Hidden Hymnals ...
Donald Rao showed me a great place to fly kites. There was lots of open space with nice mowed fields. There were no power lines to get in our way. This “kite flying” location was just off of the Port Arthur highway near East Virginia Street.
Donald lived over on Wilbur Boulevard in South Park. Wilbur Blvd. was a neat little street. You would enter the street from Florida Ave., drive a short distance to the end and then follow the U-Turn around and exit back out onto Florida.
I really enjoyed visiting at Donald’s house. First of all, we were about the same age. His parents and mine were active leaders in the South Park Church of Christ. They visited often. This meant that I got to go along to play with Donald. Most of this memory is set in the mid-1940s.
Donald had a nice upstairs room. He had lots of toys. Especially I enjoyed playing with his Marx electric train. Donald was a good friend and we had a lot of fun playing together.
When the new church building which was located on Highland Ave. and Threadneedle Streets was nearly complete in 1948, Donald and I had a blast. First of all, the pews were about two weeks late in arriving. So the church continued to meet in the old building over on Elgie and Irving Streets. During that two-week period my dad, Woodie Hamby and Don’s dad, Leon Rao spent a great deal of time overseeing last minute touchups inside the new building.
While our dads were working inside the new building, Don and I would tag along. The auditorium floor was waxed linoleum and was all shiny and slick. Since there were no pews yet installed, the floor made a great sliding place. We would take off our shoes and start running from the rear of the auditorium toward the pulpit. At about the halfway point, we would sit down and slide on our posteriors all the way to the front. That was the best sliding place I ever knew prior to the days of waterslides. Donald and I marveled over how warm our backsides got from the friction of sliding on that floor.
During this period of time before the pews arrived, a shipment of 500 hymnals showed up. My dad assigned Don and me the task of opening all the boxes and stacking the hymnals along the auditorium wall. Then we were provided with little rubber stamps that read, “Property of the South Park Church of Christ, 3395 Highland Ave., Beaumont, Texas.” Don and I had to stamp the inside back cover of each of those hymnals. This job assignment interfered a bit with our pastime of sliding on the floor. Each hymnal had a red bookmark sewn into the binding. Correction: There were six of those 500 hymnals that had purple bookmarks. Donald and I took ownership of those six hymnals. We hid those six hymnals down in the basement of the building inside a crawl space that later was sealed closed.
But what about the neat kite flying area that I started out to describe. Well, Donald took me out to this field and we flew our kites. There was a building down at the corner of the highway and East Virginia. I asked Donald what the building was for? He replied, “Oh, that’s Lamar College.” Then I asked him what they did there. He said he didn’t know. But the barren Lamar College campus of that day made for great kite flying.
And you know something else? I’ll bet those six hymnals are still sealed up in that crawl space.
Winston Hamby
Whamby2@houston.rr.com
Donald lived over on Wilbur Boulevard in South Park. Wilbur Blvd. was a neat little street. You would enter the street from Florida Ave., drive a short distance to the end and then follow the U-Turn around and exit back out onto Florida.
I really enjoyed visiting at Donald’s house. First of all, we were about the same age. His parents and mine were active leaders in the South Park Church of Christ. They visited often. This meant that I got to go along to play with Donald. Most of this memory is set in the mid-1940s.
Donald had a nice upstairs room. He had lots of toys. Especially I enjoyed playing with his Marx electric train. Donald was a good friend and we had a lot of fun playing together.
When the new church building which was located on Highland Ave. and Threadneedle Streets was nearly complete in 1948, Donald and I had a blast. First of all, the pews were about two weeks late in arriving. So the church continued to meet in the old building over on Elgie and Irving Streets. During that two-week period my dad, Woodie Hamby and Don’s dad, Leon Rao spent a great deal of time overseeing last minute touchups inside the new building.
While our dads were working inside the new building, Don and I would tag along. The auditorium floor was waxed linoleum and was all shiny and slick. Since there were no pews yet installed, the floor made a great sliding place. We would take off our shoes and start running from the rear of the auditorium toward the pulpit. At about the halfway point, we would sit down and slide on our posteriors all the way to the front. That was the best sliding place I ever knew prior to the days of waterslides. Donald and I marveled over how warm our backsides got from the friction of sliding on that floor.
During this period of time before the pews arrived, a shipment of 500 hymnals showed up. My dad assigned Don and me the task of opening all the boxes and stacking the hymnals along the auditorium wall. Then we were provided with little rubber stamps that read, “Property of the South Park Church of Christ, 3395 Highland Ave., Beaumont, Texas.” Don and I had to stamp the inside back cover of each of those hymnals. This job assignment interfered a bit with our pastime of sliding on the floor. Each hymnal had a red bookmark sewn into the binding. Correction: There were six of those 500 hymnals that had purple bookmarks. Donald and I took ownership of those six hymnals. We hid those six hymnals down in the basement of the building inside a crawl space that later was sealed closed.
But what about the neat kite flying area that I started out to describe. Well, Donald took me out to this field and we flew our kites. There was a building down at the corner of the highway and East Virginia. I asked Donald what the building was for? He replied, “Oh, that’s Lamar College.” Then I asked him what they did there. He said he didn’t know. But the barren Lamar College campus of that day made for great kite flying.
And you know something else? I’ll bet those six hymnals are still sealed up in that crawl space.
Winston Hamby
Whamby2@houston.rr.com
posted by WinSpin at 1:19:00 PM
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