Stay in Texas

Stay in Texas

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On Friday, December 21, 2001, I got a 'return' from M.D.I. for Wednesday after Christmas. However, I was wondering if there would be any work on December 24. I tried to call on Friday, but could only leave messages. So, on Monday morning I went by Trojan Labor and Labor Force only to find posters on the doors saying they were closed until Wednesday. I did manage to get a picture of Labor Force for the previous page about them. Anyway, it looks like day laborers get the same ultra-long weekends as most people (but without pay, of course). So, with an unscheduled holiday, I decided to take a stroll down memory lane and take pictures of my boyhood haunts.
Above is 3333 South Tyler Street where I lived from when I was 5 to 13. My father built this house with the help of Uncle Albert and only contracted out the electrical, plumbing, and brick laying. After the fact he realized it was a lot of work (and was not sure he would do it again). However, I remember seeing it as it was built. It is also larger than in appears as it is L shaped with more on the back right. Here is the view of the two houses where my friends Gary (closest house) and Phil (next house) lived. Our house was next. The blue house was a rental and had various tenants. Once, when I was about 11, there was a girl there about my age that I had a crush on.
On the other side of our house (shown here) there was a shack (really old and small house) where our neighbors kept chickens and goats in their back yard. Now it is an empty lot. I remember seeing our neighbor chop off the head of a chicken and seeing the chicken hop around for a bit without its head. Also, the street was not nicely paved concrete until quite recently. When I lived there it was tar and gravel. In the summer I would walk down it with bare feet in the summer to see my friends. Boy it was hot and I would get tar all over my caloused feet. Across the street was 'woods' with trees and cactus (this is Texas you know). Now it is just empty lots (grass).
There were houses only on one side of the road for most of the street with barbed wire (now gone) and then woods on the other side. In the woods was a mostly dry creek. The woods seemed really huge when I was a boy, but now I see there are regular lots to the creek. Here is a picture of the now empty lots where the woods used to be. They extend to the creek (picture taken in March during rain when the creek was actually running).
Here is a picture of the one lot in the middle of the block (in a sort of valley) that spanned the creek. It had never been woods so we mostly ignored it.
There were houses only on one side of the road for most of the street with barbed wire (now gone) and then woods on the other side. In the woods was a mostly dry creek. The woods seemed really huge when I was a boy, but now I see there are regular lots to the creek. At the end of the street (about another half block) there was a dead end and the house of Mike and Chris (shown here). Chris was about my age while Mike was about my brother's age; they were our best friends.
In between there was an older two story house where there lived an older boy, the street bully, Johny (?). So, one of our regular challenges was how to get together with Mike and Chris without any trouble from Johny. Of course change is constant and the bully moved away, but then Mike and Chris moved as well. Johny's house seems to have been taken over by the church and now seems vacant.
The styles of the houses on Tyler street was quite mixed as people built what they liked on each lot. Since then the whole neighborhood has become mostly Mexican with a few blacks, but is still a nice working class neighborhood. While my father built the house on Tyler Street, we stayed in a rental unit about a block away on Arpege Circle. I don't remember which unit we stayed in as I was only five, but I guess it doesn't really matter as they were all the same anyway.
They were four separate units with each pair joined by a carport and the four sharing a garage. We only stayed on Arpege Circle for about a year. The neighborhood was never very posh (very much working class, my father was a machinist in an aircraft factory, LTV). Before we lived on Arpege we lived for a while on Alden (shown later) and also Canberra. I have only a couple of memories from Canberra.
From kindergarten to the third grade I went to a parochial (or church) school at St. George's Episcopal Church (shown here). My kindergarten class was in the wing closest to the street (and the room closest to the camera), but there were windows facing the street instead of the white storage areas. However, in the fourth grade Mike and I switched to public school (the family couldn't afford the expense). Also, in that time frame that neighborhood started to decline (becoming racially mixed) and the congregation gradually moved to other churches (we went to St. Paul's).
St. Georges is now a mission (not enough congregation to pay the expenses) of the Episcopal Church. The older buildings which were the first church (wooden frame) and where I went for the second or third grade have been torn down and is now a parking lot (shown here).
In the fourth grade I went to Jeff Davis Elementary School, now called Dr. Barbara Jordon Elementary School. It is sad that history has been rewritten so that the principles of the Confederacy have been reduced to slavery; to me that seems like saying the American Revolution was about taxes on tea (which is how the British would have portrayed it had they won I presume). Anyway, on my first day at Jeff Davis I got lost going to gym (I was not used to such a large school) and walked home (it was only about a block and a half). I did OK in school until the sixth grade when I got glasses and turned into a real braniac from then on.
Here are the 'portables' behind the school. There were a few when I was there but now it looks like there are more temporary rooms than regular rooms. The neighborhood is now mostly Mexican and I have heard that Mexicans tend to have larger families than average. That may explain the need for so many portables.
Behind our house as well as Phil's and Gary's and next to Gary's house was the property of a Baptist Church on Polk Street (Gary's father was the preacher at the church) shown here. I remember watching as they built the sanctuary and meeting rooms shown here. I also remember that the roof rafters on the meeting rooms were blown down during construction during a storm before they had put the roof on (Yikes)! The church moved to a 'nicer' (white) neighborhood when this neighborhood became racially mixed. It is now a mission of the Baptist church called Union Church. The original wooden frame church buildings on the far side have been torn down.
Next to the church (and behind the neighbors with goats and chickens) was a day care center (now a private elementary school shown here). When I was in the fouth grade or so, my mom went back to work and started out having me go to day care there until she got home. However, it seemed more like a prison yard to me with hordes of kids running around the fenced back yard area with no supervision to speak of. So, I just climbed the fence and walked home. Is there some kind of theme here? It must have caused my mom and the staff a fright when I wasn't there, but she let me stay at home after that and I was happier there.
Further down Polk Street toward Jeff Davis and on the other side was a Seven Eleven. I would often stop there on my way home and spend seven cents to get a fudgsicle. Now it seems to be a sort of pawn shop. There is still a Seven Eleven in the shopping center, it is just larger and has a gas station. The Ben Franklin Store (which was a 5 and 10 store) is now a Family Dollar which is the modern equivalent it seems.
My folks were divorced when I was thirteen and my dad got the house on Tyler while my mom got the duplex on 2505 Alden (shown here) as it had rental income and was mostly paid for. I spent most of my adolescence there. We lived in the back section with the front entrance at the back of the carport. Many of the pictures in my archives with the kids visiting Texas were taken there (so there are already pictures of the back yard and such).
Here is the street that we lived on. It was always one of the nicer streets in the area. Oak Cliff (the section of Dallas where all these pictures were taken) was always a working class neighborhood and was pretty variable in the style and expense of the houses. It also 'declined' while we lived there and since. When we moved back to Alden it was mixed racially and is now mostly Mexican with a few blacks. However, it is still a good working class neighborhood in most areas.