calgofo

Interesting that Minoru Okabayashi was I believe interned for a short while during WWII. His son, Tommy Okabayashi served in the vaunted 442nd RCT (one of the most highly decorated of WWII).

I had totaly forgotten about this store. Your right the store did have the worst smell. A strange amalgom of oders. I remember the sign too lol. My dad and uncle worked on the remodeling of the Krogers. My dad was the Superenintendant and my uncle was the carpenter foreman. Made for a quick commute...about 5 minutes but then my dad drove pretty slow. My mom shopped some at Krogers and Piggly Wiggly but she was more partial to Floreens, wich IIRC was up on airline. When I was in HS I worked at the Randall's.

Yes corporal puisnment was used. Recieved plenty of it but in my day they didn't give a damn wether your parents consented or not. They just did it.

I can tell you what it was like. It was hotter than hell. You sweated all day and your hands and forearms stuck to any paper you were writing on. Sweat would drip off your face and cause spots on your paper. The smell was a combination of perspiration and old chalk dust. It was miserable but in my case it wasn't much better at home. We had a window unit but were too poor to run it that often. When the temp would get up into the mid 90's my mother would wait till I got home which was usually about 3 or so. She would close off the living room,which is where are unit was, and would turn it on and by 6, it was off. Man do I remember how wonderful that felt. I lived for those couple of hours. After 6 we just used fans till the next day. Even till this day I can't sleep with out the noise of a fan. I swore then and there I would make something of myself so I could afford A/C at least. Last year after Ike my part of town was w/o power for 14 days and man did that bring back some bad memories from the hood. My Aunt still lives over there on Raymac . Shes lived there nearly 50 years.

Actually it had two fires. The first one was minor just a little roof damage. The second fire was the one that really did the damage. I lived on shane street 2 houses down from the school and I remember going out to watch the fire fighters put out the fire. Both were arson and both were started by my next door neighbor. He later went on to an illustirous career at Texas Dept. of Corrections.As for the year, it had to be sometime between 1969 and 1971 because I had 3rd grade class in that part of the building.