Rob, Please pass this on to John Blair and the rest of the
62 Class Alumnae...
John regarding your recent email about the tower photo and your dad working at
the old Houston Airport:
That photo was very recognizable nostalgia for me, I rode past that tower daily
on my bicycle over a period of about four and a half years when my brother Sam
and I delivered newspapers in the Allen Farms and Garden Villas area (Houston
Press and Chronicle.) Some of my customers were directly adjacent to that
old airfield. In later years airfields played a big role in my career,
when I worked at the Pentagon I had world-wide responsibility for all aviation
lighting sytems at about 200 U.S. Air Force Base runways and taxiways.
And coincidentally my dad also worked there in the hangar where your father's
tower was, my dad was an aircraft mechanic there, and one of our neighbor
ladies was a highly skilled seamstress who made parachutes for use there as
well. My father left there in the late 40's and began to work for Snap-on
Tool corporation (1810 Labranch, downtown Houston at the time) which required
him to travel all over the states of Louisiana and Texas coordinating local
Snap-on sales at every town and highway. He and my mother continued to
live in our old home place on Fauna Street (Garden Villas) for about 51 years,
it was finally demolished about 1999 when my mom sold the place and the new
owner built a new house...it is strange for me to look at it now...that new
house surrounded by our same old trees.
Also one final note I seem to recall there was a small eatery not too far from
the Tower which I believe was called the Airport Cafe where we would often go
as youngsters (if we had any spare change) and get a burger..they had a juke
box and a new singer named Johnny Cash was big then.
Thanks again for your anecdote, Leo Weaver