Sunday, May 03, 2009
I know you’ve done it — placed your bare feet in wet concrete, carved your name in a tree. And why? Because you’ve had that itch, the itch for immortality.
True, footprints in concrete get silted over. Carved-in trees die or fall in gales. But these gestures still feel right. They address the human impulse to leave one’s mark in a lasting way.
The Waco History Project, of which the Trib is a major partner, has such a way.
It combines that which to many is new and still fantastic — the Internet — with something as old as our species — the telling of stories.
"First Person"
The objective: not just telling them but sharing them with a mass audience, and with future generations.
An event next Saturday at McLennan Community College is all about that. People from the community are invited to come and write their recollections of Waco history.
MCC has availed a sea of computers in its cutting-edge library (Learning Technology Center) as word processors for the event. You? You supply the memory.
Spooked by a computer? Volunteers will lend a hand.
Solicited memories: a moment in time, a memorable event or social movement; a place, institution or business; a memorable person who changed this community.
What gets written will be included in the “First Person” section of wacohistoryproject.org.
Can’t participate May 9? Write something and mail or e-mail it to me in my function with the Waco History Project.
The Web site is meant to be a resource that people of many generations, but particularly the young, can use to understand this place called Waco. Indeed, wacohistoryproject.org has a “Student Corner” just for student work.
The stories we already have in “First Person” haven’t been researched in the strictest sense. They have been experienced. They are personal and descriptive.
They range from truly landscape-changing things — like the single-member district movement and desegregation of public facilities — to the strictly personal.
They are as voluminous as Billy Loden’s description of the downtown he saw taking a bus to the Kiddie Matinee at 6 — alone — and as brief as Claire Masters’ vignette about being absent from Waco High longer than even a downtown appearance by President Truman would justify.
Recently at a Waco History Project with this theme, radio legend Goodson McKee shared his first-person account of seeing East Waco under water when the Brazos flooded in 1933.
He was 9. His family drove roughly to where the Convention Center is today to see the whole of East Waco submerged. This was before Lake Whitney Dam provided today’s flood control.
Everyone who has lived here a half century or more has history to share, places and moments to describe.
Tell me about the old square. Tell me about school segregation and desegregation.
Tell me about old Lake Waco and “new” I-35.
Well, heck, forget about me. Tell your children and grandchildren what you remember. This is wet concrete for your bare feet.
John Young’s column appears Thursday and Sunday. E-mail: jyoung@wacotrib.com.
Comments
By Mickey Lavy
May 5, 2009 10:13 PM | Link to this
In about 1958, the New Lake Waco was still on the drawing board and there was no Lake Shore Drive as we know it now. Below the Lake Shore Drive bridge over Landon Branch was a small pond. The cliff above the pond is under where the bridge is now. Tommy Bennett's dad was a Waco police officer. One day Tommy brought his dad's extra sidearm to the pond and we fired a few shots from the cliff into the pond. I have heard that his dad was looking for him before he got home. I don't remember seeing Tommy after that.
By Sally Maciel
May 3, 2009 7:52 PM | Link to this
When we retired from the military in 1965 we moved to Waco to be close to the VA Hosp. and Connally Air Base, in order to be able to use their services. Also, another draw was Baylor U. since my husband was eligible for education benefits. Waco was a thriving city building in all directions, I 35 was being completed as was Valley Mills Rd and Bosque Blvd as well as Lake Shore Drive. The Downtown was full of stores, resturants and Austin Ave. was a two way street, with throngs of people, especially on Saturday evening when everyone shopped and went out to eat and to the movies. I began working at the Downtown Post office at 8th and Franklin and it was a pleasure to be able to walk to Austin Ave and visit stores such as: Goldsteins, Cox's, Cinderella, Penney's and Monnig's. There were also places to eat such as Furris Caferteria on 5th stree and McCorys snack bar for a quick bite, Fadal's opposite the Post Office, had a sign that read "Good Eats: Tums furnished Free" on Fridays, as a special treat we would purchase Mrs. Keaton's creme Puffs, with our left over coffee money. The city carriers serving downtown would walk from the Post office to deliver the mail to all the offices and stores located within an 12 to `4 block area. For a while they delivered twice a day, but that was short lived, because of budget constraints. We started using the ZIP Code in the 1970s, some said it wouldn't take and people wouldn't use it, can you believe that now? They also said the same thing when the USPS started using computers, but they were wrong about that also. I remember my husband's Uncle Tom driving us around Cameron Park where we had a family reunion the the picnic tables alongside the river, we had lots of fried chicken and watermelon, iced tea and corn on the cob, as well as home ice cream for dessert. Every picnic table was full with family members coming from all over Texas and beyond, Waco was considered the "big City' to a lot of the smaller towns surrounding the area. The only library was the main one on 17th and Austin, later they installed the Hoover Branch in the new Lake Air Mall and it was great not to have to drive downtown to check out some books. We visited the drive in movies real often as it was a lot cheaper with a car load of kids, we liked the Circle Drive Inn and the Westview Drive In. We also liked the 25th street movie as well as downtown Opheum and the Waco Theatre, Later when the Waco citizens approved bonds the city built the Convention Center, Indian Springs Park and all the improvements around City Hall, putting our taxes to good use. Our favorite places to eat were: the Picadilly Cafe. The Elite on the Circle & Georges Rest.,as well as Uncle Dans; The Chicken Shack; The Black Angus the Health Camp and George's Surf & Serlion; as well as Nicks and El Conquisidor. Most of these were 'home grown' local families and many are still with us. I do believe that Waco has been growing constantly in the last fifty years, especially in the Education field, we are especially proud and grateful for MCC, TSTC and Baylor U. so that our children have many opportunities right here in their hometown for a good education. I am proud to be an 'adopted' Wacoan and look forward to many more years in this pleasant city.
By mec
May 3, 2009 10:55 AM | Link to this
Crumbling Waco trib from july 4, 1955 emerged from my closet a while back. It has a lay out on the Soap Box Derby sponsored by several local and national businesses. They built a ramp on airport road on the approach to the Waco Skeet and Trap range.Wheel and stearing kits were distributed at the Waco Chevrolet Company where the finished cars were registered and inspected. In the article, there is a list of participants.
I was the chief inspector's kid underfoot at the event. I scanned the lists for familiar names and ran across Napoleon Weaver who I met in the course of business decades later. As I recall, he was/is a local minister, respected in the community It might be interesting to one of your staff to dig up that issue and do the same.
By KDF
May 3, 2009 8:40 AM | Link to this
We are what we read. When one reads a story, I challenge them to investigate the other side before he makes a decision. Mr. Young has written some pretty good articles upon investigation. But most of his writing is from the forest where all trees lean left. <
By BDDH
May 3, 2009 7:08 AM | Link to this
Why is it that Mr. Young's op eds usually provide space for readers' rebuttals and Mr. Neugent's doesn't?
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