Window Shopping

Thinking about going downtown triggered another memory.

Hanging out at the mall is not a new idea!

My Mom used to take me with her to downtown SA when she went "window shopping". I believe we took the bus downtown (sometimes we drove our 1940 Chevrolet). She would spend what seemed to me (at age 10 or so) HOURS walking from store to store to look at things. I wasn't sure what, but I assume clothing and household things.

One of the highlights for me was Joske's Department store. It was located across a side street from the Alamo. (We never went to see the Alamo then. It was just an old mission building only history buffs cared much about. I didn't see the inside until my elementary class went there on a field trip -- probably around 5th grade.)

I liked going to Joske's because they had a great toy department. That's where I bought my Stallion 45 Six Shooter cap gun, with removable cartridges, with money I had saved up from doing chores. (Probably with a subsidy from my Mom...)

I had to go to Joske's buy the boxes of little individual round caps to load the cartridges. They were kind of expensive, so I learned to use regular roll caps and tear them into small enough pieces to fit down in the shell of the cartridge. Eventually, it was more trouble than it was worth to reload the caps, so I just made explosive noises with my voice when I played cowboys and Indians with my friends. With caps, the Stallion 45 was good for only six shots. With self-made noises, it never ran out…a definite advantage when you were shooting it out with the Outlaw from next door or the imaginary Indians circling around you on their ponies.

http://www.nicholscapguns.com/45pasadena.htm

Cap guns then were kind of like light sabers are today.

Remember the Milam! (Building)

 Recently there was an op-ed article in the McKinney Courier-Gazette (Ken Byler - a real curmudgeon. I like him.) that mentioned the Railroad Commission as the most mis-named office in the world. I think it said that 80% of Texans have no idea it has nothing to do with regulating railroads.

 http://www.rrc.state.tx.us/

A nice little history:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_Commission_of_Texas

 The Wikipedia article mentions that the TRC offices were located in the Milam Building in downtown San Antonio.

That was the building where my Dad started his CPA business in the early 50's. I remember visiting his office with him, and also going to the studio of KTSA radio, which was in the same building. I believe he did some accounting work for them. 

That reminds me of the time I went with him on his bubble gum machine route . We drove all around downtown SA in his Cadillac Coupe (old used - 1941, I think. I kind of remember it was a year newer than our 1940 Chevrolet sedan. It was a kind of moss green color).

We stopped a all kinds of shops and stores, reloading his gumball machines and collecting the pennies from them. He would roll the pennies at home in the evening. I believe he used a postal scale to weigh them, rather than count them. I still have a couple of Indian Head pennies he gave me from those machines. 

I had access to all the gumballs I wanted; they came in boxes that were about 12 inches on each side. (It wasn't long until I was sick of gumballs.) Towards the end of his ownership of the route, he introduced the latest thing - chlorophyll gumballs. They were green and tasted like a sweet plant. It wasn't too long after that when he sold the route.

At one stop, a shop of some sort (maybe a clock shop?) the proprieter took us upstairs where he kept some pigeons, to show us the baby pigeons that had just hatched. 

Acorns

Update 11/19/16 - There are so many acorns the squirrels aren't bothering to pick them up to store for winter.

Our oak trees are having a bumper crop of acorns this year. These are from the red oak in the back yard.

Not as sincere as a field of pumpkins, but notably numerous nonetheless.

Technobservation

The only justifiable use for computers is to keep homeless shelters from filling up with programmers.