August 4, 2017 (Friday)
Today would have been my Uncle Lloyd Forest Lowe’s 108th birthday. He was born in 1909, in East Texas (probably Lufkin). When my sisters and I lived with his mother and father from 1941 to 1944, he lived there also. During that time, he was drafted and wrote home often from England. His letters always were spiced with his own home-drawn cartoons. I remember one little cartoon character in most letters: a little English boy asking a soldier, “Any gum, chum?”
Lloyd Lowe and Charles Fake – August 1942 Houston, Texas
I went back through my blogs and found references to him in many of them. I would like to share those references in this blog (the dates are the dates the blogs were written):
July 23 2008 – my uncle Lloyd, Mother’s brother, took me to a boxing match, and, after that, a wrestling match.
March 4, 2009 – I’ll always be thankful for my Uncle Lloyd Lowe who took me to the first rodeo I ever attended in 1942, when Gene Autry was in town. It was in the Sam Houston Coliseum (now demolished), and I was ten years old.
June 10, 2009 – The year, I think, was 1942. My Uncle Lloyd Lowe had not yet been drafted, and he took me with him to Playland Park where we rode the roller coaster. Playland Park was on South Main, north of where the Astradome and Reliant Stadium would someday be built, and south of Main Street’s intersection with Old Spanish Trail. We had a good time that day. I’ve never forgotten it.
There was an airport across the street from Playland Park. I think the name of it was Main Street Airport. Nothing remains of it today. One could take plane rides for $1.00, if I remember right. I wanted to ride in one, so my uncle took me over there and paid the man. Up we went..
September 18, 2009 – I remember a special day when my Uncle Lloyd took me to the old Buffalo Stadium in Houston to see the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus with its lions and tigers and bears (“Oh, no!”)
May 21, 2010 – My Uncle Lloyd took me out there to Playland Park and the airport one day, and it became a day I have remembered for 68 years.
October 22, 2010 – I remember one day when I was a kid and my Uncle Lloyd took me to Kelly’s Oyster Bar on Texas Avenue, across the street from the Rice Hotel. We were talking about the circus and he told me that he had seen a man from the circus who was so tall he had to stoop to go through the entrance doors of the Rice Hotel. We were looking at those doors as he spoke. My uncle went on to say that the giant man sold replicas of his rings and they were almost big enough to fit my wrist. Wow, I was impressed and wanted to see that man.
June 15, 2012 – Before he went off to the war, my Uncle Lloyd Lowe took me under his wing and did things with me like a dad would do. He rode the roller coaster with me, paid for my first plane ride from South Main airport in Houston, took me to the rodeo, boxing matches and wrestling matches, and the roller derby, and even taught me to shoot a rifle. He died in 1985 at age 75. He worked as a welder for Hughes Tool Company. He loved me..
October 22, 2014 – When I was about nine years old, my uncle Lloyd took me to a country music show featuring Roy Acuff and his band, “The Smoky Mountain Boys.” His pal on the stage was “Bashful Brother Oswald,” (Beecher Ray Kirby 1911-2002), who entertained by singing harmony with Roy and by moving his bow tie up and down with his Adam’s apple. The show was presented on the grounds of the old Buffalo Stadium in Houston, in a tent with folding chairs and aisles carpeted with sawdust chips. We had front row seats.
April 15, 2016 – Another reference to the Roy Acuff article, blog about country music.
January 17, 2017 – I recalled a day when he was driving and I was his passenger and we were traveling on North Main Street in Houston, singing. Together we sang, “My Blue Heaven,” and talked about the popular singer that wrote it and made it famous. His name was Gene Austin.
After the war was over, Uncle Lloyd married Martha and they had a daughter, Linda, born around 1949. He worked at Hughes Tool Company most of his life. For those years during the war, he was my closest friend and I will always appreciate his taking the time to be with me.