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You know, the memories that we have (those of us pushing 60 now) are SO VERY SPECIAL....sleeping out in the tent in the back yard....no A/C in your house and taking a shower and ensuring you got your hair wet before you went to bed in the summer to cool off with the breeze thru your window...S&H Green stamp and Sears "Wish Books"....Koolaid popycycles and aluminum tumblers full of ice tea...rolling in the grass until you itched so bad you were all fighting for the ONE bathroom in the house to shower off....3 cent milk money and WISHING your parents could afford for you to buy the school lunch (Wed was ALWAYS a killer because it was mexican food!!!) but because 25 cents was NOT an option it was "special" when you got to and you ALWAYS planned it for the PERFECT day (and NEVER "Fish Friday for this gal!!!), watching shooting stars, making prank phone calls (Do you have Prince Albert in a can??? Well let him OUT!) and having our version of "America's got Talent" where you stood up on the picnic table and sang "Moon River" when it was your turn....those WERE such special, special times. So sad that kids these days have NO idea how WONDERFUL it was to grow up in those days!!! On of my all time FAV shows was "The Wonder Years"....soooooooo true to what we lived, how we lived, and all we enjoyed. NO ONE ever knew we were poor...we were all happy, healthy and so very content.
Amen Paka. I never knew I was poor until I grew up and earned some money. Going barefoot all summer and getting one pair of shoes for the start of school, I thought that was normal. Never got the "hand-me-downs" because I was the oldest male of the family but I saw all my old stuff on my cousins. The Sears wishbook was our bible since my mom worked at Sears. We got an extra 10 or so % discount.
My dad bought one because of the CUBAN missile crises,I woud put the ear piece on and listen to KONO or KTSA,some how he could still hear it and would say,"turn that **** thing off and go to sleep,you got school tommorow.Nothing would get me out of bed faster than hearing the"LITTLE RASCALS"jingle,and couldn't get home fast enough to watch "CAPTN"GUS",then the "BEST OF HOLLYWOOD" showing monster movies,Jungle JIm,or Martian Moviessnacking on a jelly sandwich and ice cold glass of milk,KNOWLTONS.
Bading Bing!!!! LOL Captn Gus was one CRAZY old dude!!!! How about the old "Rifleman" with Chuck Conners???!!!?!?!?! EVERY night at 6pm, the rifleman was my GOAL to get my homework done after dinner so I could watch it!!!
What a perfectly simple time....NO one's parents were divorced....EVERYONE went to church...we all sat outside after dinner in lawn chairs and "visited", red rover, red rover and red light/green light games until it was time to go in....the old icecream hand crank and ALL the neighbors came over to enjoy nights...the drive in movies where you played and knew all the kids at the playground while parents would sit around and enjoy....walking to school, and home...and if it was KILLER cold, wearing slacks UNDER your dress so that you could stand it.....coming around to your school room to "read off the lunch menu and see how many were buying lunch and how many wanted milk"....even when you KNEW it by heart....riding the city bus downtown to shop at "solo Serve"...the day Kennedy was killed, the Cuban Missle crises "Drills" where they rang the bell 3 times and your ran home as fast as you could, closed all the "blinds" in the house and then laid down next to your sofa for "protection"....OMG...growing up in San Antonio WAS so magical!!!!! Would not trade it for all the tea in China!!!!
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I remember the Rigsby too and am sure we went there. I've been to most of SA's Drive-in's and many neighborhood indoors. I think the Rigsby was located where the housing was that attracted lots of attention years back. High crime and such. May have been here..
But, I truly have no memory of where precisely it was (at least not now). Strangely I had a dream about it sometime ago. I recall how it was laid out in the dream. If I could just dream reality.
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extensive research pinpoints the precise location here...........
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Many theatres ran kiddie matinees for six Pepsi bottle caps. We even did it a few times at North Star Cinema. One thing that impressed me was that every year, school crossing patrols were treated to a movie at the Texas (also my favorite theatre), or Majestic. The year I went, the Texas presented "Ulysses". I was totally charmed by the theatre, and engrossed by the movie. I had a wonderful time, and after the show, my school received an award, and I went on stage to accept it! I am glad I got to work at the Texas a few months in 1975. It was BY FAR my favorite downtown theatre.
Paka, your childhood parallels mine almost to the letter. I remember when we finally got an air conditioner, USED, in 1964, we were the envy of the neighborhood. If a place I wanted to go was not waling distance, I rode the bus. Sometimes on Sunday, if money was scarce, but I could scare up a couple of dimes, a friend and I would ride the entire bus line from near where I lived on West Ave. to the State Hospital and back. My favorite Sunday outing would be to go roller skating at Northporte Rollercade at San Pedro and Recoleta. It's still there. I took my grandson roller skating there a few years ago. I am definitely not as adept at skating as I used to be!
Most of the time iI was riding my bike around the neighborhood with friends. There were a lot of vacant lots in the neighborhood then. We caught horny toads and lizards every day in the summer. My favorite time of the year was after a cold winter, the first warm day all the kids would come out to play, and we would just sit around and talk about the fun we would have the upcoming summer. It seemed like we were cooped up forever, when in reality it might have been a couple of weeks. We had a Lone Star Ice House close by, and I would walk there a few times a day. A BIG treat would be if my mom would give me a quarter, and i would buy a half dozen Patio HOT tamales they kept in a big roaster.
All school supplies came from Winns. My clothes came from Bruners or JC Penney. My dress shoes were usually Poll Parrot, and my tennis shoes were usually Keds. They had to last the entire school year. Most of the clerks at Winns, and Bruners knew us by name. The clerks were usually gray haired ladies, except for the shoe salesmen who were always men.
My kids were born in the 70s, and we lived in the same neighborhood, but it had changed....and not for the better. They had more fun and freedom thatn their kids now have, but the "magic childhoods" of our time apparantly died at the end of the sixties.
The Highland theater, wow. Spent a lot of time there on Saturdays in the 50's. Lets see, it was a dozen cartoons (Tom & Jerry, Woody Woodpecker, Heckle and Jeckel, Casper, Mr. Magoo, Little Lulu, ... and who was the dog that kept saying "Which way did he go, George?", two or three serials (Commander Cody, Flash Gordon, Dick Tracey, G-Men, Buck Rogers) at least two movies, usually westerns, (Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers, Rex Alan, Gene Autry, Lash LaRue,Tom Mix, Gabby Hayes) plus popcorn, candy, and a Nehi Orange or Grape. All for a dollar.
Saturdays from 10AM to about 2PM. Man, that was fun.
Wednesday was Enchiladas rice and beans on the S.A.I.S.D. school lunch menu. I do not know how they did it but the food was very ,very good, except for the sauerkraut(?) on Mondays, the smell would be so bad from that stuff.
To this day I really still don't like cooked cabbage now, Albert . Due to that smell you mentioned.
I can recall it still, too, to this day. I am getting better about it now, however.
This has taken many years however.
Paka your recollections seem a familiar read to me. Except I never wore a pair of pants under my skirt thankyou, I might have, if I felt so inclined but I never did feel the inclination wear a skirt.
But I remember the girls doing so.
With all due respect--Just kidding.
The drills you wrote of at school I can remember very well too but a little differently. We were required to take canned goods and water rations , each student, to elementary school for survival and learn to get under the desk and hide on a signal (the three bells you wrote of)in case of the nuclear attack of San Antonio's southside. I was in the 5th or 6th grade, I do not remember exactly.
Well - it was a mostly innocent childhood back then I guess. Of course they never told us why we were supposed to hide underneath our desks, that is I do not remember them ever saying, "Kids, Practice hiding under your desk in case of a Nuclear attack".
I do not remember ever questioning this practice. We just did what we were told to do back then.
Like when Mrs. Finley informed me "You are going to be in the talent show this year."
I did not think of saying, no, I would rather not. We just did what we were told as kids back then.
Don't know if hiding under a desk or closing the venetian blinds would have saved us from an Atom bomb or not. I would suggest not. Maybe.
I can recall the Saturday matinees at 99 cents too.
Summers were the best of times though, out of school and carefree...
I went barefooted by choice. All summer long. The asphalt street surface would be scalding hot
on bare feet..hard to bear but I did it anyway.
I had forgotten so much but these posts have picked my brain, Bud's Beer Barrel, who could have remembered
that place without a nudge, but now I do remember it, wasn't there a wooden barrel on the top of the building?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paka
What a perfectly simple time....NO one's parents were divorced....EVERYONE went to church...we all sat outside after dinner in lawn chairs and "visited", red rover, red rover and red light/green light games until it was time to go in....the old icecream hand crank and ALL the neighbors came over to enjoy nights...the drive in movies where you played and knew all the kids at the playground while parents would sit around and enjoy....walking to school, and home...and if it was KILLER cold, wearing slacks UNDER your dress so that you could stand it.....coming around to your school room to "read off the lunch menu and see how many were buying lunch and how many wanted milk"....even when you KNEW it by heart....riding the city bus downtown to shop at "solo Serve"...the day Kennedy was killed, the Cuban Missle crises "Drills" where they rang the bell 3 times and your ran home as fast as you could, closed all the "blinds" in the house and then laid down next to your sofa for "protection"....OMG...growing up in San Antonio WAS so magical!!!!! Would not trade it for all the tea in China!!!!
Love those movie ads from the paper, mud. The Arts theatre advertised there was the Uptown. It had a few name changes before it became St. Anne's Parish Hall.
I never missed Captain Gus. I always pictured his never seen crew: Hungry, Zombie, Hector and Neppy the whale. I was always entering the Wishing Well club, but was never chosen. I remember he would choose someone from in town, and from out of town. Whenever he chose someone from Yoakum he would always say gleefully that this kid is from "Yoakum, Zombie, Yoakum"! I don't know if the good captain (Joe Alston) was from Yoakum, or Zombie was, but he always made a big deal over kids from Yoakum.
Love those movie ads from the paper, mud. The Arts theatre advertised there was the Uptown. It had a few name changes before it became St. Anne's Parish Hall.
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yessir.
here's one of my favorites.
Street Corner at the Rigsby.............. nurses in attendance.
.................................................. ........showing to mixed audiences.
Hey Mud, Bucks is the building to the left of where you have it marked. Where the word Rigsby is on the map, the building with the white roof is Bucks. Played 42 there every Thursday night with my FIL. We won a lot of cash there until somebody snitched and then the game got shut down for gambling.
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Captn Gus was one CRAZY old dude!!!! How about the old "Rifleman" with Chuck Conners???!!!?!?!?! EVERY night at 6pm, the rifleman was my GOAL to get my homework done after dinner so I could watch it!!!
Yep,
