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December 15, 2020
Growing Up In Bandera
By Glenn Clark
The Bandera Prophet
After many years of doing research on the subject I have come to the conclusion that no place other than Bandera would have been better suited for me to grow up in. The big city world with its bigger populations was distant enough to only have limited influence on the youth of Bandera in the fifties and sixties. The catching up on the latest fashion, fads and trends was slow in comparison to what today's high tech communication environment provides.
While we have always had a weekly local newspaper during those time periods, it wasn't on the scale of what the San Antonio daily publications had to offer. We never got copies of those daily papers but the Sunday edition was full of required reading. The comics and the sports sections, where we hoped to find a good writeup about the Bandera Bulldogs, were the cause of many family arguments about who would get them first. Make that second because my dad always had first dibs on the paper.
We didn't use the local home paper delivery service of the San Antonio Light which was provided by the Robert Stein family. That was the same family that operated Steins Clothiers on 11th Street in Bandera at the time and is still owned and operated by Mary, the young daughter of that family. Later on when my wife worked as secretary at Bandera Middle School the local Bandera Bulletin was delivered weekly to her office by Billy Clyde Wright.
After Sunday morning church services we would always stop by The Corner Drug Store for our weekly S.A. paper. That is where Father Victor would usually catch up with us and ask if I could accompany him to Lakehills St. Victors Chapel to serve as altar boy. My mother always assured him I would more than willing. Another planned day of adventures on the river down the drain leaving me to wonder when that area would get their own crop of altar boys. You would think if they wanted a church of their own they would have provided all the necessities.
Living in the town of Bandera and being located so close to St. Stanislaus Catholic Church had special meaning for my brother Eddie and me along with brothers Angel and Joey Martinez. It meant we were usually scheduled to serve early mass on Sundays. My buddies Charlie Fellows, John Rico and Brandy Humphries got in on some of that too. We all lived close to the baseball field where the newer part of the cemetery behind the nuns convent is now located. That provided many good times in our neighborhood.
The caliche ground around that area was ideal for shooting marbles and was the site of many battles between Angel and me while Growing Up In Bandera. Tops were a popular toy around those same times but a lack of concrete sidewalks made it difficult to enjoy. I doubt it would have provided any better memories for me than "The Glenn and Angel Marble Wars" did.
#260 2020
While we have always had a weekly local newspaper during those time periods, it wasn't on the scale of what the San Antonio daily publications had to offer. We never got copies of those daily papers but the Sunday edition was full of required reading. The comics and the sports sections, where we hoped to find a good writeup about the Bandera Bulldogs, were the cause of many family arguments about who would get them first. Make that second because my dad always had first dibs on the paper.
We didn't use the local home paper delivery service of the San Antonio Light which was provided by the Robert Stein family. That was the same family that operated Steins Clothiers on 11th Street in Bandera at the time and is still owned and operated by Mary, the young daughter of that family. Later on when my wife worked as secretary at Bandera Middle School the local Bandera Bulletin was delivered weekly to her office by Billy Clyde Wright.
After Sunday morning church services we would always stop by The Corner Drug Store for our weekly S.A. paper. That is where Father Victor would usually catch up with us and ask if I could accompany him to Lakehills St. Victors Chapel to serve as altar boy. My mother always assured him I would more than willing. Another planned day of adventures on the river down the drain leaving me to wonder when that area would get their own crop of altar boys. You would think if they wanted a church of their own they would have provided all the necessities.
Living in the town of Bandera and being located so close to St. Stanislaus Catholic Church had special meaning for my brother Eddie and me along with brothers Angel and Joey Martinez. It meant we were usually scheduled to serve early mass on Sundays. My buddies Charlie Fellows, John Rico and Brandy Humphries got in on some of that too. We all lived close to the baseball field where the newer part of the cemetery behind the nuns convent is now located. That provided many good times in our neighborhood.
The caliche ground around that area was ideal for shooting marbles and was the site of many battles between Angel and me while Growing Up In Bandera. Tops were a popular toy around those same times but a lack of concrete sidewalks made it difficult to enjoy. I doubt it would have provided any better memories for me than "The Glenn and Angel Marble Wars" did.
#260 2020