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I understand where you're coming from. I'm slightly younger - I was in 7th grade at the time. What amazed me is that when I asked my 82 year old father about it today, he remembered it vividly. He even remembered the pilot's name.

I'm not sure that there were any children playing. It happened around 10:30 at night. If he came from Ellington Field, he would have been flying north and might have passed over Parker or Kolter school. Herod Elementary didn't open until 1965.

I'm sure it was in a field, or very close to the bayou. There were no houses where it crashed. I just changed the entry on wikipedia.

I was wrong. I just asked my dad and he said that he didn't take pictures. I guess that's why I never saw them. He said that the plane crashed just on the other side of Braes Bayou. He and the neighbor were approaching from the south and as they reached the bayou to cross over, the plane exploded. It's a good thing they hadn't crossed it yet. It would have been somewhere between Chimney Rock and Hillcroft. I found info about Gary Herod on wikipedia, but it says that the plane crashed in the area that now contains Meyerland Plaza. Of course that is wrong. Meyerland was built in 1957 and the crash was nowhere near there.

Does anyone remember this plane crash? http://es.houstonisd.org/herodes/About_Herod/Our_Hero.htm We were living in Marilyn Estates and I had just gone to bed when I heard the plane go over the house and then heard it crash. The explosion lit up my window. I actually thought the Russians had dropped the bomb - this was the time of the cold war. My dad (who was a professional photographer at the time) grabbed his camera and ran out of the house. He was joined by our neighbor who was a mortician. They got wet running across Braes Bayou and were the first ones at the site. My dad told me that he saw the helmet on the ground and then realized that it wasn't empty. That's all he would say and I never saw any of the pictures. A short time later a tree was planted near Meyerland Plaza with a plaque dedicated to Captain Herod.

They toys could have belonged to my mother and her sisters, or they could be my cousin's. I guess it depends on how old they were. I know my cousin kept a lot of her toys in the room at the back of the store. I'll look through my mother's pictures tomorrow and let you know what I find. When they bought the house in 1935, my grandfather, who was a cabinet maker and carpenter, divided it into three "apartments". The main part of the house - living room, dining room, kitchen, and master bedroom (which had another small bedroom attached to it) - was for the Alexanders. Another part was for my grandparents and their four younger daughters (which included my mother.) They had two bedrooms, kitchen, dining room, sun porch, and a small sitting room. The third part was leased to another family. I know that when I was a baby, my parents lived in that part for a short time. My mother remembered that the house was really large and beautiful before he remodeled it. She was eight years old when they moved there.

I am shocked. I had no idea that the house was well known. The Alexanders were my aunt and uncle. My grandfather built the grocery store around 1935, when my aunt and uncle bought the house. I have a few pictures of my mother and her sisters during the 40s when they were teenagers. The house is in the background, but you can't see very much of it. My cousins and I used to love to play on the large front porch. We also loved the grocery store where my aunt would give us free candy. My mother told me that there was a statue of her in the attic that my grandfather had carved. Do you know anything about it? She knows that my aunt didn't take it when they sold the house. Is there any way that I could get a copy of the 1904 newspaper article? Thanks so much for this information. I am going to add it to my family history files.

The land that the house stood on was recently sold for a townhouse development and the house relocated to the SE corner of Lubbock and Silver Street in the Sixth Ward where it will be restored as a residence. My mother grew up at 2210 Lubbock, which was the corner (or near the corner) of Lubbock and Silver. The house was torn down many years ago, but here are pictures that we took in 1995. My aunt owned the house and the store next door. They sold it over 30 years ago.

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I went to see them once - in the early 80s. The son of a friend of mine was in it. Some of the boys I taught were in it also - that could have been any time from 1971 to 1984.

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I believe that Don Janicek died a few years ago. I'm trying to look it up on the Chronicle archives. I found it. DONALD "DON" HOWARD JANICEK, born July 26, 1933, passed away October 27, 2002 at age 69, after suffering a massive heart attack. Don was best known as the Founder and Owner of Don's Record Shop in Bellaire. Don was a Charter Member and Past President of The Bellaire Southwest Rotary Club, and a recipient of the Paul Harris Award. He was a Past Board Member of the Belliare Chamber of Commerce and member of Holy Ghost Catholic Church.

When I was in high school - mid 60s - there was a number that I believe was called The Grapevine. When you called it, you could hear several people talking at once. What usually happened, was that you would give someone your number and they would call you to have a private conversation. I never gave out my number, but I did call someone else who gave me his number. We never did meet, though. I guess that was the first chat room.

We used to shop at Craig's in the Village all the time. We didn't have to "dress up" to go there like we did when we went to Sakowitz or Battlesteins. Later on, when I was in college, we shopped at Craig's in Memorial City, especially before Foley's opened there.

We took the pictures early on a Sunday morning in January of 94. It's the only time we would even attempt to drive downtown. That's why everything looks so quiet. My dad wants to take a ride down there again to see the place where he lived as a small child. If we do, we'll also drive down Main Street and take pictures again at the same intersections. Krupp and Tuffly shoe store used to be on Main at Walker, where Jack in the Box is in the picture. It was really sad to see everying look so seedy and run down. My parents both grew up here and spent a lot of time downtown because back in the 30s and 40s that's where all the stores and movie theaters were. It depressed them to see how bad it looked.

Here are the pictures again 1940 Main at Lamar 1994 Main at Lamar 1940 Main at McKinney 1994 Main at McKinney 1940 Main at Walker 1994 Main at Walker 1940 Main at Rusk 1994 Main at Rusk 1940 Main at Capitol 1994 Main at Capitol

I remember watching him when I was really young. I always thought he was saying, "I'm just a wonder of the waistline." I couldn't figure that out, because he wasn't fat or anything.

I remember that Westbury and Lee look exactly the same. I'm curious, does Lee still have the original three-story classroom building? I would think that it had the same construction as the one at Westbury and probably the same structural problems.

I keep reading about people who took dancing from Hallie Pritchard, so I decided to start this thread. I started out taking from Anne Keene in Bellaire from ages 4 to 7. I then took from Hallie Pritchard for about two years. I remember learning tap dances to the Varsity Drag and Basin Street Blues. I also learned a ballet dance to Waltz from Faust which I performed as a solo in a recital. Ann Miller mentions taking from Hallie in her autobiography, although her name is spelled wrong. I never performed on the Don Mahoney show as a child, but I was on there later as an adult. That's a story for the other thread. Here are two pictures of the studio on Fannin that I took in 1994. I believe that the building has been torn down, but I don't know for sure.

The person who found them used them for the science fair project that year. I don't know what happened to them after that.

On the west side of the ditch near johnson jr high, a wooly mamoth or masterdon skeleton or fossil was found in the early 1960. I knew the kids who found those bones. I probably would have been one of them, but I was not there that day. I can remember one of my teachers at Johnston commenting on this and wondering why they were playing in the ditch.

I didn't go to Reagan, but I have several friends who did. I'm sure they would feel exactly the same way.

Does anyone remember these: I attended a nursery school in 1952 - I was four. It was somewhere in "downtown" Bellaire. I think it was called Playhouse or Playmates. The one thing that I remember the most was that they had a tricycle merry-go-round. There were about 8 - 10 tricycles mounted on a platform and only went around if all the children were pedaling. Edit: September 2, 1954 Playmates Pre-School 5221 Spruce / MA-2987 Mrs. Herbert Rohloff . . . Mrs. Howard Dunaway The other one is the first place I taught in the early 70s. It was just east of Post Oak, but I don't remember if it was off of Willowbend or West Bellfort. It was called Town & Country School and Camp. The people who owned it were named Bobo. I tried to find it on google, but I'm not sure. There is something south of Willow Park that looks like it could be a school. Edit: September 13, 1961 Town & Country School. Off Willowbend Blvd. at 11524 Craighdead - MO 5-1148. Mrs. N.R. Bobo, Owner. Can anyone help with either of these?

I'm not sure when Lamar was built, but my dad went there in the early 40s. ETA - It was built in 1937. We had no air conditioning when I was in school. I had to go to college for that. The school where I taught my first two years also had no air conditioning. That was really miserable. They finally got it the third year.

In the years I was there (63-66) Fred Pepper was a phys ed. teacher. Rivers Lodge was dean of women, Kenneth Gupton was asst. principal, and William Burns was principal. Mr. Burns died the summer after I graduated and Mr. Gupton became principal.