TheBez

I totally miss the old mall; the new version looks like every other mall. I know that Wards always looked like a garage sale, but they had a really neat jewelry store just outside the internal mall entrance and my mom dragged me to that fabric store (I think it was called the Golden Needle) with weird antiques all the time. I also recall going to the movie theater with the balcony; and I think I might have seen that horrid movie 'The Legend of Billie Jean'. I still miss the old Foleys there.

The other thing is Sears.... I recall they used to have an all window front entrance and candy counter/icee machine by the Gessner entrance. I was sad when they covered up the outside and put up the new-ish logo. No matter what they do it is going to look like a yard sale in there

My main recollection is the mall always smelt mildewy because of the fountains and the Walgreens felt cramped. So far I am not really impressed with the recent renovation.

Howdy y'all.... my sister just got back to her house in City Park off 288 and they have BOTH water and power. Her zip is 77047. And she told me not much damage in her nieghborhood.

Hopefully this is true for the whole 77047 area.

Take care

- TheBez

I have sprint and can't get reception. Anyone else having that problem?

My peeps have sprint and are having the same issue (no bars) the only network that seems to be quasi working it AT&T.

Any news about City Park off 288 ? My sister's house is over there and I can not get ahold of her at all (cell coverage is a wee bit spotty...)

Does anyone know if any of the H.E.B.s that are open have Gas ? I ask because they are sending crews in from SA to open some of there locations.

What was it like growing up out there? Matagorda, specifically.

Well first the good part -> you could ride your bike anywhere without getting ran over everyone knew everyone, which is mostly bad if you are a kid. I spent alot of time crabbing (well in reality just trying to catch them to play with)

The other bits: Lotsa mosquitoes..... no real grocery stores so you had to drive into Bay City for any shopping. We did not have cable but an antenna so TV (even with a signal booster) was always a crap shoot. I remember the big treat was going into Lake Jackson to go shopping, and it was a HUGE deal to go to Houston for the day.

I lived in Matagorda (and later the big city of Bay City) as a kid and would not wish that upon anyone. When we moved to Houston the fam bought a house at Matagorda beach and later lost it when they decided to no longer lease the land

I remember being annoyed by the egregious product placement. The main characters drank 7-11 Slurpees even though 7-11 had already been out of the Houston market for like a decade. Ditto Rolling Rock beer. Nobody in Houston ever drank Rolling Rock.

I remember that too you would watch it and want to go get a slurpee and be S.O.L.

I will admit to drinking alot of Rolling Rock while I was going to school in Denton Go Pioneers !

What about tha BEST ONE ? Reality BITES . . .(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110950/)

Me and my sister ate here on 12/31 and both got very very sick . . . . just wanted to warn everyone.

Color Tile! Ugh.

What's next, reminiscing about how much you miss your Wiener's?

Oh man . . I miss their crappy overpriced grey market merchandise.

OMG . . . I went roller skating at Fame City when they were at MCM. That was back in the day when they still had Monkey Wards (which always looked like a tornado hit it) and all the fountains that made the mall stinky

T&C had the best food court when they opened . . and the movie theatre in question was not part of the mall. The theatre was in a stand alone building but the hotel. (I saw one of the ghostbusters movies there ) I will admit I was a mall-rat and constantly hung out there. I recall the Dillards being very squished feeling and extremely early 80's colors (think fast times at ridgemont high decor).

The other thing I rember is that we were on the top level of the parking garage watching the concert to open the Tollway ( someone has to have pictures of that! )

Hey . . . they have these at the San Antonio Zoo :-) I ALWAYS burn my hand on them.

I just read this and as a survivor of KISD (specifically Mayde Creek schools) I can tell you this type of thing has been going on for more than 20 years !

I was suspended in my senior year and had to get a lawyer to be able to graduate. What did I do that was so heinous ? Well I wrapped a band teachers house one night with a group of friends -> keep in mind this was completely on my own time off school property and in the wee hours. KISD is AWFUL in the way they treat students. One good thing though, from the picture in todays Chronicle of the girls 'boyfriend' is that they no longer have the ban on long hair for boys.

Two of my more vivid memories of Joskees. At their Gulfgate location the store had three floors. It's first floor was really the same level as the basement for the rest of the stores. There was a hill that had a sidewalk that ran from the bowling alley entrance and the Picadilly reasturant towards Joskees looping around the hill and down to the lower level. As kids we would ride our bikes down the hill as fast as we dared and try not to hit the front of Joskees. Well a friends brother went a little to fast, couldn't pull it out and crashed through the front plate glass window of the store. He got cut up pretty good. The second story was one my mother always told me about the Joskees in San Antonio. To this day if you look at the live.maps overhead view of what is now Dillards at the Riverwalk Mall you will see that the store is actually built around a small Catholic Church and is on three sides of the church property. The story was when Joskees built the store they aquired all the land except the churches and the church refused to sell. I would link to the picture but this site does not allow it.

Back in the day my family refered to is as St. Joskes . . .

Thats a good question, I love playing Put-Put. We used to go to the Castle on 610 and I10 I think it was. They also had a Malibu Grand Prix.

joe

There was a Castle on I10 . . but not at 610. There was one I think on 59 close to 610 ? I remeber going to the one on I10 in JrH and HS... and they guys would always try to turn it into a driving range and knock one to the feeder.

We used to go there all the time when I was really little (we lived in SA). I would have to say it was in the 70s. Do any of y'all know if they still have the Panchos glasses filled with the red and green jello ? At one point I had a fine set of 6 when I lived in Denton while at TWU. (They had a location in Lewisville and I needed glasses for entertaining)

I still can't believe that this film was made. I am only glad as the years pass that this film starts to fade away from my memory at least. Maybe it was the timing it was made?

I was in high school and every guy I knew simply hated John Revolta. Even some of the smarter girls thought he was just tooo fruity. He was so type cast as Vinny Barbarino as a hip NYC high school Sweathog, I mean come on. Not to mention Saturday Night Fever. Yuk! So now he is put in a macho image tough-cowboy in Paserdener? They may as well had Richard Simmons play the part.

His Texas swagger has to have been one of the worse ever. In some of the scenes he even forgets he is from Texas and the Brookyn dialects is clearly heard.LOL We used to check out Gilley's only out of pure curiousity and this was BEFORE the movie was made. It was just a ramshackle tin roofed beer joint and had numerous additions to the main bldg. Basically it was just a oversized beer dive. Rarely did you ever see any minorities in there. The Klan was still running most of Pasadena at the time. Texas proud huh?

Any how, this film has to be one of the main one that stereotyped Houston for ages, and the TV show Dallas. Ok, Iv'e vented. Much better now. Talk amongst yourselves. Any old subject will do.

Oh by the way, the only thing that was cool about Gilleys was the big sign out front. I think Mickey G saved it somewhere. Yeahahhh! Time for a Lone Star!

It is a terrible film . . . . and did people really dress like that ?

Do you mean the stand alone theathre at T&C that was facing 8 ? If that is the one... I remember is being really stinky inside

Does anyone remember at Memorial City way way way back in the day the Monkey wards and the jewlery store that was close by ? That was a really good jewlery store, the were selling old stock really cheap at one point ( I got alot of late 60's charms in the mid 80's for next to nothing) Oh and the weird fabric store they had... I think the name of it was the Golden neede ? My mom used to drag me in there...

That Thunderbolt commercial sounded like it was recorded in the late 1970's thanks for sharing. all we need now is a sprinkle of I.W. Marks, Pick U Part and The Men's Warehouse ...I am starting to smell pizza is Paul Boesch wrestling on ?

Thank you for making me feel incredibly OLD !

I do remember they ran that horrid thunderbolt tran commercial for y-e-a-r-s ... her outfit always made me crack up...

Someone help me out here -> for some reason I am thinking they replayed the rasslin' on sunday mornings ? or am I confusing it with the old movies they showed ? I am thinking it was channel 13 that did this, cause I do remember watching ALOT of abbot and costello in the mornings.

psssssssssssstttttt ! Kim...................you need to get out more. There is WAAAAAAAAYYYYY better Tex-Mex in this town.

I gotta stick up for the Panchos. It is not expensive, and the sofa-pillows are yummy ! The only problem is some of the locations are kinda... uh..... not as nice as they could be.

I used to have a large collection of the glasses that the jello came in

i thought there is no sales tax in OR or was it no state income tax?

I thought the weather was really nice every time I go, It's grey to look at, but isn't it great to feeling cool all the time and not so humid.

Nice walkable downtown, and many nature and outdoor hiking areas so near downtown.

Lots of ppl biking all over I remember.

great outdoors, nature in very direction, including the pacific ocean that is much better to look at than the gulf coast.

Plus you can take a few hours roadtrip in every direction and see good stuff, up to seattle, down to san francisco, east to, well idaho

I really like trader joe's too, but portland has so many farmer's markets, I would rather shop those.

bad thing, price of living is higher.

There is no sales tax, but there is a state income tax, and if you live in Multnomah county there is also a county income tax..(although that might be expiring soon)

It is very humid and damp here most of the year, and lotsa gray... if you have to live here that gets old really quick.. . about the 3rd month of no sunshine it really starts to wear on you. Like today, it is irritating drizzle and chilly -> Ahhhhh Spring

I do agree there are nice places to walk, but like any place you have to be careful where you walk and the time of day it is. This is especially true downtown, and in some of the other areas of town (NE and SE). I know when I am walking back from school (OHSU on the hill) to work (downtown next to pioneer square) I only take the trails back if it is during the day. You have to be careful on the park trails because of 'campers'. They have a really big homeless population here and while some folks just hit hard times; there are others who aggresively beg for change especially in the downtown area. (they are mostly the folks with the face tattoos)

As for being within driving distance of nice places... you can go to the beach for shopping and looking (water is toooo cold); or up to Hood to go skiing. I do go to Seattle very often because the shopping here in PDX is severely lacking. Next time you visit up here and drive to Seattle make sure you take an Oregonian with you or someone with an Oregon drivers license.... then you do not have to pay sales tax

The Farmers markets are too rich for my blood... I am a poor student

I just looked on this list and Portland, OR is on there... WTF ?!? This place is one of the MOST OVERRATED places. The cost of living is incredibly high, it is grey here for about 8 months out of the year, plus the museum they mentioned is over $7 per person with no free days ! Oh did I mention the saturation of bums and beggars downtown ? Plus the majority of people who live here are full of themselves. Plus -> No DECENT TEX MEX ( I am suffering from withdrawls....sorry)

As of today gas is over $3.10/gal and the bus will run you $2.00. The shopping is subpar (except for the Columbia outlet in the Sellwood neighborhood)... all this screams overrated to me. I still do not know why people would choose to move here. Did I mention the State and County tax ? But there is one good thing -> I got a Trader Joes

PS I am here to go to school . . . . . Like my mom keeps telling me; I am only visiting.

OMG . . . the original one was AWESOME ! I liked to try on the helmets that they had. I remember begging my parents for junk (they did not love me so I got NOTHING; but it is okay I am completely over it ) My most clear memory of the place is walking over to see the rockets outside and my mom complaining that is was too dang hot and getting a really bad sunburn.

Plus it was FREE