James King

The Garden Oaks Theater Fun Club on Saturday was a lot of fun.  The Copperhead serial that Sweetie spoke about was just as entertaining as the movie.  Remember "The Thing"?  I threw my popcorn when the monster, James Arness, broke through a door.  Did anyone go to the Yale Theater?  There was a similar Fun Club on Saturday.

Teddie Jordan ' 64

I love in the picture of Tiny Romunds how his tie only goes half way down to his belt buckle. It gives you an idea of how tall he was. The police department probably only issued one size tie, the same one for an officer that was five feet six in height as for Tiny who was probably five feet twenty.

Don't ask me how I know, but he could run really fast. What a nice man and his only real interest was in keeping us all safe.

Mildred Sue (Suzie) May (Cunningham)

Saturday mornings at the Fun Club were certainly special, especially since we could stay to see the feature that was "playing" after the Fun Club. After the movies, I would do next door to pharmacy for a drink, usually a lemonade. When it was time to go home, I called my mom from the pay phone at the back of pharmacy.

I hope no one else was silly enough to order a pine float at the Pharmacy counter. I can't remember who told me that ordering a tooth pick in a glass of water would be clever. The waitresses seemed to think it was stupid. At the time, I didn't understand their iritation; now I do.

Does anyone remember the name of the shoe store in the same strip center? Didn't Guard girls have to buy their performance boots there?

Carol Ann Faulkenberry (Harris)

Prayers are with Linda and her family at this time.  May her surgery be successful.  At the same time, prayers are withthe family of the person who is offering this gift.

Carol

Teddie Jordan ' 64

We just got an update from the o r nurse. Two hours into the surgery everything is going well. She expects the surgery to last another 3-4 hours.

Teddie Jordan ' 64

The dr just came out and talked to us. It went exceptional and while complications can and do come up its so far so good. She will be on breathing machine tonight and start waking her up tomorrow. Expectation is 2-3 days in icu and 5-7 in hospital. We thank all of you for your prayers and support and pray for the donor and his family.

Teddie Jordan ' 64

Linda had a fairly rough day and night yesterday (Wed.) but is doing better this morning.

Stephen Ray Puckett

Great news about Linda!    Thanks for the update.  Sending her prayers for a speedy recovery. 

Stephen Ray Puckett

Merry Christmas, everybody! 

Wishing you happy holiday memories!

    Main Street 1960

Jan Barnes (Nimtz)

Stephen Ray Puckett

Alas, Foley's/Macy's is closing.  See

Teddie Jordan ' 64

Steve, you come up with the best stuff!  Many of us still live in Houston, I read the Chronicle almost every morning before daylight, and you still come up with news I haven't seen or heard.

The first charge card my mom ever had was that exact same design Charga-Plate.

My hat's off to you and thanks for your efforts.

Anita Marbury (Marbury)

The Waltrip band is raising money to travel to Washington to play for the inauguration .

They raised $110,000.00 so far.

Read the Houston Chronicle Lifestyle section for more information.

If you can send a check to Waltrip ASAP.  Funds needed by next week.

This retired teacher is sending a check today to help the kids.

Maybe you can too.

Austin Duane Zent

I remeber play a couple of times in the Waltrip band for the president of the United States. Kennedys we're going to the moon speech at Rice and the dinner he attended in Houston, the night before Dallas! I wish the Waltrip 2013 band well, have a good time and a safe trip!

Stephen Ray Puckett

Gosh, Austin.  I certainly remember playing Hail to the Chief for Pres. Kennedy that last night. We were the last band to do so for him. I was on cloud 9 the next day, then when we got the tragic news, in the deep dungeon.  I do not remember playing for him on the earlier trip, when he spoke at Rice. Perhaps I have just forgotten those long-ago days or perhaps they took a smaller number of players.

John Leediker

Stephen, I just watched the Foley's escalator video you posted....I got quite a chuckle out of it as it

brought back a memory. When I was probably somewhere around 6 or 7 years old, I was at the

downtown Foley's (the only Foley's in Houston at that time) shopping with my mom. She was busy

looking at clothes or something and I wandered over to watch the escalators...I was fascinated by

them for some reason. Anyway, I got a bit carried away and started messing with the control switch

near the bottom landing, and somehow I flipped the switch and the escalator stopped running. There

were some people on it who had to climb the stairs to the top and my mom had to report to the

store that I had "broken" their escalator.....but in a pretty short time, there was somebody there to

reset things and get it running. I thought it was an interesting learning experience.....but that is NOT

how my mom felt about it. Your video brought back the memory of that experience.

Thanks,

John

Stephen Ray Puckett

Teddie - Thanks for updating us on the '64 site about Linda's condition and progress.  Great news!  I wish her all good things.  Here's rooting for her 

John - I was fascinated by the escalators which were like going to Disneyland to me when little. Sears was pretty good when we went, like stepping into another world, but going downtown to Foley's was like going to another universe! Those escalators were great and I have not seen their like elsewhere.

Stephen Ray Puckett

Yesterday I went to lunch at "Tex's Pig Pit", a small BBQ place near my house here in little Albany NY. I recognized a guy behind the counter from newspaper articles as being the owner so introduced myself as being a frequent customer since I moved here in 1999 and also as being from Texas. We had a great time comparing notes and I found that he grew up in Oak Forest, went to Stevens/Black/Waltrip, and his Dad worked at the Sears on N. Shepherd. He went to UT-Austin (like me) and eventually located to Albany because his wife was from the area and wanted to care for family, which was part of the reason why I moved here. How about that? We had a good time Visiting, even though he was very busy, with several guys waiting to see him.

He did not graduate from Waltrip because his family moved to Arlington a year or so before graduation.  He would have been class of 1966. His name is David Frazier and lived on Latexo and Althea.  One of his first forays into business was to haul cold drinks and snacks in a wagon and sell them at Candlelight Park.

It's a small world.  I guess I should watch what I am doing cuz who knows who might  be watching me!   There are a couple other guys here who are from Houston and I found out they are friends-of-friends.  For a while there was yet another but she recently moved back to Texas.

Teddie Jordan ' 64

Steve, it is a small world indeed.

Hope you and Lil and Albany are surviving the great winter storm of 2013. I sincerely hope you still have power, but understand that if you don't you probably won't be reading these words for a while. I question whether with oil heat you can still run without electricity but assume you still need it to circulate the air or the heating medium. I know the old radiators we had at Oak Forest Elementary which were steam boiler heated gave off sufficient heat without the benefit of circulating fans.

Hang in there and forget the groundhog, spring is fast on it's way. And we are booming in Texas, jobs are plentiful and we would love to have yall join us. I'm not even going to remind you about what our weather has been like the last few weeks down here, or darnit, I guess I just did.

Stephen Ray Puckett

Wayne, thanks for your concern but we thankfully just caught the fringe of Nemo so only got 5" of snow and a little breeze.  The electricity did not even dim once.  Folks just 30 minutes away got much more and about 60 minutes away got truly hammered.  We have a natural-gas-fired hot-water boiler with radiators in various rooms.  They make automated generators which run off of natural gas or propane - they can take over to run the entire house but are expensive to install ($7-10K). Some folks use portable generators to run essentials like heating, refrigerators, etc. This would cost about $1K for the heating portion.  We have very stable power here so have not felt the need to do anything like this.  In the 13 years here in Albany we lost power for an extended time only once: for 9 hours the day after Hurricane Irene.

Basically we hunkered down not too differently than we do all Winter. We are not 'winter sports' types so look forward to blessed Spring.  In March I have my nose at the window watching for leaf & flower buds to swell and later present the glories of pretty green leaves and flowers. I imagine it would be something like living next to a big field of bluebonnets - every day I would be watching how they develop and try to be patient!

Richard Meek

There is an article in today's Chronicle about my good friend Ed Cearley's mom and dad, Dot and Buster. It's really great how well they seem to be doing. Buster is 92 and working on his 12th book. He hopes to have it published by the time he is 100. Now that' s an optimistic guy. Hope all is well with everyone.

Rich

Stephen Ray Puckett

Thanks, Richard.  The Cearley article:  http://www.houstonchronicle.com/life/kyrie/article/This-love-story-spans-seven-decades-4404263.php   You can see Buster's photo but you must be a Chronicle subcriber to view the article.

Richard Meek

Hey Steve, as a computer Neanderthal I'm still working on trying to post the article on the Forum. In the interim if you would like a copy of the article I'll be happy to scan it and email it to you. Just send me your email address. My address is rmeek@bellgroup.com.

Stephen Ray Puckett

Now that you are among the Blissfully Retired, Robby, how are you spending your time?  Me, I am still a wage slave, capitalist running dog, etc.  My biggest non-work concerns these days are getting the yard work done, downsizing our 'stuff', etc.  Typical householder tasks.  Oh yes, a sewer line split so we're having fun with that.  The plumbers come Friday to replace it. 

July will see us doing some fun things - go down the Blue Ridge Parkway to our Puckett Reunion and look around the area.  Imagine 250+ Pucketts in the same place!  Ha!

Teddie Jordan ' 64

Robby, congrats on your retirement. You will love it.