Texas Memories. (original) (raw)

"You must remember this ..."

Yogi Berra might've said "Nostalgia ain't what it used to be," but it is "alive and well" and living in Texas.

It might be a place that was only special to one person, or it might've been the center of the town. Maybe it was your first bowl of chili on a bus ride through Texas or a favorite uncle who spoke like Ben Johnson and didn't EVER want to talk about Huntsville. Maybe it was your unmarried aunt from Abilene who drove to El Paso and married a stunt man named Earl or that bus stop in Beaumont where that novelist disappeared.

These people, places, pets, trees, theatres, cafes, ice houses, swimming holes, playgrounds, class projects, air fields, crime-scenes, beaches and imprinted-while-wet sidewalks may not qualify for historical markers, but they're remembered here in TE. - Editor

Dwight Young
Originally published in Preservation magazine
National Trust for Historic Preservation:

• Right Here
  Keene, Texas
  "There's something incredibly powerful about being able to walk into a building and say, "This is where it happened, within these walls, right here."
  That's what a landmark does: It tells you, "Right here."
• Perfect Worlds
  Donna Reed and the Granada Theater in Plainview, Texas
  "... I distinctly remember more than one afternoon when I thought, sitting there in the plushly upholstered splendor of the Granada, �I wish the whole world was like this.� A decade later, Donna Reed brought that sentiment into our living rooms..."
• Sagging Symbols
  "In the midst of the vast, windswept West Texas landscape, the courthouse was the architectural paperweight that kept the town from blowing away. ... [It] offered tangible evidence that our town was here to stay and that the residents were a civilized lot who knew what a public building ought to look like."

Harold Bell
Excerpts from "I Was a Teen in the 1930s and Some More Stuff"

• Miss Bell
  Nobody in the world, dead or alive, knew how long Miss Bell taught the fourth grade in and around Decatur, Texas...
• The Sheriff
  "You never know when somebody says something, or does something, that it may have a big effect on you the rest of your life."
• The Tight-Wire Walker
  "She's very daring. They put her wire up to the very tiptop of the tent thirty-five feet above the ground, and she does exciting maneuvers without using a net."
• My Date with Mary
  Mary was the cause of the most exciting week of my young life.

• Bronco Stories by Jim James
• Wings Over Notrees Texas by Mike Moore
• Remembering Big Lump by Dan Scott
  "All this occurred before my time but I remember my grandfather telling about how he shot the dog while it was being held by its owner and had it's head sent to Austin to check for rabies."
• I remember Bartlett by Carolyn Ripper
  "I remember taking my shoes off, walking near the tracks, and feeling the exhilaration and excitement of laying out pennies to be squished. When we got home, my feet were black, and my cheeks were bright red from the heat."
• Memories of Uncle Bob and a Wooden Box by Delores Miles
  "Really he must have been a most intelligent man for how else could he have known to give a child joy you must let them have it a little at a time."
• Remembering Alexander and the "Fattest Kitten" in Erath County
  by Duby Joe Moore
• Not Remembering the Monahans Sandhill Rangerettes
  Readers mail from Maine
• I Remember a Faded Love by Ken Rudine
  "Just looking at a San Antonio map, I want to say it was probably on Taylor Street, near the intersection with 4th Street � but of course, I could be wrong. It was called Hips Bubble Room..."
• Story about Coolidge, Texas by Archibald Flint Watkins
  An excerpt from the writings of Archibald Flint Watkins. (This unpublished manuscript was written in 1956, two years before his death.)
• Lela, Texas by D. Caywood
  "I am 78 years old and lived in Lela for a relative short time in 1932 or 33. My father was an Agent for the CRI&P RR and was Agent at Dodge City, KS before going to Lela...."

	Life in Clara Written by my uncle, Ray Johnston, and my aunt, Edith Johnston-Hall. They grew up in Clara, Texas and are the only two remaining family members.

• Richard Gaertner's Story by Murray Montgomery
  Every town needs a storyteller and Moulton is fortunate to have a mighty good one in a feisty fellow named Richard Gaertner.
• Bend, Texas by Harland Moore
  San Saba County Chronicles
  "In this account of the history of Bend, Texas, it may sound like that my ancestors invented the earth, inhabited it, created Bend, Texas, and hung the moon..."
• Bethel Community by Shirley Thompson Mohler
  Romance at the mailboxes, smuggled books and why pregnant women couldn't teach.
• "The town we are approaching was Perico."
  No longer on the map, it resides now in the heart of one Amarillian.
  From an Interview with former resident Hugh Hamilton.
• A Gonzales County Rite of Passage by Dawson Minear
  I never realized until I became old how much fun I had as a youth...

The Thirties in Texas» There was some truth to the story of people in Texas not being aware of a depression - let alone a "Great" Depression. For most Texans there was little change in their standard of living.	The Toyah Women's PTA Baseball Team from the 1930s. Photo courtesy Jesse L. Moore, Jr

• Texas Forum - Small nuggets from Texans' inexhaustible mother-lode of collective memory.