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January 8, 2020
Growing Up In Bandera
By Glenn Clark
Special to the Prophet
Most, but not all, of our time as teenagers living in Bandera was spent on the river, at the Bantex theater or dragging Main Street. Sometimes at night we would make the drive to Kerrville to see a movie at the drive-in theater.
If we really felt adventurous we might go all the way to the east side of San Antonio to visit the KTSA radio station. The D.J. at the KTSA studio was visible through a big plate glass window and you could watch from the outside as he played the records on live radio. They always took requests from listeners who called in. On Friday nights if we had a football game with a rival town we would call in and request a song dedicated to the rivals which predicted their demise.
Eddie Daniels who grew up in Bandera as Eddie Kalka was a disc jockey on KBER radio for a while in San Antonio. Charlie Walker, aka The Ol' Cotton Picker, who had a successful country music recording career was my favorite D.J. on KMAC back in the day. I listened to him every day as I traveled to my work in San Antonio.
Here in more recent years my wife and I have had the opportunity to listen to our son Glenn Taylor (his radio name) when he worked at night on KFAN in Fredricksburg and KRVL in Kerrville where he took requests like they did back when we were younger. From the time he first learned to talk his ambition was to be a disc jockey. He is still on the air today with the Ranch Radio Group in Kerrville.
Playland Park down on Broadway in San Antonio was a rare adventure for us earlier Bandera teens and it was always memorable. Seems there was a pizza joint around there too where we sometimes stopped. Pizza did not exist in Bandera at the time. George Kinsey and his old white Ford provided the transportation on most of those trips out of our natural habitat. We were self proclaimed country hicks and we jokingly played it up at every opportunity when we traveled out of town.
Those long trips were limited to having enough money for gas to complete the round trip and when it came to earning money back then it was pretty much doing whatever job was available. Depending on the season it could mean hauling hay, catching minnows to be sold for fishing bait or fence building with my granddaddy. The only steady paid job I had back in the day was when I worked at the Phillips 66 station. It was a perfect fit being just a block from the school so I was able to work every afternoon and on weekends. The dollar an hour wage was adequate at the time and the job was there rain or shine although my Big Red with peanuts daily habit did make a dent in my weekly pay.
Shoeshine boy, dishwasher in a cafe, hay hauler, service station attendant and fence builder were a part of my Growing Up In Bandera days just as it was for many other young men in 1960s Bandera. None of us could have predicted the adventures ahead as we chose the big city for work, college or answered the call from our Uncle Sam.
#211 2019
If we really felt adventurous we might go all the way to the east side of San Antonio to visit the KTSA radio station. The D.J. at the KTSA studio was visible through a big plate glass window and you could watch from the outside as he played the records on live radio. They always took requests from listeners who called in. On Friday nights if we had a football game with a rival town we would call in and request a song dedicated to the rivals which predicted their demise.
Eddie Daniels who grew up in Bandera as Eddie Kalka was a disc jockey on KBER radio for a while in San Antonio. Charlie Walker, aka The Ol' Cotton Picker, who had a successful country music recording career was my favorite D.J. on KMAC back in the day. I listened to him every day as I traveled to my work in San Antonio.
Here in more recent years my wife and I have had the opportunity to listen to our son Glenn Taylor (his radio name) when he worked at night on KFAN in Fredricksburg and KRVL in Kerrville where he took requests like they did back when we were younger. From the time he first learned to talk his ambition was to be a disc jockey. He is still on the air today with the Ranch Radio Group in Kerrville.
Playland Park down on Broadway in San Antonio was a rare adventure for us earlier Bandera teens and it was always memorable. Seems there was a pizza joint around there too where we sometimes stopped. Pizza did not exist in Bandera at the time. George Kinsey and his old white Ford provided the transportation on most of those trips out of our natural habitat. We were self proclaimed country hicks and we jokingly played it up at every opportunity when we traveled out of town.
Those long trips were limited to having enough money for gas to complete the round trip and when it came to earning money back then it was pretty much doing whatever job was available. Depending on the season it could mean hauling hay, catching minnows to be sold for fishing bait or fence building with my granddaddy. The only steady paid job I had back in the day was when I worked at the Phillips 66 station. It was a perfect fit being just a block from the school so I was able to work every afternoon and on weekends. The dollar an hour wage was adequate at the time and the job was there rain or shine although my Big Red with peanuts daily habit did make a dent in my weekly pay.
Shoeshine boy, dishwasher in a cafe, hay hauler, service station attendant and fence builder were a part of my Growing Up In Bandera days just as it was for many other young men in 1960s Bandera. None of us could have predicted the adventures ahead as we chose the big city for work, college or answered the call from our Uncle Sam.
#211 2019