Brahma Tales

 

Forum: Do you remember?

TOPIC: 

-1'

Created on: 04/23/09 08:26 PM Views: 2844 Replies: 4
Tom's Hideout
Posted Thursday, April 23, 2009 03:26 PM

I'm posting this to get Cindy Haslett (Montanio) and Debby Manning (dare I say Barnes) off the dime to tell the real back story here.  Years ago, in a land far, far away, before there was a Los Patios mega restaurant on Loop 410 (site of our last reunion) there was, at that very same location, a  beer joint, for the barstool stars, called "Tom's Hideout".  It was owned and run by Cindy's Dad....Tom..and later on Debby's Step Dad Hal took up residence there in a booth.  It was on a dirt road, off the loop 410 frontage road, tucked way back into the huge oaks...next to Salado Creek.  It was a rustic looking place....like something out of a 1940's movie set in the Mississippi backwoods.  I discovered it by accident one day, when I was 13, while duck hunting with a BB Gun, and simultaneously swimming down Salado Creek......completely oblivious to the toxic waste dumped in the creek by Stull Chemical Co. upriver on Nacodoches.   My hunting companions included Tony & Rusty Degges and Court Thielman.  We had one BB gun between us and we finished that duck off on the banks of the river next to Tom's Hideout.  From where I stood....sloshing around in my PF Flyers...I thought I saw Mrs Manning and Mrs Haslett holding court from their barstools. They looked like they were having fun.  I made a mental note to return to visit Tom's Hideout when I dried out and could pretend to be an older person.  Meanwhile....we took the dead duck home and my mom cooked it up for us kids (Tony reminded me of this fact on our last phone call).  These are the stories that live forever in boy's memory.

 

Roger Barnes

 
Edited 04/23/09 06:16 PM
RE: Tom's Hideout
Posted Friday, April 24, 2009 07:57 AM

The reference to Stull Chemical Co. stirred a memory of a long-forgotten Saturday afternoon trespass on the SCC site. I can't recall who I was with, but just that every step I took, I thought I was going to be arrested. It seemed like it took forever to cross that property and get back to civilization. 

 
RE: Tom's Hideout
Posted Friday, May 1, 2009 02:47 PM

I had no idea we had any chemical companies in San Antonio--wonder what they made there?? Of course, I never did know about Toms Hideout either---

Kathy

 
RE: Tom's Hideout
Posted Monday, May 4, 2009 10:24 AM

The reference to Stull also brings back some faded memories of one summer afternoon, while on our "Sting Ray" bikes (bicycles), the Lantana Boys, jumped the locked gate, and swam in some runoff water (oh, now my life from that point on is REALLY beginning to make sense...).

 

:-)

Court T.

 
RE: Tom's Hideout
Posted Wednesday, May 6, 2009 05:51 PM

Courtney...I remember that day...it was special.  It was you, me, the Degges brothers, and Eddie Olsen.  There had been a rainstorm earlier and their was a huge runoff "waterfall" into a large cavernous hole.  The cliffs above this deep water were about 1 1/2 story high.  We fearlessly jumped from the sides of the cliffs into the big muddy....unknowingly immersing ourselves in a toxic soup.  Eddie Olsen, being older and a more dignified hoodlum, merely observed our frolic....later driving off in his classic grey Triumph convertible (with his pistol in the side pocket)...while we rode home with our soggy PF Flyers on our sting ray bikes.  Everyone got excited when Tony Degges grabbed a water snake and started twirling it around ....at one point he pulled it between his legs like a snake handler on acid.   It was the most fun we ever had at Salado Creek...the water never rose that high again.

Roger Barnes