James and I spent a many a late night roaming the streets of FW, mostly on the West Side, TCU, Arlington Heights … (Somehow we often managed to spend the night at each other's house - on the same night) ( my own kids tried that trick a few times – but never got away with it).
We especially enjoyed inviting ourselves to parties at Colonial, Ridglea and Rivercrest Country Clubs. We mostly entered thru the kitchen and always got tossed out the same door. Holiday house parties were most enjoyable in the TCU area, crowds were large ( so we blended in, we had to wear our church clothes), great food and unauthorized drink were available into the wee hours.
We had a tons of creative, innocent fun on the streets. A local establishment decided to donate a water filled high pressure fire extinguisher to us, just to help us with our innocent fun. It was just the ticket for controlling crowds at weddings on the West Side, as well as Paschal and Arlington Heights High crowds at Farrington Field. We had that fire extinguisher for months….. There were lots of crowds that needed to be controlled!
Our creative minds led us (with a few other nameless guys) to introduce FW (West Side and Downtown) to the Fine Art of “Street Theater”. Our plot was “mobster related”.
Our props were “Starter Pistols” , a nice supply of 22 blank cartridges, packages of catchup from the old Riverside Clover Drive-in, (note when we went upscale the catchup came from Carlson’s on University), and old Chevys (early 1950’s vintage – all we had till James’ Dad bought that cool MG with wire wheels.) Our cast was James, me and a few other scruffy looking guys from Haltom/Richland. They were carefully auditioned – keeping their mouth shut was absolutely required.
We had many amazing performances in Downtown, University Drive near TCU, Trinity Park.
Our performances drew the desired response of great fear and panic from the street audience. (We gave Alfred Hitchcock a run for his money on the fear factor quotient)
We did draw rave, though drastically distorted, reviews from the FW Constabulary. The FW Constables had great difficulty distinguishing “art and fantasy” from reality. Sadly some of our cast members were detained by the FW Constables one night after a performance in Trinity Park. Again, sadly, one of our younger scruffy cast members failed the requirement to keep his mouth shut. James and I had retreated to the forest nearby, close enough in the dark to hear the threats of the FW Constables, demanding to know the name of the lead Actors. We heard the younger cast member break and spill the beans on our entire cast. James and I decided that we would have to spend the night at each other's house forever.
The supporting cast ( you know who you are) can fill in the rest of the details. I am fearful that the FW Constables are still looking for me , 50 years later.
I remember James well, I certainly was never involved in the irrational shinanigans that Steve spoke about above, creeps, they never invited me.
But I was in West Birdvile the first and second grade and do remember being in a couple of holiday plays or skits, whatever you call them, one was a Christmas play. James played Joeseph with Mary and baby Jesus, I always thought I should have gotten that part, however, with James dark hair and three day old beard he did look more like Jesus than me. So I guess he deserved it. Then we had a play about "Billy Goat Gruff" or something like that and I certainly thought I should have gotten the lead part, I mean cause it sound like it was written about me, Biily? Right? Got screwed again, I didn't get the lead again. James did, whatever.
Always kept up with McLester, one of those quiet unassuming little devils, you never knew what he was up to. But one of those people you loved cause while he was always around he never ruffled anyones feathers, a cool dude, you always knew he was thinking but he never revealed his thoughts.
A wonderful guy that you loved and always wanted to be around. God took you way too soon, but we know he knows best.
Pat Minnick
James died in 1994
Steve Estill
Sonny McLester, Dude!
James and I spent a many a late night roaming the streets of FW, mostly on the West Side, TCU, Arlington Heights … (Somehow we often managed to spend the night at each other's house - on the same night) ( my own kids tried that trick a few times – but never got away with it).
We especially enjoyed inviting ourselves to parties at Colonial, Ridglea and Rivercrest Country Clubs. We mostly entered thru the kitchen and always got tossed out the same door. Holiday house parties were most enjoyable in the TCU area, crowds were large ( so we blended in, we had to wear our church clothes), great food and unauthorized drink were available into the wee hours.
We had a tons of creative, innocent fun on the streets. A local establishment decided to donate a water filled high pressure fire extinguisher to us, just to help us with our innocent fun. It was just the ticket for controlling crowds at weddings on the West Side, as well as Paschal and Arlington Heights High crowds at Farrington Field. We had that fire extinguisher for months….. There were lots of crowds that needed to be controlled!
Our creative minds led us (with a few other nameless guys) to introduce FW (West Side and Downtown) to the Fine Art of “Street Theater”. Our plot was “mobster related”.
Our props were “Starter Pistols” , a nice supply of 22 blank cartridges, packages of catchup from the old Riverside Clover Drive-in, (note when we went upscale the catchup came from Carlson’s on University), and old Chevys (early 1950’s vintage – all we had till James’ Dad bought that cool MG with wire wheels.) Our cast was James, me and a few other scruffy looking guys from Haltom/Richland. They were carefully auditioned – keeping their mouth shut was absolutely required.
We had many amazing performances in Downtown, University Drive near TCU, Trinity Park.
Our performances drew the desired response of great fear and panic from the street audience. (We gave Alfred Hitchcock a run for his money on the fear factor quotient)
We did draw rave, though drastically distorted, reviews from the FW Constabulary. The FW Constables had great difficulty distinguishing “art and fantasy” from reality. Sadly some of our cast members were detained by the FW Constables one night after a performance in Trinity Park. Again, sadly, one of our younger scruffy cast members failed the requirement to keep his mouth shut. James and I had retreated to the forest nearby, close enough in the dark to hear the threats of the FW Constables, demanding to know the name of the lead Actors. We heard the younger cast member break and spill the beans on our entire cast. James and I decided that we would have to spend the night at each other's house forever.
The supporting cast ( you know who you are) can fill in the rest of the details. I am fearful that the FW Constables are still looking for me , 50 years later.
James, I love you man, God Bless.
Billy Arnold
I remember James well, I certainly was never involved in the irrational shinanigans that Steve spoke about above, creeps, they never invited me.
But I was in West Birdvile the first and second grade and do remember being in a couple of holiday plays or skits, whatever you call them, one was a Christmas play. James played Joeseph with Mary and baby Jesus, I always thought I should have gotten that part, however, with James dark hair and three day old beard he did look more like Jesus than me. So I guess he deserved it. Then we had a play about "Billy Goat Gruff" or something like that and I certainly thought I should have gotten the lead part, I mean cause it sound like it was written about me, Biily? Right? Got screwed again, I didn't get the lead again. James did, whatever.
Always kept up with McLester, one of those quiet unassuming little devils, you never knew what he was up to. But one of those people you loved cause while he was always around he never ruffled anyones feathers, a cool dude, you always knew he was thinking but he never revealed his thoughts.
A wonderful guy that you loved and always wanted to be around. God took you way too soon, but we know he knows best.