April  2002
Volume II, Issue 3

I am still waiting to tell my evading arrest story.  Our negotiations are about like those on the front pages these days.  Nobody is giving an inch.  I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth as soon as it is clear that there will be no jail time.

We are starting to work on a mailing list of class members in preparation for the 50^th.  Personally, I am getting excited for I am beginning to realize that the 50^th is what reunioning is all about.  This is the Big One.  For most of us this will be the start of the home stretch and I am anxious for a big sendoff.  John will be posting the list on the web page and we will be asking you for your help in updating.  By the way, there were two hundred and one of us that walked across that stage but we can only account for about one hundred and fifty class members now.  We are also going to need some help in tracking those missing Greenies.

When we post this listing we will be the first class represented on what will become a roster of all remaining Greenies.  All of the other classes are going to follow.

Mickey Sellers still needs your cards, letters and phone calls.  Treatment continues and Ronny Walker continues the malted milk routine.  Ronny said that Mickey mowed the grass recently and I attribute that progress to the Pig Stand Malt.  (7572 Wickersham Place, Beaumont, TX 77706; 409 866 3504)

Bennie Marie Pipkin Deaton is going to do some writing for us regarding her family and the historic Pipkin Ranch.  I can’t wait.

Before I close, I would like to make a request.  Since I have begun working with John on  the Gusher, I have found a lot of uses for my yearbooks, the Spindletops.  However, I only have 1953 and 1954. I would so like to have a large set, maybe 1950 to 1956.

I would be glad to pay a good price and postage.  Do you know where any spare copies might be located?

You would think that I would either run out of stories are get smart enough not to put them in the Gusher.  But if that happened, what would we do for filler?

Cars and Houses from the Past

I learned to drive in the driveway, using the term loosely, at 669 Lavaca Street.  I have regretted that the house along with the neighborhood was destroyed by the widening of Lavaca.  For years when I visited in Beaumont I drove the neighborhood to see the house that got me into the seventh grade.  The yard, the porch, the driveway and the chinaberry trees were all there. And, I could follow along my path to school on Lankner Street where I tried every day to see if I could kick one rock all of the way down the block.  Gone.  Everything is gone.  The garage where we parked the old Stude, the shed for our cows and chickens, the trees where we stole Mr. Phelps’ pecans, the ditches where we played during the rain storms and the alley where we did our fires at night.  Robert Mark Broussard and I grew up together there.

I guess that the destruction of the Lavaca Street house was not all bad.  Sure it seemed like a mansion to me when I was growing up but it did have its drawbacks.  The good. The house was pretty big and it had a big yard.  Out back was plenty of room for cows, chickens and an extremely large vegetable garden.  You could add that the neighborhood was very good (That might be a matter of point-of-view for Mom and Dad were not too crazy about the two German families and the Italian Bliss family.  Fortunately, I was just a kid.)  The front bedroom was perfect for older sisters, Bettie and Peggy, and the back bedroom was great from my older brothers, Bobby and John, and me.  I slept on a small steel bed they called a day bed.

Maybe the bad starts with the screened in porch on the back that was left for Mom and Dad. Then, there was no hot water.  How on earth did we wash our clothes and ourselves?  Have you ever seen a No.3 washtub sitting on a four-burner gas stove?  Well that was the secret.  The hot water went to the bathtub or to the washing machine, which sat under the chinaberry tree in the back yard.  And, maybe the space heaters were negative enough for mention.  We only had two.  One in the living room and one in the bathroom.  Of course, if Mother was cooking, the gas stove would heat the kitchen.  Problem?  Well, if we went to church, as we often did, or, if we went to bed, we turned off the heaters.  So, when we got up in the morning, or, when we arrived back from church, somebody had to find a match to light the stoves.  Then, the entire family would stand around the living room stove until warmth prevailed.  That, dear friends took a long time.  Now, who said that we were not a close family?  You might be thinking that it was a problem for seven people to share one small bathroom.  Well, yes for them, but, no, for me.  During the years that I lived in that house, we moved when I was in the seventh grade, I spent as little time in the bathroom as was humanly possible.  It was all that Mom could do to get me to wash my feet at night before I went to bed.

The car was a 1940 Studebaker two-door.  We called it rustic maroon.  That car was a piece of junk long before we got rid of it in 1949.  Of course, we got another Studebaker for my dad was a Studebaker/Jimmy Himmel man.  Our cars were, by the way, stripped models.  The first car that we bought with a heater and a radio was a 1959.  Although it was probably my senior year when I added a radio to our 1951.

I drove the car up and down the driveway just whenever I wanted to.  My dad grew up in the country and I would guess that he treated the car as a tractor except that they were too poor to have a tractor.  Whatever, he did not make any kind of "to do" about learning to drive.  He simply expected me to drive and I just started driving as natural as anything could be.  At age twelve or thirteen I was driving him back and forth to Magnolia Petroleum Company.  Did you ever go there to the tunnel where the men entered the refinery?  When I went to pick Dad after work I would always get there early.  I don’t know what Dad would have said if he would have had to wait for me for it never happened.  I would see him first leaving the bathhouse.  Then, in a few minutes he would come up out of the tunnel.  Why the tunnel?  I guess to avoid the railroad tracks that lay between the parking lots and the refinery.  Do you know about shift work?  Dad rotated weeks of days, evenings, and midnights for his entire career.

The Magnolia Grocery Store was across the street from the tunnel.  I can remember shopping in that store with Mom in times before I started to school.  Above the store was the Company medical clinic with Doctors Fortney and English.  And, the Company Christmas Party was held in the upstairs portion of that building.  The only other reason that we ever went over by Magnolia was to wash clothes.  When the weather was too bad to wash outside, we washed at a do-it-yourself laundry that was nearby.  I won’t describe the 1940’s version of the do-it-yourself laundry except to say that it was not nice.

I was a little older when I began driving to church.  Three times a week I drove to a church on Gulf Street near Magnolia Park.  I never knew why we could not go to the church in our neighborhood but go across town we did, and drive, I did.  Too bad that the route we took is mostly unrecognizable today and that the old church is boarded up.  Our house on Lavaca was only a block and a half from Highland and the park.  Come to think of it, the house was also about a block and a half from Kenneth and Lombardo’s store.  Good location, don’t you think?  Maybe three blocks to the Lamar or to school.

Did you ever shop at Lombardo’s store?  I spent a small fortune there a nickel and a dime at a time.  For a nickel you could get a Popsicle, Fudgesicle or a Cheerio.  That was a hard one for me.  Naturally, the Cheerio was the most delicious, but the Fudgesicle lasted longer and the Popsicle even longer. And, the cokes were a real treat.  Back then when we did not have a refrigerator full of drinks.  In fact, we did not have a refrigerator.  Just an icebox filled by an iceman who came in a horse drawn wagon.  Remember how to get a coke?  Raise one end of the lid, figure out what kind you wanted (if you did not find what you wanted, then you would raise the other end), lift your bottle out of the ice and water, and, then open it on the side of the cooler.  I tended towards the Grapette, Orange Crush or Mason’s root beer but they were small.  I did not like RCs or Pepsis but they were too big to turn down.  I am afraid that something was lost here in all of the progress that we have made.  Having a soda was a very rewarding treat.  Whether it was on the curb at Lombardo’s or a cherry coke at the fountain in the White House.  Oh, we have lots of treats today but a soda treat back then was matchless.  Most of you were there so I don’t need to remind you that the ice cream cones at Rettig’s can’t be replaced either.

Too, I can hear my Dad saying to me "Here, take this dime and run down to Lombardo’s and get me a bag of Bull Durham."  And, run I did, for Bull Durham was only a nickel.  We must have gotten rich later for I can also remember, "Here is a quarter, run down to Lombardo’s and get me a pack of Luckies."  Things really worked out right didn’t they?  Luck Strikes were only twenty cents.  Holy Smokes, life was simple then.  You could smoke Luckies or Camels.  Well, there was one other choice.  If you were really weird or, Heaven Forbid, a woman, you could smoke Kools.

Lavaca to Highland was just our neighbors’ houses.  But, Highland to the Port Arthur Road was very eventful. Alice Keith Park, the Day Nursery, the Lamar, the barber shop, Benscotters, Day’s Mattress (or, earlier, Porter's Furniture), Malley's and Highland Ave Cleaners (which did you prefer?).  At the end of Highland there was the Golden Arrow, the Pig Stand, the big Magnolia station (I want to say Joe Ener’s), Fruitland (seems that we always had to run in there on the way home from church) and Travis Brothers.  I caught them all and I never missed looking at the Indian motorcycles next to Travis Brothers.  I liked Indian much better than Harleys.  Harleys just did not sound right to me.

Railroad Avenue was a bit of a blur.  Shelton’s, the bakery, the Simpson’s bar-b-que and the hot tamale stand.  Maybe it was because of the tracks in the middle of the street that I did not notice more.  Didn’t it take quite a bit of attention to keep from hitting a train and to keep the car going straight when you were driving with your tires on the tracks?  Don’t know why that I always looked carefully when we turned at the rice mills.  I guess that I was always wondering what Robert’s dad did there.  Somewhere by the rice mill was JoMill Feeds.  My memories of this feed store have faded but I know that we bought our feed there for many years.  The road ran close in-between the buildings then curved around and went on to the viaduct.  Oh, wow, wouldn’t it be great if you could drive that viaduct one more time?  Hey, later on, I worked as a bookkeeper for Gulf Coast Machine and Supply.  It was located just before the viaduct.  When I graduated from Lamar, Mr. LeBlanc wanted me to stay and to train to take over their accounting.  Funny, for though this was a great opportunity, I never considered it seriously.

Another memorable sight on the route was the Roy Lee Lumber Company on Gulf Street.  It never failed to bring back memories of Gwen.  I have never forgiven her for getting rich and moving out of South Park.  Was it Mary Ann that told me recently that Gwen moved after the third grade?  I attended a birthday party for Gwen at their house on Adams.  Was it the beautiful Gwen or the black Cadillac in the driveway that burned this party into my memory?  Oh, I don’t know.  It may have been Gwen’s mother.  She was an extremely nice person and I remember her like I saw her yesterday.

On a prominent Gulf Street intersection a block from our church we drove by the Cricket.  It was just about the fanciest restaurant in town.  Wow!  And, at times after church when our parents talked for too long after church (the services after church were about the same length as the services during church and almost as important), we got a dime and went to the cash register counter at the Cricket for a Mound or an Almond Joy.  Oh, that was a hard decision.  I liked it best when I walked there with Faye Allred and Retha McCuistian.  They were too old for me but that was a small church.  There were not any girls (or boys) my age.

The church was across the street from the Gulf Coast Rod and Reel Club.  There was no parking lot so we stopped and parked on the street in front or maybe we turned and parked on the side street.  On Wednesday nights we did our waiting watching and listening to the casting at the outdoor target range.  Hitting the bull’s eye was rewarded with a nice, loud ping.  We had to listen to the pings and I wonder if they had to listen to us sing.

I hope that there was a good reason for all of this travel back and forth to church.  For it did not seem fair to the car or to us.

I was fourteen when Dad bought a blue 1949 Champion.  We had that old piece of junk so long that the new Champion seemed like our first car.  I just sat in it out in the driveway and enjoyed it more than anything in my life up to that time.  I can still smell the smell.  At the time that I got my driver’s license, we had a green 1951 Commander.  Dad must have found fault with that Champion for we did not keep it long.  The Commander was the first of the Studebaker V-8s.  One hundred and twenty horsepower at the time was lots.  This power might have gotten me into trouble but I never could figure out how to make it spin the wheels.

Is it possible that we kept this car until I graduated from college?  I guess so.  The 1959 Lark was Dad’s last Studebaker.  It was a nice blue four-door, new at the time I got married.  I have a photo of it in front of Lamar College with Ann standing alongside.  But, if you ever want a real Studebaker story, you have to find out about Ann’s Grandfather Schnick who owned one of the first and one of the last Studebakers.  He bought his Lark when he was ninety-three.  Why, Mr. Schnick might have even owned a Studebaker wagon.

For some reason I became a very good driver and it is one of the few things that I still do pretty well.  The subject was never discussed but Dad expected me to be a good driver and I was.  He trusted me so completely that I am still puzzled by it.  I could not and cannot do that with our children.  Even with our Steve, who is expert on and off the road, I would be nervous sitting in the back seat.  Imagine a carload of people with Dad in the back seat talking away and me driving Highway Ninety to Houston and back.  I used overdrive to help in passing cars and I used that dimmer switch very expertly when I needed to.  Interesting enough, my 1983 Ford pickup has that same dimmer switch on the floor and the memories flood back every time that I use it.  I start thinking that I am driving by that big silo in Nome.

I guess that I was a bit of a Studebaker Man myself.  The first car that I bought was a 1950 Studebaker and I bought it from, yes, yes, you guessed it, from Jimmy Himmel.  $450.  I still have the cancelled check.  Starlight Coupe, no less.  I think that it was after my second summer of work for Tidelands Exploration.  Yes, I must have been a freshman at Lamar.  No, I remember walking to Lamar at least one year so I must have been a sophomore.  Help!  I can’t remember.  I do know this.  When I bought the car, I drove to school, parked in Cathy’s parking lot, and headed over to school to find my girlfriend, Patty Hulett.  That car served me well and it got Patty through two years at Rice.  As I mentioned in a previous story, however, it collapsed before it could get Gerald and me through LSU.

In the seventh grade we bought our first house.  160 East Threadneedle.  I thought that I had died and gone to heaven.  Threadneedle Street!  Now that was a class neighborhood.  Hey, I was right behind Virginia McDaniel and not far from Jo Ann Bockman.  Oh, sure, the girls were most important but the bonus of this great house was that the Fox boys, Bill and Bruce, lived across the street and couple of doors down.  Wow!  They were exciting friends and way ahead of me.  I never had my own paper route but I threw plenty of papers for Bill and Bruce loving every minute.  Folding at the service station at Kenneth and Elgie then letting those papers fly in the cool morning air.  My pay included a cinnamon twist and a coke at Daniel’s.  The bakery wasn’t open so we had to walk to the back to take our pick off the racks.  I was very sorry to learn that Bruce passed away recently.  Dorothy and Shorty Bowen lived directly across.  Apart from the money that I earned throwing papers, my first payroll checks were from helping to install TV antennas for Bowen TV.

We bought the Threadneedle house from Lynwood Legato’s family.  I suppose that they were responsible for fixing the place up for it was in good condition.  Hey, the house had hot water, washer and a dryer, and, hardwood floors.  This time the sleeping porch for Mom and Dad was big and all enclosed.  We lived on that porch.  We did not yet know the term "den" but the porch served as our den.  We may have been the last family in South Park to get a TV but when we got it, we put it on the back porch.

One negative thing about that house was revealed over time.  It was a long walk to school at South Park and at Lamar.  I walked five or six years to South Park and one year to Lamar.  I must have spent a lot of time walking but I never noticed it.  And, often it was fun, as when Don Lockwood and I would be walking home late after basketball practice.  Sometimes Don and I would walk home with our coach, who happened to be my brother, John Henry.  Don had to walk on to Euclid.

But, then, our Threadneedle Street house is gone too.  It was destroyed when the church expanded.  As I get older I would love to be able to visit our Lavaca Street and Threadneedle Street houses.  It is sad that I cannot. Have you all watched the movie, A Trip to Bountiful?  No trips to Bountiful for me.    Don Marshall  dcmarshall@eee.org

James Robbins writes:

Hey Gang...Our grandson Jarrod is doing great...thanks so much for the prayers.  He will be going back to school real soon.  He has been home schooled since the accident. I took him fishing the other day and he can still out catch me.  Which is fine with me.  Many thanks, James and Orelia.  James Robbins  james-orelia@prodigy.net


  Bennie Marie writes:

Just a few bits of news for the Gusher.  Mickey O'Shaughnessy flew in to Beaumont the Thursday before Easter.  I picked her up at the airport and we drove to New Orleans.  The weather was perfect for exploring the French Quarter once more.  Jackson Square, St. Louis Cathedral and dinner at the Court of Two Sisters.  We did it all.  We also visited Mickey’s Aunt who is a nun at the convent.  Ahe is only eighty-seven years old and still moving around like a forty-year-old.  The courtyard at the convent was beautiful and had zillions of flowers.

Pub and Paul Crozier were in town this past week.  Pud’s brother, Bob, died and was buried on Thursday, the 18^th of April.

I talk with Mary Ann Welty nearly every day and she is doing great.  She is such a dear friend to us all.

Things on the ranch are great.  We have many baby calves on the ground and I also have three baby colts. The colts are beautiful.  More later from your Cowboy Buddy. 
Bennie Marie BEN0906@aol.com

Recently received a call from Stein Cloy.  He and his wife, Jeri, will retire April 30, 2002 and will move from Broken Arrow, Ok to Village Mills, TX.  He home is up the road from me on U.S. Highway 69, two miles north of the Tyler County line at U.S.69 and FM 2827 on the east side of the highway.  Really looking forward to having Stein back home.  f_stein_cloy@yahoo.com

Ann Ray Smith Norris and her husband, Ron, have recently moved to Florida and want to keep in contact.  She said God must have had a plan for them in this move.  They sold their house in Beaumont in only 4 days.  They had lived in it for only 3 years after moving from South Park (Church Street).  They are now living in a retirement community just outside of Tampa.  Ann’s son, Mitch, and Ron’s son both live within three miles from them.  Twoarn@aol.com

Janice Zahn sent a message that she had found some information about a Bobby Deaton on the Internet and wondered if this was our former classmate Bobby Deaton.  After checking old addresses it turns out that sure enough it was our "Bobby".  He retired in 1999 after 30 years at the University of Montana/Missoula, made Professor of Emeritus of Social Work.  He received the University Award for Community Service in 1999, "a significant honor".  Professor Deaton made a profound difference in the quality of the University of Montana as a learning institution and to the citizens of Montana.  Read the entire write-up at: http://www.montana.edu/wwwbor/ITEM104-1001-R0799.HTML   See what being a cheerleader can lead to.  Way to go Bobby.

Speaking of Janice, she received an emergency call from her son-in-law, Shane, saying "all alive and were on an ambulance after surviving a head-on collision."  As Janice stated, "God interceded in his physical laws of the universe and perhaps with the fact that it was not an engine to engine crash preserved all four of their lives with only minor injuries."  However, the driver of the other car, a 19 year old female student from A&M lost her life.  She was returning to school and had been passing several cars at a time on a two lane road and was passing on a curve in a non-passing area.  Janice also stated  "God was good to us, but I have prayed for the pain of the other family.  The girl had apparently just won a $10,000 scholarship at the Houston Fat Stock Show that closed that weekend.  Our son, Ross found that on Internet news."  jza1@mindspring.com

Well, to close out the month I received a call from Lynn Martell, Vice President of Loma Linda University Medical Center, Loma Linda, CA  wanting to set up a reunion for area Proton Alumni. We met at the Hilton Hotel with about 25 in attendance.  Finally got to meet Bennie Marie Deaton’s friends, Hollis and Wanna, who had called me for information about the Proton Center, and then decided to go Loma Linda for treatment.  Here is a link to the Beaumont Enterprise article about the meeting.

Had a chance to visit with Tony Singletary last weekend.  As I was standing in front of the South Park High School building while Mil's class of 1957 was having their group photograph taken on the front steps of old school building who should drive by but Tony and Joe "the barber" Stelly.  They spotted me and stopped and wanted to know what was going on.  Mil’s class was holding their reunion in the school cafeteria and we had the chance to tour the whole building.  Like almost everyone else Tony had not been inside the school since graduation, so we checked out some of our old landmarks.  The painting we helped paint behind the stage in the auditorium has been painted over, that was a great painting for the opera we staged during our senior year. The second floor hallway is lined with trophy cases, and I was able to find the 1953 State Basketball Championship Trophy but couldn’t located the 1951 State Baseball Championship Trophy.  Also, couldn’t spot the new fixture that used to stick out in the boy’s room that was remodeled courtesy of Allen.  I guess after almost fifty years the colors all look alike.  The old fire escapes are still there.  Overall the building itself is in real good shape, they now have an elevator and air conditioning, and some of the windows have curtains on them.  Remember we had the windows open NO AC.  The reunion was enjoyable; several teachers were there, Mr. Rushing, Mrs. Coco, and Mr. Compton to name a few.  Herman Sarver was there with his wife, Nelda.

Last but not least Gwen Garig Watkins gwen@rionet.cc  is now building her own web site, Angelfood Blessings, for prayer requests and praise reports.  She has a good start and when she has it ready for viewing I’ll publish her URL and put a link on our SPHS54 web site. John Watson jlwmil@aol.com