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February 25, 2020
Growing Up In Bandera
By Glenn Clark
Special to the Prophet
Getting my education around Bandera came in many forms. I, like many other kids with Polish ancestry, started at St. Joseph's Catholic School and attended there through the eighth grade. I then transferred over to the public school system to complete my high school years. Over there, Catholics, Methodists, Baptist and students of all religions were lumped together. That is why folks of all religions around here use the same math and english in our everyday life, I guess.
A lot of my country life education was delivered by old-timers who were quite often seen and heard publicly in and around cafes, filling stations and frequently seated on those big concrete window ledges in front of the OST. This was before they put the modern day benches in place. Who in the world decided that was a better idea? Traditions are disappearing faster around here than seeing kids dragging Main Street in Bandera.
Back in the day the sidewalk in front of the OST was covered with chewing tobacco juice stains as the old timers misjudged their spittin' range. Today it's cigarette butts and discarded toothpicks scattered about and they are just as disgusting to see.
Now if it's a speed course in Bandera education you desire then you should enter the interior of the OST and take up a position close to the "Table of Knowledge.” Just get close enough to be within listening distance. Be forewarned if you should be so bold as to sit down with locals at that table. You risk being swept up in a stream of never ending and sometimes unbelievable history as we natives have remembered it.
A lot of my early learning was acquired at the Bandera Ice House. I'm talking about the old ice house when they crushed your ice up on the loading dock from big blocks stored in the walk in cooler along with kegs of Lone Star and Pearl beer. You know, a real ice house. Thinking about the sound of breaking racks of pool balls and shuffling dominoes in the back is a reminder of some good times and brings a bit of sadness as visions of people who have passed on come to mind.
At an early age I was exposed to all the tricks of keeping ice around the beer keg in the tub as well as how to properly tap a keg of beer. I don't have any memory of bbq events during my early life when there wasn't an argument about if the keg was going to be Pearl or Lone Star. That is probably going down in history as the longest running feud in Bandera history although politics is gaining ground more recently.
Here in my current Growing Up In Bandera years I have a few elders I rely on for fact checking on events from earlier times. The key to learning is listening. Al "Squeaky" Evans, Alfred Anderwald, John Tucker, Ruth Hay, Eddie Rowe, Raymond "Doc" Adamietz, James Herrera and some others have a wealth of information and it's always a pleasure to strike up a conversation with each of them as I continue my education here in The Cowboy Capital of the World.
#218 2020
A lot of my country life education was delivered by old-timers who were quite often seen and heard publicly in and around cafes, filling stations and frequently seated on those big concrete window ledges in front of the OST. This was before they put the modern day benches in place. Who in the world decided that was a better idea? Traditions are disappearing faster around here than seeing kids dragging Main Street in Bandera.
Back in the day the sidewalk in front of the OST was covered with chewing tobacco juice stains as the old timers misjudged their spittin' range. Today it's cigarette butts and discarded toothpicks scattered about and they are just as disgusting to see.
Now if it's a speed course in Bandera education you desire then you should enter the interior of the OST and take up a position close to the "Table of Knowledge.” Just get close enough to be within listening distance. Be forewarned if you should be so bold as to sit down with locals at that table. You risk being swept up in a stream of never ending and sometimes unbelievable history as we natives have remembered it.
A lot of my early learning was acquired at the Bandera Ice House. I'm talking about the old ice house when they crushed your ice up on the loading dock from big blocks stored in the walk in cooler along with kegs of Lone Star and Pearl beer. You know, a real ice house. Thinking about the sound of breaking racks of pool balls and shuffling dominoes in the back is a reminder of some good times and brings a bit of sadness as visions of people who have passed on come to mind.
At an early age I was exposed to all the tricks of keeping ice around the beer keg in the tub as well as how to properly tap a keg of beer. I don't have any memory of bbq events during my early life when there wasn't an argument about if the keg was going to be Pearl or Lone Star. That is probably going down in history as the longest running feud in Bandera history although politics is gaining ground more recently.
Here in my current Growing Up In Bandera years I have a few elders I rely on for fact checking on events from earlier times. The key to learning is listening. Al "Squeaky" Evans, Alfred Anderwald, John Tucker, Ruth Hay, Eddie Rowe, Raymond "Doc" Adamietz, James Herrera and some others have a wealth of information and it's always a pleasure to strike up a conversation with each of them as I continue my education here in The Cowboy Capital of the World.
#218 2020