Brinkman and Sue Marie Lane were parallel streets running north off of Pinemont. (At that time -as I recall, Tidwell did not extend west of Shepard and Donavan did not extend west of Brinkman.) Our house was the first north of Pinemont on Brinkman. Sue Marie was a dead end. Brinkman ended turning east onto Donavan - now the location of St. Pias X HS. The areas north of Sue Marie was still a heavily wooded pine forest. There were cattle on the property and the neighborhood kids called it the "Bull Woods". Our parents warned us constantly about the deadly hazards of entering the Bull Woods. You can imagine how thrilling it was to cheat death and walk a short distance into the woods. The fence line separating our neighborhood from the Bull Woods was the Houston City limit. (Even though our neighborhood was just inside the city limit, we did not have city services - sewer or water - until the late 50s.) The lot to the immediate south of our house at the corner of Pinemont Road and Brinkman Street was always vacant as it is today. Why this lot has stayed vacant is a great mystery to me. The lot was wooded and fallow with plenty of trees, bushes, poison ivy, blackberry vines, snakes, bugs, and turtles. We picked many coffee cans full of blackberries in that lot. The lot behind us faced Sue Marie Lane was vacant and not heavily wooded. The Sue Marie lot was our neighborhood sandlot baseball and football field. Most of the kids I played with lived on Sue Marie. The location of St. Pius X HS was still forest. When the bulldozers moved in to clear for construction of the school, our neighborhood was overrun by snakes. I can remember that the first grocery store (early supermarket) that we shopped at was the "Texas Serv-all" on the NE corner of Shepard and Crosstimbers. My first encounter with Santa Claus was at the Sears store on the east side of Shepard at Garden Oaks Blvd. There was a small amusment park on the SW corner of Curtin Ln and Shepard. I can't remember the name, but "______ Playland" seems vaguely familiar. The park had a small carosel, hand-crank cars on a track, a boat carosel, etc. Lots of fun and memories. Haircuts happened at Green's Barber Shop on the W side of Shepard at Janisch or Martin Rd. Green sliced into my ear with his scissors when I was about 3 years old. My head was probably on a swivle at the time, so I guess he couldn't prevent the ear incident. Janisch Rd was named after the Janisch Family. In the 50s and 60s they still had a small truck farm between Janisch and Martin roads, east of Shepard and west of Yale. In the early 60s my parents sold the Brinkman house. We made the long distance move directly east to Hohldale St between Yale and Sheaprd. I'm not sure why we did this except for a small change of scenery. I'll add more as time and memory permit.
