You've been here so long that you can remember that?

[KevinFromTexas]

I got a kick out of some of these from John Kelso. Have a look:

From the Austin American-Statesman
http://www.statesman.com/news/conten...1/31kelso.html

COMMENTARY: JOHN KELSO
You've been here so long that you can remember that?

Sunday, December 31, 2006

You know you may have been living in Austin a little too long if:

When you hear GM, you think of the old greasy spoon/steakhouse chain, not the auto manufacturer.

You think the bats under the Congress Avenue Bridge are swell, but you miss the downtown cricket infestations of the late '70s.

You try to remember to call it Cesar Chavez, but you just can't stop calling it First Street.

You were here in Austin when beer joints outnumbered nail salons.

You know at least two dozen people who can tell you what they were doing when Charles Whitman started shooting.

It may be Academy to everybody else, but to you it's still Academy Surplus.

You were here when the hippies stopped picking on developer Gary Bradley so they could pick on developer Jim Bob Moffett.

You still miss the chicken-fried steak at Truck City on Ben White Boulevard.

Whenever some yuppie honks in traffic, you mutter, "Must have just moved here from New Jersey."

You can remember when instead of labeling them condominiums, they just called them apartments. You know the difference between a condo and an apartment? About $500,000.

You can remember when all the hippies in town were carping about the South Texas Nuclear Project instead of carping about toll roads.

You can remember when you could actually get into Austin City Limits without knowing some bigshot like Michael Dell.

You still think that 52nd Street is halfway to Dallas.

You can remember when the Warehouse District actually had a few warehouses.

You can remember when Williamson County didn't have a law and order reputation because there was nobody there for the cops to stop but a few farmers.

You were around when the richest guy living in the 78704 ZIP code was probably some dude who had a regular job with the state.

You can recall people who weren't connected with the rodeo wearing cowboy hats downtown.

You were here when you could actually find a parking spot on Congress Avenue without circling the block three or four times.

You remember when you could see the Capitol while standing downtown on the ground flat-footed.

You can remember when people were arguing over the Edwards Aquifer instead of the location of the next Wal-Mart.

You can remember when Bee Cave Road was so far out in the country that you had to pack a lunch.

You were around when the biggest ham in town was Willie Kocurek instead of Marc Katz.

You really don't care about the loss of the Armadillo World Headquarters anymore because you can't stay awake that late these days anyway.

You were around back before they invented the chicken fajita, which you still think is pretty silly, since there's no such thing as a chicken fajita.

You can remember a day when nobody could name the tallest building downtown, because none of them were all that tall.

[jaga185]

haha, funny list, but I don't understand like all of it...except for the last one...oh well

[texastarkus]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

I got a kick out of some of these from John Kelso. Have a look:

From the Austin American-Statesman
http://www.statesman.com/news/conten...1/31kelso.html


You try to remember to call it Cesar Chavez, but you just can't stop calling it First Street.

You were around when the biggest ham in town was Willie Kocurek instead of Marc Katz.


You can remember a day when nobody could name the tallest building downtown, because none of them were all that tall.

How many of you out there still call MLK....19th street?
How many of you out there can remember Willie Koucerek's store slogan?
How many of you remember the Stallion Drive-In...the Chief Drive-In..the Burnet Drive In...the Longhorn Drive In...Speaking of Drive-In's what was so special about the Rebel Drive In?????

[Major AWACS]

I remember a few of those. I'm getting old. When I moved to Austin in 94 the hippies were different and the drag rats.

Ciao, and Hook 'em Horns,
Capt-AWACS, Honk if you love Capt-AWACS

[Double L]

Definently representative of Austin's down to earth style.

[JRCool]

I'm not gonna lie, I'm rather ok that most of these things aren't that way anymore. A few would be nice to go back to.

[arbeiter]

I find John Kelso to be kind of annoying. I've always found his quasi-hippie version of Andy Rooney schtick to be played out. Besides:

the South Texas Nuclear Project wasn't that long ago... I remember it fairly well even into my teens. Probably stopped being important in the mid 90's.

And Bee Cave Road begins a mile from downtown!

[arbeiter]

Here are some old things I remember:

- when maps still marked IH-35 as "Interregional Highway"
- also on IH-35, when the upper deck was marked as 'Express Lanes'
- before Westgate Mall got turned into a shopping centre with Borders, etc. I went to a Star Trek convention there once, sadly enough.
- remember when Gateway Plaza was a dense oak forest?
- I also remember when we'd go out to "U.R. Cooks" on Burnet as a treat.
- all these other restaurants I remember: Birraporetti's, Magic Time Machine, Spooner's (!), Tokyo Steak House. We would go to Tokyo Steak House as another 'treat' kind of place.
- I also very vividly remember the car dealerships at the corner of 5th and Lamar, years before it became a shopping centre. Coffey Lincoln Mercury, Capital Chevrolet, and a few others were there.

God, there are so many more memories I could recall... The floods in 1989 or 1990 during Christmas... back when the news anchor on KXAN was Tonia Cooke... back when CBS and FOX affiliates flip flopped... back when the freeway portion of 183 ended right after Burnet, before Mopac... and of course, going to field trips to the Butter Krust factory well before it became Hoovers.com.

those were the days!

[Major AWACS]

I got to experiance the Drag before it got cleaned up. I actually watched the transformation throughout the 90s. THat was huge for me. High school trips to Austin in 91-93 then school from 94-99. What a change. No more porn shops

There is a Birraporettis in Houston, wonder if they are the same?

Ciao, and Hook 'em Horns,
Capt-AWACS, Texas-It's bigger than France

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Capt AWACS

There is a Birraporettis in Houston, wonder if they are the same?

Ciao, and Hook 'em Horns,
Capt-AWACS, Texas-It's bigger than France

a great italian restaurant and one heck of an irish bar.

[TXLove]

i'll add to the list:
Greyhound/Trailways was downtown
Treaty Oak was poisoned
Highland Mall when they had Goldmine arcade and Luby's cafeteria

Just a few I can think of as I type this!!!

[KevinFromTexas]

Haha, Buttercrust Backery. Holy molly that place smelled good.

I remember all the construction on Ben White Boulevard between I-35 and Lamar. I remember all the businesses in there that had to move out.

I also remember the new underground Capitol extension construction back in 1993. We watched almost every weekend as they bulldozed some of the huge trees, (that bulldozer was a monster), and kept digging deeper and deeper. The building actually goes down 65 feet. I really think seeing that going on, seeing a hole that large being dug by man, and all the construction was one of the things that got me interested in architecture and cities.

[austlar]

I remember when bars closed at midnight and could only sell beer. There was no liquor by the drink except in "private clubs".

I remember when 6th St. was kind of a skid row with a few beer joints, walk-up hotels, and mostly boarded-up store fronts. College kids mostly did not go out at night except to parties.

I remember when there were no suburbs and Austin had 150,000 people

I remember downtown with 2 or 3 tall buildings.

I have a friend who remembers Burnet Road being a gravel road, but I kind of question that since we are the same age. I am 60, but I did not come to Austin for the first time until 1962.

I remember seeing Nico, Lou Reed, and the Velvet Underground at some place on Congress near the old Greyhound. There were no other clubs in the area at all at that time. I have no idea what the place was called.

I remember the Pearl Street Warehouse, Austin's first big gay bar, still only a beer and set-ups bar when it opened.

I remember when they were building Mopac and nobody understood why. Who the hell was going to drive on it and where was it going anyway?

[LoneStarMike]

I remember flying with my mom on a Braniff Airways Electra that stopped in Austin on the way from Dallas Love Field to San Antonio in 1968 to go to the Hemisfair. No jetways back then.

I also remember flying into Austin with some friends in 1980 when Mueller only had 7 gates and there were no carousels at the baggage claim.

I remember on January 16, 1990, an America West fligh was hijacked enroute to Las Vegas from Houston. The hijacker forced the pilot to land the aircraft in Austin so that it could be refueled and flown to Cuba. At the Austin airport, police overpowered the hijacker and placed him under arrest.

Link to court case

Speaking of Mueller, here's a great historical website with photos from the 1960's and 1970's.

(Note: it's one of those websites that has an hourly bandwidth limit, so you may not be able to get in on the first try.)

I remember when I moved here in the summer of 1982, both sides of Loop 360 were finished, but you couldn't travel the entire length of it because they hadn't finished construction of the Loop 360 Bridge.

I remember when the State Capitol caught fire in 1983 and also when the original Goddess of Liberty was removed by helicopter in November 1986. A new statue, was placed on the dome the folowing June


How about the January 1985 Snows over South Central Texas

The first was on January 2, 1985 with over three inches in Austin. The second was January 11-13 when Austin got over 3 inches and San Antonio got a whopping 13.5 inches. I remember both of these because I was still a teller at the time.

The first one coincided with Lamar Savings' 25th anniversary. We had all sorts of celebrations and promotions going on at all the branches and bigwigs from the Dallas and Houston region had come to Austin for the festivities. I was the only teller at our branch who wasn't scheduled to work January 2, so I went out drinkin' on New Year's Day. After I got home it started snowing.

The next morning, I got a call from my boss (who I hated) begging me to come in because all the other tellers had called in saying they couldn't make it to work. I said no, hung up, and went back to bed.

I remember the January 11-13 storm because that started on a Friday and lasted through Sunday. Since it was the weekend, I didn't have to work.

Right after that storm, I transferred to the corporate offices downtown at 8th & Brazos in the Commodore One Building.

It was at the end of my second week downtown that we got this third storm. It started out as freezing rain about 2:00 that Friday afternoon and then quickly turned to snow.

Everyone had been expecting snow, but no one had planned on the freezing rain first. This made the roads really slick and people were having a heck of a time getting out of downtown. We begged our department head to let us leave early but she told us the only ones who could authorize that was Human Resources. And they'd already left! We ended up having to stay until 5:00.

West Sixth Street was a virtual parking lot. People would get stuck behind other cars and everyone's wheels were spinning. Drivers and pedestrians were pushing stuck vehicles in front of them trying to get the traffic moving because everyone just wanted to get home.

It took me two and a half hours just to get from 8th & Brazos to Enfield & Mopac. Once there, I drove around the barricades and got on Mopac and sailed the rest of the way home because there were no other cars on the freeway. (I was determined to get home by 8:00 p.m. so I could watch Dallas on CBS and I made it with 15 minutes to spare.)

On the 10:00 news that night whoever was mayor at the time was asking people to not call in reporting their loved ones missing. He assured folks that their loved ones were just stuck in traffic. It took some people five and six hours to get home.

By 10:30 p.m. the traffic back into downtown was all but gone, so a friend visiting from out of town and I went out drinking and as I remember it, the bars were quite crowded.

Of the three snowstorms we had in 1985, this is the one I remember most vividly. Yet when I go to this link that lists all the major snowfalls in Austin, there's no record of any snow on February 1, 1985.

Does anyone else remember this third and final snowstorm in 1985, or did I just dream the whole thing?

[Mopacs]

I have lived most of my 30 years here in Austin, and as such remember a lot. One thing I kept up with were the old retail stores (some in business, some not, some relocated). Here's what I remember in my lifetime (please excuse the long list):

• Woolco Department Stores - There were 4 in metro Austin. All shut down in 1982. One at 183 @ Anderson Lane (now a Hobby Lobby, and most recently Mervyn's), Another at 183 @ Lake Creek Parkway in far NW Austin (Now an HEB). There were also two in S Austin, one at Westgate Mall (Lamar at Ben White) and another at I-35 and William Canon.
• K-Mart - Yeah they only recently left the Austin market, but they had relocated and closed many stores over the years prior. There used to be a Kmart at what is currently a Dell facility (formerly a factory outlet PC store), on 183 @ Payton Gin. It relocated to Parmer @ Mopac in the early 90s (now a Big Lots). Another store was at 183 and 620, in the old Travis Square shopping center. The store relocated about a mile south to 183 @Creek Parkway (now a Burlington Coat Factory... as is the former K-mart at I35 and William Canon). Travis Square was demolished in the mid-late 90s to make way for a Simon power center, facing Lakeline Mall. Other locations included S Lamar @ Ben White (now a Lacks).
• Gibsons - regional department store chain. Long-gone (shut down in early 80s). Locations included 183 @ Hunters Chase (now a strip center), Burnet Rd at Greenlawn (now a Tuesday Morning, and other stores), and somewhere on Ben White (near Southwood mall?). I was very young and don't remember much. I believe there is still a Gibsons in Kerrville..it has to be the same, has the same pylon sign design and logo.
• Yarings - now defunct local department store chain. Original was located on Congress Avenue downtown (near 7th street?). Other locations included Travis Square (183 @ 620... later moved to Galleria Oaks at 183 @ Anderson Mill Road). Can't remember the other locations.
• Joske's -old San Antonio-based Department store chain. Austin location at Highland Mall. All later became Dillard's in late 80s.
• Frost Bros - another San Antonio dept store chain, now gone. Austin location was at Northcross Mall (now a Sports Authority, also soon to close).
• TG&Y - now defunct five and dime store. There was one location that I remember in Round Rock (on I-35 near what is now Hesters Crossing). It is now an Antique Mall and a Conn's appliances.
• Best Products - a catalog showroom store chain...now defunct. Specialized in jewelry, electronics among others. There were at one time two in Austin... One on 290E at I-35 (now a Virginia College campus) and briefly one at the Gateway Shopping Center (now a BEST Buy)... Another location in Killeen Mall. Closed in the mid-90s.
• Edison's - another catalog showroom store. There were two in Austin... one on Anderson Lane, just east of Burnet (now a Lack's furniture) and another at Brodie Oaks (now a Neiman Marcus Last Call).
• Service Merchandise - recent closure - catalog showroom chain. Included a store on Airport just N of Highland Mall, and another at Westgate Mall (roughly where Central market now stands).
• Phar-Mor - A super-sized drugstore chain - These stores were short-lived...lasting at most 4 years in the Late 80s/Early 90s, when the chain went bankrupt. There were locations in Anderson Mill (former Woolco, incidentally), Hancock Shopping Center, Parmer at Mopac (now a Roomstore) and at William Canon and I-35 (also a former Woolco!)
• Value Club - very short-lived warehouse store (a la Sam's/Costco), in the mid-80s. There were two in Austin, both former Woolco stores, later becoming Phar-Mor (talk about jinxed locations!). One at 183 and Lake Creek Parkway and the other on I-35 and William Canon.
• Revco - Long gone! Traditional drugstore chain, all have since closed (perhaps 20 years ago?)
• Biz-Mart - ofifice supply chain... later became Office Max (same company). Former Biz-Marts are still open, at Capital Plaza and Gateway Shopping center.
• Kroger - Grocery chain used to have at least two stores in Austin. I am too young to remember the stores, but I understand there was one at Burnet just north of Anderson (Now a Ross and Chuck E Cheese), and another at Ben White @ South 1st Street (also includes a Chuck E Cheese, and at one time a Ross as well). They closed in the late 70s I believe. I think there was also a store in San Marcos, well into the 80s? (closed when they pulled out of San Antonio market).
• Safeway - national grocery chain used to have at least a dozen stores in the Austin area. All became Apple Tree in the late 80s, later Randall's, in the early 90's.
• Tom Thumb - Dallas-based grocery chain had several in and around Austin. Later became Albertsons and Randall's.
• Skaggs Alpha-Beta - Another grocery chain. There were at least three in Austin...all bought out by Albertsons in the late 80s. One at Anderson Mill and 183 (now a Lacks), another at Ohlen and 183 (Albertsons just recently closed this store, currently vacant), and one at Stassney and Manchaca (now an ACC campus) in south Austin.
• Handy Andy - San Antonio-based grocery chain. Locations included Anderson Lane @ Rockwood (now a Stein Mart) and S Lamar, just S of Barton Springs (now an Alamo Drafthouse Cinema). They all became Market Baskets in the 80s, and later City Markets.
• Handy Dan - Lots of Handy chains! Home Improvement Warehouse chain, in Austin in the pre-Home Depot era (in fact, I think some executives with Handy Dan launched Home Depot). Locations included 183 @ Ohlen (now a Van's auto parts) and I-35 at Ben White (demolished to make way for eventual Ben White freeway expansion).
• Bojangles - North Carolina-based fast food chicken restaurant chain. Lasted all but a year, circa 1985. The only location I can remember was on 183 just north of Spicewood/McNeil roads.
• Carls Jr - California-based fast food chain. Also short-lived Austin stay. There were locations scattered around Austin, including Burnet @ Greenlawn (now a Taco Bell), N Lamar @ Rundberg and I-35 @ Braker (now a Whataburger).
• Del Taco - another California fast food chain. Many of these became Whataburgers in the mid-80s. Locations included South 1st at Barton Springs Rd (next to Sandy's) and Anderson Lane near Northcross Mall.
• Wyatt's Cafeteria - cafeteria chain. Locations included 183 @ Anderson Lane (now a Bingo hall), Hancock Center (demolished), Barton Creek Mall (later became a Luby's, now something else), and Westgate Mall (moved to Barton Creek Mall in early 80s).

This list could go on and on, but I'll spare you the misery! I'll include some other topics as they come to mind.

[arbeiter]

I remember the Phar-Mor on 183 and Lake Creek. It became an HEB a few years later.

[TXLove]

I remember Service Mechandise cause I used to shop at the Solo Serv next to it.......

[Corinth940]

Hey Mopacs..I remember many of those stores too as I've got about 10 years on you. One thing I've noticed is that Randall's in Austin and Houston and Tom Thumb up here in the DFW area are the same stores...just different names for each metro. Both are under the Safeway brand now, I believe. Woolco and TG&Y bring back lots of memories too.

I grew up in SA and remember driving to Austin plenty of times for concerts at Frank Erwin. I saw Duran Duran there around 1985 with a few friends from Trinity U...good times...I also remember plenty of drives up to Dallas about that same time and Round Rock was pretty much nothing. Westinghouse Dr stands out in my mind b/c I remember that company was about the only thing out there then when we'd drive by. I just drove by there the other day coming back to DFW from SA and I was just amazed at all the growth around there now and also around South Austin near Onion Creek...when did all that retail spring up on the west side of 35?!! Obviously I don't do that drive much so I was totally impressed. Onion Creek was always such a nice area even back in the 80s but it seemed so far removed from everything...not anymore!

I also remember the huge snowstorm in Jan 1985. I wasn't in Austin but I remember the weathermen saying in SA that we wouldn't get much but maybe some flurries mixed in with some sleet and that Austin and points north would get the biggest amounts. It started sleeting that Friday late afternoon...switched to snow about 10pm that night..and never stopped snowing through Saturday and Saturday night until it finally ended Sunday morning with about 15 inches in my parent's yard on the nw side. Incredible..I still have the newspaper clippings.

[JRCool]

When was mopac built?

[austlar]

I remember Mopac construction going on near Enfield Rd. in 1969.