alybeary

Funny you mentioned the hill in front of Neff. I just drove past the school last weekend and wondered to myself why they had to get rid of the hill. Remember how there were always two Golden Eggs when they had the Easter Egg hunt out front? And did you ever encounter a horny toad on the kick ball field?!

It has been several years since I have been back to Sharpstown. I don't recall the Golden Eggs, but I am sad to hear that the hill is gone. I do remember the day that "man first walked on the moon" - they wheeled in one of those tv's on a cart and we all sat and watched it in our classroom. I always thought that cement square thing in the middle of the school was strange.

Anyone remember SFDS carnivals? We went to those every year. I can remember playing BINGO.

Oh and I think the K-Mart grocery part was a Lewis and Coker. And Churches Chicken was on the corner of that parking lot. We had fried chicken every week! But my favorite was Long John Silver's. It seems like LJS's was on the same parking lot until they moved it across to the other side of the freeway over there by Channel 2?

my family used to go pick dewberries in a some of those fields off of Hillcroft before they were all developed. The comment about Horny Toads caught my eye because we used to run across horned toads in those fields while we were picking berries (along with lots of snakes).

My dad used to take us to pick Dewberries also. What fun! I had forgotten about that...One thing that you brought memories of was seeing dead "frogs" smashed in the street. I know this sounds terrible, but we use to see them all the time, then many years later when I would go back to my parents home, I always wondered where all the "frogs" went to.

One more thing I remember...going to Sharpstown Mall and eating at the Woolworths, when it had windows that faced out to the interior of the mall. I always ordered a cherry coke and we sat in the booths by the windows.

This forum has brought tears to my eyes. Oh what great memories. We moved to Sharpstown in 1965. I was 4 years old. We lived on Langdon Lane, 3 blocks from K-Mart, in between Mary Bates and Gessner. I went to Pat Neff Elementary, Sharpstown Jr. High, and graduated from Sharpstown High School in 1979. I remember our house being built prior to moving in. There was only 1 other house on our street, which was our next door neighboors. We use to fly bat kites in the fields all around us. I remember going to the houses that were being built and walking all around them when they were nothing but 4x4's and nails everywhere. I remember getting a tetnus shot for stepping on a nail. I remember the hill in front of Pat Neff Elementary School that always seems so big when we hunted Easter Eggs. We too walked to The Purple Cow and got purple ice cream on a cone. Last time I was in Houston, the sliding window that opened up to order your ice cream was still there. We also walked to the 7-elevan to get candy and icee's. I remember the 2 houses on the next block over that burned down. One was the corner of Mary Bates. I remember the car the drove through the window of the one houses on the corner of Mary Bates. Can't remember the street names they were on. Also I remember their was a Dairy Queen that we use to go to on Bellaire. You could drive up to it and order your ice cream! I can picture the Country Club Pool in my mind. We were not members, but I always got to go with my friends as Guest. The high diving board seemed really high to me. I remember getting up early and standing in line at Landsdale Pool to sign up for Swim Lessons. The entrance to the pool seems to have stayed the same. My sister worked at K-Mart, and I worked at Gemco. One year I was the one who you showed your membership card to when you came in the front door. Taco Bell was on the same parking lot. I remember how it flooded so bad in our neighborhood that we took an air boat from K-mart parking lot to our street to get home. I remember going to Sharpstown Mall to watch the fireworks on July 4th and how much traffic we always had to sit in to get back to MaryBates from Bellaire Blvd. I remember the Marie Callendars across the street from the mall on Bellaire. I also worked a couple years as a checker at Handy Andy. I remember it was robbed on a night that I was not working. How about Uncle Sam's. It was in a strip center off of Fondren I think. Anyone remember when we got to paint the fire hydrants red, white and blue in the neighborhood. I think that was in 1976 for the bicenttenial. Or when it snowed and they closed Sharpstown Jr. High because the snow actually stuck. I was able to make my first snowman on our backyard picnic table. I remember the water tower on the corner of Gessner and Bellaire.

I remember waking up in the middle of the night when Hurricane Alicia hit and the electricity was out and seeing our pine trees in the front yard be bent to the roots. We taped up our windows several times when I lived on Langdon in fear that hurricanes were going to hit. Over the years I went back to Sharpstown to visit my parents, who lived in our house for 38 years and moved 2 years ago to New Mexico. It was hard to drive down Bellaire and Gessner. I always thought their neighborhood was well kept, but the surrounding eye sore apartments were so hard to see after all those years. Oh I also remember the Sharpstown Ice Skating Rink..spent many friday nights there skating to the song Philadelphia Freedom! HA!. I think there was also a bowling alley over there, and I remember when they first put it in, it had those automated score keeper machines. They were hugh! I also remember going to a Pizza Hut on Gessner, past Bellaire Blvd. on the right past the strip center by Fiesta. Fondren also had a Jack-in-the-box where you actually ordered through Jack in the box. Well that is all I can think of now. I will always have great memories of growing up in Sharpstown!