FilioScotia

Your friend is wrong. The South by Southwest music and film festivals -- SxSW -- have always been in Austin. Check it out. http://www.sxsw.com/history/

Ward's isn't completely dead, and it wasn't just a "Texas" icon. It was a national icon, and it began in Chicago in 1872. At its height, it was one of the largest retailers in the United States, but declining sales forced the original Montgomery Ward to close all of its retail stores and catalog operations by early 2001. After a four year absence, the Montgomery Ward brand was revived as an online and catalog-based retailer in 2004, when Direct Marketing Services Inc. purchased much of the intellectual property assets of the former Wards. Currently, the company has no retail stores. Since June 2006, the revived Montgomery Ward has expanded to run a children-oriented online retailer.

She is dead. Don't know the year but she died of cancer in prison. Here's a full summary of the Hill/Robinson saga KHOU did three years ago. "Dr. John Hill, a Houston plastic surgeon, married Ann Fairchild Kurth in 1969, less than three months after his first wife, socialite Joan Robinson Hill, died of a mysterious, massive infection. Hill was charged with killing her by intentionally failing to give her proper medical care. He was gunned down at his River Oaks home after his first trial ended in a mistrial as a result of Kurth's testimony. In his book, "Blood and Money ," the late Tommy Thompson, a former Houston newspaper reporter, implied that Joan Hill's father, wealthy oilman Ash Robinson, hired the gunman who killed Dr. Hill. Kurth, whose marriage to Hill lasted less than a year, testified in his 1971 trial that he had confessed to her he had killed Joan Hill "with a needle.' Kurth said Hill tried to kill her three weeks after their marriage. Kurth theorized Hill probably caused Joan Hill's death by feeding her pastries contaminated with human fecal bacteria and also maintained that John Hill could still be alive and living in Mexico. Hill, she said, could have used plastic surgery to create a double who was the man killed outside of Hill's River Oaks home Sept. 24, 1972. However, Dr. Joseph Jachimczyk, the Harris County medical examiner, has repeatedly said the man on whom he performed an autopsy was Hill. Dr. Hill was slain after he and his third wife, Connie, returned from a medical convention to find his mother and son bound and gagged in the hallway. In 1975, a jury convicted Lilla Paulus of arranging the contract killing, allegedly acting for Robinson, who was said to be bent on revenge. Robinson, however, was never charged. Paulus died in prison of cancer. The reputed triggerman, ex-convict Bobby Wayne Vandiver, was shot to death by a Longview officer before he could be tried. Robinson and his wife eventually moved to Pensacola, Fla., and he died in 1985." Now we know. No info available on Mrs. Ash Robinson, but it's probable that she's also dead by now. If so, then Robert Ashton Hill, the son of Dr. Hill and his first wife Joan, is almost the only person in that saga who is still alive. As has already been mentioned, he lives somewhere on the east coast where he lives a quiet life as a prosecuting attorney and refuses to talk about that part of his life. The only other person involved in Hill's murder who may still be living is Marcia McKittrick, who drove the getaway car for Bobby Vandiver, the convicted triggerman. McKittrick got a short prison sentence for her involvement, did her time, and has apparently disappeared from the pages of history. I've heard nothing about her since the 70s.

Yes. Ch 13 built that tiny building on Cullen south of the University when it went on the air in 1954. They quickly outgrew it and built the current studios on Bissonett sometime just after 1960, and donated their former home to UH. Ch 8 then moved out of its original studios in the Ezekiel Cullen Bldg into the donated facility on Cullen. Ch 8 operated there until it moved into the new building on Elgin about five years ago. As for the timeline on American Bandstand, I remember watching it every day after school when I was in high school in 1960. It was a daily show from Philadelphia.

As I said in an earlier post, I think it's intellectually unhealthy and dishonest to get your news and opinion only from sources you agree with. And extending that thought, I believe a socially and politically "healthy" person is someone who is liberal on some things and conservative on others. Balanced. People who are ALL conservative or ALL liberal scare me. They're idealogues who do nothing but pollute and poison the body politick.

As a bleeding heart conservative, I often wish there were more purely liberal alternatives to the conservative domination of talk radio. It's always good to know what people with different viewpoints are thinking and talking about, even if you don't agree with them. I believe it's intellectually unhealthy and dishonest to get news and opinions only from sources you agree with. As for Limbaugh and Hannity, I think they are hurting the conservative cause more than they help it because they are both so extreme and unforgiving. They are the leaders of the force that is driving a wedge into our society, and dividing the country into uncompromising liberal and conservative camps. Limbaugh brags that he doesn't believe in compromise and he excoriates those who think compromise is the art of making things possible in politics. He equates compromise with abandoning your principles. He wants the whole loaf or no loaf at all. He scorns politicians who get things done by "giving a little to get a little", and everybody goes home happy. He also wants nothing to do with moderates -- conservatives or liberals. He says moderates are people who don't know what they believe.

Finally! Someone who realizes the realities of commercial radio. To survive, radio stations must have programming people will listen to. It's just an inescapable fact that issues oriented conservative oriented radio draws listeners, but liberal oriented radio doesn't draw flies. I'm not a Republican either, but I am conservative on some things, liberal on others. I'm one who thinks the spread of conservative radio is a welcome development, but I had to stop listening to the current line-up of conservative shows because they were giving me headaches. Hey guys! Stop yelling so much and lighten up on the anger. I've discovered Dave Ramsey, and he's infinitely more interesting than the issues guys.

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but there are quite a few people out here for whom this rightward shift you say you've observed is a good thing, and I'm one of them. We love it. A sign of intelligent life on the radio in this town. Your complaint proves it really was out there on the left wing, despite its vehement denials that it wasn't. Personally, I don't think it's come as far to the right as you think. It has pulled back from the left, but I think it's finally in the middle now, where it should have been all along.

Any guesses as to when it was taken? I'm going to guess sometime around 1940, give or take.

I grew up in Pasadena in the 50s, and I remember that little air strip on Allen Genoa. I recall it was used mostly by crop duster pilots who were still flying those old open cockpit biplanes. Here's a great Houston aviation trivia question. Does anybody here remember the time a National Airlines Boeing 727 landed at the tiny Dow Airport in in Lake Jackson? It really happened in July of 1972, when two guys hijacked the plane at LaGuardia Airport in NYC and tried to force a flight to Cuba. For reasons I forget, the pilot flew to Houston, but instead of landing, he flew over IAH and put the plane down on a short runway at the county airport in Lake Jackson. He used every ounce of reversed thrust he had and every inch of that 5000 foot runway, but there they were, on the ground, at the mercy of a couple of crazy hijackers. FBI, Texas Rangers, DPS and every county mounty barney fife and deppity dawg within 50 miles surrounded the place. It ended after several hours when the hijackers realized they and that plane weren't going anywhere and just gave up. The passengers were put on buses for the ride to Houston. Then came the problem of what to do with the plane. That tiny airport was not built with big planes in mind, and there was brief talk about taking the plane apart and trucking the pieces back to the Boeing factory in Seattle. The pilot said if they lightened it as much as possible, he could fly it out. So they stripped the interior down to the bare metal. Seats, overheads, wall paneling, carpeting, everything went, including the galley and the sink. They put in just enough fuel to take off and fly from Lake Jackson to IAH, and with just one person on board, the pilot, that plane did the best short runway takeoff a jet that big ever did. He scraped the tree tops at the end of the runway but he made it and did a perfect landing at IAH about 20 minutes later. The control center cleared the air space for miles around so the pilot could get there in a straight line at minimum altitude. Lake Jackson old timers still talk about that day. The most excitement they ever had down there. It's also remembered for being the day KHOU TV reporter Jessica Savitch attracted the networks' attention with her coverage of the end of the hijacking. Not very long after that, she moved up to an anchor job at the CBS affiliate in Philadelphia, and the rest is history. More trivia. When Savitch left KHOU, Linda Ellerbee was hired to replace her. How Ellerbee came to be available is also the stuff of legend in Texas media lore. She had just been fired from her overnight job at the Associated Press Dallas Bureau. Seems she wrote a letter to an old boyfriend on the A-P's new word processing computer, and forgot to delete it. The next morning that letter went out to several hundred A-P subscriber radio and TV stations in five states. Nobody would have paid any attention to it if she hadn't made some personal and sarcastic observations about her bosses at the A-P. They weren't amused, and she was fired. A couple of months later she applied for Jessica Savitch's job at KHOU, and she got the job largely because of all the notoriety she caused with that letter on the A-P computer. The rest is history. Whew! It's amazing how remembering the Genoa airstrip triggered that flow of memories.

Hearing 3 or 4 alarms go out always attracts the media's attention, who jump in the news trucks thinking "oh boy we're gonna get pictures of a giant fire." Maybe, but not always. No matter how big or small the fire, it's SOP to sound extra alarms at fires in high-rises, apartment complexes and hotels. The fire itself may turn out to be fairly small and easy to put out, but they need extra people to go floor to floor knocking on doors to get people out. That's why they had a couple of hundred firefighters at the fire in Houston Center overnight. They had to check every office on every floor for people working late or overnight.

oops

Marvin's obit in the Chronicle says visitation will be from 3-7 p.m. today at George H. Lewis & Sons Funeral Home, 1010 Bering. His funeral is set for 11 am Wednesday at Congregation Beth Israel, 5600 N. Braeswood. Burial will follow at Congregation Beth Israel Memorial Gardens at 1111 Antoine in Spring Branch. This cemetery is also known as Woodlawn. I believe this is an extension of the historic Beth Israel Cemetery just west of downtown, which ran out of available space decades ago.

Don't worry about it. Wayne doesn't want Marvin's gig because he would have to play the "nice guy". Don't get me wrong, Wayne is a fun loving guy who's fun to be around off camera, but playing nice to get things done the way Marvin did just isn't his style. Wayne is an "ambush'em at the pass, kick the door down and shoot out the lights" investigative reporter, and that's the style that wins Regional Emmies for KTRK. Marvin knew the secret to getting people to do things to help the less fortunate -- honey works better than vinegar, and he had a way of making people really want to join him in helping others. So even if they find someone to continue doing Action 13, it won't have the force and power Marvin gave it. Marvin always had the benefit of being independently wealthy by virtue of his family's clothing stores, which put him in the position of power in dealing with unscrupulous merchants, incompetent politicians and bureaucrats at all levels. City, County, State and Federal. He didn't need to work for a living, and he didn't care how important they were or what they threatened to do to him or his TV station. He stood his ground and they always backed down, and here's the most important element in that success. To its everlasting credit, the TV station always stood with him and supported everything he did, because the manager knew he would walk out the door in a heart beat if they didn't. You have no idea how many KTRK advertisers threatened to cancel their accounts because of Marvin, or how many times the manager told them "Sorry you feel that way. We'll miss you." Over the years, some well known Houston companies and businesses did cancel their commercials, but most of them always came back. I don't think the person who succeeds Marvin will be able to count on that level of support. That's why I think we've seen the last of the "Marvin style" consumer reporting in Houston. Marvin's fearlessness gave him enormous power in this city, but I never heard of a single instance in which he misused or abused it. Politicians, bureaucrats and merchants learned a long time ago that if someone complained to Marvin about something they did or were responsible for, there was a damn good chance that they would be "Zindler'ed" on the news at 6 and 10. I think Marvin's most lasting contribution will be his attitude that "It's hell to be poor", and his campaign to get medical treatment for children whose families have no insurance or money. He asked repeatedly -- on the air -- for people to send him names and addresses of such children, no matter where they live. This is how and why he built up his legion of "Marvin's Angels" at the Medical Center -- doctors who would step up and take care of children from poor families at no cost. I could go on and on about the powerfully positive force Marvin was for Houston over his life, but I think you get the picture. This town is going to really miss having him around, and it just won't be the same. His like will never pass this way again.

Just about. As I noted in an earlier posting in this thread a few weeks ago, I've been in Houston more than 50 years, and I've seen a lot of TV people and other public figures come and go. I can't think of anyone who has left a bigger mark on this town, or left bigger footprints than Marvin, in terms of the good things he made to happen with the sheer power and force of his personality. We won't see his like again. It's hard to imagine Houston without Marvin Zindler.

One reason was the fact that Houston already had an "international" airport. Hobby was called Houston International Airport before they named it for the former Governor. City officials felt that the new and bigger airport needed a "bigger" name. Ergo Houston Intercontinental was born. It's better than that godawful original name they stuck on that airport in Dallas. It was named Dallas-Fort Worth Inter-Regional Airport. Remember that one?

LOLLL...you're right of course. Public Works and the Fed are now doing what denizens of the old "Reservation" did a century ago.

You nailed it. That's precisely where it was. The area that was Houston's infamous red-light district of the late 19th and early 20th centuries is now Allen Parkway Village. It was bounded on the east by Heiner, on the south by West Dallas, on the west by Gillette, and Buffalo Bayou on the north. Allen Parkway didn't exist then, so the neighborhood extended farther north toward the bayou than AP Village does now. In fact, the old map posted by Mark Barnes shows no less than five east-west streets between West Dallas (San Felipe) and the bayou. That neighborhood went right up to the bayou banks. It was at least half again as big as it is now. My point is there were a lot more streets and houses in the old red-light district than we can imagine today, so it must have been a busy place in its hey-day. No doubt there was some red-light spillover into the neighborhood south of West Dallas, but most of the brothels were between West Dallas and the Bayou. That area is now occupied by AP Village, the Federal Reserve Bank and the City of Houston's Public Works Department. There's no trace of the old Red Light District. A pity.

I've always been in awe of that giant at JSC. Every time I've ever gone to JSC, I always spent a few minutes looking at that thing and imagining it doing its thing. It helps to remember that this rocket and Apollo command module would have been Apollo 18 if the program hadn't run out of money after Apollo 17. That's why it's a historic national treasure. Way back in the summer of 1966, I was in Tampa Florida visiting friends, and one day we drove over to the Cape to watch one of the unmanned test launches of the Saturn rocket. This particular test was only for the S-IV-B portion of the assembly -- the first and second stages. It wasn't the entire 3-stage assembly used for the manned missions that began with Apollo 7. Anywho, my friends and I watched that unmanned launch from a spot just outside the main gates of the Kennedy Space Center about five miles from the launch pad. Even from that distance, shock waves from the second stage of the Saturn assembly were shaking the ground, the concrete buildings at the gate and the windows were rattling. You had to be there to believe it. It was an awesome experience, and one of the great regrets of my life is that I was never able to be there for one of the manned Apollo launches with the entire 3-stage rocket.

And that's important, why? What are you trying to say? Come on mrfootball -- say what you mean.

Brilliant! It would be funny if it weren't so true. It's a little dated but it still fits, no matter which names are there now. I saw a cartoon in a TV industry magazine a few years ago that showed registration day at a famous broadcast journalism school. All the TV news courses had their sign up tables: covering news events, writing, reporting, editing, broadcast ethics, etc. The cartoonist could have had KPRC in mind when he showed no one was lined up at any of those tables. Dozens of people were lined up out the door at the table on the end -- "Perky".

In the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, KHOU and KTRK always took turns playing second and third fiddle to KPRC in the ratings, and the overall professional quality of their news departments. KPRC's number one ratings started declining when Ray Miller retired, and they fell into the abyss when Post-Newsweek bought it and turned it into the pathetic imitation of a news department it is now. That's when KTRK became the number one TV news cast in Houston and held the top position for a long time. KHOU then moved past KPRC into second place, where it steadily gained ground on KTRK. But at the same time, for reasons no one has yet been able to fathom, instead of trying to be like the first place station, KTRK, the manager at KHOU wanted to be like the last place station, KPRC. Huh? Check out this article in the Houston Press from 1999. http://www.houstonpress.com/1998-04-30/new...pirit-of-texas/

Actually the most effective way to protest the TV stations' stupidity is to complain constantly but intelligently to their local advertisers -- the people who pay the station's bills. They're the only ones the TV station managers pay any attention to. Viewers need to bury the local sponsors with complaints about the stupid local people and programming their money is keeping on the air. TV managers will ignore thousands of complaints from viewers, but four or five unhappy deep pocket sponsors will have their undivided attention. As for KPRC, this one is a tragic mystery. Once upon a time it was the crown jewel of Houston television news. It had one of the most respected news directors in the country, who put together an equally fine and respected staff of award winning reporters and photographers. It was the standard by which TV news departments were measured all over this part of the country. I don't know what Larry Blackerby thinks he has over there now, but it's an embarrassing travesty. As someone who used to work there in the 70s, and who remembers those glory days under Ray Miller et al, I can't bear to watch it now. Where do they get people like Blackerby? And does he really think people care what he thinks about anything?

It's almost certainly Neil Frank at KHOU. I've heard from friends there that he's wanted to retire for some time so he can spend more time with his family, while he's still healthy enough to enjoy life in retirement. It's worth noting that he was 55 years old when he retired from the National Hurricane Center in 1987. That makes him 75 now. Amazing what TV makeup can do. I want some of whatever he's using. My friend over there told me that every time Neil even mentions retirement, KHOU throws more money at him. I'm betting that he will finally tell them money isn't everything and hang'em up this year. He's financially well fixed, he's in great shape for a 75 year old, and he owns a house in Colorado, where he vacations as often as he can. I'm willing to bet a six pack of your favorite that's where he and his wife will be living full time before the year's out, probably as soon as the hurricane season is over.

Coming from the northeast you will not believe Houston home prices. Homes that cost a million or more in the New York and Boston area can be bought for half a million or less in Houston. I'm talking about very good high quality homes. A friend at the Chamber of Commerce told me a few years back about an IT executive who transferred from the west coast to Houston with a 300k housing allowance. He bought a beautiful house in an upscale neighborhood and even had some money left over. It ended up causing problems for him because when his CEO on the west coast came to visit, he was ticked off that one of his subordinates lived in a bigger and better house than he did. People who live here are always griping about their property taxes, but that's only because they haven't seen how high taxes are in other parts of the country. Taxes here are so low they'll take your breath away. And have we mentioned there's no state income tax? So let us know when you get here so we can all get together at the nearest pub for some adult beverages.