Was slumming near Garner today....so I was "in the hood".   Garner stood fast against time for many years.....but is now engulfed by development.  Makes you want to dynamite a bulldozer.  Still the memories slapped me around.  Across from Garner..stood .."The Hill".  Remember the whispers..  "they'll be fightin' on The Hill after school".   I saw Cheney fight there. ..and Bill Sills..and others I can't bring back.  No guns, no knives...just pegged pants and tangerine stomps.  Drove under the nightmarish Loop 410 construction project...across which the  Degges brothers, Thielman, Dalke and I used to walk to and from Garner...till Leslie got her license and drove us bad boys in her blue corvair.  Took a turn  down Old Ranch Road...past Leslie's....and the Graham's homes.  Over to Chisolm....the Pearce quarters (still in inspection order with the colors flying) and Terry Laughlin's old house where I'd watched The Invaders practice countless times.  Then down Valley View past the old Moody place. Crossed over Nachodoches..into Northeast Village...past Nona Kay where Betsy Brewer lived.... where Tony and Guy Sealy duked it out after stepping off Mr Katzer's bus one 8th grade afternoon.  Turned left at Lovelance and LaRue (where sweet Sally Smith lived)  past the Fletcher place....and  John Mullin's pad.  Went 'round the bend onto Lantana.....stared down a rogues gallery of ghosts ...the Degges, Powers and Olsen brothers, Courtney (Weismueller) Theilman, and Roger (Teabag) Teagarden....the lovely Sleeper sisters and the adorable Connies...Mercer and Sulser.  Shot a glance over to Wahada... saw Lynn Kret walking in time with Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman". ...and heard somebody growl.    Drove past Mac....didn't recognize it .....or "Mr M".....so I gunned it down Nachodoches....past the Shamrock Mansion (which used to be a farm).....took a detour and drove by  Emily Harris's and Karen Cunnigham's old porches  .(where I often cooled my heels) ...saw Stan Phelp's combing his ducks in front of his old place....then down Nachodoches, past Shropshire where my first sweetheart Debby Manning lived, along with Debbie Ford, Barb Marullo, and Arlene Mayer.  Pulled into the Colonial Plaza Shopping Center where James Syke's family had a Dry Cleaners.  The old Summer's Drug store where Tony called the soda jerk by his correct title....is now a beer joint.  Mr Hardesty's old Barber Shop .... is now a dive called "Rod Dogs" ....where tatooed women float in and out.  The old Colony North Apartments  where  Tina Avlakeotes lived and her mother was the Manager, and where Tony lived in the early 70s....is now the Bella Clair Apts. Grabbed a bottle at the old Dons and Bens, took a swig,  floored it out of there.... past the long gone Texaco where Edgar Boeck and his 57 Chevy worked, past the El Rancho, past the Copper Penny Lounge ..past yesterday....onto Loop 410 and headed west at a 110....just like the old days in the Blue Goose.

 WOW! Roger, you know how to spin a tale--took me right down memory lane and the alleys adjacent thereto. On Wagon Wheel St. (near the intersection of Nacogdoches and 410), there used to be a Lone Star Ice House (next to where the Taco Cabana is now--the TC sits on the old Cleve Marshall Landscape Co. site). I used to buy kites there for $.99 to fly in the upper parking lot of MacArthur Park (over the fence from my house)--I soon found out it was a terrible place to fly a kite--too many trees and power lines. I was also fascinated by the LSIH TV tube cabinet with all the various types of replacement TV tubes and "tester" sockets to see if you really needed a new tube. Later, I was introduced to submarine sandwiches--thank you, Toni Cusick Dunn--from Capparelli's when it was located on Nacogdoches where Bill Miller BBQ is now. I remember Mr. M's and getting a slushy drink there after sports and getting a HUGE brain freeze EVERY time b/c I gulped it down. I remember going to Gulf Mart on Broadway and thinking it was an amazing place--so many different kinds of goods there. NOTE: When it became an Antique Mart, I was browsing there and saw a framed panoramic photo of the Mac Class of 1970 for sale as a collectible. I remember going out Bitters Rd. towards the airport, between Broadway and Wetmore Rd., to visit the Flowers family on its "ranch" where they kept Li'l General, our Brahma mascot. The older Flowers boys (Mac Class of '61 and '64) used to throw a saddle on that bull and ride him--YEE HAW!--in the corral. The place where I played Little League baseball was at the intersection of Blossom and Reininger, off Nacogdoches, towards Broadway, I believe. It's now an apartment complex. I remember a blacksmith's shop still in operation near Short's Corner, where my dad went to get our mower's front axle welded back together after I ran over something that wasn't grass. I remember being stopped near the boys' gym by Coach Terry, saying I was speeding on campus b/c he had used a stopwatch to time me from the old fieldhouse to the gym. As proof, he showed me his stopwatch and then a chart that had various times for that trip converted into mph--QED--but I got off with just a warning. I remember Sidney King confirming that it was his hairy arm that was used as the creepy intro to the Sat. afternoon horror films on one of the SA TV stations--he said it was b/c his was the only hairy arm in the studio! I remember going to Joe Graham's house in 7th and 8th grades when he was doing his "nicotine tar causes skin cancer in mice" science experiments and seeing that his mom and dad let him use the ENTIRE two car garage for his project--now THAT was real love! So many more things come to mind but that's enough for mind. Thanks, Rog, for making me think about that.