Living in South Austin July 1945 to July 1949

A selfie from the old days

My family lived in South Austin from July 1945 to July 1949. We moved there from the Clarksville area. World War II was almost over. Dad sold his barber shop (Avenue Barber Shop at 819 Congress Avenue) and prepared to join the fight. However, the war ended before his National Guard unit was activated.

We moved into a modern brick house on Josephine Street in a nice neighborhood south of the Colorado River. It seemed a long way from Clarksville to me back then. However, according to Google Maps, it is only 2.3 miles from our old house to the new. Today, I regularly walk twice that far daily for exercise. I bought my girlfriend La Juana Jolly a necklace and told her goodbye. I thought I'd never see her again, but we met up again at Austin High School. However, the spark was never reignited. We had grown apart.

After moving to Josephine Street, we only ventured north of the river to go downtown where Dad worked or to see a movie. There was one movie theater in South Austin, but it was way over on South Congress Avenue near Fulmore Junior High School.

The nearest grocery store to the Josephine house was on Kinney Avenue and it was the size of a current day two-car garage. Maybe smaller. Mother would send me to the store nearly every day to get groceries. We had a charge account there. The grocer would give me whatever was on the shopping list and then Dad would go in on Saturday to pay for the week's purchases. I would often sneak in a candy bar that wasn't on the list so I didn't mind doing the shopping.

I remember getting to know a number of kids my age in the neighborhood. The only name I remember is Alan Johnson. His father, Gant Johnson, worked at the University of Texas and he got us, Alan and I, jobs selling food and drinks during Texas Longhorn football games. My mother and Alan's mother remained friends for many years, even after my family moved to Pete's Path near 38th and Jefferson. This was considered North Austin at the time.

Alan and I went to Becker School, and then Fulmore. I don't remember much about Becker except being on the safety patrol and meeting Don Holden who became a lifetime friend.

I joined the band at Fulmore and Verna Covington taught me to read music and play the trumpet. That led to a lifetime of performance, mostly in choral music. I sang with the Austin Lyric Opera Chorus for fifteen years and still sing regularly with choruses in Georgetown, Texas as well as around the world. I also play the trumpet occasionally at church. At Fulmore, I was fortunate to spend some weekends visiting Verna Covington's home. Her youngest son,Scott, also played trumpet and we became friends. When we got into Austin High, Scott's father, Weldon Covington, was our band director. Later, Scott and I were both in Navy ROTC at the University of Texas. I dropped out and joined the Marines and lost track of him then.

Other memories of South Austin include the day our house caught on fire, our new 1948 Pontiac, Bartlet's Pies, riding my bike to school, getting a police escort to school because we were late for a band trip, renting a room to a teacher, and much more. I plan to talk about each of these later.

Publishing a Neighborhood Magazine

I'm often asked "When did you first become interested in writing?"

My earliest memory of writing is when my sister, Barbara Cagle, decided we would publish a neighborhood magazine. We were living on Pete's Path in Austin at the time, so I had to be about twelve years old. She had written and produced some neighborhood plays several years before this when we lived on Josephine Street in South Austin.

But, my involvement as a writer didn't occur until the magazine phase. By publish, keep in mind that the magazine was handwritten and each copy was handwritten as well. So there wasn't a wide distribution and the magazine only lasted for a summer. When school started we were too busy to continue the publishing endeavor. But I remember getting to write and I remember the encouragement from Barbara.

She told me I had to keep a journal of all the movies I went to see so we could include movie reviews in the magazine. I got a spiral notebook and on one side I pasted the ad for the movie clipped from the newspaper. On the other side was the movie review itself. I wish I still had that spiral notebook. It was lost in a heavy rain that flooded my basement bedroom years later while I was away in the Marine Corps. I lost all my precious books in that storm, but that's a story for another time.

I had the writing bug from then on. Aptitude tests showed an interest in creative writing, but my school counselors said I should think of it as a hobby since few people made a living from writing. So, I ended up majoring in computer science and wrote for the fun of it.

I took a correspondence class on writing short stories. One was published in Navy Magazine. Much of the writing I did was for work. When the boss learned I could put two sentences together and make sense, I was called on to do the reports, apply for grants, and all sorts of writing.

I wrote a computer book with my lawyer boss, James Dunlap, called Automated Law Office Systems. It was published by West Publishing.

I think writers have a need to write. My sister is still writing. She had a funny article published in the Sunday magazine of a Houston paper and she has placed in several writing contests as well.

Moving to South Austin

In Where Love Once Lived, one character lives in the Clarksville area of Austin, Texas. There are references to my own experience living next to the neighborhood that was restricted to blacks only back when I was there. I lived on a white street, but our backyard was adjacent to the backyard of a black family. I don't remember anything about the parents of that family, but I remember talking to the children. We would often meet at the wire fence and stare at each for a while until we finally got into a normal childhood conversation. I'm not sure how old I was, but since my family moved from there in 1946, I had to be about nine years old.

World War II had ended and the economy was improving. We moved to a nice neighborhood with a modern house on Josephine Street south of the Colorado River. South Austin seemed far away then. I bought my girlfriend Lajuana Jolly a necklace and told her goodbye. I thought I'd never see her again, but we met up again when we got to the one white high school in town. However, the spark was never reignited. We had grown apart.

After the move, we only ventured north of the river to go downtown where Dad worked or to see a movie. There was one movie theater in South Austin, but it was way over on South Congress Avenue. Checking Google Maps today, I see that it was only 2.3 miles from where we lived at West 9 1/2 Street to the South Austin address on Josephine Street. Today, I regularly walk further than that for exercise.

The nearest grocery store to the Josephine house was on Kinney Avenue and it was the size of a current day two-car garage. Maybe smaller. Mother would send me to the store nearly every day to get groceries. We had a charge account there. The grocer would give me what ever was on the shopping list and then Dad would go in on Saturday to pay for the week's purchases. I would often sneak in a candy bar that wasn't on the list so I didn't mind doing the shopping.

One day, a neighborhood friend went with me and he showed me a shortcut to the grocery store through a wooded area. Right in the middle of the forest he stopped and pulled out a knife. I didn't know what was going on and thought I better get out of there. But before I could move, he grabbed a piece of dried grapevine and cut off a few inches of it, stuck it in his mouth and lit the other end just like adults did with cigarettes. He took a few puffs, coughed, and passed it to me. I tried it and started taking that shortcut every time I went to the store

Other memories from the time I lived at the Josephine house include the day the house caught on fire, renting out my room, learning to drive. I'll write about these adventures and others later.