Well Howdy! Here I am back, never thought I would be. I grew up here in the fifties. I left in 1965. Some things are different here and some are the same. You’ll probably think that about me too. I remember the sky and the sun baking that bermuda grass that itched and stained my jeans. I remember the wind always with or against you whistling through the weather stripping around the door. I remember it raining frogs, and the hail, and the take cover sirens for tornadoes. I remember that damn hard caprock, flat, pushing up against the rain so hard it chased down our streets curb to curb. We found homed toads and rubbed their almond bellies till they winked tears of blood. We collected cadres of cicada ghosts, their translucent shells split open up the back from the constant drone of their desire.
We had bikes with fat tires before it was cool. I remember the “duck and cover” A bomb drills at Lamar Elementary school. Gasoline was $.19 a gallon (full serve)! I remember wives and mothers who wouldn’t smoke in the presence of their husbands. I remember Sunday morning Bible School and “Onward Christian Soldiers”. I remember the things we learned cruising Stanley’s Drive In. The loop around Polk Street was our mantra.
I saw the first TV in Amarillo from a perch on my father’s shoulder through a crowd at our auto dealership. I remember the first Pizza Hut, the first mall, and the first freeway as it thundered past my grandparent’s home. We called them expressways then. There was big time wrestling, yellow meated watermelon, and lots of hair. The boys had ducktails and the girls had bubbles. There were two Amarillos back then, black and white. My friend Boomer bought our beer on the west side. We had tail fins on our cars. We watched John Kennedy’s death endlessly on the television. Elvis and Buddy got pushed aside by the Beatles on eight track tapes. Viet Nam was up next.
I left in 1965 to work on an Art degree. I don’t know why but I always knew that I wanted to be an artist. I never was sure what they did. I got a couple of clues from Life magazine.