FilioScotia

Wow. That's amazing. Of all the places on earth I would have expected to stay dry forever it was Pasadena. Then again, I guess all the annexations over the years have brought in enough voters who drink to outnumber the Baptists and other "churchianity" folks who kept the original Pasadena dry for so long. I wonder how many people in the "old" Pasadena even speak English.

That's the probable explanation. The annexed areas were wet when they were annexed, but there must be a "grandfather" clause in the law that allowed them to stay wet. It makes sense. KK's pub? Compares to Kay's? Sounds like a place I would enjoy a cold one or three. I might drive over to my old stomping grounds and check it out some time.

Unless Pasadena has voted itself "Wet" since I lived there 30 years ago, you have it backwards. It's Pasadena that's dry. Deer Park is wet. Pasadena has been dry for many decades. I grew up and went to school there, and we always had to drive to South Houston or Houston to buy beer. People who live there now still do. You own a pub in Pasadena? Which one? Is it really in the Pasadena City Limits? I'd like to check it out sometime.

Actually, the Gulf Stream flows north and northeast along the Texas coast and follows it east across the mouth of Mississippi to the eastern gulf, and then out through the Florida strait into the Atlantic. There it turns north to Cape Hatteras NC and and then slowly veers out into the north Atlantic. We can thank the Gulf Stream for keeping the effluent of the Mississippi away from the Texas coast. Someone else here has pointed out that our waters are so dirty looking because the water is so shallow and the bottom is always getting churned up by the currents.

I shat you not. Shatner Wood Street is in Copperfield Westcreek Village, in the neighborhood north of Langham Creek HS. Key Map 407-L.

Clematis is a very beautiful flower and I think it's a fine name for a street. Check them out at http://clematis.org/ I have no idea where the name Gasmer comes from. I'm guessing it was probably the name of someone involved in the development of Westbury back in the 50s. Residential developers have the privilege of naming their streets. In my neighborhood in Copperfield, the developer was apparently a movie and TV buff. The streets are named after actors. We have Hudson Oaks, Chamberlain, Garner Crest, Hamil Wood, Saxon Court, Hayward Court, Mason Ridge, Landon Oaks, Gable Point and, brace yourself, oh my god, here it comes, grit your teeth, are you ready? -- Shatner Wood.

Thanks. You're right of course. Memory fails me once again. Memory is the second thing to go when you pass 60 you know. I forget what the first thing was.

No you didn't miss anything. That's an interesting history. Where on earth did you find it? It's a shame the writer doesn't mention the location of the old building HPD moved out of in 1925. I still think that unmarked building on the Downtowner map was the old HPD building they moved out of into 61 Riesner in 1952. But I could be wrong. I frequently am. I'm fascinated that the department got its first police radios in 1927. The radios were ordinary AM radios tuned to KPRC, the only radio station in town at the time. The announcers would interrupt programming to broadcast police calls. Officers in cars could hear the calls but couldn't respond. Two-way police radios were still a few years in the future.

I know. I'm talking about the building across the street from the fire station, on the north side of Rusk. The one behind the courts building/jail.

I'm almost a hundred percent certain that the smaller building next to the old Criminal Courts building was the old Houston Police Station. I remember it was still there in the early 50s, and it was very old and delapidated. It was torn down when HPD got the new building across the bayou at 61 Riesner Street. And BTW, the very observant among us have probably noticed over the years that the city has never been able to agree on how the name "Riesner" should be spelled on street signs. "Riesner" or "Reisner"? I don't know what the situation is now, but until the 90s, there were street signs spelling it both ways.

Oh my lord. I had completely forgotten about Richies. (I can't remember the spelling either) Wasn't it a Lucky Seven store? Or am I thinking about another place? That was quite a place. A small one stop shopping center. A grocery store, drug store and a dime store, and a news stand too, I think. It was just a short walk from my house on Sherman. I spent a lot of time there reading magazines. It's where I discovered Playboy. They didn't keep them back behind the counter or sealed in cellophane bags the way they do today, and they never seemed to care that I spent so much time reading without buying. Very educational, that Playboy. And you're right. The east end was a nice place to live back then. It had its share of what we called "hoods" in those days. The tough guys with the long side burns and motorcycle jackets, but I still have a lot of fond memories of living there. We had some very nice neighbors and kids my age all around us. You could actually walk around the neighborhood at night, and even go walking over to the Kopper Kettle on Harrisburg. I rode the bus to downtown and back all the time, even late at night and I don't remember ever feeling afraid. Very nice to meet you too.

You lived just a few blocks from me. I lived at 6717 Sherman, but I see in your profile that you born in March of 1957. That was the year I went to Edison. So while I was trying to keep my head down and avoid the hoods and bangers at Edison, your mom was off somewhere having you and changing your diapers. Now I really do feel old. I also had to take a math course over again in summer school that year, and it was at Jackson. Small world, isn't it?

You have to like a guy with a sense of humor like that. Someone willing to literally be the south end of a northbound horse. Just curious. Where on the east end did you live and go to school? I lived there briefly way back before the civil war. I went to Edison JH one year in the late 50s. We lived on Sherman just off Wayside.

I can't help myself. I have to ask. Which end was more interesting?

Very interesting. I had never heard that story. That just shows I need to keep up with what's going on. I checked, and found that KEDT TV Corpus Christi signed on in 1972, and it was with used equipment they got in Houston. The KEDT website says "Realizing the great expense of new equipment, this original Board of Directors located a package of used equipment in Houston and raised the needed funds for the purchase...On October 16, 1972, KEDT went on the air for the first time from the vacated Cheston Heath School building on Carrizo Street...To this day, KEDT is still utilizing some of the original equipment and transmitter. "

You are absolutely right and I am embarrassed. It's humbling and a little scary when you learn that you can't trust your own memory anymore. I lived in Dickinson when I worked at KVVV in 1968, and I always drove over to Alvin on FM 517, but for reasons I attribute to the onset of Mad Cow Disease, I just don't remember making that right turn on FM 528 and driving north a couple of miles to Lundy Lane. That part of my daily drive is a complete blank. I only remember how long it took to get there from Dickinson on 517. I searched for Lundy Lane in Alvin on Google Earth and there it is -- big as life. The old KVVV building, still sitting out there in the middle of that field, just off FM 528. The pics taken last September by Invisible Texan are startling, to say the least. Very sad.

It's on FM 517 less than a mile east of the N. Alvin Bypass. As you drive east away from Alvin it's on the right. Look for a TV tower with a delapidated two-story brick building next to it out in the middle of a field. I'm amazed the FCC or the FAA hasn't ordered somebody to take the tower down. It's been standing there unused since the late sixties. Here's a link to some photos taken just last year by HAIF member Invisible Texan. To whom we owe our everlasting thanks for taking the time to go out there and crawl around in that old place. These photos are great. http://new.photos.yahoo.com/invisible_texan/albums They're labeled -- what else? -- Ruins of KVVV TV.

No-No the Clown -- Ralph Ehntholt -- was the kindest and sweetest man I ever knew. He really did love kids. Sadly he passed away about six years ago. His son Ralph Jr is a local actor who also appears as No-No at various events around town.

About six months before the Freedom Train came to town, my late father-in-law played Benjamin Franklin in a production of 1776 at the old Royal Coach Inn Dinner Theatre. He was a very good actor, singer and dancer, but he got the part the minute he came through the door at the auditions because he looked just like every picture you've ever seen of Franklin, right down to the bifocal glasses. The director, Marietta Marich, took one look at him and said "he's our Ben Franklin -- I don't care if he can sing or not." She was thrilled when she learned he could carry the part with the same lively style and pinache as Howard Da Silva, the actor who did the role in the movie. He was great. So great that a few months later he got a call from the Houston Bi-Centennial Committee. They wanted to know if he would dress up like Franklin again, go to Austin to meet the Freedom Train and ride it to Houston. He did, and became the living symbol of the Bi-Centennial while the train was in Houston. He made a bunch of personal appearances at shopping malls and other places with the Freedom Train people and traveling exhibits, and I'm sure he spent time at the old Union Station too. He spoke six languages fluently, including Spanish, French and several Middle Eastern tongues, and it blew the Washington peoples' minds to see him speaking to just about anybody who came up in their native language. They wanted him to travel the country on the Freedom Train but he couldn't take the time from his work to do that. He always regretted not taking that road.

There's another one just like it -- identical -- on Hwy 6 between Longenbaugh and West Road. Right next to the Cyfair VFD station. A lot of weddings are held there too. And while we're on the subject, my son got married last year in the very beautiful Bear Creek United Methodist Church, and it cost considerably less than a thousand dollars. The sanctuary of this church is stunning. Check it out on this link to its website: http://www.bearcreekumc.org/about-us/weddings/

It was in a bigger documentary on the history of Chicago, and it will probably come around again on PBS at some point, but you can buy the video for yourself. Here's a link. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/chicago/index.html

NPR? Or PBS? Hard to "see" anything on NPR. NPR did do a story about this in October of 1997. Not a "documentary", but an interview with a Chicago city council member who says new research has cleared Mrs O'Leary's cow of starting the fire. Here's a link to it in NPR's archives. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1038129

You could be right, and I'm also questioning my own statements about it. It just seemed logical to me to pave dirt streets with bricks, because it did make it easier for cars to get around. But I think I may be wrong about that, because it now occurs to me that I've seen old 19th century photos of downtown Houston and brick streets were clearly visible. I will do some more research and educate myself before I weigh in with anymore half-baked pontifications. mea culpa

I don't think so. Brick streets made life difficult for people with horse-drawn carriages and wagons, because, for horses, there is almost nothing more slippery than wet bricks. Bricks were put down at the advent of the automotive age to make it easier for motor vehicles to get around -- not horses. Before then, streets were unpaved dirt wagon roads, rutted and often muddy, which made driving a car anywhere a dirty and miserable experience. Horse owners hated the brick streets because it was hard for a shod horse to have any traction, especially when it rained. And along with the rain, don't forget that at the turn of the 20th century, streets were covered with manure left behind by the many thousands of horses that plied the streets every day. I read somewhere that city workers removed thousands of pounds of manure from the streets every night. And we call that era "the good old days". Paving streets with cement was cost prohibitive, labor intensive, and still in the future, but bricks were cheap and plentiful, and they could be put in place quickly. And I bet the mayor or somebody at city hall either owned a brick factory, or had a relative who owned one. Somebody made a lot of money from paving streets with bricks.