I am blessed to have a fairly good memory bank to recall events when longing for the earlier times as a kid in Bandera.
I can go stand in the paved parking on Cedar Street out in front of St. Stanislaus Catholic Church and I will have visions of a caliche dirt basketball court. There two young boys would draw a crude circle then wipe it clean of all the little rocks with their hands preparing to do battle after class at St. Joseph's Catholic School.
Out came the aggies, catseyes and steelies then the war was on. Angel Martinez and I were the top shooters in the neighborhood.
Getting a haircut is a pretty uneventful happening these days. Remembering back to the days of Wayne Wharton's Barber Shop situated right behind The First National Bank you better believe it was different from anything you can experience in a modern day shop.
The bank is now known as Bandera Bank and any sign of the little shop is long gone. I wonder where people go to get updated on Friday night's Bulldog game on Saturday morning now.
Wayne along with his brother Ray could give you a play by play of the previous night's game as they always ran the visitors sideline giving encouragement to the Bulldog players and unsolicited opinions to the referees. Wayne, Ray and Wayne Ruede were the most vocal supporters in the group who could be heard over the stadium noise.
On Saturday morning you could hear them in the barber shop all the way to the OST.
One of the things I truly miss from the old days is being able to get a ripe watermelon or cantaloupe from the store or from a roadside seller.
Later on Britt's Vegetable Stand was a good place to shop too. It seems everything is picked green these days.
I was a master at thumping a watermelon to check for ripeness back in the day when I helped my granddaddy Clark load his truck and trailer with melons in the fields around Pearsall. Why have Pecos cantaloupe become a hard to find item?
Granddaddy had a vegetable stand on Main Street in Bandera where he parked the trailer out front under an oak tree and put me on it selling melons for 50 cents a piece or 3 for a dollar.
Gail Stone's Realty office is in the location today and the old oak tree is still there. The old ways of life in Bandera along with people and places I grew up with are disappearing way too fast these days.
As I continue this Growing Up In Bandera I look around and recognize fewer and fewer people and watch sadly as old familiar places are falling victim to progress. It's no wonder I like to just sit on my front porch with my dogs and watch the world pass by. We have met the enemy and it is us!
