Materene

Man, I sure worked at a bunch of dealerships in the over 40 years, too old now but I don't care for it any more anyway. Started out in Aug 1970 3 days after I left the Army I was downtown trying to purchase a new Buick 455 Gran Sport, the Yellow and Blue Striped one!. well even after placing 2000 down I still couldn't get it financed? in those days you actually had to have a credit history and an extra hand or arm or even a leg to get financing. Well I was talking with my salesman and he knew I wasn't even working yet so he asked it I wanted to work there. I met the then service manager Florian Meleski and he hired me on the spot, they told me to go down to the Sears Store a few blocks down the street and pick out what tools I needed and charge it to Al Parker. I don't have to tell you there aren't any places like that now and this was probably one of the finest close knit family dealerships in Houston. Every mechanic employed there had been there over 30 years, a few much longer. All of them would be retiring soon and they wanted to bring in some new younger people. The shop foreman was named Frank Bitski, yep they were all Polocks and a grand bunch they were. There was Smitty who was 65 years old and working like he was 24!, saw him some years later in a parts store and he was still doing well. Another was Johnny, a completely deaf man, he would have someone else listen to any noises in a complaint but other than that he worked by himself and was a good mechanic. I remember one time he came whipping around the corner and drove a car upon his 4 post lift, the engine mount was broken and the throttle hung as he topped the lift!, he drove thru the wall and landed out in the service drive which ran the entire length of the building, the only separation from the service bays were plywood panels, so when he took out the wall the 1 inch air line in the ceiling was ripped out and the god awful noise of high pressure air and the horn of that car he was driving made everyone drop to the floor. Old Johnny was sitting there in the car with all that noise around him and people running everywhere and he just looked surprised and stunned. No one injured and everything went back to normal. So here is a photo of what the property looks like now, in 1970 and beyond the property actually had a second lot across the street with a thru street to the other side, they have filled in that street and made that property much larger than it was at one time. Also on the left side of the photo on that corner the old body shop was sitting there, and while I was there they moved the body shop down Milam a few blocks close to the sears store, then used the original body shop for the New Opels which Buick was now selling. That large building across the front of the property is a Bank Building as it was then, there was a coffee shop inside where we would all go and have our coffee several times a day. My next photo and comments will be on Mike Persia where I worked and that's if I can even find any old photos, they're very scare. Mike Persia also owned a dealership in San Antonio.

Bump: There were so many people around because this is where the largest retailers were located. Those buses and cars bring back a lot of memories, I rode those buses often at 5 and 6 years old with my Grandmother. She was a movie fanatic and liked to go to the Majestic or Metropolitan for the afternoon opening shows. I saw many first run movies in those houses, also there was a restaurant much like FIRs that was very near the Movie strip, we would always go into it and have a late lunch before catching the bus. No air conditioners on those buses and the Black folks sat in the rear, that was how 1955 was! It was much later that major retailers moved to the outskirts of downtown and just never stopped moving farther and farther from Down Town. Houston was a wonderful City then but I find it hard to adjust to the new look, don't think that's surprising but in 1970 when I got out of the Army you could drive down Main Street and never pass another car. There were often only 8 police cars on traffic patrol! I was involved in a wreck at the Warwick Circle fountain, a guy ran the yield sign crossing main and onto Montrose. We sat there for over an hour waiting for the accident investigators to arrive. A very popular place was Bill Williams drive in and diner located where the MD Anderson center is sitting, there was actually a side street that connected main and the opposite side of the center. Major changes have gone on in Houston in 40 years, so many land marks have been bull dozed in the name of progress. The old VA hospital was a wooden framed building, very large and very old before it was dozed. It was a Navy Hospital in it's beginnings. My Grandmother worked at the Hilton and also at the Rice Hotel for a time.

I have one picture taken in the front yard at 1629 oxford, a few years ago I was visiting a late Aunt that lived two blocks down towards Reagan High and when I left I drove by the old homestead and had a short moment in time, there was a man outside doing some shovel work in the front yard so I pulled over and spoke with him for a few moments. I told him that I had lived there over 50 years ago and it surprised him a bit. He told me they added a rear upper story to the back of the house and outside of course had been painted and remodeled somewhat, very nice and it still has the same appearance as 50 years ago except for the siding. Believe it or not the siding on the house when we lived there was a roof type rolled tar simulated two tone brick!! Crazy but that's what it had on it. There was a garage apartment in the rear and the young people living there were newly weds who had a small infant daughter. Their names were Billy and Bobbie Copland, don't remember the child's name, I think it was Cindy. The opposite side of our driveway was an old man and woman, with 2o dogs in a fenced back yard. Like I told others recently, back in those days people rarely complained about what other people were doing. Minor nuisances are just what they are!.. anyway the man we always called Uncle Bob, he was German decent and his Wife was Aunt Jewel to us. He was a real card and he worked as a diesel mechanic for the city bus line. The fella always wore these old low cut shoes with the toe sides slit so his corns could breathe! and overalls. He would always bringing cakes and cookies to give to us because he passed the bakery day old store and got them for next to nothing. His wife was a devout church goer there at Baptist Temple and for a hobby she usually gave poor old Uncle Bob a good cussing everyday when he came home from work..lol There bathroom was facing our driveway and we kids would be there playing and hear her calling him every name under the sun, and in the background we could hear him singing , Sally was a good ole girl!!! It was great growing up in the fifties, I do have some black and whites I'll dig them out and scan them and post them. One was Christmas 1958 and all the close family was there, everyone lived right there in the neighborhood, it's sad now because recently all of them died and the roots there in the Heights have all gone with them. I need to reinstall Google Earth again and post a picture of what the place looks like now compared to the picture I'll post with it, not a lot of change except the outside color and appearance. One very striking thing I noticed while driving through there was that all those once plentiful vacant lots are all gone. Yeah I was a regular there at Akin's Drug Store the soda fountain, all my close friends and I spent a lot of our time there before and after school. Directly across Studewood at the V there was a Retig's Ice Cream Parlor where you could get one of the best Banana Splits in Houston. A few years later we moved across the street from Akin's at the intersection where there is now a fancy Bus Park. Our House was demolished for that Bus Park, our front porch would have been exactly where the Bus Bench is now located. There was a Beer Joint or Ice House as they were called in those days directly across the street to our right. On the opposite corner was Hubards Body Shop, many years later he moved his business way out there off Hardy Road and it was spared when the Toll Road came through. A childhood friend living across the street was Jay Demaret the nephew of Jimmy Demaret the US Open Winner way back in the early 50's and also the owner of the Champions Gold Course and Developement. His Father was Malon and he ran the real estate office there at the Champions. Last time I saw Jay was in 1970 downtown at the McDonalds Drive INN, he was in the Air Force at the time and only home for the weekend. His folks had moved from that place I mentioned above out on TC Jester in a very nice posh House. I guess they are dead now that was 40 years ago and they were already getting pretty old. His Mother was a secretary that worked there in the Gulf Building Downtown Houston. Well as you know already that neighborhood has changed so much now I could just barely find landmarks. Akin's was closed years ago, the Hilsher's Home Furnishings that was built new while I was living there , it is also gone and demolished. Wish I could tell about the Fridays and Saturday Nights there at the Pok Rok, a Polish Private Club, it is now a two story refurbished Condo, there was live Polka Bands every weekend and we young guys would buy the Black Janitor his beer if he would bring ours down to us, lol.. We were just teenagers and boy did we have fun dancing with the Polish Girls. I'll PM you and let you know when I post some pictures.

The Heights of today is not the Heights of the olden days, it will never be as it was. Mom and Pop stores died over 40 years ago, a new business in a neighborhood is not a Mom and Pop store, the term has been carried over, the true Mom and Pop stores were gone before I finished Jr High. Like it or not big corporations are the ones that are paying huge taxes and have a right to buy property where it is for sale. It seems every year there is a controversy about Wal Mart opening another store, is it right to make these corporations buy property in another persons neighborhood! If people don't care to shop at Wal Mart don't shop there, obviously more do prefer it or they wouldn't be opening so many. In the Heights of the 50's people were concerned about paying their light and gas bills and having a job, not so much about what someone else might be doing. Really there isn't much property left in the Heights to place a large store, so on the curb of I10 sounds like a normal place for it to be. Personally I didn't like it when they put that useless train down Main Street, but hey that's how life is, it leaves you behind and one day you too will see changes to the Heights that have out grown your era. Crime, now there's a nice subject.. the only thing wrong in society is we continuously spend 100's of millions of dollars to keep the thieves healthy so they can resume their thieving ways after their incarceration is over. The root cause of crime is not because there is another Wal Mart in the neighborhood but because those tasked with the problems of harnessing or stopping crime won't make life hard for those doing the crimes. Contrary to what some believe all those thieves can't be re educated or molded back into society, they're lost and people need to realize that. So crime is what it is because we prefer it that way.

Topic: I would think the answer to Do you want or not want Wal Mart in the area is simple, when that dollar drops to 0 buying power you won't care, you will be very happy to pay 1 dollar for a loaf of bread rather than the 5 dollars at mom and pops. All this angst and talk about Wal Mart would be better served with an effort to get that dollar where it should be and that minimum wage high enough to make these silly topics history. Also Wal Mart has purchased many plots through out the country and never built anything, it's called investment, a win win for them, tax write offs and a plot of land that will go up in value with each passing day. Now how about that minimum wage!

The overall temps have changed considerably in 55 years!! Stop and consider that Houston now is nothing but concrete and asphalt, miles and miles and miles of it... it has a tremendous effect on the overhead air currents and other things that make our weather. It wasn't that hot in the fifties, like the other poster stated they used only an Attic Fan. I never slept in air conditioning until I left the Army in aug of 1970. Our schools there in the Heights did not have air conditioning, we had tall up right fans that the stronger kids always seemed to sit near. The more trees that are cut the less oxygen is produced, it's just the way it is. I remember a movie many years ago where the plot was the earth had slipped out of it's natural orbit and it was slowly starting to die from heat. Can't imagine dying like that, I already quit smoking 25 years ago and I think I'm still losing the battle with Father time. As far as the Internet I can't imagine living without electricity, gone through that several times in my lifetime from Hurricanes. I was around when Carla came calling, the water in some places there in the Heights was 3 feet high. I am in Louisiana now and had the first one before you guys got your last one, I have cousins living in Galveston and they lost everything, even with insurance it didn't come near covering their loss. My uncle and family once lived there on 13 1/2 street near Reagan High School, he moved to Galveston in the early 60's, when he finally got around to building his own house on seven mile road, he buried telephone poles for pilings that raised the base floor up around 6 feet, every hurricane still destroyed everything on the bottom floor. The last one still did not destroy the house but my cousin , his daughter, was the only one left there and she said it was too much to repair it and sold it as is. I had just visited them in 08 before her Mother passed away and the place was beautiful inside. If I were a rich man I think I would take my chances and live there! one of my unfulfilled dreams was to eventually live in Galveston.

I spent most of my childhood living at 1629 Oxford street. This of course was only a block away from Eugene Fields Elementary. My first day in school my Grandmother walked me to the front door of the school and told me to pay attention to my surroundings because I would be walking home alone!. Well that was fine except she failed to notice both the front and back doors looked exactly alike, I walked around for an hour in the direction of N. Main and some kind lady saw me looking pretty distraught and asked me what was wrong so I told her I was lost. It wasn't too long before she found where I lived and walked me to the front door. In those days life was so uncomplicated and easy, everyone looked after another. My Grandmother always did her shopping on Saturdays and we must have visited every store within 5 miles, there were stores everywhere in the Heights, Lewis and Coker, Studewood Market (later became Wiengartens), small mom and pop grocers, so many! I know there were kiddie corrals at just about every store, always had an area with a table and loaded with Comic books, we kids sat there and read comics while the grownups did the shopping. Every store usually had some kind of giveaway for the kids, usually a Indian feather band or something along that line. There was free products sent to every household in the mail, soap, Bread, Canned goods, just about anything the mailman could carry the stores and merchandisers sent out. One thing I particularly remember is an old Black man that came through the neighborhood once a week, he rode an old wooden wagon with two mules and sold fresh fruit from the wagon. Recently I read where Houston had banned any Horse Back riding and was really sad to see my home town turn into such a political ball park. Then there was an old man that always gave out candy to the kids, we actually called him the candy man!.. Try that now and someone would probably have you locked up, that old man was a great old man and a long time resident of the Heights, that's just how it was. Christmas of 58 my Sister and I got new Schwin bicycles, I know we rode around that block so many times we couldn't stand. On our corner there was a family owned furniture reupholstering business, that building is still there. The opposite corner towards 20th was bare and vacant, there was a small wood frame church on the same lot just opposite the empty lot. For the longest time the church had the pews outside sitting on the vacant lot, I never knew why but I do remember laying on those long pews and napping in the sunlight. One of my classmates was Chinese and her name was Jenny G, they lived on the corner across from the vacant lot other side of the street. Her parents never let her out doors to play with any of us and our block was full of kids, there was Chuck, his Brother Bobby, Dennis, Paul, Casey. Kids everywhere! I started attending Baptist Temple in 56 and recently I was home for a short time and drove past the Church, it is all run down now and the window frames have rusted down the walls, the windows at the rear end of the block that came up into the Chaplin s office were broken and stuffed with trash! It pains me deeply to see this because the Church in my younger days was a show place in the Heights and it was so beautiful. The Church owned all the property across the street and it was strictly parking, because in the 50's every Church in Houston was full on Sundays.. I know of course they had to sale the property to just financially survive. I think perhaps we're living in those last of days, some of us just don't realize it. Well I could ramble on for hours with memories of the Heights, next time I'll tell how great it was going down town and into those one of kind Movie Houses like the Metropolitan, the Majestic and so many movie houses. gnight Houston