FLASHBACK: Old El Paso (1983)

I don't think my New York friends believed me when I told them that time had stopped in El Paso sometime during the 1950s.  Look at that bus!

Malls killed shopping downtown and there hadn't been any urban renewal because most tax dollars were spent in the more prosperous suburbs where voters lived.  South El Paso, steps away from the Mexican border, fared worst.

I'm surprised Lois even went there with Ken and me, or that she agreed to pose for this picture.  

Time was when Mary and I would have to drive downtown to see first-run movies.  No more. Adult entertainment rescued some of the older theaters.

Ken used to take me to see children's matinees at the Pershing, named for the general who tried unsuccessfully to capture Pancho Villa during the Mexican Revolution.  The movie names on the marquee helped me date these photos.  I must have been in El Paso to celebrate Ken's 65th birthday.

Too bad the enormous murals--like a steer flanked by airplanes and a bucking bronco-- that adorned the backs of drive-in movie theaters already were gone.  When we returned to El Paso from Europe in 1965 and moved into our new home in a still expanding suburban development, we briefly could watch movies playing at the Cactus Theatre through our dining room window.  I couldn't hear Michael Parks in Bus Riley's Back in Town but his bare chest made it difficult to swallow!  It had taken years of absence to realize that my hometown was a lot more than the cowtown from which I longed to escape.  I drove around looking for interesting sites to document. 

Paso del Norte Hotel Lobby

El Paso Times

Austin High School

Just as the malls destroyed downtown, Interstate 10 and lodging franchises put the funky motels on the roads into town out of business.  I nearly lost my virginity in one of them.

Signage--whether it be neon or mosaic--quickly weathered in El Paso's near-constant sunshine.

Once upon a time, I dreamed of retiring to El Paso and building an adobe home.  The Folly put an end to the fantasy of spending my golden years in the desert.

Scenic Drive

 

More El Paso:

FLASHBACK:  Birthplace (1953)

Arrival in the Sun City

A Perfect Day

El Paso Redux

FLASHBACK: The Lois Years (1975 - 1992)

After Mary died, Ken played the field for a couple of years.  He dated only Lois, a single mother, seriously.  She pretty much ran the El Paso Board of Realtors and lived with her four, mostly grown kids not far from us.

1977

I hadn't quite let go of El Paso and visited frequently after graduating from college, often to borrow one of Ken's cars for road trips to Colorado and California.  Charlie, who'd gone deaf, hung on for a couple of years.

1977

Ken waited until Mary's mother died before marrying Lois in 1978. 

Mary L. Ostrander, age 88

I knew Lois quite well because I had dated Barb, her daughter in high school.  She'd even flown to New York City to visit me at Columbia my sophomore year.

Dog Canyon (1978)

David, Barb's younger brother, and Ken got along like gangbusters.  David eventually moved to Rock Springs, Wyoming where he married, had two children and established a thriving appliance repair business.  He inherited Ken's tools.

1977

Kathy, Barb's older sister, relocated to California after graduating from high school.  Ken and David helped her move back to El Paso in the early 80s.  When Kathy eventually met and married an Air Force pilot, Ken walked her down the aisle.

Kathy had a twin brother, Kenny, who moved to Kansas City, leaving behind both his dog Shawnda

. . . and his yellow VW bug, which he bought at Ken's urging to drive back and forth from the oil wells where he worked in Midland, Texas.  Kenny wrote music, too.

I marveled at Ken's instant family.  9912 Collette had suddenly become a very lively place. It suited him.  He loved calling himself "the patriarch."  And I loved what Lois, who called him Hon (they always referred to each other by their last names, a peculiarity I never understood because Lois kept her first husband's name) loved to say about him:  "Hon may not always be right, but he's always sure!"

1984

Ken bonded with Lois's siblings, too.  Her brother Marvin and Betty lived closest, in Albuquerque, a three- hour drive north of El Paso.

1980

Ken and Lois visited me a couple of times at 47 Pianos.  They stopped driving when thieves broke into Ken's Vanagon.  We also toured the nation's capital in 1986.

West 88th Street (1981)

Lois and I had a great relationship.  I will never forget how hard she laughed when I took them via the subway to Sunday brunch at Windows on the World.  

We passed a table of nuns going to our table.  "I wonder what Mother Teresa is having for breakfast this morning," I whispered.

I was surprised when Barb married Ted, who played tennis in high school.  But not as surprised as when he walked out on her, shortly after they adopted a baby.  Ted left her without a penny in the brand new home they'd bought to raise a family.

Ken, Lois, Barb, Ted (1979)

Barb worked full-time which meant that Brett spent a lot of time with Ken and Lois. Everyone called him BJ.  

1982

Brett is perched on the elephant that Ken brought back from Saigon.  

1982

Ken & Lois stayed together until Ken's death in 1992.  Lois lived almost two decades longer. 

1983

As BJ got older, the house grew less and less like the one where I had lived.  I have to admit, it felt a little strange.  

1984

Ken's garage was the one place that NEVER changed.  Is it any wonder he adored BJ?  

1984

Barb started going out again, which created tension with Lois especially when she stayed out late.

(ca 1984)

I enjoyed playing guncle whenever I returned to El Paso with Rio Grande excursions.

Rio Grande (1985)

I tried turning BJ on to "PeeWee's Playhouse."  

1986

I'm pretty sure he enjoyed the inflatable Godzilla I put under the tree that year a lot more.

1986

Barb eventually remarried.  David had played football at a rival high school a decade after we graduated.  They split, too, although not before adopting Brittany, giving BJ a younger sister.  David told BJ he was leaving Barb the night before BJ visited me with a friend in New York City.

 David, Barb & BJ with unidentified couple
(ca 1988)

When I saw BJ several years ago, he told me Ken had been the only real father he'd ever had.

More Ken:

A LIFE IN PICTURES:  Kenneth Bruce Hon (1917-1992)

More Barb & BJ:

Welcome Back To New York (2022)

Family  Reunion  (2019)

FLASHBACK:  Boys Will Be Boys  (1996)

FLASHBACK:  A Wedding in Wyoming (1983)

FLASHBACK:  Andress Eagles (1967-1971)

 

FLASHBACK: 9912 Collette (1965 - 1971)

Mary was happy to see her parents when we returned from Germany.

Oma loved Charlie. 

Ken worked his magic at the beach with a new Type III Karmann Ghia, which he had shipped from Germany.  This must be a later trip to Daytona, given the car and perfection of Charlie's cut.

By this time, I pretty much agreed with Mary about El Paso.  She characterized it as "the cultural crotch of America."

But she and Ken returned and traded up on their new home.  Ken installed the sprinkler system himself at 9912 Collette.  DIY didn’t have a brand back then.

9912 Collette

We lived across the street from a family who sheltered their priest.  Rumor had it he didn't remain celibate for long.  The Franklin Mountains, Texas' tallest, loom in the background on a rare cloudy day.

See, it does snow in El Paso!  It only takes an inch or two to paralyze the Sun City.  Charlie felt at home.

Charlie (January 1968)

Mary went for a French provincial look in the living room with reproductions of Maurice Utrillo paintings she purchased in Montmartre.

Here's where I attended middle school and unsuccessfully ran for class president with "Hon or Bust," my campaign slogan, printed on covered wagon fliers.

Dowell Elementary School

Ken and I spent a lot of time exploring in the Opel on weekends.  Mary refused to ride in it any longer.

I'll never forget a long, slow drive to Columbus, NM, just north of the Mexican border, on a dirt road.   By then, the railroad had stopped running.

We stopped at Pancho Villa State Park which commemorates the Mexican general's 1916 attack on the United States.  Mary was born that year.

Mary served a German chocolate cake to the neighborhood gang on my 13th birthday. Ronnie matured into a literal ladykiller.  Tommy was the only guy I ever bested in a fight.  David, our ringleader, became a pint-size juvenile delinquent.  I can't remember the tall boy's name, but I suspect he came to a better end than the other three.

Motley Crew:  Ronnie, Tommy, Jeff, David & Forgotten (1966)

Charlie adjusted to a much warmer life than he'd had in Heidelberg.   Ken insisted that I walk him every morning and night along Trans Mountain Highway because he didn't want him pooping in our small backyard.

Before Ken shipped off to Viet Nam in 1966 we built a hutch for my new guinea pig.  Charlie and Cratchit were Photo Pest's first photographic models.

I cheekily captioned this photo "Integration" and sent it to Ken to demonstrate how well Charlie and Cratchit were getting along.

Cratchit had free run of the back yard in warm weather. It didn't take long before a cat killed him.  His brown replacement delivered and ate a litter during one of Mary's bridge games.  

Books from this middlebrow shelf (Harold Robbins, Jacqueline Susann, James Jones & Henry Sutton) gave me a crash course in human sexuality.  Mary kept Portnoy's Complaint hidden in her lingerie drawer.

I took lots of photos to send to Ken in Saigon, mostly of Mary posing with my neighborhood friends including David . . . 

and Susie and Pattie, sisters and Army brats who moved into the neighborhood during his absence.

After returning from Viet Nam, Ken made good on his promise to build me a dune buggy. It spared me the trauma a lot of my gay friends had to endure during their high school years. Thanks, Dad!

 

In their early 80s, Oma and Opa moved to El Paso so Mary could keep an eye on them.  Here they are in Ruidoso, New Mexico.

They gave Mary their '64 Rambler.  Ken was appalled, but she loved having an American car with an automatic transmission.  They drove me to college in it.  An eight-track tape of "Who's Next" never left the deck.

Mary eventually prevailed upon Ken to buy her a new Chevy Nova.  Which I totaled.  Not my fault!

I left this apple-cheeked kid behind to go to Columbia.  Mary and Ken couldn't have been prouder.  Don't judge their clothes.  Polyester reigned in 1971!