but rattled off the names of virtually everyone in that class! She said that she knew by my daughter's looks, and the way she walked, that she had to be mine!

I have a picture of Sister Angela, my daughter, my mother and me taken at my daughter's first communion. It really means a lot to me. Sister Angela died three years ago. The nuns at St Gregory's all came from Ireland, and most had deep accents. The first song we learned in kindergarten was "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling".

I have reunited with some of my St Gregory's classmates through the magic of the Internet. I truly regret not going all the way with my Catholic education.

[ranchodrive]

Originally Posted by SAFREAK

I used to ride the bus downtown to the Medical Arts Building to get my braces straightened about once a week it seemed like. And with only a dollar, I think, I had money enough to get a milk shake in the drug store down stairs..........What a life huh ?

In 1959....
My buddy & I decided to skip 6th period P.E. @ Burbank & take the bus
downtown to look for part-time job.
We waited at the curb , not sure if it was Flores or Nogalitos St. We had the
school bus pass & about 20 cents. My pal spots the via first. But I tell him..
it's going out of town, not downtown ! He says...don't worry he has to turn
around & take us downtown. On Military Dr. where Sears store used to be,
bus driver says," ok..boys...end of the line !" Well to make a long story short,
we walked all the way back home & the only way school principal would
allow us back after telling our folks, was a spanking with a hard wooden
paddle down in the basement we called the "Boiler room of Pain". Left six
purple marks on my butt & couldn't sit down for a long time...but I never
skipped class ever again. Also I remember that if we were caught speaking
Spanish in the hallway @ Burbank, the service hall girls would report us to the
principle for discipline/punishment. I also remember taking a spanish course
as an elective in school, I figured since I spoke spanish at home..it would be a
cinch. I found out that the spanish in class was "totally" different than my spanish.
I was kind of confused...how can the school allow me to speak
spanish in class yet in the hallways,I get sent to the boiler room !
Fun growing up..."pero un poco como se dice...Spooky"... sorry !!!