HomeMy WebLinkAboutGrowing Up Under the Influence of a Great UniversityMy family and I moved to College Station during the summer of 1939 from Waco,
Texas where my father was a professor at Baylor University. We rented a house on
Jersey Street. Jersey Street ran along the south side of the A&M campus. Jersey
has been renamed George Bush Blvd since the George Bush Library was built on
the south side of the campus When we first moved to College Station there had been
a lake near our neighborhood. The city decided to drain the lake because of malaria.
The street of Dexter still circles around where the lake once was. That area is now a
park.
In our neighborhood also lived Luke Patranella and his family. Luke owned a
grocery store which was on Texas Avenue at the entrance to the college. Every day
at 5 o'clock the ladies of College Station went by Luke's to pick up food for supper
and to visit with their friends. If your mom took you along, you first had to come in
from playing, get bathed and dressed nicely. Lukeput on an Easter Egg hunt for the
children of College Station on the campus every year. When we first moved to C.S.
houses were furnished to the professors and staff on the campus. Schools were
provided for the children on the campus. There was a post office, a movie theater,
Sparks drug store and Holick's Boot shop at the north gate of the campus. A large
St. Bernard dog lounged near the entrance to the Campus Theater.
As one drove along Texas Ave, the view of the campus included a golf course,
grazing palomino horses and cattle, the main drive up to the Administration.
Building which divided then circled around the building taking you back to the rest
of the campus on beyond.
On the south side of the campus, were streets named after cattle breeds such as
A noes, Hereford, Kerry, and Guernsey. These names were a throw -!pack to
the Agricultural past of the college. Across from the main entrance to A&M, behind
Luke's Grocery, the streets are named after people who dere important in the
founding of the college such Gilchrist, Bolton, Harringtt=n, , Kyle,
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Walton.
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Students were bused into the school from the smaller towns surrounding the
campus. Each classroom had its own building. We nicknamed the buildings
the "Chicken coops".
Most students had parents who were very interested in our education since most
were employed by A&M University.
In our class, was Wally Anderson, the son of the A&M track coach, Van
Adamson, the son of the swimming coach and Ward Tishler, the son of one of the
professors in the P.E. Department. My own dad was in charge of the Pre Meds at
A&M. Therefore, our parents took an active interest in our education. But they
didn't know all that went on at school. For example, we had a teacher when we were
in middle school who couldn't make us get quiet so she went to get the principal to
come to talk with us. Finally, we would try to see how fast we could send her to the
principal's office.
We smiled as we heard her high heels clicking down the hall on her way to his office.
The algebra teacher never had any trouble making us behave. Another boy in our
class was Elvin Street. When we all were learning to drive, Elvin was the one who
turned corners on two wheels. Elvin got blamed for everything that happened in our
Class. With good reason, of course. One prank he pulled was to put a hose down one
boy's pants in science lab then sneak outside and turn on the hose.
I remember that when Gone With the Wind was shown at Guion Hall, we were let
out from school to go to see the movie. We girls heard that it was sad so we all took
boxes of Kleenex. Wally's mother and my mother were the two moms who we could
count on to allow us to have parties at their houses. We used to sprinkle powdered
wax on the floor of our back porch and dance out there to record music. At Wally's
house, his mom would bless our little hearts each time she saw us. There was a
vacant lot behind our house. During WWII the guys in our class would play battle
out there by digging fox holes all over the lot and chunking clods at each other.
I wanted to take piano lessons. However, we had a violin in the family that my aunt
had played and Mrs. Groneman, a violin teacher lived just a short walk across the
vacant lot. So I took violin lessons. I progressed as far as playing my version of
Humoresque. When I went to college I took a beginning piano class as an elective
and learned to play " Ole Susanna" with two hands. At this point, my daddy
decided that I was serious about learning to play piano and bought one. I could pick
out simple melodies by ear but didn't know how to add the chords. Two of my four
children could also play by ear
Back when I was in grade school, a whistle would blow in College Station indicating
it was noon and time to eat lunch. Dads and kids went home to eat. In grade school,
I rode my bike to and from school. We lived in a rent house on Jersey Street so I
rode my bike past Luke's house, then the Bloomberg's house, past the drill field on
the campus facing Jersey Street where the band practiced early every morning and
where the bonfire was built every other Thanksgiving Eve, I would bike on up the
hill past the Munnerlyn's house at the edge of the school grounds. When I was in
high school, my dad would swing by the school in his truck and pick me and my
friends and neighbors up for a ride home for lunch. We piled into the back of the
truck for an open air ride home then back to school.
I had a good friend who lived in Wellborn so couldn't go home for lunch. When I
invited her to go home for lunch with me, it usually turned out to be apple dumpling
day. Mother said that she thought we could smell them cooking all the way to the
school.
College Station was a very safe town. No one locked their houses. Sometimes we
even left the keys in the car in case a neighbor needed to borrow it. After school I
was allowed to ride my bike or skate all over town and the campus, just so I was
home by 6pm for supper.
One story I never told my parents was that after a rain, sometimes we would get on
a board in the concrete drain that was built to carry off rain water at Jersey Street
and ride on the rushing water until we could catch an overhanging branch and
climb out.
We were all good swimmers because van's dad taught the community kids to swim
in the A&M pool every summer. This ability came in handy at summer camp and
later when I went to the University of Texas and would go to parties on boats at the
lake there. I also vowed to teach my own children to swim at an early age.
When the Thanksgiving game between UT and A&M was held in College Station,
many times we would have 50 people come by to eat Thanksgiving dinner at our
house with us. There just were not many places to eat for the crowds who came to
see the game. There was one place called The Aggieland Inn on campus and much
later a Lubys opened on Texas Avenue. The bonfire was set off on the drill field on
Jersey Street. Residents in nearby neighborhoods hosed down their roofs before
the bonfire was torched.
I graduated from the University of Texas because when I was of college age, only
boys were admitted to A&M during the school year. Because my dad was an A&M
professor, I was allowed to attend summer school at A&M. Many of us went to
summer school there every summer. Between my sophomore and Junior year, I was
an editor on the Battalion newspaper. The boys on the staff were suspicious of
having a teasip on the editorial staff. I was a Communications Major so wanted the
Experience. They relented at the end of the summer when I invited the staff to my
house to enjoy some of my mother's coconut cake. Because I went to school year
round, I was able to graduate in three years which pleased my frugal dad!