Poppahop

On 1/28/2008 at 8:44 PM, plumber2 said:

There was a small Italian community along S. Post Oak Rd south of San Felipe down to around Alief Rd. These families sold out to developers and land speculators (aka Bob Smith) one by one in the late 50's and early 60's. Mrs. McCue who ran the cafeteria at St. Michael's catholic school was Italian. Her maiden name was Santa Maria. We were good friends with them and visited their house several times. I watched the apartments go up around them until they fianlly retired and sold out themselves.

There is an Italian society that runs a benevolent hall "Whitney Oaks" located on Whitney Rd. near Airline. Not only does the name try to sound unItalian, the group is technically called the St. Joseph's Society. They serve spaghetti lunch on thursdays and it's always crowded. During election season it's really enjoyable, because politicians can speak for five minutes but they have to buy a bottle of wine for each table for the priveledge. I've gone back to work needing breath mints many a time. Haven't been in awhile since I work in the Med Center now.

Way up Airline there is little St. Joseph's Cemetery...Pretty much all Sicilian with a few Poles. Because of racial strife up on the Brazos around Waco and Bryan in the early 1900s, white landowners imported Sicilians to work in their fields. Those Sicilians bought their own land as soon as they could, but most of it was crappy land that had been passed over by everybody who'd gotten there before them, so they ended up moving to Houston. Those that didn't join their cousins or friends in Galveston County or on the east side of town settled up on the north side. Canino, as in the farmer's market and the road, is an Italian name...I think some are buried in that cemetery on Airline. 

There was one on Bellaire just west of Strake / St Agnes until about 1987 or so. 

Here's my story on the bombing from earlier this year.

If so, please email me: john.lomax@houstonpress.com

Does anybody have a pic or pics of the mansion we could use for a Houston Press article?

Looking at my 1891 map of Houston, there's a Five Points-style interesection near the foot of Chenevert and Magnolia / Ruiz.

Let's say I get a bunch of sponsors to pony up some cash for what I am calling a non-profit party. And then I open a cash bar in the middle of that same party and I pocket all the money from it. Isn't that essentially what Cohen did with the art market last year and tried again to do this year?

Yes, I knew that, and that distinction is made in the article. But you can't file a false tax deduction and when the IRS questions you about it, simply say "Whoops, it basically comes out the same."

In the article, Lomax states, "Cohen posted that pre-emptive strike against this story," and then quotes from this "strike."

However, this "strike" also states that there were 3 board members that were suggested to Lomax to interview and that only 1 was contacted and the other 2 sought to contact him but he did not contact them in return.

In the story, the only mention I see of these 3 board members is, " By that time, Cohen says, some of his supporters were gone from the board". Why is the one that was contacted not referenced in the article and why were the other two not even interviewed?

I want to know what those 3 board members have to say.

Additionally, regarding the implication of fraud, were there mistakes or were there deceptions? Can intent be proven?

If information is going to damn someone and tear at a community, this information needs to be as accurate and as thorough as possible. Every detail.

John Lomax here.

I did talk to two out of three of those board members. Bob Domec told me what a success his area (Pink Street) had been last year and Cynthia Hill told me she thought Lori Betz had gone crazy. (And presumably, found a new treasurer and an attorney who shared identical delusions.) What Domec had to say was not interesting enough to put in the story and what Hill had to say was edited out and lumped in with something generic like "Cohen's supporters say he's great" or something similar. The current board says they were pushed, the former board says they jumped; it's all just more he-said she-said stuff.

As to fraud, I laid out the facts of the case as they were given to me, and they are not really in dispute by anyone. Criminal fraud and tax fraud are two different things, however, and I think Colgin meant Cohen was committing tax fraud. "I didn't know I couldn't do that" tends to fall on deaf, unsympathetic ears at the IRS.

I have no idea why your IP was banned but I will ask the person who handles that and post her answer here later today.In the past, people have been banned for abusive/racist/threatening posts and for posting under multiple screen names.

As much as I might enjoy the power, I don't have the power to ban, so Red Scare, that's paranoia worthy of your handle.

I just thought some people here might remember him and be saddened or alarmed at the manner of his demise.

Barry Horn, Former Channel 13 Contributor, Murdered In Brownsville

Called the Truman Capote of Houston

I went to the University of St. Thomas, class of 1968, and I had a classmate named Steve Byrd. He looked a lot like the picture above...I wonder if he was his son, or related in some other way??

One of Byrd's sons was killed in Vietnam...

Washington Avenue is not in the Heights. It is, however, where the Yankees begin.

I guess my buddy wasn't lying when he told me back then that they went to Willowridge. This guy was from Quail Valley and friends with a bunch of people at the 'Ridge and Madison.

I grew up in Ft. Bend County and went to both Mo. City Jr. High and Willowridge High School during the heyday of the so-called Smurf "gangwar". 1981-1984 (Mo. City Jr. High) and 1984-1988 (Willowridge)

Yes, the Smurfs were out of Willowridge; matter of fact, I had several childhood friends back then that were part of the Smurfs. However, all the hysteria and hype was just exactly that - hysteria and hype. Yeah, it was a gang; no doubt about that, but the Smurfs weren't the killers all the rumors made them out to be.

They were a bunch of 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16 year old juvenile delinquent committing petty crimes across southwest Houston, primarily in the Fort Bend school district and part of southwest HISD (Madison, etc.) I think the furthest north that the Smurfs ventured was in the Meyerland area and then back across to 3rd, 4th, and 5th Wards back down to Almeda Rd and 288.

The older crew that the Smurfs patterened themselves after (the blue color) was Fort Bend's own chapter of the notorious L.A. gang, The Crips. Crack, prostitution, petty thievery, and gang violence were just starting to become prevalent out in Ft. Bend right about the time I started Willowridge as a freshman, so naturally these knuckleheads wanted to act like bad-a**es and imitate one of the most notrious gangs in the U.S.

The Smurfs dissolved right around 1986 - 1987; I was in between my sophomore and junior years and I can remember hearing the main principle at Willowridge (the late Ed Glover) talking about the gang having been disbanded by the Ft. Bend Sheriff's Department.

Needless hype and hysteria over a bunch of ignorant juvenile delinquents.

Yay! I love this game.

I'm going with Buenos Aires, too. Original of me, I know.

I'm going with San Juan, PR.

Salzburg, Austria is my guess

I suppose so.

Now Magic Island catching fire during Ike might well be another story...

John Carrick & his Mom ran Sand Mountain. I was a bit young to make The Jester, but did go to the Mountain. John was in San Francisco at the time & he'd sent back a copy of Jefferson Airplane's first album, which was often played between sets. (Just on the cusp of Folk Rock.) Janice Joplin was making a name for herself Out There; she'd played the Mountain--again, just before my time. Mrs Carrick was heard making unkind comments about her (ahem) orientation.

Townes, Guy & Jerry Jeff weren't "big name performers" back then; they were just beginning. Jerry Jeff went off to DC to form Circus Maximus (more "Folk Rock"). Just before he left, he played a brand new song--"Mr Bojangles." Which made his fortune. And he made it back to Texas in time for Cosmic Cowboy days...

And I remember Townes, debuting the first serious song he'd written. It was "Waitin' Round to Die."

The other day I read that Jerry Jeff wrote "Mr Bojangles" upstairs at Sand Mountain.

You had to grow up on Felix's. I am convinced of that.

Everyone I knew that went there as a kid LOVED the place. Everyone that was exposed to it as an adult after Tex-Mex became the "it" thing in Houston thought it was nasty.

Absolutely. It wasn't really '60s-style Tex-Mex as stated in another post, nor was it comparable at all to Pappasito's or especially Taco Cabana. Felix's was '40s-style Tex-Mex, and the other two are post-Ninfa's Tex-Mex boom joints, one of which caters primarily to drunk people.

Galveston without grunge, is like New Orleans without debauchery. This is what Galveston IS; palm trees, brown water, Mardi Gras, the mafia, Victorian mansions, small time criminals, t-shirt peddlers, and UTMB. For the most part, I love my home.

Preach on, brutha.

Cougars never left far West Texas.

We had a friend who lived there from about 1992-2002. She loved it there and her place was awesome so my wife and I and our son tried to move in back around 1999. The owner just wasn't having it at all.

Our friend's rent was absurdly low -- like $350 for a 1000 sf 2br. When she decided to move out she had a rude awakening regarding the realities of Houston real estate. She thought it was still the Oil Bust all over town.

I drove by out there a few months ago. The site is now a sort of resort catering to Hispanics -- all the signs are en espanol. The area is thickly wooded and there a few trash dumps and ramshackle houses scattered around.

It had really odd hours -- it is closed on weekends or something like that.

US and UK: "Bridge over Troubled Water," Simon and Garfunkel

Aus: "Let It Be," the Beatles.

The world needed some soothing tunes to deal with my screamin' and hollerin'.

Why does it have to be high speed? Why not just regular 80 mph rail? Does a few minutes each way really affect us that much?