Austin, Texas (Personal Memories

 [Note: this is the first in a series of blogs in which I will reminisce over cities of the world that I have visited or lived in. Hopefully it will stir pleasant memories or anticipations for those who may choose to read this.]

In 1941-45, Austin Texas was my home. It was about 35 miles from my rural Texas home one mile from Walburg. Walburg still welcomes all visitors with its town sign which announces: "Walburg: Home of 88 friendly people and one old Grouch ". I went to Austin after finishing 8^th grade and enrolled at Concordia Academy of Texas, a boys only dormitory school for persons preparing fore the pastoral or teaching ministries of the Lutheran Church.

That Concordia campus was home. We ate, slept, played sports and endured lower classman hazing.  We were not allowed off campus except for Saturday afternoon and to go to church (twice each Sunday). Our dorms had two to a room. Times were tough and our meals were spare. Cereal, the same boxed stuff every morning for breakfast and cheese and baloney for the evening meal at 5:00. Chapel services every morning and every night. At 10:00 p.m. the dean came to each room to check and make sure we had pulled down our Murphy beds from the closet and were in bed. It was a close-knit community with lots of good and some not so good or ethical stuff going on in the lives of the 40-50 of us young boys studying there in a very cloistered, girl-free environment.

To go down town to Congress Avenue was a treat. We went for 5 cents each way on the city bus. The state capitol was always an attraction. There was a place for wonderful chocolate shakes (which at 15cents each we could afford a few times a year). We would not venture below 6^th Street as that was the hub of really bad stuff we weren’t supposed to even know about.

Austin was where my eldest sister Erna worked. She had given up a college scholarship to work and send home the money so that I, her younger brother could “study for the holy ministry.” She helped me get a job at Wukash Brothers Café where I slowly advanced from a potatoes peeler and dish washer to waiter and where I could earn 20 cents an hour plus tips. In the three years I worked there never once did a customer leave a tip as high as one dollar.

Austin was/is the home of the University of Texas and Memorial Stadium and Saturday football. I never missed a home game. We ran there after classes on Saturday, scrounged up the 25 cents needed for a seat and cheered them on. At one point we discovered that the Coliseum was left open after the games so on Sunday a bunch of us went there, found a group of equally eager and foolish black teen-agers and played each other in tackle football on that hallowed field, all without helmets or any other protection. The septum in my nose is still not straight.

Now I need to get back to Austin with its 850,000 people doing electronics and computers and its wonderful music and bands. But until that happens I will let my very selective memory recall to me four glorious years of adolescent discovery, growth and dreams.