..more remembering
July 18, 2008 (Friday)
I’m surprised that I keep finding buildings that have something to do with me, in this picture of downtown taken from the 75th floor of the JPMorgan Chase Tower. From the angle at which the picture was taken, I can see only the roofs of the buildings containing shops where I bought clothes while in high school.
In 1948, when I announced to the Liberty Road Baptist Church that I believed the Lord was calling me to preach, I was surprised by the pastor’s asking me to preach for him immediately. He gave me a month to get ready. During that time, I realized that I did not own a suit, so I went to Stein’s on Main Street (300 or 400 block, I think – I cannot find any information on it). Troy had bought clothes there, and they sold suits for $32.50, so I bought a double-breasted model that I would wear for quite a few years. I knew little about clothes, so I ended up with a suit that was much too heavy for Houston weather, and felt like material made of small stickers (100% wool). But I wore it for that first sermon, complete with a bow tie.
I got my shoes down the street at Thom McCan’s, for $8.50. They were brown wing tips. I wore them several years also, until the church at Oletha (my first pastorate) had pity on me and bought me a new pair, along with a new suit. They also gave me the money to buy my graduation ring from Baylor. How wonderfully kind they were to me.
For several years I had been wearing leather jackets in the winter, and I recall my stepmother put one in layaway at Grant’s (yesterday’s blog), right up the street from the suit and shoe shops I mentioned above. Downtown was a busy place in those days, and, as the Bible says, “many were going to and fro.” Retail businesses thrived in upper downtown, old original Houston. People referred to “Downtown” as “Uptown” interchangeably back then, but not any more, since “Uptown” is somewhere else. Many of us just called the area, “Town.”
The more I look at the picture, the more I see, so I may write a few more of these “memory lane” articles.