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July 4, 2023
Growing Up In Bandera
By Glenn Clark
The Bandera Prophet
Everywhere I go and everything I do these days holds a memory of days gone by. Those simple times are gone forever. Life is anything but simple in modern day Bandera.
On a recent morning I was headed home from the store in my golf cart and as I was about to turn off of Cypress Street on to Fourth, I stopped and looked up at the scene before me. I watched as Town Mountain was slowly being lit up by the early morning sun. I had a vision of some young boys long ago crossing the river and walking through many cedar covered acres before climbing the steep hillside in an effort to reach the top.
When reality kicked back in, there were once again man-made structures dotting the hillsides and wires running from utility pole to utility pole in my view. Just a moment before those things had disappeared from my vision, slowly I returned from reliving another one of my many childhood adventures in Bandera. The joy and excitement I felt were short lived as sadness soon consumed my thoughts. Knowing I can never go back or that the young people today will never experience the freedoms we had leaves me feeling a bit empty.
My childhood friend Charlie Fellows lives just around the corner from me on Cedar Street where he grew up. It's an instant reminder of a time when our world was less complicated as I pass by and see him sitting on the porch in a chair with his foot stuck up on one of the posts out front. That was a familiar scene when his dad would be seen sitting there in the evenings back in the day. Don't know if that would be considered a tradition, but it always triggers a flashback of an earlier time.
Lots of things in my neighborhood around the area of St. Stanislaus Catholic Church have been getting a facelift and becoming more modernized. The nun's convent, the rectory, St. Joseph's Catholic School and the church itself have all been renovated.
I have many family members who were buried in the cemetery, in the section where I played baseball with my friends back in the day. The inside of the church has certainly taken on a new look since I served as an altar boy, when Father Victor was assigned to our parish. I love the feeling I get while sitting on my porch and hearing the church bells as they announce the hour of the day.
My side of town was known as Polander Town in earlier times, and that needs no explanation if you know Bandera history. It still has some inhabitants with family names associated with those earlier days. Laskowski, Kalka, Martinez, Rico and Glasscock just to name a few. Not all are Polish but all have a connection to the past.
Charlie Fellows and I are fast becoming the oldtimers in the area where once we lived a carefree life of kids Growing Up In Bandera.
#381 2023
On a recent morning I was headed home from the store in my golf cart and as I was about to turn off of Cypress Street on to Fourth, I stopped and looked up at the scene before me. I watched as Town Mountain was slowly being lit up by the early morning sun. I had a vision of some young boys long ago crossing the river and walking through many cedar covered acres before climbing the steep hillside in an effort to reach the top.
When reality kicked back in, there were once again man-made structures dotting the hillsides and wires running from utility pole to utility pole in my view. Just a moment before those things had disappeared from my vision, slowly I returned from reliving another one of my many childhood adventures in Bandera. The joy and excitement I felt were short lived as sadness soon consumed my thoughts. Knowing I can never go back or that the young people today will never experience the freedoms we had leaves me feeling a bit empty.
My childhood friend Charlie Fellows lives just around the corner from me on Cedar Street where he grew up. It's an instant reminder of a time when our world was less complicated as I pass by and see him sitting on the porch in a chair with his foot stuck up on one of the posts out front. That was a familiar scene when his dad would be seen sitting there in the evenings back in the day. Don't know if that would be considered a tradition, but it always triggers a flashback of an earlier time.
Lots of things in my neighborhood around the area of St. Stanislaus Catholic Church have been getting a facelift and becoming more modernized. The nun's convent, the rectory, St. Joseph's Catholic School and the church itself have all been renovated.
I have many family members who were buried in the cemetery, in the section where I played baseball with my friends back in the day. The inside of the church has certainly taken on a new look since I served as an altar boy, when Father Victor was assigned to our parish. I love the feeling I get while sitting on my porch and hearing the church bells as they announce the hour of the day.
My side of town was known as Polander Town in earlier times, and that needs no explanation if you know Bandera history. It still has some inhabitants with family names associated with those earlier days. Laskowski, Kalka, Martinez, Rico and Glasscock just to name a few. Not all are Polish but all have a connection to the past.
Charlie Fellows and I are fast becoming the oldtimers in the area where once we lived a carefree life of kids Growing Up In Bandera.
#381 2023