Houston, the first part

I graduated from high school in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, on Friday, June 13th, 1958.  On Sunday I boarded a train for Texas, to spend the summer working at a radio station and living with radio friends I had made during the years I worked at WRIT in Milwaukee.

On Monday, June 16th, I arrived at Union Station and was whisked out Allen Parkway to begin my life in Houston.  I would live with the Program Director and his wife and two children, for whom I had babysat regularly back home.  They offered me room and board in exchange for help with the kids and a day job at the new radio station McLendon had put on the air in Houston, KILT.  The General Manager had been the same at WRIT.  I would put money away for college and head home in the fall.

It would be a fun challenge to map all the places I have lived and worked in Houston in the ensuing fifty plus years.  KILT began life in the OLD Milby Hotel on Texas Avenue downtown, directly across the street from the Rice (Fancy Schmancy) Hotel.  On the first day the first person I met was the lovely receptionist, Beverly.  I've always made friends where I work and I'm proud to say that she is widowed now (from the aforementioned GM) and lives in Cibolo, TX, just a few miles from my daughter Laura.  We stay in touch and see each other occasionally.  A beauty queen and beautiful person, she graduated from Spring Branch High School and lived at home with her folks who were gracious and welcoming to me.

Somehow I discovered that the University of Houston offered a Radio/TV degree and since I'd been working in radio for three years, I thought I should have one.  I contrived to receive a small scholarship and instead of heading North for college, moved to the only "girls" dorm on the UH campus in September.

In the Spring KILT moved to elegant, modern facilities at 500 Lovett Boulevard, quite a departure from the Milby!  No more elevator rides with Bull Curry and other local wrestlers.  No more walks to the 1010 parking garage in the afternoon downpours.  There is still a photograph of Beverly and me, wearing kilts, welcoming people to the courtyard for the grand opening.

I was engaged to Lindsey English, who was soon to graduate from UH.  He'd worked at Channel 13, on Cullen Boulevard, all through his years, both as a cameraman and weekend booth announcer.  We married and I got a job with a small ad agency, Tel-Ad Productions.  Their office was in the Park Towers.  Charlie Whitaker and Jim Page were hilarious.  It was a fun job but not long lived.  I became the Production Coordinator at A.S. Black Advertising on West Gray.  And I became pregnant ... much to Mr. Black's dismay.  I worked much later that he would have liked, because we were busy.  I even took part in a Grand Prize Beer commercial, pushing a shopping cart, when I had to back away to keep said child out of the shot!

Lindsey went off to serve his two years of Naval Reserve duty and I moved in with his folks in Willowbend.

Just remembering that first year or so of life in Houston brings up so many names, faces and places, that I could not get to sleep last night remembering them, connecting them and missing so many who are no longer around.

To think, at this rate I could do about fifty five blogs on my life since moving to Texas two days after graduating from high school at the age of seventeen.  Cheer up.  I won't.