Gone But Not Forgotten in San Antonio! - Part II (Dallas: assault, east coast)

[outafocus]

Originally Posted by Basse Bud

Seems the interest in things Gone But Not Forgotten is either Gone or Forgotten..

Am posting this to keep the thread alive. There is too much interesting history, in many cases not available elsewhere, reflected in both Edition I and II to allow them to fade.

Maybe if someone would care to offer free beer to any readers/posters on a regular basis, it would
attract more attention !

The City-Data Forum for San Antonio has become nearly impossible to quickly/easily navigate and locate a particular SA topic.

For example: San Antonio School Alumni pages. ( for those who don't care to use the commercial
Classmates - type services. )

Anyone care to chime in?

This is my favorite thread! I look forward to new posts and check it out every day. I've learned and remembered a lot from the posts here, and hope that my posts (mostly about San Antonio movie theatres) have been informative to others.

Something that is gone but not forgotten is inexpensive tamales. It's now hard to find them for less than $7.50 a dozen. When I was a kid, I used to walk or ride my bike down to the Lone Star Ice House and buy a half dozen hot Patio brand tamales for a quarter! They were good tamales and they were always hot and fresh.

[ranchodrive]

Originally Posted by outafocus

This is my favorite thread! I look forward to new posts and check it out every day. I've learned and remembered a lot from the posts here, and hope that my posts (mostly about San Antonio movie theatres) have been informative to others.

Something that is gone but not forgotten is inexpensive tamales. It's now hard to find them for less than $7.50 a dozen. When I was a kid, I used to walk or ride my bike down to the Lone Star Ice House and buy a half dozen hot Patio brand tamales for a quarter! They were good tamales and they were always hot and fresh.

Everything was less when I was a kid.

But so was my paycheck.


One of my first jobs was at Joske’s downtown.
First floor in the camera department ($1.69 an hr.)
Also at around this time, there was the “Fantasyland”, third floor.

Lunch time, I would head out to Coney Island on St. Mary’s.
for a hamburger & chili or a couple of hotdogs. yummylicious

[Basse Bud]

Ah, yes, good food at affordable prices....long gone in this world!

BTW, Rancho, eating hamburgers at Coney Island would be sacrilegious! In fact when Coney Island was my
regular dining spot downtown, they didn't offer hamburgers, only Hot Dogs in various configurations.

As to the other sources of great food, when I worked at C & L Cycle Shop, 6th & Broadway, there was a guy who would show up about 11:00am each weekday with a plaid thermos container on wheels, with the best tamales and soft tacos imaginable! Only problem was, occasionally he would sell out before making it to our place. I asked him why he didn't get more, his reply, mama only makes so much and when it's gone, it's gone. I tried to convince him to put us on his "early" list,
but he had his route.

[Basse Bud]

Outafocus,

Your contributions are one of the reasons many folks do show up! Thanks.

On the subject of theaters, I was in SA over the Thanksgiving holiday and as always, was disappointed to
find even more of the landmarks no longer there. It had been many years since I drove north on San Pedro
from Hildebrand. This time I noticed the Olmos theater was gone, and a bank complex in it's place. I remember when the Laurel disappeared, to be replaced by an empty lot!

I spoke with an acquaintance about the loss of so many landmarks, He informed me that if a business/building cannot be
re-purposed or immediately utilized, there is a good chance it will fall to the wrecking ball, taxes are lower on empty lots!

[ranchodrive]

Originally Posted by Basse Bud

Outafocus,

Your contributions are one of the reasons many folks do show up! Thanks.

On the subject of theaters, I was in SA over the Thanksgiving holiday and as always, was disappointed to
find even more of the landmarks no longer there. It had been many years since I drove north on San Pedro
from Hildebrand. This time I noticed the Olmos theater was gone, and a bank complex in it's place. I remember when the Laurel disappeared, to be replaced by an empty lot!

I spoke with an acquaintance about the loss of so many landmarks, He informed me that if a business/building cannot be
re-purposed or immediately utilized, there is a good chance it will fall to the wrecking ball, taxes are lower on empty lots!

The Olmos Theater has been gone for ages.
KWEX building which was on E.Durango is gone.
And so is Dillards downtown.
I was mistaken about the hamburgers at Coney Island.
It was the Texas Sandwich Shop located on Houston St. near the Prince theater that I
remember eating hamburgers.
The Mexican Manhattan on Soledad is about the only one that I enjoyed that is still there
on Soledad street.

Do you remember the Wolf & Marx Store at the corner of Soledad & Houston St.?

That was the location where James Bowie lived when he was married.
You’re probably too young to remember this.

[huckster]

$1.69???? Per hour? Heck Rancho that wasn't bad money for back then , earning 50% more than I was making hourly at my first job. Then again you were a techie already, working the camera counter at Joske's.
I can remember my very first camera, a 35mm Argus with a hand held light meter , one had to set the aperture and shutter speed manually , wind her up and let the shutter fly. No anti- shake device built into the things back then. Keep perfectly still and wait to exhale after the shot. A lot of memorizing of shutter speeds and aperture though. I remember my first through the lens metered camera, I thought it was so High tech. These new cameras are surely incredible devices. I haven't used any film in quite a few years now. I have forgotten all that detailed stuff required for camera operation from years ago. The last time I tried the old Minolta X700, it did not even work so well. It was a state of the art camera in the early nineties, now, but a disosaur that takes blurry pictures.

Take home pay for my Bandera Rd. part time job years ago was $17.00 weekly after Fed. W.H. taxes.

Originally Posted by ranchodrive

Everything was less when I was a kid.

But so was my paycheck.


One of my first jobs was at Joske’s downtown.
First floor in the camera department ($1.69 an hr.)
Also at around this time, there was the “Fantasyland”, third floor.

Lunch time, I would head out to Coney Island on St. Mary’s.
for a hamburger & chili or a couple of hotdogs. yummylicious

[outafocus]

Originally Posted by huckster

$1.69???? Per hour? Heck Rancho that wasn't bad money for back then , earning 50% more than I was making hourly at my first job. Then again you were a techie already, working the camera counter at Joske's.
I can remember my very first camera, a 35mm Argus with a hand held light meter , one had to set the aperture and shutter speed manually , wind her up and let the shutter fly. No anti- shake device built into the things back then. Keep perfectly still and wait to exhale after the shot. A lot of memorizing of shutter speeds and aperture though. I remember my first through the lens metered camera, I thought it was so High tech. These new cameras are surely incredible devices. I haven't used any film in quite a few years now. I have forgotten all that detailed stuff required for camera operation from years ago. The last time I tried the old Minolta X700, it did not even work so well. It was a state of the art camera in the early nineties, now, but a disosaur that takes blurry pictures.

Take home pay for my Bandera Rd. part time job years ago was $17.00 weekly after Fed. W.H. taxes.

When I got my first job as an usher at North Star Cinema in 1968, the minimum wage was $1.60 an hour. Theatres were exempt from the minimum wage law, and I got paid a whopping 75 cents an hour! I was a sophomore at Robert E Lee High School. A friend at school got a job at a local funeral home for $2.12 an hour and loved rubbing it in how much more he was making than I. He told me there was another opening at the "parlor" and he could get me hired. I turned him down! I worked at North Star Cinema for nearly three years and in that time I was raised to $1.35, still a quarter an hour less than minimum. I left North Star to become assistant manager at the new Cinematex (later Colonies North) Theatre.

[Basse Bud]

Yes, I remember the Wolfe & Marx store. It, like Joske's, was one of the two major department stores. Always
a treat to shop there. Come to think of it, so was Sears and Roebuck. Where else could you buy clothes, kitchenware,
musical instruments and motorcycles under one roof?

The Bowie residence was slightly before my time...

Happily, I made a discovery on my recent SA trip.... Garcia's of Fredricksburg Road! Great food.
Small place, little seating and a line waiting to be seated!

Interesting clientele: Ranging from roofing laborers, to District Judges, to Rock and Roll/Country Music legends!



Too bad they close mid-afternoon..

[ranchodrive]

Originally Posted by Basse Bud

Yes, I remember the Wolfe & Marx store. It, like Joske's, was one of the two major department stores. Always
a treat to shop there. Come to think of it, so was Sears and Roebuck. Where else could you buy clothes, kitchenware,
musical instruments and motorcycles under one roof?

The Bowie residence was slightly before my time...

Happily, I made a discovery on my recent SA trip.... Garcia's of Fredricksburg Road! Great food.
Small place, little seating and a line waiting to be seated!

Interesting clientele: Ranging from roofing laborers, to District Judges, to Rock and Roll/Country Music legends!



Too bad they close mid-afternoon..

I remember the Christmas lights on the main streets which were
Houston & Commerce. Also the Christmas displays throughout all
the department store windows.
I remember that this was done after Thanksgiving unlike today where
I saw christmas trees & lights being set up around the shopping outlets in October
during Halloween.

We always had a real tree, later we had a faked one.
Today, if my loan is approved I just might be able to afford a real one.


And it was either KONO or KTSA or both you would hear
"Jingle Bells” as performed by the Singing Dogs.


It topped a 2007 survey of most-hated Christmas songs,
but there was a time when listeners would marvel that dogs
were able to sing the tune.

[GWhopper]

Originally Posted by outafocus

When I got my first job as an usher at North Star Cinema in 1968, the minimum wage was $1.60 an hour. Theatres were exempt from the minimum wage law, and I got paid a whopping 75 cents an hour! I was a sophomore at Robert E Lee High School. A friend at school got a job at a local funeral home for $2.12 an hour and loved rubbing it in how much more he was making than I. He told me there was another opening at the "parlor" and he could get me hired. I turned him down! I worked at North Star Cinema for nearly three years and in that time I was raised to $1.35, still a quarter an hour less than minimum. I left North Star to become assistant manager at the new Cinematex (later Colonies North) Theatre.

I grew up in Colonies North and remember that theater well!. I saw the Last Flight of Noah's, Return to Boggy Creek and many other now forgotten movies. Then they turned it in an arcade. It's all gone now, swallowed up the long-form retail stores.