HomeMy WebLinkAboutLamar McNew Childhood MemoriesLamar McNew Childhood Memories
I'm and old man born in 1932 and brought home to live at 100 Hereford Street, College Station, which is
now the corner of Hereford and West Dexter.
We had dirt roads, then we got fancy and we got gravel, then we got spray asphalt out of a hot truck
with a sprayer on the back. That made us have asphalt roads. We had no street signs. Our sewer pipes to
our houses were clay and you could break into them and unstop them by taking a chisel and cutting a
hole and then covering it with an open tin can. We didn't call the plumber. We had lead water pipes.
The grass was mostly Bermuda. And then, oh, the new super grass, Saint Augustine, came in. But it was
not in chunks; it was in runners.
The bonfire was at the M.S.C., in front of the M.S.C. on the drill field. It was one tree high. It never fell
down. It didn't hurt anybody, badly. This guy watched the M.S.C. bonfire on his dad's shoulders. Where
me M. S. C. is now, there was faculty housing.
The gardens were plowed with an open plow, by mule. And the mule man that plowed our garden was
"Old Rum.'1 And he would come in with his mule pulling his wooden wagon and take the mule loose and
hook it up to the plow and plow our garden and then we could work with it.
School for grade school and high school was on the corner at the Corps quad. You could bicycle
anywhere in town. When I was about seven, I bicycled on the campus and ended up in John Kimbrough's
room. John Kimbrough was from Throckmorton, Texas and was the number thirty-nine on the 1939
team, and was an All-American, one of our first, one of our few. While I was visiting John Kimbrough, I as
a young highly-correct young man, I noted that he said 18 cuss words, I counted them. Hah ! There was a
cur dog, an old cur dog, laying on his bed. That cur dog had been picked up down at the hard liquors, bar
joint, beer joint on Wellborn Road. That's where that song, "I'd Rather Be a Texas Aggie," ends up witl-r
I'd rather be a Texas Aggie, a mean so and so
living in the other school, be rolling in dough
I'd rather be out on the highway a thumbin' a ride,
Than have Miss Greta Garbo for my blushing bride,
I'll be true to the colors of Maroon and White
Whether they win or lose, or wrong or right
But if they lose you'll always hear me say
Let's go out to Ed's and drink our cares away
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Lamar McNew Childhood Memories
I'd rather be a Texas Aggie, well till I die
And then I'll be a Texas Aggie way up in the sky ...
There were no cars on the campus. If you were a Texas Aggie you took your uniform and your bag out to
the East Gate which comes up to the main building. And there were long lines and you'd put your bag in
line and you'd get out and thumb a ride. And that's the way you got to where you were going, whether
it was to Baylor in Waco, where the sophisticated girls were, or whether it was to T.S.C.W. in Denton
where we went on weekends 'cause we didn't have girls in our school.
Early school that I remember at Consolidated, one of my classmates was Bill Munnerlyn, whose mother,
Lillian, wrote two Consolidated songs: "CHS" and "Tiger Fight" and she wrote "The Twelfth Man."
Red Cashion lived at the end of our football field. We had a new, fancy addition called College Hills
Estates. It was across the highway. And later there was a new addition called North Oakwood. These
were special places. There was no student housing until Dr. Dan Russell built the project houses for
returning veterans. There were eight or ten wooden houses, two-story, for families, each. This was after
World War II. They were located where The Century Square now sits.
At age six, my father, who was the city engineer for College Station, handed me a clipboard and said,
11Go get everybody in the neighborhood to sign this.11 And the reason I had to do that was because Bryan
was trying to take us in and if they take us in, they won't give us zoning and they won't pave our
streets-that meant asphalt spray. The new mayor was Ernest Langford who lived across the street from
us. First mayor was Earnst Langford who worked for the architecture department. Ernest was greatly
concerned about the blue jays driving off his mockingbirds and his cardinals and so he hired me with my
B-B gun to go across and kill blue jays and I think I got a dime for a blue jay.
All the garages in those days were single, they were not connected to the houses. I can remember in
1941,. before Pearl Harbor, my dad bought a brand-new Chevrolet. It was the best Chevrolet made and it
cost $900, brand-new. Wasn't that amazing! It had a short-wave radio and on December the seventh,
1941, I was, as a youngster, participating in a picnic at Sand Creek, west of Millican, with the professors
of the Civil Engineering Department. There were about six professors there. And I heard something on
the short-wave radio, and I went running around from group to group saying, "The Japs bombed Pearl
Harbor! The Japs bombed Pearl Harbor!" I had no idea where Pearl Harbor, what it was, or who the Japs
were. Later, most of those men went into the military. Ed Harrington went into the Navy. Francis
Vaughn went into the Marines. J.T.L. McNew, my father, later was recruited by the Air Force Engineers.
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Lamar McNew Childhood Memories
He went to the China, Burma, India theater and was doing some sort of special work over there that he
didn't tell us about and then he described to us a new airplane that, if it had one wingtip by the street
sign way down in our front yard at the corner of Hereford and West Dexter the other wingtip way out in
our backyard in the alleyway, that that was the new airplane, but he couldn't tell me what it was or
what it was for. I learned later that before you could fly the Himalaya mountains with an air transport
that would carry a bulldozer or a motor grader, my Civil Engineering father flew the Himalayas and got
out on a piece of ground with 10,000 Chinese coolie laborers with shovels and hoes and baskets and
they piled up dirt for a runway and then hand-pulled a roller over it to pack it down, and it was for
building B29 airstrips to fly and bomb Japan
Shortly after I was six years old, I got scarlet fever. There was no treatment for scarlet fever in those
days. Penicillin had not been invented, but I had a sore throat and a bright red rash. I was isolated, but I
got a new toy every day! Dr. Paul Woodard came and made daily house calls to see Little Bubba. At the
end of it I was so happy I had a whole stack of new toys ad finally I was out of isolate and Uh-Oh they
burned all my toys because they didn't want me to get complications from Scarlet Fever, which was
Glomerulonephritis, but they didn't know that in those days. People with Diabetes Miletus did not live
long enough to reproduce, so medical science has done a questionable thing by allowing them to
reproduce ..
12:11 Brison Park, across the street from us was a lake at the time, and I would get two whippings a
week for wandering from 100 Hereford Street down to the lake. It was a beautiful lake and we enjoyed
it. The African American Church would use the lake to baptize and when they did there was lots of
singing and shouting and it was wonderful, but mosquitos got to be a problem from the lake and there
was a cry to drain the lake. My father, the city engineer, J.T.L. McNew, said, we can use top water
minnows and they will eat the mosquito larva and it won't be a problem, but the city fathers decided to
drain the lake. 13:09 So the big day to drain, and a drag line came and the first dip of soil out of the dam
and a local lady who was related to the Clark Family sat down in the hole and she sat there. It was the
earliest form of a sit in. Finally, the heat and the fatigue whooped her and she left, and they drained the
take.
First school was on the A&M Campus and then I went to the first grade in the new chicken coops on
Timber. I walked to school every day. After the fifth grade I rode my bicycle to school. My sister, who
was eight years older was the first to graduate from the new, modern school building.
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Lamar McNew Childhood Memories
As a young boy I would deliver milk with Mr. Copeland at the F & B Dairy. And we would get into a truck
that had open sides on it with wooden crates of quart bottles of raw milk and he would drive through
the neighborhood and tell us who gets how many that were there. And we would jump out of the truck
and run with out quart bottle of cold, raw milk and put it on the porch of the people that were getting
milk. At the end of the day, to rewards us and celebrate, we got a whole quart of ice-cold milk to drink. I
don't know what we were paid in those days, not much. I can recall when I was in high school, junior
high, I went to work for my uncle, R.B. Butler for R.B. Butler construction as a common laborer and in
those days, I made 75 cents an hour. Which was great. But it really got great when we got overtime,
with a dollar, thirty-seven and a hat;
Between College Station and Bryan there was three or four miles of open country with barb-wire fence
and green pastures and we would drive to Bryan for the highlight when we would go to the picture
show, the Palace Theater. That was a special occasion when we would go there. And there we could see
during World War II the Movietone news that told us what was happening in the war, actually what
happened a couple of weeks before.
There was no internet no cell phones, all Aggies were in the Corps, and the Corps was a very proud
organization, there were no girls at Texas A & M, plastics had not been invented, television had not been
invented. I remember distinctly the night that they showed us this new, special thing at Guion Hall and
out in the street they had a camera or a transmitter and they transmitted black and white pictures into a
small screen in Guion Hall.
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Gentian Violet
When Lamar, Jr. was about 3 years-old he got a case of impetigo. The only treatment for impetigo at
that time was to paint liquid gentian violet on the affected areas. Bubba's dad painted a "purple
sunsuit" on him and let him run free around their property. Delicious freedom for a toddler boy!
Texas Special Bicycle
There weren't any bicycle stores in College Station or Bryan, so when the time came for Lamar's first
bike he and his dad drove to Houston to purchase a blue Texas Special bicycle. The bike was 24". He
really wanted the 22" bike. The 24" bike was so tall that Bud had to ride it standing up until he grew.
College Station Petition
"The City of College Station was incorporated in 1938. The incorporation was a result of a petition by 23
men representing on-and off-campus interests to the board of directors of Texas A&M College." J.T.L.
McNew, Sr. told his son that if College Station wasn't incorporated it would likely be taken in by Bryan
and might not be represented well, they wouldn't get paving or zoning. Bud went door-to-door getting
signatures on the petition. He recalls that everyone was glad to open the door to him and sign the
petition.
World War II
Lamar, Sr. purchased items for the family treasure pile. Dad recalled the silver, filagree bracelet, a
carved box, and the much beloved cloisonne vases that were shipped to arrive on his mother's birthday.
They did. The vases were turned into lamps and have always been much beloved by Lamar, Jr.
The day Lamar, Sr. was scheduled to arrive home from the war, Bud waited at the station and watched
each car empty of passengers, and no sign of his dad. By the time his dad got off the train from the last
car, Bud ran to him and sobbed in his dad's arms.
J.E. Breeland had bird dogs and took us (Lamar Sr. & Jr.) hunting. After Sr. died he took Bud hunting.
Luke Patranella bought little Bubba's chickens. Bubba would put a long string and loop around one leg of
the chickens and take them to the grocery and get paid.
Alvin Zeller lived next door for awhile and would shoot cats with a 22 shotgun.
"Pearl, did you make a chocolate pie?"
"No, Bubba, I didn't make one."
"Pearl, you're fired."
There was always a chocolate pie later in the day.
5 Chimpanzees (Bill Munerlyn, Bob Marshall, Red Cashion, Homer LaMotte, and Lamar "Mac" McNew)
tumbling in performance in the gym next to the football field. They would jump and dive and twist.